Quotations

The quotations on this page constitute the most important, interesting, and obnoxious – but verifiable – things ever said. Besides this one, they’re served in reverse chronological order.
—Lucas Larson,

It’s like a movie. With this happening in it.
—Amy Wong,

You look beautiful. Incidentally, my favorite artist is Picasso.
—Hubert J. Farnsworth,

Because bedbugs can’t climb smooth surfaces, they can’t climb up into bathtubs. Ever. So [k]eep your luggage in the bathtub.
—Susan Rigetti,

The big cables holding up the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge stretch as they warm up each summer, when the road hangs 12 feet [3.7 m] lower than it does in winter.
—Christopher Bonanos,

Procrastination is for term-papers and major life decisions.
—Matt Flegenheimer, Gabriel Gianordoli, Denise Lu, Eden Weingart on whether to vote early if your state allows it,

Donald Trump is a bully and a bigot. He is symptomatic of a widening partisan divide in the country. We recommend voting for him anyway. . . . He is . . . a wretched human being.
—W. Stacey Cowles in The Spokesman–Review’s endorsement for president,

in England in the 1700s, . . . 90 percent of men had one of only eight names: John, Edward, William, Henry, Charles, James, Richard, [and] Robert
—Deirdre Mask in The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power,

Despite the outrageous fact that I’ll soon be dead forever, I live in the present, not the future.
—Jonathan Franzen,

[T]here’s never been a time in the history of our country where somebody was so mistreated as I have been.
—Donald Trump,

Within two minutes of slamming into Earth, the asteroid . . . gouged a crater about eighteen miles deep . . . . Picture the splash of a pebble falling into pond water, but on a planetary scale. When Earth’s crust rebounded, a peak higher than Mt. Everest briefly rose up.
—Douglas Preston, The New Yorker,

[T]o use the 25th Amendment [to the United States Constitution] . . . is . . . unconstitutional.
—Donald Trump quoting Alan Dershowitz,

He wrote me beautiful letters and they’re great letters. We fell in love.
—Donald Trump on Kim Jong Un,

What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.
—Donald Trump,

Taylor Swift has all the range of a dial tone.
—Monique Judge,

WordPress is a trash-heap of sophomoric development ideas and the developers who love it are like so many seagulls and foxes that scavenge off of its smelly detritus.
—Everett Griffiths,

When people commit suicide, no one ever understands. . . . People commit suicide and people go, I don’t understand why, and I go, You don’t? What, do you live in, a cotton-candy house or something? What the fuck? You don’t know about life? How it only disappoints, and gets worse and worse, until it ends in a catastrophe?
—Norm Macdonald, Hitler’s Dog, Gossip & Trickery,

We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable; so did the divine right of kings.
—Ursula K. Le Guin,

How thoughtful of God to arrange matters so that, wherever you happen to be born, the local religion always turns out to be the true one.
—Richard Dawkins,

You only need 39 digits of π to be able to measure the circumference of the observable universe within the width of one hydrogen atom.
—James Grime,

Use long flags when scripting
—Adam Jahnke,

Not only do I not feel jetlagged on the West Coast, but I’m pretty sure my body clock is naturally on Pacific Standard Time.
—Nate Silver,

[T]he only town named after an airport.
—Peter J. Andrews on the city of SeaTac, Washington,

Like bigger, stronger, cooler siblings everywhere, Seattle doesn’t worry too much about Portland.
—June Thomas, Slate,

I told [my granddaughter], You get in [my ex-husband’s] heart and beat the shit out of it. 
—Marianne Mullin,

[T]he sincere attempt to understand the unknowable . . . is inherently stupid.
—Bobby Henderson,

qui vous autorise à me tutoyer ?
—Laurent Joffrin,

Do you know what they call alternative medicine that’s been proved to work? Medicine.
—Tim Minchin in Storm,

that cloudless sky is ominous
—Max Yochum,

The only good thing to come out of Alabama is I-20.
—Taylor Lawson,

Typical American arrogance that got us involved in a war we never should have been in: World War II.
—Dwight Schrute,

My name is Captain Bruisin’.
—Michael Scott,

Everything we do before a pandemic will seem alarmist. Everything we do after a pandemic will seem inadequate.
—Michael O. Leavitt, Secretary of Health and Human Services,

We’re all going to die. And I pretty much know what I’m going to die of now.
—Elizabeth Edwards,

The [2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake was] so strong that it jostle[d] the Earth’s very axis from its rotation.
—Mega Disasters: West Coast Tsunami, History Channel,

The greatest freedom we have is obedience.
—Rhonda Volmer of HBO’s Big Love,

Which one would you prefer – and I’ll make the choice.
—David Rubin,

I’m a firm believer in trends.
—David Rubin,

I don’t think I’m not making myself clear.
—David Rubin,

[The] people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania.
—Donald Rumsfeld,

I see, so we had to take out Saddam Hussein, because as the communist head of Germany, he blew up the World Trade Center. And that’s why we had to go to Vietnam. Vote Reagan!
—Lewis Black on a Club for Growth PSA featuring Bush at Ground Zero and Reagan at the Berlin Wall,

God forbid they should have any real intelligence.
—David Rubin, on artificial intelligence.

