This is a collection of quotes that is still growing. If you have any comments on these quotes, or others you'd like to share email me but PLEASE don't send me any anonymous or self quotes.
"Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be." - Clementine Paddleford
"Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good." - Thomas Paine
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must... undergo the fatigues of supporting it" - Thomas Paine
"All of us will go down the deserted road, all of us once will not come to breakfast. Nobody can see our faces, only our feet, thousands, thousands, thousands of feet... All of us will be pinned to the blue sky like butterflies in the paradise. But somebody will take off these pins and we will fall down to the black grime" - Alexi Paperny, Tverskoy Boulevard
"In our everyday life there are a lot of sad, unfortunate things, losses, headaches, etc. Life is wonderful though. Leaves are falling and circling from corner to corner, from wall to wall like prisoners in a jail cell walking in a circle. And we all seem like these prisoners in our everyday walking... Life is wonderful though! Life is wonderful..." - Alexi Paperny, Tverskoy Boulevard
"What can I do? How can I change myself? I don't like to stay here, but I don't want to go there." - Alexi Paperny, Tverskoy Boulevard
"Where are you, my friend? I lost even your shadow." - Alexi Paperny, Tverskoy Boulevard
"Procrastination is like a credit card: it's a lot of fun until you get the bill." - Christopher Parker
"The best way to keep children home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant and to let the air out of the tires." - Dorothy Parker
"Every year, back comes Spring, with nasty little birds yapping their fool heads off and the ground all mucked up with plants." - Dorothy Parker
"I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do any thing. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more." - Dorothy Parker
"Hobie: I don't lie to you, Kit."
Kit: That... is the most outrageous lie you have ever told me." - Dorothy Parker, Dusk Before Fireworks
"The intelligent man is one who has successfully fulfilled many accomplishments, and is yet willing to learn more." - Ed Parker
"A man who lives by himself and for himself is apt to be corrupted by the company he keeps." - Charles Parkhurst
"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity." - Ellen Parr
"I kinda patterned my look after Cinderella and Mother Goose - and the local hooker" - Dolly Parton
"All miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone." - Blaise Pascal
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." - Blaise Pascal
"We are generally the better persuaded by the reasons we discover ourselves than by those given to us by others." - Blaise Pascal
"I should like to see these profound words inscribed on the threshold of all the temples of science: 'The greatest derangement of the mind is to believe in something because one wishes it to be so." - Louis Pasteur
"I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but by how high he bounces when he hits bottom." - General George Patton
"Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack." - George S. Patton
"Assuming either the Left Wing or the Right Wing gained control of the country, it would probably fly around in circles." - Pat Paulsen
"How does one become a butterfly? You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar." - Trina Paulus, Hope for the Flowers
"I am not a doctor (although I play one with TVs)." - Patricia Payne, Sex Tips from a Dominatrix
"All my life I used to wonder what I would become when I grew up. Then, about seven years ago, I realized that I was never going to grow up." - M. Scott Peck
"When you find peace within yourself, you become the kind of person who can live at peace with others." - Peace Pilgrim
"Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities, always see them for they are always there." - Dr. Norman Vincent Peale
"Drop the idea that you are Atlas carrying the world on your shoulders. The world would go on even without you. Don't take yourself so seriously." - Norman Vincent Peale
"There is only one group of people who don't have problems and they're all dead. Problems are a sign of life. So the more problems you have, the more alive you are." - Norman Vincent Peale
"The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism." - Dr. Norman Vincent Peale
"The internet today reminds me of the early days of television... I mean, we used to sit around and watch test patterns on the screen and go 'oooh, ahhh!'" - Will Penna
"We've noticed that you have not logged on to PeopleLink's Instant messaging service for over 30 days. We figure you either have a problem or you're not sure how PeopleLink can improve your life." - support@peoplelink.com
"Calm down." - Alex (a parrot)
"Don't tell me to calm down." - Dr. Irene Pepperberg (his owner), The New York Times
"Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you." - Pericles
