Favorite Quotations
Favorite Quotations
I've collected these six hundred or so quotations over a long period from a hundred or more sources. They're mostly funny, but I'll start off with a more serious one that I found recently. A piece of paper was found amongst Werner von Braun's effects after he died in 1977. It said this:
The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: a human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him, a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create - so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.
- Pearl Buck
What follows is a grab bag of funny things from writers, comedians, presidents, stars, and ordinary people. The last half of the quotations are from newspapers: flubbed or unintentionally funny headlines, typos, and just plain thinkos.
"The final quote is from Mark Twain, discussing the young missionary who went
out among the cannibals. Said Twain: 'They listened with the greatest of
interest to everything he had to say. And then they ate him.' This is the
three hundred sixty-seventh edition of 'Overnight.' There are no more. And
so it goes."
- Linda Ellerbee, closing the final
"NBC News Overnight" show, 12/2/83
"Don't be a luddy-duddy! Don't be a mooncalf! Don't be a jabbernowl!
You're not those, are you?"
- W.C. Fields, "The Bank Dick"
DON'T STICK
YOUR ELBOW
OUT SO FAR
IT MIGHT GO HOME
IN ANOTHER CAR
BURMA-SHAVE
- Frank Rowsome, Jr.
The Verse by the Side of the Road:
The Story of the Burma-Shave Signs
IF THESE
SIGNS BLUR
AND BOUNCE AROUND
YOU'D BETTER PARK
AND WALK TO TOWN
BURMA-SHAVE
- Frank Rowsome, Jr.
The Verse by the Side of the Road:
The Story of the Burma-Shave Signs
CAR IN DITCH
DRIVER IN TREE
MOON WAS FULL
SO WAS HE
BURMA-SHAVE
- Frank Rowsome, Jr.
The Verse by the Side of the Road:
The Story of the Burma-Shave Signs
CARELESS BRIDEGROOM
DAINTY BRIDE
SCRATCHY WHISKERS
HOMICIDE
BURMA-SHAVE
- Frank Rowsome, Jr.
The Verse by the Side of the Road:
The Story of the Burma-Shave Signs
"A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on."
- Samuel Goldwyn
"Hit him on the head!"
- Boris Badenov
"I don't have ulcers. I give 'em!"
- Lyndon B. Johnson
"According to my best recollection, I don't remember."
- Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo
"It's a rather pleasant experience to be alone in a bank at night."
- Willie Sutton, bank robber
"Trust in Allah, but tie your camel."
- Arabian proverb
"I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living
apart."
- e.e. cummings
"It's a small world but I wouldn't want to paint it."
- Stephen Wright
"Name me an emperor who was ever struck by a cannonball."
- Charles V
"You can't say civilization don't advance...in every war they kill you a new
way."
- Will Rogers
"I have already lost two cousins to the war and I stand ready to sacrifice my
wife's brother."
- Artemus Ward
"It's so beautifully arranged on the plate -- you just know someone's fingers
have been all over it."
- Julia Child, on nouvelle cuisine
"Isn't there any other part of the matzo you can eat?"
- Marilyn Monroe
"Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese."
- G.K. Chesterton
"Gaiety is the most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union."
- Joseph Stalin
"I have an existential map. It has YOU ARE HERE written all over it."
- Steven Wright
"I hate small towns because once you've seen the cannon in the park there's
nothing else to do."
- Lenny Bruce
"Anything that is too stupid to be said is sung."
- Voltaire
"I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to."
- Elvis Presley
"My tears stuck in their little ducts, refusing to be jerked."
- Peter Stack, movie critic
"America is a large, friendly dog in a small room. Every time it wags its tail
it knocks over a chair."
- Arnold Toynbee
"In America there are two classes of travel -- first and with children."
- Robert Benchley
"A boy can learn a lot from a dog: obedience, loyalty, and the importance of
turning around three times before lying down."
- Robert Benchley
"If you are a police dog, where's your badge?"
- James Thurber to his German shepherd
"Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function."
- Garrison Keillor
"Someday we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car."
- Evan Davis
"The most romantic thing any woman ever said to me in bed was, 'Are you sure
you're not a cop?'"
- Larry Brown
"All the men on my staff can type."
- Bella Abzug
"I never expected to see the day when girls would get sunburned in the places
they do today."
- Will Rogers, 1930s
"Some men are so macho that they'll get you pregnant just to kill a rabbit."
- Maureen Murphy
"It is no wonder that people are so horrible when they start life as children."
- Kingsley Amis
"An ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest."
- Spanish proverb
"Never raise your hand to your children. It leaves your midsection
unprotected."
- Robert Orben
"Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt."
- Herbert Hoover
"An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you do."
- Dylan Thomas
"My uncle was the town drunk -- and we lived in Chicago."
- George Gobel
"I've never been drunk, but often I've been overserved."
- George Gobel
"Someone left the cork out of my lunch."
- W.C. Fields
"Don't accept rides from strange men, and remember that all men are strange."
- Robin Morgan
"I'm not a real movie star -- I've still got the same wife I started out with
twenty-eight years ago."
- Will Rogers
"My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income."
- Errol Flynn
"I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was
hell."
- Harry S Truman
"I would not like to be a political leader in Russia. They never know when
they're being taped."
- Richard M. Nixon
"The thought of being President frightens me and I do not think I want the job."
- Ronald Reagan, 1973
"Reagan won because he ran against Jimmy Carter. Had he run unopposed he would
have lost."
- Mort Sahl
"Walter Mondale has all the charisma of a speed bump."
- Will Durst
"The man with the best job in the country is the Vice-President. All he has to
do is get up every morning and ask, 'How's the President?'"
- Will Rogers
"The Vice-Presidency ain't worth a bucket of warm piss."
- Vice President John N. Garner
"They [the Arabs and the Israelis] should settle this problem in a true
Christian spirit."
- Warren Austin, U.S. delegate to U.N.
"An ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country."
- Sir Henry Wotton
"A statesman is a politician who has been dead ten or fifteen years."
- Harry S Truman
"When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve
people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty."
- Norm Crosby
"Getting kicked out of the American Bar Association is like getting kicked out
of the Book-of-the-Month club."
- Melvin Belli, upon being kicked out
of the ABA
"Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made."
- Otto von Bismarck (attributed)
"I always turn to the sports pages first, which record people's accomplishments.
The front page has nothing but man's failures."
- Chief Justice Earl Warren
"I'm glad we don't have to play in the shade."
- Bobby Jones, golfer, upon being told
it was 105 degrees in the shade
"If I had my life to live again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner."
- Tallulah Bankhead
"The more he talked of his honor the faster we counted our spoons."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home."
- Kenneth Olsen, President
Digital Equipment Corporation
"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."
- Mark Twain
"Nobody has a better opinion of him than I have, and I think he's a dirty little
beast."
- W.S. Gilbert
"Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any
Indian."
- Robert Orben
"We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we
don't like?"
- Jean Cocteau
"God himself could not sink this ship."
- Titanic deckhand
"I'm an old navy man; the bow is the rear end, isn't it?"
- Richard M. Nixon
"Man will not fly for fifty years."
- Wilbur Wright to Orville, 1901
"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."
- Will Rogers
"The machine gun is a vastly overrated weapon."
- British Field Marshal Douglas Haig,
1914
"Retirement at age sixty-five is ridiculous. When I was sixty-five I still had
pimples."
- George Burns
"Start every day off with a smile and get it over with."
- W.C. Fields
"There are two kinds of pedestrians...the quick and the dead."
- Lord Thomas Robert Dewar
"Democracy is finished in England."
- Joseph P. Kennedy, 1940
"Because of the greatness of the Shah, Iran is an island of stability in one
of the more troubled areas of the world."
- Jimmy Carter, 1977
"The Army is the Indian's best friend."
- General George A. Custer
"And yet I told your Holiness that I was no painter."