Christmas 1970. On the eve of the holiday, Bill Wilson passed a fitful night. A lifelong smoker, he had been fighting emphysema for years, and now he was losing the battle. Nurse James Dannenberg was on duty in the last hour before dawn. At 6:10 a.m. on Christmas morning, according to Dannenberg’s notes, the man who sobered up millions asked for three shots of whiskey. He was quite upset when he didn’t get them, Cheever writes. Wilson asked for booze again about a week later, on Jan. 2, 1971. And on Jan. 8. And on Jan. 14.
—David Von Drehle,

Let someone else work for the good of humanity.
—David Rubin,

When I chose Mrs. Right, I didn’t realize her first name was Always.
—Mark Larson,

Honorary intellect.
—Mark Larson, on Dr. George W. Bush of Yale,

We know where [the weapons of mass destruction] are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.
—Donald Rumsfeld,

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.
—George W. Bush,

Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.
—George W. Bush,

When I was a girl, the idea that the British Empire could ever end was absolutely inconceivable. And it just disappeared, like all the other empires.
—Doris Lessing,

We know for a fact that there are weapons [in Iraq].
—Ari Fleischer,

Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
—Ronald Wright, , paraphrasing John Steinbeck,

If he declares he has [no weapons of mass destruction], then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world.
—Ari Fleischer,

Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.
—George W. Bush,

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons mass destruction.
—Dick Cheney,

I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re really talking about peace.
—George W. Bush,

[Democrats] need to be very cautious not to seek political advantage by making incendiary suggestions.
—Dick Cheney,

To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America’s enemies.
—John Ashcroft,

Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th.
—George W. Bush to the United Nations,

King James English is essentially the language that many Americans think Jesus spoke.
—Daniel Seriff,

Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put . . . Israel on trial.
—Ariel Sharon,

If you express the belief that the working class in America (and elsewhere) are systematically screwed over by the corporate power structure, someone will brand you a knee-jerk, tax-and-spend, flag-burning, gun-grabbing, tree-hugging, dope-smoking, baby-killing, crystal-carrying, bleeding-heart liberal commie pinko fag bastard. If you voice the complaint that gratuitous male-bashing might occasionally be a teensy bit counterproductive to the cause of women’s rights, someone else will label you a cold-hearted, money-grubbing, flag-kissing, gun-toting, planet-raping, race-baiting, gay-bashing, bible-thumping, narrow-minded conservative patriarchal Nazi oppressor pig.
—D. Romulus Porterfield,

[We] should tax things we don’t like. We should tax stock market speculation. We should tax pollution. We should tax activities that we don’t like, like sprawl, in order to get a better planning system and better zoning system. And we should lighten the taxes on things we do like, like honest labor, like food.
—Ralph Nader,

I don’t think you can know what you think if you only speak one language.
—Robert Dessaix,

I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
—Stephen F. Roberts, before

[C]reationists have this creator who is evil, who is small-minded, who is malevolent, and who is not very bright and can’t even get his science right. Creationists have made their creator in their own image.
—Ian Plimer,

1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure.
—Elizabeth II on the annus horribilis,

No one wishes to see the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
—George H.W. Bush,

elle est si vieille qu’elle n’a plus peur de rien, parce qu’elle n’a jamais aimé personne sauf un chien pour lequel elle a pleuré le jour où elle l’a envoyé à la fourrière.
—Hervé Guibert, au sujet de sa voisine,

No, I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God.
—George H.W. Bush, while serving as vice president and running for president,

Ronald Reagan’s idea of a good farm program is Hee Haw.
—Jim Hightower, former Texas Commissioner of Agriculture,

Every national border in Europe . . . marks the place where two gangs of bandits got too exhausted to kill each other anymore and signed a treaty. Patriotism is the delusion that one of these gangs of bandits is better than all the others.
—Robert Anton Wilson,

There is a temptation for the writer or the teacher of Church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith[-]promoting or not. Some things that are true are not very useful.
—Boyd K. Packer, then-member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
—Robert J. Hanlon,

Every word she writes is a lie, including and and the.
—Mary McCarthy of Lillian Hellman,

The per capita income gap between the developed and the developing countries is increasing, in large part the result of higher birth rates in the poorer countries. . . . Famine in India, unwanted babies in the United States, poverty that seemed to form an unbreakable chain for millions of people – how should we tackle these problems? . . . It is quite clear that one of the major challenges of the 1970s . . . will be to curb the world’s fertility.
—George H.W. Bush, Phyllis Tilson Piotrow, World Population Crisis: The United States Response vii–viii ()

Quando dou comida aos pobres, chamam-me de santo. Quando pergunto por que eles são pobres, chamam-me de comunista. (When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.)
—Hélder Câmara,

Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.,

Young people don’t know anything. Especially that they’re young.
—Don Draper, age 36,

Those who are physically and mentally unhealthy and unfit must not perpetuate their own suffering in[to] the bodies of their children. . . . If for a period of only 600 years those individuals would be sterilized who are physically degenerate or mentally diseased, humanity would . . . be delivered from an immense misfortune.
—Adolph Hitler, ca. , Mein Kampf 346 (James Murphy trans., 1st ed. )

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
—Theodore Roosevelt,

[F]ish do not see water, nor do [p]olar bears feel the cold.
—Hayashi Tadasu,

I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of . . . races.
—Abraham Lincoln,

Je vous aime. Que mon sort soit décidé, que je meure à vos pieds, de douleur ou de plaisir.
—Déterville, Lettres d’une Péruvienne, 

She lusted after their genitals – as large as those of donkeys, and their seminal emission was as strong as that of stallions.
—Ezekiel 23:20NET

Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them.
—John 9:16KJV