"After you've done a thing the same way for two years, look over it carefully. After five years, look at it with suspicion. And after ten years, throw it away and start all over." - Alfred Edward Perlman
"Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken." - Gilbert Perreira
"You can't steal second base and keep your foot on first." - Michael D. Perry
"An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today." - Laurence J. Peter
"The incompetent with nothing to do can still make a mess of it." - Laurence J. Peter
"The man who says he is willing to meet you halfway is usually a poor judge of distance." - Laurence J. Peter
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to believe." - Laurence J. Peter
"Psychiatry allows us to confess our faults by confessing our parents' shortcomings." - Laurence J. Peter
"Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them." - Laurence J. Peter
"In spite of warnings, nothing much happens until the status quo becomes more painful than change." - Laurence J. Peter
"We are members of a strange species that devotes its energies to climbing the ladder of success in order to make money to buy things we don't like." - Laurence J. Peter
"It's hard to create humor because of the unfair competition from the real world." - Peter's Almanac
"Imagination continually frustrates tradition; that is its function." - John Pfeiffer
"I write down everything I want to remember. That way, instead of spending a lot of time trying to remember what it is I wrote down, I spend the time looking for the paper I wrote it down on." - Beryl Pfizer
"Compassion for the suffering of others is not weakness. Acting from compassion when those around you do not takes more courage and strength of character than going along with everyone else's cruelty." - Norman Phelps
"A philosopher is someone who goes into a dark room at night to look for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian does the same thing, but comes out claiming he found the cat." - Nick Philips, TWA Ambassador Magazine (1980)
"At my lemonade stand I used to give the first glass away free and charge five dollars for the second glass. The refill contained the antidote." - Emo Phillips
"I got in a fight one time with a really big guy and he said 'I'm going to mop the floor with your face.' I said, 'You'll be sorry.' He said, 'Oh yeah? Why?' and I said, 'Well, you won't be able to get into the corners very well.'" - Emo Phillips
"I love to go down to the schoolyard and watch all the little children jump up and down and run around yelling and screaming... They don't know I'm only using blanks." - Emo Phillips
"I read somewhere that 77 percent of all the mentally ill live in poverty. Actually, I'm more intrigued by the 23 per cent who are apparently doing quite well for themselves." - Emo Phillips
"I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this." - Emo Phillips
"I was walking down the street when this man hammering on his roof called me a paranoid little freak... In morse code." - Emo Phillips
"The toughest time... in anyone's life... is when you have to kill a loved one just because they're the devil." - Emo Phillips
"When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the lord doesn't work that way, so I stole one and asked for forgiveness." - Emo Phillips
"You don't appreciate a lot of stuff in school until you get older. Little things like being spanked every day by a middle aged woman: Stuff you pay good money for in later life." - Emo Phillips
"Let us always remember that he does not really believe his opinions who dares not give free scope to his opponent." - Wendell Phillips
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso
"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." - Pablo Picasso
"The world today doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do? - Pablo Picasso
"As a sales representative for a Fortune 500 corporation, I take great pride in the satisfaction of my customers. I always go that extra mile to make sure they're happy and feel like they've gotten the best deal. That's why I never neglect to mention their option to Biggie-Size it." - Pam Pickard, Ruminations
"Blow me if I'm wrong, but you wanna fuck me." - pick-up line
"Hi, my friends call me creepy." - pick-up line
"I think we must make love on the lawn like crazed weasels NOW!" - pick-up line
"I'm really sorry about Al. It was a lovely funeral. You look ravishing in black, did you know that? What you need now is a nice backrub. Are the straps too tight darling? How tragic. How very, very tragic. Inheriting eighty million dollars doesn't mean much when you have a weak heart." - pick-up line
"Musically, we are more talented than any Bob Dylan. Musically, we are more talented than Paul McCartney... I'm the new Elvis." - Robert Pilatus of the band Milli Vanilli in 1990
"There's someone in my head but it's not me." - Pink Floyd
"Fred himself was, for the first few months I lived in Chicago, the only person I knew to speak to. I would tell Fred of my life, my suffering, my hopes and dreams.
Yeh? So what?' Fred would ask, and give me a free limp, warm pickle spear.
It was good to know someone who listened." - Daniel Pinkwater, Fish Whistle
"It's not that you can't go home again. It's that most people know better." - Daniel Pinkwater, Fish Whistle
"Refusing to have an opinion is a way of having one, isn't it?" - Luigi Pirandello
Conversation in Political Pizza:
"Customer: What's the NAFTA Pizza?
Pizza Guy: Canadian bacon and jalapenos.
C: What's the candidate?
PG: Lot's of toppings and cheese, but no meat or bread.
C: And the spin doctor?
PG: We serve you a half-baked pizza and we tell you how much you liked it." - Dan Piraro, Bizarro
"The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there." - Robert Pirsig
"The truth knocks at your door and you say, 'Go away, I'm looking for the truth', and so it goes away." - Robert M. Pirsig
"If there were only one person in the world, is there any way he could be insane?" - Robert M. Pirsig, Lila
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." - William Pitt (Pitt the Elder)
"If people speak ill of you, live so that no one will believe them." - Plato
"Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber." - Plato
"Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly." - Plutarch
"I have great faith in fools - self-confidence my friends call it." - Edgar Allen Poe
"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night." - Edgar Allen Poe
"To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the need for thought." - Henri Poincaré
"We only make a dupe of the friend whose advice we ask, for we never tell him all; and it is usually what we have left unsaid that decides our conduct." - Diane de Poitiers
"Who are you and how did you get in here?"
"I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith." - Police Squad
"It often happens that I wake at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it. Then I wake up completely and remember that I am the Pope." - Pope John XXIII
"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." - Karl Popper
"They will say you are on the wrong road, if it is your own." - Antonio Porchi
"Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use." - Emily Post
"It often takes a thousand words soft spoken every day, to bury just the three or four that we didn't mean to say." - Jana Poston
"Adults are always asking kids what they want to be when they grow up because they are looking for ideas." - Paula Poundstone
"If only someone would do for cows what Bambi did for deer. Cows have been in films, but they haven't starred. I'm still willing to eat a species that is only a supporting player." - Paula Poundstone
"The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it's just sort of a tired feeling." - Paula Poundstone
"Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it." - Colin Powell
"Attitudes are capable of making the same experience either pleasant or painful." - John Powell
"The fulfillment of every desire only reveals its inadequacy." - Swami Prabhavananda
"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life." - Terry Pratchett
"The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it." - Terry Pratchett, Diggers
"It is in vain hope to please all alike. Let a man stand with his face in what direction he will, he must necessarily turn his back on one half of the world." - George Dennison Prentice
"Sad thing is, you can love someone and still be wrong for them." - Elvis Presley
"Someone called actors 'sculptors in snow.' Very apt. In the end, it's all nothing." - Vincent Price
"The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning" --Ivy Baker Priest
"If your mother says she loves you, get a second opinion." - Primal Fear
"No matter how rich you become, how famous or powerful, when you die the size of your funeral will still pretty much depend on the weather." - Michael Pritchard
"If you saw that warning label on any other product you wouldn't go near it. It's like looking at the warning label on Drano - 'Harmful or fatal if swallowed' - and thinking, 'Well, I'm down to three cans a week. It relaxes me.'" - Paul Provenza (on smoking)
"You can't turn the clock back, but you can wind it up again. And exercise is the key you use to rewind it" - Bonnie Prudden
"I don't know if I like the idea of seatbelt laws. Enforcing intelligence seems, somehow, un-American." - David Pugh
"If my answers frighten you then you should cease asking scary questions." - Pulp Fiction
"Earl: You know, Grandma Ivy, in all the years I've know you I don't think you've ever answered a question directly.
Grandma Ivy: There are no answers. Only the search." - Pure Country
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." - Thomas Pynchon
To get quotes from me and others in the mail:
Quotes of Aa through Am
Quotes of P
Quotes I've heard from people I've known