- Michelangelo
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
- Pablo Picasso
"Peace, n. In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods
of fighting."
- Ambrose Bierce
The Devil's Dictionary, 1911
"I would have made a good pope."
- Richard M. Nixon
"The only thing that stops God from sending another flood is that the first one
was useless."
- Nicholas Chamfort, 18th century
"Which is it, is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's?"
- Freidrich Nietzsche
"Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal."
- Leo Tolstoy
"Jesus died too soon. If he had lived to my age he would have repudiated his
doctrine."
- Freidrich Nietzsche
"Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal."
- Leo Tolstoy
"Man is more an ape than many of the apes."
- Freidrich Nietzsche
"Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal."
- Leo Tolstoy
"Woman was God's second mistake."
- Freidrich Nietzsche
"Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal."
- Leo Tolstoy
"The only time a woman really succeeds in changing a man is when he's a baby."
- Natalie Wood
"The income tax has made liars out of more Americans than golf."
- Will Rogers
"An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's."
- Will Rogers
"The cynics are right nine times out of ten."
- H.L. Mencken
"When there are two conflicting versions of a story, the wise course is to
believe the one in which people appear at their worst."
- H. Allen Smith
"It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues."
- Abraham Lincoln
"The price of purity is purists."
- Calvin Trillin
"No diet will remove all the fat from your body because the brain is entirely
fat. Without a brain you might look good, but all you could do is run for
public office."
- Covert Bailey
"Reminds me of my safari in Africa. Somebody forgot the corkscrew and for
several days we had to live on nothing but food and water."
- W.C. Fields
"Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough."
- Mark Twain
"It is better to be a mouse in a cat's mouth than a man in a lawyer's hands."
- Spanish proverb
"What a beautiful fix we are in now; peace has been declared."
- Napoleon Bonaparte (attributed)
"Clark Gable's ears make him look like a taxicab with the doors open."
- Howard Hughes (attributed)
"Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock."
- Will Rogers
"Conservative, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as
distinguished from the liberal, who wishes to replace them with others."
- Ambrose Bierce
The Devil's Dictionary, 1911
"Too bad the only people who know how to run the country are busy driving cabs
and cutting hair."
- George Burns
"Calvin Coolidge didn't say much, and when he did he didn't say much."
- Will Rogers
"When we got into office, the thing that surprised me the most was that things
were as bad as we'd been saying they were."
- John F. Kennedy
"History will be kind to me as I intend to write it."
- Winston Churchill
"Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please."
- Mark Twain
"Never argue with people who buy ink by the gallon."
- Tommy Lasorda and others before him
"People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like."
- Abraham Lincoln, in a book review
"The goal of all inanimate objects is to resist man and ultimately defeat him."
- Russell Baker
"Providence protects children and idiots. I know because I have tested it."
- Mark Twain
"A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly
strangled."
- Sir Barnett Cocks
"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the
frog dies of it."
- E.B. White
"A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water."
- Carl Reiner
"It took me twenty years of studied self-restraint, aided by the natural decay
of my faculties, to make myself dull enough to be accepted as a serious person
by the British public."
- George Bernard Shaw
"What ought to be done to the man who invented the celebrating of anniversaries?
Mere killing would be too light."
- Mark Twain
"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent."
- Eleanor Roosevelt
"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow."
- Mark Twain
"Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are
wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar."
- Edward R. Murrow
"It is fun being in the same decade with you."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt in a letter to
Winston Churchill, 1942
"Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result."
- Winston Churchill
"You can get much further with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind
word alone."
- Al Capone
"With God as my judge, I do not owe this tax."
- Taxpayer
"He isn't. I am. You do."
- Howard Dawson, tax judge
"I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough
to find your way around Chinatown."
- Woody Allen
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
- Unknown
"Egotist, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me."
- Ambrose Bierce
The Devil's Dictionary, 1911
"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I ever met."
- Abraham Lincoln
"Sometimes when I look at my children I say to myself, 'Lillian, you should have
stayed a virgin.'"
- Lillian Carter
"Sure Reagan promised to take senility tests. But what if he forgets?"
- Lorna Kerr-Walker
"Be careful of reading health books. You may die of a misprint."
- Mark Twain
"I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I don't know."
- Mark Twain
"Life on the Mississippi"
"Are you going to come quietly or do I have to use earplugs?"
- Spike Milligan
The Goon Show, BBC Radio
"What do you look for in a script?"
- Interviewer
"Days off."
- Spencer Tracy
"Forgive your enemies. But never forget their names."
- John F. Kennedy
"If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring
me some coffee."
- Abraham Lincoln
"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book. I'll waste no time reading it."
- Moses Hadas
"There are plenty of good five-cent cigars in this country. The trouble is they
cost a quarter. What this country really needs is a good five-cent nickel."
- Franklin P. Adams
"We have the best Congress money can buy."
- Will Rogers
"Reader, suppose you were an idiot; and suppose you were a member of Congress;
but I repeat myself."
- Mark Twain
"I've known what it is to be hungry, but I always went right to a restaurant."
- Ring Lardner
"Exit, pursued by a bear."
- Stage direction, The Winter's Tale
William Shakespeare
"I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts."
- Will Rogers
"There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people."
- Muhammad Ali, on one of his
retirements
"Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable."
- Samuel Johnson
"Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon
his horse, and rode madly off in all directions."
- Stephen Leacock
Gertrude the Governess
Nonsense Novels, 1914
"We can't all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they
go by."
- Will Rogers
"A cucumber should be well-sliced, dressed in pepper and vinegar, and then
thrown out."
- Samuel Johnson
"Wagner's music is better than it sounds."
- Mark Twain
"I don't want any yes-men around me. I want everybody to tell me the truth even
if it costs them their jobs."
- Samuel Goldwyn
"Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character."
- Oscar Levant
"Nobody roots for Goliath."
- Wilt Chamberlain
"If people don't want to come out to the ball park, nobody's going to stop
them."
- Yogi Berra
"I don't want to be quoted, and don't quote me that I don't want to be quoted."
- CBS correspondent Winston Burdett,
on the 1948 murder of correspondent
George Polk
"Pass on it, Louis. Civil War pictures have never made a dime."
- Irving Thalberg to his boss, Louis
B. Mayer, on Gone With the Wind
"Color and stereoscopy will make the cinema into the greatest art in the world.
Bad films will be impossible."
- John Betjeman, 1935
"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"
- H.M. Warner of Warner Bros., on the
introduction of films with sound
"You always write it's bombing, bombing, bombing. It's not bombing. It's air
support."
- Col. H.E. Opfer, air attache,
U.S. Embassy, Pnom-Penh
"There are enough rocks on earth to kill the world's population several times
over."
- Lt. Gen. Daniel Graham, director
Defense Intelligence Agency
"How do we know? Fallout might be good for us."
- Dr. Edward Teller, father of the
hydrogen bomb
"Did you bug that conversation?"
"No, Senator, I did not."
"What did you do?"
"I recorded it."
- John D. Ehrlichman at the Watergate
hearings
"I was so busy with my work in court that I forgot to file my returns."
- Judge Neville Tucker, on being
arrested for failure to file federal
income tax returns
"The policeman isn't there to create disorder. The policeman is there to
preserve disorder."
- Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, 1968
"I snapped or something."
- Orvall Wyatt Loyd of Dallas,
on hacking his mother-in-law to
death after mistaking her for a
"large raccoon," 1981
"Brooms, etc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $41,190.95"
- Bookkeeping entry of the corrupt
Tweed Ring, New York City, 1869
"Special agents are called in to slow the film down and grind it to a
screeching halt."
- Tom Servo
"No one will be admitted during the breathtaking car-parking sequence!"
- Crow T. Robot
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"Rocket Attack USA"
"Bad movie? You're soaking in it!"
- Crow T. Robot
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"Aw, I saw the wire. That wrecks everything."
- Joel Robinson
"You mean this is fake?"
- Tom Servo
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"Gamera vs. Barugon"
"You know, there's nothing like being in a gunfight with 600 pounds of high-test
nitro rocket fuel strapped to your back."
- Joel Robinson
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"Commando Cody," Chapter 3
"Uh, oh. This isn't good. I've seen good before, and this isn't it."
- Tom Servo
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"Uh, Houston, we've got a problem. Lloyd Bridges is making moves on the babe
here."
- Crow T. Robot
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"Rocketship XM"
"Dear Diary: Well, we're all going to die and it's the men's fault. Our fiery
demise is imminent, but at least I have my health -- knock on wood."
- Crow T. Robot
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"Rocketship XM"
"Ow! Don't bite me! I'm alive, I'm a sentient being! Ow!"
- Tom Servo
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"Gamera vs. Gaos"
"Help! I've plummeted to my death and I can't get up!"
- Tom Servo
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"Gamera vs. Gaos"
"No spiders were squished, stepped on, flushed, or made to suffer any emotional
distress during the making of this film. One spider did die of old age; we have
two letters from doctors confirming this."
- Tom Servo
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"Earth vs. the Spider"
"This is the kind of film you won't put on 'pause' when you leave the room."
- Crow T. Robot
"It encourages you to go get a sandwich." - Tom Servo
"Kinda like TV repellent." - Crow
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy"
"Mmmmm! Munchy, crunchy, chocolatey commuters!"
- Crow T. Robot
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"Gamera vs. Gaos"
"He's gonna get a DWI -- Driving While Invisible!"
--Tom Servo
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"The Phantom Creeps," Chapter 2
"I never thought the end of the world would be so annoying."
- Joel Robinson
"Do not try to adjust your set. We will control what is boring."
- Crow T. Robot
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"Rocket Attack USA"
"One-Adam-Twelve. Movie needs resuscitation. See the director."
- Crow T. Robot
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"The Unearthly"
"Now, for you folks playing at home, keep in mind scorpions, unless genetically
mutated, do NOT growl."
- Crow T. Robot
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"The Black Scorpion"
"You know, these are like CHEAP versions of the 'Lost in Space' sets."
- Joel Robinson
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"Santa Claus Conquers the Martians"
"Their technology must be light years ahead of ours. Their use of stock footage
is amazing."
- Tom Servo
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"More stock footage! Hit the deck!"
- Tom Servo
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"Commando Cody," Chapter 2
"You know, it's funny how movie directors always make air vents big enough to
crawl around in."
- Joel Robinson
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"Seen it." "Hated it." "Taped it."
-Joel -Tom Servo -Crow T. Robot - Mystery Science Theater 3000
"Sister, that dress is headed for trouble, and it's taking you with it."
- Crow T. Robot
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"You know, that 'Constant Heat Ray' sounds a LOT like a Chevy horn."
- Joel Robinson
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"Radar Men from the Moon"
"No, he doesn't want to hurt him. It's just high-impact chiropractics."
- Crow T. Robot
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"The Corpse Vanishes"
"They do more before nine in the morning than most monsters do all day!"
- Joel Robinson
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster"
"Suzy thinks she doesn't need a seatbelt. Watch Suzy go ballistic through the
windshield!"
- Crow T. Robot
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"The Amazing Colossal Man"
"Find a Chevy, pick it up, all day long you'll have good luck!"
- Joel Robinson
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"War of the Colossal Beast"
"Oh, well, this isn't good, not at all. I've seen good before, and it didn't
look anything like this. Remember that bad thing we saw? Well, it looked like
this, remember? Yeah, definitely bad."
- Joel Robinson
Mystery Science Theater 3000
"The Black Scorpion"
"How should we reply if we ever receive an extraterrestrial message?"
- Reporter
"Hang up. Look what happened to the Indians."
- Dr. Albert Hibbs,
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
"I saw the play under the worst possible conditions: the curtain was up."
- George S. Kaufman
"It was one of those plays in which all of the actors unfortunately enunciated
very clearly."
- Robert Benchley
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
- Charles H. Duell, Director of the
U.S. Patent Office, in a letter to
President McKinley urging him to
abolish the Patent Office, 1899.
"That is the biggest fool thing we have ever done...The [atomic] bomb will never
go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives."
- Adm. William Leahy to President
Truman, early 1945
"Rail travel at high speeds is not possible because passengers, unable to
breathe, would die of asphyxia."
- Dr. Dionysius Lardner (1793-1859)
"Women who drive by and drop off their clothing
at Blank Speed Wash will receive prompt attention."
- Advertisement, Anchorage Daily Times
"I think there is a world market for about five computers."
- Thomas J. Watson, founder of IBM
"In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken."
- Gen. Maxime Weygand, C in C, French
Military Forces, after the fall of
France, June, 1940
"Some chicken! Some neck!"
- Winston Churchill, 1941
"No matter what happens, the U.S. Navy is not going to be caught napping."
- Navy Secretary Frank Knox
December 4, 1941
"Well, don't worry about it....It's nothing."
- Lt. Kermit Tyler, upon being told
of radar returns indicating at
least 50 aircraft traveling at
about 180 mph toward Oahu,
December 7, 1941
Cursor, n. [Possibly Old Irish cursagim "to blame"] A faintly flickering symbol
on a CRT screen, used to test the eyesight and reflexes of the operator, and
indicating where the next keyed character will be rejected.
- Stan Kelly-Bootle
The Devil's DP Dictionary
Default, n. [Possibly from Brookylnese "De fault wid dis system is youse guys."]
The vain attempt to avoid errors by inactivity.
- Stan Kelly-Bootle
The Devil's DP Dictionary
Downtime, n. The period during which a system is error-free and immune from
user input.
- Stan Kelly-Bootle
The Devil's DP Dictionary
Exit, v. intrans. To attempt to leave the current program by typing a sequence
of ignored farewells.
- Stan Kelly-Bootle
The Devil's DP Dictionary
Foolproof, adj. (Of a system) Inaccessible by the user.
- Stan Kelly-Bootle
The Devil's DP Dictionary
Prompt, n. A delayed message from the system demanding an immediate response
from the user.
- Stan Kelly-Bootle
The Devil's DP Dictionary
Query program, n. A program that for all input strings X, responds with the
message ?X?
- Stan Kelly-Bootle
The Devil's DP Dictionary
Editor, n. The software required to generate any number of deviant copies from
an original, correct text.
- Stan Kelly-Bootle
The Devil's DP Dictionary
"Did you feel the second impact before the first one?"
- Question asked by an attorney
"Without relating the conversation, tell us what was said."
- Statement by an attorney
"Were you present when the reporters were interviewing you on TV?"
- Question asked by an attorney
"Well, if it wasn't your right leg, and it wasn't your left leg, which leg was
it?"
- Question asked by an attorney
"Can you recall how fast your vehicle was going when you parked?"
- Question asked by an attorney
"Do you suffer any pain other than when you breathe?"
- Question asked by an attorney
"You have testified that you can bend forward with your head, but can you touch
your toes with your chin?"
- Question asked by an attorney
"Do you have any other complaint about your teeth besides the fact that you
haven't got them?"
- Question asked by an attorney
"You say that you cannot remember the accident, but can you say that the
accident has in any way affected your memory, or don't you remember?"
- Question asked by an attorney
"Politics is the second oldest profession and is closely akin to the first."
- Ronald Reagan
"We are not final because we are infallible. We are infallible because we are
final."
- Supreme Court Justice Jackson
"He was a bad lawyer, but he was the most sensible looking man talking nonsense
I ever saw."
- Daniel O'Connell
"Honey in his mouth, knives in his heart."
- Chinese proverb
"Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking."
- H.L. Mencken
"When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not."
- Mark Twain
"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to
have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at
how much the old man had learned in seven years."
- Mark Twain
"You know...everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects."
- Will Rogers
"Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest."
- Mark Twain
"Few of us can stand prosperity. Another man's, I mean."
- Mark Twain
"Why do you sit there like an envelope with no address on it?"
- Mark Twain
"Fleas can be taught nearly everything that a Congressman can."
- Mark Twain
"No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public."
- H.L. Mencken
"A sheep in sheep's clothing."
- Winston Churchill on Clement Attlee,
his successor (attributed)
"There, but for the grace of God, goes God."
- Winston Churchill on Stafford Crips
"I've had a wonderful evening, but this wasn't it."
- Groucho Marx
"Cut out all those exclamation remarks. An exclamation mark is like laughing at
your own joke."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
"I liked your opera. I think I will set it to music."
- Ludwig van Beethoven to a fellow
composer (attributed)
"After an incident in Croydon involving a prison van and a concrete mixer,
police are looking for eighteen hardened criminals."
- From The Two Ronnies, BBC-TV
"Colonel Cathcart had courage and never hesitated to volunteer his men for any
target available."
- Joseph Heller
Catch-22
"Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have
mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three."
- Joseph Heller
Catch-22
"'Yossarian? Is that his name? Yossarian? What the hell kind of name is
Yossarian?'
Lieutenant Scheisskopf had the facts at his fingertips. 'It's Yossarian's
name, sir,' he explained."
- Joseph Heller
Catch-22
"This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great
force."
- Dorothy Parker, in a book review
"It is like someone jammed an electric light bulb in your face and busted it. I
thought half my head was blowed off."
- Jim Braddock, on being hit by Joe
Louis, 1937
'What Ho!' I said. 'What Ho!' said Motty.
'What Ho! What Ho!'
'What Ho! What Ho! What Ho!'
After that it seemed rather difficult to go on with the conversation.
- P.G. Wodehouse
Carry On, Jeeves, 1925
"A man's womenfolk, whatever their outward show of respect for his merit and
authority, always regard him secretly as an ass, and with something akin to
pity."
- H.L. Mencken
In Defense of Women, 1922
"Several tons of dynamite are set off in this picture -- none of it under the
right people."
- James Agee
Reviewing Tycoon, 1947
"Dr Rudolf Von Rudder explains how aircraft fly:
It's a simple theory. Matter is lighter than air. You see, the motors, they
pull the plane forward and they cause a draft, and then it taxis faster down the
field and the motors go faster and the whole plane vibrates, and then, when
there's enough of a draft and a vacuum created, the plane rises off the runway
into the air. From then on, it's a miracle. I don't know what keeps it up."
- Mel Brooks
Your Show of Shows, NBC-TV
"If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the
Devil in the House of Commons."
- Winston Churchill, 1941
"When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But
let him sit on a hot stove for a minute -- and it's longer than any hour.
That's relativity."
- Albert Einstein
"Drawing on my fine command of the language, I said nothing."
- Robert Benchley
"So far as good writing goes, the use of the exclamation mark is a sign of
failure. It is the literary equivalent of a man holding up a card reading
LAUGHTER to a studio audience."
- Miles Kingston
"At Victoria Station the R.T.O. gave me a travel warrant, a white feather and a
picture of Hitler marked 'This is your enemy.' I searched every compartment but
he wasn't on the train."
- Spike Milligan
Adolf Hitler, My Part in His
Downfall, 1971
"And while Hitler might chortle that his secret weapon was a mighty Luftwaffe
designed to obliterate the Royal Air Force, England's leaders knew that their
secret weapon was that they didn't have a Royal Air Force."
- Bruce McCall
That Fabulous Battle of Britain
Zany Afternoons, 1983
"Telegraph fully all news you can get and when there is no news send rumors."
- Wilbur F. Storey of the Chicago
Times to Civil War correspondent
"Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one."
- A.J. Liebling
New Yorker press critic
"Unconfirmed"
- Subtitle of unconfirmed stories of WWII in the Boston Globe
"IMPORTANT IF TRUE"
- Subtitle of unconfirmed stories used by some Civil War newspapers
"Bare."
- Clive Barnes, The New York Times
Complete review of the play
The Cupboard
My dear McClellan:
If you don't want to use the army, I
should like to borrow it for a while.
Yours respectfully,
A. Lincoln
- Letter to Gen. George McClellan
Appeal, v.t. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.
- Ambrose Bierce
The Devil's Dictionary, 1911
"The only thing wrong with architecture is architects."
- Frank Lloyd Wright
Amnesty, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too
expensive to punish.
- Ambrose Bierce
The Devil's Dictionary, 1911
Defame, v.t. 1. To lie about another. 2. To tell the truth about another.
- Ambrose Bierce
The Devil's Dictionary, 1911
Dentist, n. A prestidigitator who, putting metal into your mouth, pulls coins
out of your pocket.
- Ambrose Bierce
The Devil's Dictionary, 1911
Fiddle, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on
the entrails of a cat.
- Ambrose Bierce
The Devil's Dictionary, 1911
"I couldn't help it. I can resist everything except temptation."
- Oscar Wilde
"Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in
the long run."
- Mark Twain
"Democracy simply means the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the
people."
- Oscar Wilde
"First thing, we kill all the lawyers."
- William Shakespeare
"Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets
break through."
- Jonathan Swift
"Pioneering basically amounts to finding new and more horrible ways to die."
- John W. Campbell
"Either this man is dead or my watch has stopped."
- Groucho Marx
"The writing of more than 75 poems in any fiscal year should be punishable by a
fine of $500."
- Ed Sanders
"It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to
mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry."
- H. L. Mencken
"Women who miscalculate are called 'mothers.'"
- Abigail Van Buren
"The reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have a
common enemy."
- Sam Levenson
"I hate quotations."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"May your soul be forever tormented by fire and your bones be dug up by dogs and
dragged through the streets of Minneapolis."
- Garrison Keillor
"Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something."
- Last words of Pancho Villa
"Wise men make proverbs but fools repeat them."
- Samuel Palmer
"Well, I would -- if they realized that we -- again if -- if we led them back
to that stalemate only because that our retaliatory power, our seconds, or
strike at them after our first strike, would be so destructive that they
couldn't afford it, that it would hold them off."
- Ronald Reagan when asked if
nuclear war could be limited to
tactical weapons
"When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning
to believe it."
- Clarence Darrow
"Go, and never darken my towels again."
- Groucho Marx
"It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put
out on the troubled seas of thought."
- John Kenneth Galbraith
"Nothing is illegal if a hundred businessmen decide to do it."
- Andrew Young
"A radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
"[He is] one of those persons who would be enormously improved by death."
- H.H. Munro
"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?"
- Abraham Lincoln
"Women are like elephants to me. I like to look at them but I wouldn't want to
own one."
- W.C. Fields
"Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid."
- Hedy Lamarr, actress and frequency-
hopping torpedo guidance system co-
inventor and patent holder (really)
"Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled."
- Jeff Valdez
"Marriage is really tough because you have to deal with feelings and lawyers."
- Richard Pryor
"I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury."
- George Burns
"Organized crime in America takes in over $40 billion a year and spends very
little on office supplies."
- Woody Allen
"I believe that people would be alive today if there were a death penalty."
- Nancy Reagan
"You know you're getting old when you notice how young the derelicts are
getting."
- Jeanne Phillips
"I was going to buy a copy of 'The Power of Positive Thinking,' and then I
thought: what the hell good would that do?"
- Ronnie Shakes
"Only Irish Coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and fat."
- Alex Levine
"The trouble with heart disease is that the first sympton is often hard to deal
with: sudden death."
- Michael Phelps, M.D.
"After a year in therapy, my psychiatrist said to me, 'Maybe life isn't for
everyone.'"
- Larry Brown
"Whatever their other contributions to our society, lawyers could be an
important source of protein."
- Guindon
"Nothing is wrong in Southern California that a rise in the ocean level
wouldn't cure."
- Ross MacDonald
"Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel from
coast to coast without seeing anything."
- Charles Kuralt
"They used to photograph Shirley Temple through gauze. They should photograph
me through linoleum."
- Tallulah Bankhead
"Television enables you to be entertained in your home by people you wouldn't
have in your home."
- David Frost
"A conservative is a man who wants the rules changed so no one can make a pile
the way he did."
- Gregory Nunn
"Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve
everything they've stolen."
- Mort Sahl
"If the Republicans will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop
telling the truth about them."
- Adlai Stevenson
"In America, anyone can become President. That's one of the risks you take."
- Adlai Stevenson
"I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency,
even if I'm in a cabinet meeting."
- Ronald Reagan
"There is no distinctly American criminal class -- except Congress."
- Mark Twain
"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception."
- Groucho Marx
"The optimist proclaims we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the
pessimist fears this is true."
- James Branch Cabell
"Specialists are people who always repeat the same mistakes."
- Walter Gropius
"Television -- a medium. So called because it is neither rare nor well done."
- Ernie Kovacs
"If you can't say anything good about someone, sit right here by me."
- Alice Roosevelt Longworth
"You know you're getting old when you notice how young the derelicts are
getting."
- Jeanne Phillips
"Science may never come up with a better office communication system
than the coffee break."
- Earl Wilson
"The best safety device on a car is a rear view mirror with a policeman in it."
- Gil Stern
"Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists."
- John Kenneth Galbraith
"The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the stupidity of
your action."
- A. Kindsvater
"ALL IS DISCOVERED. FLY AT ONCE."
- Telegram sent by Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle to twelve prominent men.
According to Doyle, they all left
the country within 24 hours.
"WHY UNNEWS?"
"UNNEWS GOOD NEWS."
"UNNEWS UNJOB."
- Exchange of telegrams between
newspaper editor and reporter
["un" -- meaning "no" -- was used
to save the cost of one word]
"GRAVE POSSIBILITY WAR WITHIN FEW WEEKS OR DAYS IF THIS HAPPENS POSTPONEMENT
REVUE INEVITABLE AND ANNIHILATION OF US ALL PROBABLE."
- Noel Coward, in a telegram to his
business manager, 1939
WILLIAM FORREST
CAPETOWN
SENT $400. PLEASE ACCOUNT.
ACCOUNTS DEPT.
NEWS CHRONICLE
NEWS CHRONICLE
ACCOUNTS DEPT.
RECEIVED $400. SPENT $400. REGARDS.
FORREST
"HOW OLD CARY GRANT?" - Cable from magazine editor to agent
"OLD CARY GRANT JUST FINE." - Agent's response
"STREETS FULL OF WATER. PLEASE ADVISE."
- Cable from H.L. Mencken to The New
Yorker upon arrival in Venice
"POST SURROUNDED BY LIONS AND TIGERS." - Cable from District Officer to Cairo
"THERE ARE NO TIGERS IN AFRICA." - Cairo to District Officer
"DELETE TIGERS." - District Officer to Cairo
Teachers'
Head Goes
Off to Jail
- Headline, Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Missionary risked dysentery and bigamy
in eight day trip to Nigerian villages
- Headline, The (Gainesville) Times
Two Hold Up
Dunkin' Donuts,
Flea With $176
- Headline, New Haven Register
Seven Road Deaths
in Vermont, But
Good Times Abound
Everywhere
- Headline, Rutland (VT) Herald
Home where 7 died in fire called 'unsafe'
- Headline, The Boston Globe
Nuclear Artillery Shell
Dropped From Budget
- Headline, The New York Times
Aquino Board Ejects
Communist Leader
From Witness Stand
- Headline, The New York Times
U's food service
feeds thousands,
grosses millions
- Headline, The Minnesota Daily
Bomb tossed in Rome
-------------------
Blast shatters ITT
office in New York
- Headline, The (Dallas) Times-Herald
Pair Charged
With Battery
- Headline, The Denver Post
DA Says Non-Profit Groups
May Operate Illegal Games
- Headline, Albequerque Journal
Pope Launches
Talks to End
Long Division
- Pomono Progress Bulletin
Businessmen leaping into space
- Headline, The Boston Globe
Doctor testifies in horse suit
- Headline, Waterbury (CT) Republican
Pope Raps Reagan
On Nuclear Arms
- Headline, The New York Times
NIXON TO SEEK
LUNCH MONEY
- Headline, New Orleans Times-Picayune
Mrs. Collins
Burned at Dump
- Headline, Wiscasset (Maine) Newspaper
CIA Reportedly Sought to Destroy Domestic Flies
- Headline, San Francisco Chronicle
1/10/75
Hirohito Dead, Joins Hitler in Hell
- Headline, Everett, Massachusetts,
Leader Herald-News Gazette, 1989
Planes must clear mountains first
Crash prompts change in rules
- Headline, Rocky Mountain News
2/6/75
Beating Witness
Provides Names
- Headline, Quad-City Times
(Davenport, IA) 8/2/78
WAR DIMS HOPES FOR PEACE
- Headline, Wisconsin State Journal
12/27/65
Milk Drinkers Turn to Powder
- Headline, Detroit Free Press
11/12/74
Complaints about NBA referees growing ugly
- Headline, Chicago Sun-Times
5/23/79
Stud tires out
- Headline, Ridgewood (NJ) News
3/30/78
Lawmen from Mexico
Barbecue Guests
- Headline, San Benito (Tex.) News
9/17/75
Kid's pajamas
to be removed
by Woolworth
- Headline, Greenwich Time
5/18/77
LBJ Giving Bull
To Mexican People
- Headline, Cincinnati Enquirer
4/16/68
Statistics on women
Some good and some bad
- Headline, Women in Communications
2/76
Difference between day and night
found on tour of Torrington schools
- Headline, Torrington (CT) Register
5/19/77
People should
evacuate
when gas odor
present
- Headline, The (Ottowa) Citizen
3/26/75
Lucky Man Sees Pals Die
- Headline, The News-American (Balt.)
4/4/78
Child teaching
expert to speak
- Headline, Birmingham Post-Herald
3/28/77
Man Robs,
Then Kills
Himself
- Headline, The Washington Post
12/19/75
About Jim Fiebig
For readers who have been wondering
about the Jim Feibig column, he has
stopped writing it.-Ed.
- The Indianapolis Star
7/25/78
New Vaccine May Contain Rabies
- Headline, Daily Press (Newport News)
5/1/78
Nixon To Stand Pat On Watergate Tapes
- Headline, Indianapolis Star
5/8/74
Albany Turns
To Garbage
- Headline, New York Daily News
10/3/77
Former man dies in California
- Headline, Fremont County Chronicle
News, 2/13/75
Mauling By Bear Leaves
Woman Grateful for Life
- Headline, The Herald Dispatch
(Huntington, WV) 9/8/77
Lie Detector Tests Unreliable, Unconstitutional Hearing Told
- Headline, The Hartford Courant
11/16/77
SCSC Graduates Blind Senior Citizen
- Headline, Journal Inquirer
(Manchester, CT) 5/24/76
Marion freed after 81-day ordeal
- Headline, Ottowa Journal, 10/28/77
82-day ordeal over
- The (Ottowa) Citizen, 10/28/77
After 83 days, Marion safe
- Ottowa Today, 10/28/77
Free Postage for Slaying Flyers
- Headline, The Daily Tribune
(Royal Oak, MI) 6/14/78
Crisis Held Over at Nuclear Plant
- Headline, Worcester (MA) Telegram
4/10/79
FTC Dogs Used Cars
- Headline, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
4/25/77
Lot of Women Distressing
- Headline, Spokane Daily Chronicle
7/4/75
Carter plans
swell deficit
- Headline, The Tribune (Houston)
3/17/77
Firebombing Jury Takes Weekend Off
- Headline, The Hartford Courant
1/31/76
Sneak Attack by Soviet Bloc Not Foreseen
- Headline, The Atlanta Journal
4/4/79
Farmer
Bill Dies
In House
- Headline, The Atlanta Constitution
4/13/78
DNR Hunt Survey
to Question Dogs
- Headline, The Milwaukee Journal
2/18/77
By then, she will have shed 80 of the
240 pounds she weighed in with when
she entered Peter Bent Brigham hospi-
tal obesity program. A third of her left
behind!
- The Boston Herald American
7/7/77
Bond issue is readied
for city incinerator
- Headline, The Berkshire Eagle
(Pittsfield, MA) 10/21/78
Kissinger allegedly
forges Mideast pact
- Headline, The Houston Post
8/25/75
Dead Expected To Rise
- Headline, The Macon (GA) News
8/11/76
Robber Holds Up
Albert's Hosiery
- Headline, Buffalo Evening News
9/19/75
Caribbean islands drift to left
- Headline, The (Cleveland) Plain
Dealer 7/26/76
Ford, Reagan Neck in
Presidential Primary
- Headline, Ethiopian Herald
2/24/76
Village burning said illegal
- Headline, The Lincoln (NE) Star
8/25/78
Juvenile court to try
shooting defendant
- Headline, Deseret News (Salt Lake
City, UT) 10/24/75
Bankrupt association
termed in poor shape
- Headline, Lawrence (KS) Journal-
World 7/12/77
Computer center turns on students
- Headline, The Daily Transcript
(Dedham, MA) 1/10/75
PET-DOG, 3, BITES ITS
MASTER, 35, TO DEATH
- Headline, Daily Times (Lagos,
Nigeria) 8/1/73
Police
Can't Stop
Gambling
- Headline, Detroit Free Press
7/1/75
7:30 P.M. Ch. 5--PM MAGAZINE. Featured:
Restaurants that will, for a small fee,
bring you breakfast in bed and Lou Fer-
rigno, the Incredible Hulk.
- The Atlanta Journal and Constitution
2/17/79
Deer Kill 130,000
- Headline, The Minneapolis Tribune
12/7/67
Shut-Ins Can Grow
Indoors With Lights
- Headline, The Miami Herald
7/21/78
Town OKs
Animal Rule
- Headline, The Asheville (SC) Citizen
3/2/77
School Board Agrees
to Discuss Education
- Headline, Philidelphia Evening
Bulletin 10/8/74
14 Are Indicted
On Obscure-Film Charge
- Headline, The New York Times
2/7/77
Silent Teamster gets cruel punishment: Lawyer
- Headline, The Home News (Brunswick,
NJ) 12/15/75
New Book Out By
Former Writer
- Headline, The Main Line Times
(Ardmore, PA) 5/20/76
Drunk gets
nine months
in violin case
- Headline, The Lethbridge Herald
10/30/76
SUSPECT HELD IN KILLING
OF REPORTER FOR VARIETY
- Headline, The New York Times
9/24/77
Woman better after being thrown from high-rise
- Headline, Chicago Daily News
9/27/76
Teller Stuns Man
With Stolen Check
- Headline, The (Philadelphia) Evening
Bulletin 11/18/75
by lack of gravity
Skylab crew disoriented
- Headline, Chicago Sun-Times
11/21/73
Less Mishaps
Than Expected
Mar Holiday
- Headline, The Missoulian
12/28/76
4 Indicted
Into Military
Hall of Honor
- Headline, Alabama Journal
4/23/76
Wives Kill
Most Spouses
In Chicago
- Headline, Florida Times-Union
9/8/77
Police union to seek blinding arbitration
- Headline, The (Groton, CT) News
2/2/78
The President said the material he was making
available should end, once and for all, speculation
about his role in Watergate. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
- The Standard-Times (New Bedford,
MA) 4/30/74
Carl Viking Holman,
perennial loser, dies
- Headline, Wenatchee (Wash.) World
5/27/77
Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures
- Headline, Daily Sun/Post (San
Clemente, CA) 1/17/77
For president or other leader
FBI has plans to handle
any future assassination
- Headline, the Wenatchee (Wash.)
World 11/11/78
THANKS TO PRESIDENT NIXON,
STAFF SGT. FRYER NOW HAS A SON
- Headline, First Monday (Republican
National Committee) 5/1/72
Owners of all dogs in the city of
Metropolis are required to be on a
chain or in a fenced in area.
- Metropolis (IL) Planet
9/20/73
Bar trying
to help
alcoholic
lawyers
- Headline, The Seattle Times
3/11/77
Scientists are at loss due
to brain-eating amoeba
- Headline, The Arizona Republic
10/5/78
Indian Ocean talks
- Headline, The (Cleveland) Plain
Dealer 10/5/77
Tuna Biting Off Washington Coast
- Headline, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
8/3/79
Corcoran to nuke subcommittee
- Headline, The (Ottowa) Daily Times
2/7/79
OVERSEAS USE MUSHROOMS
U.S. Pill Use Is Decreasing
- Headline, The Indianapolis Star
1/23/79
Police Kill Man With Ax
- Headline, The Charlotte Observer
11/27/76
Solar system expected
to be back in operation
- Headline, Libertyville (IL) Herald
3/15/78
Paratroopers look for Droppings in N.W.T.
- Headline, Yellowknife (N.W.T., Canada)
News of the North 3/26/70
Rosemary Hall
Gets New Head
- Headline, The Hatrford Courant
6/6/75
Connie Tied, Nude
Policeman Testifies
- Headline, Atlanta Journal
6/17/76
Shouting Match Ends Teacher's Hearing
- Headline, Newsday
7/31/77
Branch Avenue Bridge
To Be Fixed Before Fall
- Headline, Providence Evening
Bulletin 8/8/74
Squad helps dog
bite victim
- Headline, Grant County (WI) Herald
Independent 4/29/76
Defective show
unofficially starts
new TV season
- Headline, Toronto Star
8/24/79
Iran executes 7 more,
cancels scholarships
- Headline, Chicago Tribune
7/27/79
Nicaragua sets goal
to wipe out literacy
- Headline, The Boston Globe
10/1/79
Accused
pair of
wire
cutters
arraigned
- Headline, Yakima (WA) Herald
Republic 11/19/79
G.A.O. STUDY ASSERTS
THAT OIL COMPANIES
WORSENED SHORTAGE
- Headline, The New York Times
9/14/79
GAO Says Oil Firms
Aren't to Be Blamed
For Recent Shortage
- Headline, The Wall Street Journal
9/14/79
Power Outrage Hits
- Headline, Silver City (NM) Daily
Press 12/22/79
All Utah Condemned
To Face Firing Squad
- Headline, The Washington Post
3/9/80
Doe Season Start Called Success;
Four Hunters Stricken in Woods
- Headline, Williamsport (PA) Sun-
Gazette 12/11/79
0- 9 20 AM EST DEC 6-79
SHAH WANTS TO LEASE U.S.
BUT HAS NO IMMEDIATE PLAN-
- Dow Jones newswire, 12/6/79
Literarcy week observed
- Headline, Brandenberg, KY Messenger
9/4/85
Never Withhold
Herpes Infection
From Loved One
- Headline, Albequerque Journal
12/26/84
All-Stars turn on sparse crowd
- Headline, The Southfield Eccentric
(Birmingham, MI) 8/11/83
Dartmouth Names
Computer Vice Provost
- Headline, Valley News (White River
Jct., VT) 3/10/86
More of us will live to be centurions
- Headline, The Times Reporter
(Dover-New Phil., OH) 2/11/87
Reader is upset over dog eating Filipinos
- Headline, The Wayne County Outlook
(Monticello, KY) 2/25/82
Hunter Dies;
Deer Count
Holds Steady
- Headline, Daily News-Record
(Harrisonburg, VA) 11/18/82
Man Is Seized in Burglaries
By Use of a Pool Skimmer
- Headline, The New York Times
8/25/85
Correction
The band Raging Saint base
their music on born-again Chris-
tian principles. They are not "un-
repentant headbangers," as report-
ed in the Night life column last
Friday.
- Austin American-Statesman
3/10/87
Police brutality postponed
- Headline, The Mishawaka (IN)
Enterprise 10/1/81
3 U.S. firms bomb
targets in Spain
- Headline, Chicago Sun-Times
1/6/86
Reagan goes
for juggler
in Midwest
- Headline, The Charleston (WV)
Gazette 11/3/84
Morality rates lower
than normal at Mobil
- Gloucester County Times (Woodbury, NJ)
6/10/85
Police said they had to bring him to the
ground twice before they confiscated the pistol
from a pants leg.
"I would describe it as hairy," said Sgt.
Lou Daliso who, with Officer Tom Green, wrestled
the suspect.
- The Reporter Dispatch (White Plains,
NY) 3/15/81
Defendant's speech ends in long sentence
- Headline, Minneapolis Tribune
2/25/81
Mondale's offensive looks hard to beat
- Headline, Anchorage Times
12/23/83
Kicking Baby Considered to Be Healthy
- Headline, The Burlington (VT) Free
Press 9/18/80
British left
waffles on
Falklands
- Headline, The Guardian
4/28/82
Silver Objects Often Taken --
Police Units Seek Pattern
- Headline, The New York Times
2/16/86
How to combat that feeling of
helplessness with illegal drugs
- Headline, The (Bermuda) Royal
Gazette 5/9/85
Belfast man
charged for
Harrods bomb
- Headline, Chicago Tribune
3/23/84
Fried chicken cooked
in microwave wins trip
- Headline, The (Portland) Oregonian
7/8/81
Air Force considers dropping some new weapons
- Headline, New Orleans Times-Picayune
5/22/83
U.S. banks wrestle with Argentine deb
- Headline, Duluth News-Tribune &
Herald 3/29/84
Health officials warn some meningitis non-fatal
- Headline, Port Arthur (TX) News
7/3/83
Prison warden says inmates may have 3 guns
- Headline, The Idaho Statesman
1/11/85
Sharks Stop Search for Span Collapse Victims
- Headline, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
5/11/80
19 Feet
Broken in
Pole Vault
- Headline, Wichita (KS) Eagle-Beacon
6/21/81
Johnson
Teacher Talks
Very Slow
- Headline, Indianapolis News
8/9/82
Henshaw Offers
Rare Opportunity
To Goose Hunters
- Headline, San Diego Union
12/25/80
Would she climb to top of Mr. Everest again? Absolutely!
- Headline, Houston Chronicle
12/8/80
Gates asks
Reagan to
recall name
- Headline, Daily Iowan
3/3/87
Sandinistan defends regime in Sioux Falls
- Headline, Richmond Times-Dispatch
3/16/84
Babies are what the mother eats
- Headline, The Times-Herald (Newport
News, VA) 7/11/84
Man shot in back,
head found in street
- Headline, Worthington, MN Daily
Globe 12/8/84
Westinghouse Gives
Robot Rights to Firm
- Headline, The Washington Post
6/12/87
Flier to duplicate Miss Earhart's fatal flight
- Headline, The New Jersey Herald
1/9/84
Garden Grove resident
naive, foolish judge says
- Headline, Orange County (CA) Register
7/2/85
Crowds Rushing To See
Pope Trample 6 To Death
- Headline, Journal Star (Peoria, IL)
7/9/80
Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge
- Headline, Milford (CT) Citizen
7/12/82
Give the Palestinians
a homeland -- Ottowa
- Headline, Toronto Star
7/31/82
Threatened by gun,
employees testify
- Headline, The Messenger (Athens, OH)
6/19/84
Dishonesty
policy voted
in by Senate
- Headline, Ball State Daily News
2/8/85
'Mild' fertility drug produces quadruplets in 3 minutes
- Headline, The (Santa Fe) New Mexican
6/14/81
Religion Plays Major Part
In the Message of Easter
- Headline, Omaha World Herald
4/22/84
Here's How You Can Lick Doberman's Leg Sores
- Headline, Reading (PA) Eagle
5/23/82
Obscenity Should
Include Violence
- Headline, The Asheville (NC) Times
3/21/84
Youths
steal funds
for charity
- Headline, The Reporter Dispatch
(White Plains, NY) 2/17/82
Baseball
Talks in
9th Inning
- Headline, Philadelphia Daily News
5/22/80
Sisters reunited after 18 years
in checkout line at supermarket
- Headline, Arkansas Democrat
9/29/83
Exploding Commode Floods Poland
-
A toilet pipe that blew up "like a
fire hydrant" shot ankle-deep water
across the seventh floor of Poland
Hall at about 9 last night.
- College Heights Herald (Bowling
Green, KY) 10/8/85
Eye drops off shelves
- Headline, Tri-City Herald (Pasco,
WA) 8/5/82
TV Trashy, Right Wing
Mediocre, Says Sociologist
- Headline, Berkeleyan (U. of CA)
3/27/85
Perhaps the cruelest tragedy
in the death yesterday of James
E. Dever is that had it happened
a few minutes later, he might
still be alive.
- Daily Local News (Chester County,
PA) 1/9/85
Watt says environmentalists like Nazis
- Headline, The Oregonian
1/21/83
SHUTTLE PASSES TEST;
A WORKER IS KILLED
- Headline, The New York Times
3/20/81
Sharon to press his suit in Israel
- Headline, East Oregonian
1/25/85
Dismemberment killer convicted
"Thank God the jury could put the pieces
together." -- Solicitor Jim Andrews
- Headline, Brockton, MA Enterprise
8/9/85
Buildings sway from San Francisco to L.A.
- Headline, The Cleveland Press
5/27/80
Cause of AIDS
found--scientists
- Headline, The Sacramento Union
4/24/84
Prince Andrew takes Koo peasant hunting in Scotland
- Headline, The Atlanta Journal and
Constitution 11/28/82
Potential witness
to murder drunk
- Headline, Adirondack Daily
Enterprise 1/17/85
More Dogs Bring Complaints
- Headline, Martinsburg, WV Evening
Journal 10/17/84
Research fans hope
for spinal injuries
- Headline, The Vancouver Sun
7/23/86
Kontakis is found guilty
of murdering wife
after brief deliberation
- Headline, Somerset (NJ) Spectator
10/17/85
French offer terrorist reward
- Headline, The Denver Post
11/20/86
Nation's Economy A Mystery, Spaghetti Costlier
- Headline, Winchester (IN) News-
Gazette 6/21/85
Man minus ear waives hearing
- Headline, Jackson (TN) Sun
5/26/85
There is something more boring
than baseball...Ellen Goodman's
column, Page A-11
- Roanoke (VA) Times & World-News
7/23/81
Police kill
man with
TV tuner
- Headline, The Blade-Tribune
(Oceanside, CA) 6/3/86
Excess of vitamins
harmful, expensive
specialist warns
- Headline, London Free Press
(Ontario, Canada) 6/22/80
Half of U.S. High
Schools Require Some
Study for Graduation
- Headline, Los Angeles Times
8/10/81
'Nagging' wife critical
after hammer attack
- Headline, Trenton (NJ) Times
9/2/82
Police Discover
Crack in Australia
- Headline, International Herald
Tribune 9/10/86
Canadian economist feels
rates have hit there peak
- Headline, The Calgary (Alberta)
Herald 4/14/80 (first edition)
Canadian economist feels
rates have hit thier peak
- Headline, The Calgary (Alberta)
Herald 4/14/80 (second edition)
Workers Accused of Selling Stamps To Be Burned
- Headline, High Point (NC) Enterprise
2/4/83
Dr. Ruth Talks About Sex
With Newspaper Editors
- Headline, Rutland (VT) Herald
4/14/86
Italian gunmen
shoot typsetter
by mistake
- Headline, The Philadelphia Inquirer
9/3/80
Residents were shocked each time their neighbors went on a murder spree
- Headline, San Francisco Chronicle
12/15/82
State speeding up welfare cheat checks
- Headline, Knickerbocker News
(Albany, NY) 1/14/82
Jerk Injures Neck, Wins Award
- Headline, The Buffalo News
4/6/83
Train Rolls 0 Miles
With No One Aboard
- Headline, The New York Times
FIRE OFFICIALS GRILLED
OVER KEROSENE HEATERS
- Headline, News Journal (Wilmington,
DE)
Steals Clock,
Faces Time
- Headline, New York Journal-American
GRILL SUSPECT
OVER BIG BLAZE
- Headline, Spokane Chronicle
Trial Testimony Ends
In Slaying of Judge
- Headline, New York Times
Do-it-yourself pregnancy kit to go on sale
- Headline, The Detroit News
Knowledge
Is Not Obscene,
Top Court Rules
- Headline, Tallahassee Democrat
Manchester
Man Bursts,
Halts Traffic
- Headline, Hartford Times
Skeleton Tied
To Missing
Diplomat
- Headline, Philadelphia Evening
Bulletin
Three Clinics Assure Poor
Services Will Be Provided
- Headline, Washington Post
STORM CHERBOURG, CITY ABLAZE
- New York Daily News, 7/3/44
YANKS HIT CHERBOURG IN FLAMING FINALE
- New York Daily News, 7/4/44
YANKS STORM CHERBOURG FROM THREE SIDES
- New York Daily News, 7/5/44
YANK BAYONETS SLASH PATH INTO CHERBOURG
- New York Daily News, 7/6/44
YANKS STORM CHERBOURG'S LAST HEIGHTS
- New York Daily News, 7/7/44
CHERBOURG IS OURS
- New York Daily News, 7/8/44
Poet doesn't want audience of illerates
- Headline, Raleigh Times
Four More Newspapers Switch to Offset;
Conversion Is Not Always Soomth
- Headline, Kansas Publisher
Math Improvement Indicates
Learning Is Tied To Teaching
- Headline, The New York Times
Senate Passes
Death Penalty
-------------
MEASURE PROVIDES FOR
ELECTROCUTION FOR
ALL PERSONS OVER 17
- Headline, Lansing State Journal
TWO CONVICTS EVADE
NOOSE; JURY HUNG
- Headline, Oakland Tribune
Scent Foul Play in Death of
Man Found Bound and Hanged
- Headline, Toledo Times
Hospitals
Are Sued
By 7 Foot
Doctors
- Headline, Providence Journal
Israel's invasion
starts talk of war
- Headline, Portland (Maine) Press
Herald
12 Killed
By the AP
- Headline, Syracuse Herald American
Man shot while hunting
remains in hospital
- Headline, Woodbridge (NJ) News
Tribune
7 die as foods hit northeast U.S.
- Headline, Rocky Mountain News
20 Pound Killer Monk
Destroyed by ASPCA
- Headline, Morristown (NJ) Daily
Record
Hollander appointed
to goose committee
- Headline, Fond du Lac Reporter
ANTIBUSING RIDER
KILLED BY SENATE
- Headline, The New York Times
Six Sentenced to Life in Clarksville
- Headline, Nashville Banner
Gorillas vow to
kill Khomeini
- Headline, Valley Independent
(Monessen, PA)
Ease the pain
Senate passes gas bill
- Headline, The (Nacogdoches, TX)
Daily Sentinel
Man shot to death
in Cavalier Manor
- Headline, Virginian-Pilot
MAN BOOKED FOR
WRECKLESS DRIVING
- Headline, Baton Rouge State Times
Capital Punishment Bill
Called 'Death Oriented'
- Headline, Los Angeles Daily Journal
HEADLESS BLONDE
FOUND IN THAMES
- Headline, Chicago Tribune
WINSTED STOVE BUSINESS
DAMAGED BY STOVE FIRE
- Headline, The Hartford Courant
Shot Off Woman's Leg
Helps Nicklaus To 66
- Headline, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Deadline Passes
For Striking Police
- Headline, Indianapolis News
Oil, Gas Shortages
Keys to Energy Crisis
- Headline, Lebanon (NH) Valley News
ENGINEERS TO HEAR
DIESEL TALK
- Headline, The New York Times
Despite Some Looting, Westchester Weathered Looting Well
- Headline, The New York Times
New Bar Exam
to Include Test
of Legal Skills
- Headline, Los Angeles Times
MICROCOMPUTER
PIRACY FINE
- Headline, The New York Times
Cabbies cash in on Polish yen for $$
- Headline, The Washington Times
MEN, WOMEN: We're still different
- Headline, USA Today
Smoking Chief Cause
of Fire Deaths Here
- Headline, The New York Times
Surgery in Heavy Seas
Follows Dash by Cutter
- Headline, The New York Times
2 Teen-Agers Indicted
For Drowning in Lake
- Headline, The New York Times
Sewer input sought
- Headline, The Flathead Courier
(Polson, MT)
SANTA MONICA, Calif (AP) -- Actress Raquel Welch, 31, was
granted interlocutory divorce decree Thursday from her gusband
of nearly four years, film producer Patrick Curtis.
She burst into tears while testifying of her "irreconcila
d ii np iiffern
bust bust bust
- Associated Press newswire
JONES WAS ARRESTED ON THE ROOFTOP OF THE HOLIDAY
INN MOTEL IN DOWNTOWN PORTLAND MONDAY AFTER A SNIPER
FIRED DOZENS OF SHOTS INTO THE STREETS BELOW. ONE
POLICEMAN WAS HIT IN THE CHEST BUT SAVED BY HIS
BULLET-RESISTANT CHEST.
- United Press International newswire
A completely automated
typesetting system, deve-
loped and put into opera-
tion nwtih the cooperation
of the typographical union,
w asdemonstra eteydsterday
b yThe Composing Room,
Inc., a printing company at
387 Park Avenue.
- The New York Times
With the exception of victimless
crimes (which need not concern us
here), every single crime committed
in this nation of ours involves a
victim.
- San Francisco Chronicle
A BAILIFF HEARD A TICKING NOISE WHILE AN INDIANA PATHOLOGIST,
DR. JOHN PLESS, WAS TESTIFYING. THE COURTROOM WAS CLEARED AND
THE CLICKING WAS TRACED TO A NOISY DUCK UNDER THE JUDGE'S BENCH.
- Associated Press Indiana State
Radio Wire
NIGHT LEAD
ATLANTIC CITY (UPI) -- A KNIGHT NEWSPAPERS, INC. EXECUTIVE SAID
MONDAY NOTHING CONTRIBUTES TO LOSS OF READER FAITH SO MUCH AS COMMON,
OFTEN MECHANICAL ERRORS.
-
1ST LEAD 292B AND CORRECT
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (UPI) -- THE PRESIDENT OF THE GANNETT NEWSPAPER
CHAIN SAID MONDAY NOTHING CONTRIBUTES TO LOSS OF READER FAITH SO MUCH
AS COMMON, OFTEN MECHANICAL ERRORS.
- United Press International newswire
Hoge sees himself as one of a
vanishing breed.
"There really aren't but five
bear hunters I can think of in
the whole of Bland County," he
says sadly as he fills his gun
with chewing tobacco.
- Charlottesville (VA) Daily Progress
WHAT'S DOING
------------
Monday
Nothing scheduled.
Radio
Nothing scheduled.
TV
Nothing scheduled.
- Pasadena Star-News
Cambodia has launched a crash
program to train more pilots.
- Newsweek
Passengers in several lifeboats
sank to pass the time.
- Boston Globe
After a routine FAA inspection,
Munz airlines has temporarily
grounded their fleet. Apparently,
service has not been affected.
- