This page was filled on April 21, 2001

"You are no bigger than the things that annoy you." - Jerry Bundsen

"A male gynecologist is like an auto mechanic who never owned a car." - Carrie Snow

"In prison cells the sun draws shadows of the bars on the floor. In the squares the prisoners can play crossword puzzles. The possibilities depend on the size of the bars." - Stanislaw Jerszy Lec

"Adam: Is that any way to talk to a friend?
Joel: A friend? You kidnapped me! Your wife put me in chains!
Adam: All right, acquaintance." - Northern Exposure

"At the beginning of a marriage, ask yourself whether this person will be interesting to talk to from now until old age. Everything else in marriage is transitory; most of the time is spent in conversation." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"You do not lead by hitting people over the head. That's assault, not leadership." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

"I am convinced that life is 10% of what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our attitudes." - Charles Swindoll

"Why did the Wicked Witch have a bucket of water in her castle if she was so allergic to it in the first place?" - Eliya Selhub (stolen from Ruminations)

"The Church says that the Earth is flat, but I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow on the moon and I have more faith in the Shadow than in the Church." - Ferdinand Magellan

"Six mistakes mankind keeps making century after century:
Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others;
Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected;
Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it;
Refusing to set aside trivial preferences;
Neglecting development and refinement of the mind;
Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do." - Cicero

"In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place." - Mahatma Gandhi

"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein

"America wasn't founded so that we could all be better. America was founded so we could all be anything we damn well please." - P.J. O'Rourke

"The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided." - Casey Stengal

"Are you a thermometer or a thermostat? A thermometer only reflects the temperature of its environment, adjusting to the situation. But a thermostat initiates action to change the temperature in its environment." - Nido Qubein

"It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper." - Rod Serling

"My watch is three hours fast. I can't seem to get it fixed, so I'm moving to New York." - Steven Wright

"Don't ignore the five senses in search of a sixth." - Bruce Lee

"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." - Thomas Jefferson

"If you go to Cong's pavement cafe in Danang, you may have to hang on tightly to your seat. The police, you see, come by almost every other day to enforce their ban against street cafes--by taking whatever furniture they can lay their hands on. When Mr. Cong sees them coming, he simply throws all his plastic chairs and tables into the river, which runs alongside. Later, he jumps in to retrieve them. 'The police are afraid to go in,' he laughs. Mr. Cong is getting good at the furniture toss: last month he only lost eight chairs." - The Economist (March 24th, 2001)

"The grandchildren of the kids who used to weep because the Little Match Girl froze to death now feel cheated if she isn't slugged, raped and thrown into a Bessemer converter." - Jenkin Lloyd Jones

"How should I fear death? When I am, death is not; and when death is, I am not." - Epicurus

"Whenever I hear the sparrow chirping, watch the woodpecker chirp, catch a chirping trout, or listen to the sad howl of the chirp rat, I think: Oh boy! I'm going insane again." - Jack Handey

"Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be." - Thomas A. Kempis

"If the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, then the people will have ceased to be their own rulers." - Abraham Lincoln

"Plato had slaves... George Washington had slaves... So, do I feel intrinsically better than these two men? Of course I do! They're dead!" - Todd Andrew Reid

"Trouble is part of your life, and if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough." - Dinah Shore

"If a man prepares dinner for you and the salad contains three or more types of lettuce, he is serious." - Rita Rudner

"It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else's eyes." - Sally Field

"He loves cock-fighting, but insists on making the sport more humane by putting little boxing gloves on the sparring roosters, in place of the customary blades." - The Economist (March 24th, 2001)

"Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation." - St. Augustine

"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

"There's always room for improvement. It's the biggest room in the house." - Louise Heath Leber

"Do not attempt to do a thing unless you are sure of yourself, but do not relinquish it simply because someone else is not sure of you." - Stewart E. White

"this is my quote: 'god made coke...god made pepsi...and god made me so damn sexy!!!!-Ashley" - Ashley (a viewer who emailed me)

"Every young person deserves the thrill, just once, of calculating personally the first several decimal places of pi." - math textbook

"O, it is excellent to have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant." - William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

"Many things are lost for want of asking." - George Herbert

"Blame is a neat little device that you can use whenever you don't want to take responsibility for something in your life. Use it and you will avoid all risks and impede your own growth." - Dr. Wayne Dyer

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all." - Thomas Jefferson

"It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere." - Voltaire

"Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember it didn't work for the rabbit." - R. E. Shay

"You never work for someone else. The truth is someone is paying you to work for yourself." - Paul J. Meyer

"No sense being pessimistic. It wouldn't work anyway." - Bits and Pieces

"There are many who are living far below their possibilities because they are continually handing over their individualities to others. Do you want to be a power in the world? Then be yourself." - Ralph Waldo Trine

"Sacred cows make the best hamburger." - Mark Twain

"What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens." - Thaddeus Golas

"Anyone can be such a fool if he lets himself. And he can always stop it if he makes up his mind." - Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Lost Prince

"Courage manifests only in the presence of fear. Taking a step in a new direction, where we've never been before, can be uncomfortable, sometimes frightening. Our other option is to stand still and never move at all." - Mary Manin Morrissey

"Your mind tricks won't work on me, Jazz. They don't even work on you." - Paul S.

"If money can't buy happiness I guess I'll have to rent it." - Weird Al Yankovich

"New Yorkers love it when you spill your guts out there. Spill your guts at Wimbledon and they make you stop and clean it up." - Jimmy Connors

"Stop worrying where you're going. Move on. If you can know where you're going, you've gone. Just keep moving on... Look at what you want, not at where you are." - Stephen Sondheim, Sunday in the Park with George

"The motions of the average mind... are about as purposeful and orderly as those of a crazed monkey cavorting about his cage. Nay, more; like the prancings of a drunk, crazed monkey. Even so we have not conveyed its full restlessness; The mind is like a drunk, crazed monkey that has St. Vitus' dance. If we are to be truly accurate as to its frenzy we must go a final step; it is like a drunk, crazed monkey with St. Vitus' dance who has just been stung by a wasp." - Huston Smith, The Religions of Man

"Not so long ago in a purple haze people dreamed out loud, they were not afraid." - Wilson Phillips

"For all my air of mystery, I have a feeling heart." - Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

"Being realistic, I suppose I ought to demand the impossible." - David Edgar, Teendreams

"Down with conformity, and capitalism, and The Gap." - Crust for Breakfast, Life's a Brick and Then You Die (student production from my high school)

"You either build up or you tear down. You either keep in the light where you can see, or you stand in the dark and fight everything that comes near you, because you can't see and you think it's an enemy." - Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Lost Prince

"Too young to take over. Too old to ignore." - Edward Kleban, A Chorus Line

"Mud can make you prisoner and the plains can make you dry. Snow can burn your eyes but only people make you cry." - Alan Jay Lerner, Paint Your Wagon

"I don't want to die, really. I'm interested in what happens next, so I've got to keep on." - Margaret Mahy, Changeover

"Truth is a brown rabbit lying dead in the road." - School of Bayonne

"They fuck you up, your Mum and Dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
And give you all the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you." - Philip Larkin

"To deserve this fate what have I ever done?... All I want is just a little piece of mind but the angels won't have it." - Melissa Etheridge

"No matter how many precautions you take, you still can't prevent your parents from ruining your life." - The Carol Burnett Show

"The dead heart lives here." - Midnight Oil

"I see horror. I see grief." - Euripides, Dionysus

"Heaven on earth gives me a migraine." - School of Bayonne

"Can you really be as lonely as you sound?" - Peter Stone and Timothy S. Mayer, My One and Only

"When I'm happy, I write sad songs. When I'm not happy, I also write sad songs. Life rarely imitates art." - Ian P.

"What am I trying to tell myself and why do I never listen?... Why am I trying to kill myself by killing all my feelings?" - Lack Thereof

"Each day got through means one or two less mistakes remain to be made." - Tim Rice, Chess

"You know I've seen it before, this mist that covers your eyes. You've been looking for something that's not in your life." - Melissa Etheridge

"Sometimes you're beaten to the call. Sometimes you're taken to the wall... Sometimes you're shaken to the core. Sometimes the face is gonna fall. But you don't give in." - Midnight Oil

"What can I do? How can I change myself? I don't like to stay here, but I don't want to go there." - Tverskoy Boulevard

"I always feel so miserable whenever I'm around." - Weird Al Yankovich

"You go up to a man, and you say, 'How are things going, Joe? And he says, 'Oh fine, fine - couldn't be better.' And you look into his eyes, and you see things really couldn't be much worse. When you get right down to it, everybody's having a perfectly lousy time of it, and I mean everybody. And the hell of it is, nothing seems to help much." - Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

"I?m not letting my kids eat any more potato chips that have Pokemon coins inside since we all know that they have a material that gets into the skin of the potato, then into their stomachs and then causes infertility." ? parent's letter to the editor of the semi-official daily paper in Saudi Arabia, Al-Ahram (read the full article at msnbc.com)

"Sheriff of Nottingham: I had a very bad childhood. It's amazing I'm sane." - Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

"I'm always dreaming. Even when I'm awake I'm dreaming." - Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

"I know things are unbearable but in spite of that we have to bear them." - Margaret Mahy, The Tricksters

"Who needs a dream? Who needs ambition? Who'd be the fool in my position? Once I had dreams, now they're obsessions. Hopes became needs, lovers possessions. Then they move in, oh so discretely. Slowly at first, smiling too sweetly. I opened doors, they walked right through them. Called me their friend, I hardly knew them... Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. Times have been good, fast, entertaining. But what's the point if I'm concealing not only love, all other feeling." - Tim Rice, Chess

"The lonely heart you see tonight will not give up without a fight." - Richard Marx

"We cling to the walls of our heart. Keep us from coming undone." - Midnight Oil

"Call on God, but row away from the rocks." - Indian proverb

"Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification." - Martin Fischer

"My nightmare soon will be over and I'll drift back to sleep.
There I am comforted and will not weep.
There my life begins and I'm who I wish to be.
This is my life my new reality.
This nightmare I wake up to I don't know how much longer it will last.
I am dead inside, now it only makes me stronger.
I am alone." - Jennifer DePace, Out of Order

"Forever falling, forever following, forever alone." - Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

"When you say that you agree to a thing in principle, you mean that you have not the slightest intention of carrying it out." - Otto von Bismarck

"If someone were to prove to me right this minute that God, in all his luminousness, exists, it wouldn't change a single aspect of my behavior." - Luis Buñuel

"I was sitting one day and thinking about cannibalism, because that's what guys like me do... and I thought, suppose a guy was washed up on a rocky island, how much of himself could he eat?" - Stephen King

"Now I'm where I want to be and who I want to be and doing what I always said I would and yet I feel I haven't won at all. Running for my life and never looking back in case there's someone right behind me shoot me down and say he always knew I'd fall. When the crazy wheel slows down where will I be? Back where I started." - Tim Rice, Chess

"But never forget that you can only stumble if you're moving." - Richard P. Carlton

"That the birds of worry and care fly above your head, this you cannot change; but that they build a nest in your hair, this you can prevent." - Chinese Proverb

"You know what seems odd to me? Numbers that aren't divisible by two." - Michael Wolf (stolen from Ruminations)

"Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty." - Adair Lara

"The meek shall inherit... enough shit, pain, and loneliness until it comes out of their ears. The meek shall inherit no memories of laughter unless it's at them and no memories of kindness unless they give it and no memories of friends unless they die." - David W. Elliott, Listen to the Silence

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Signature quotes
Alphabetical index of quotes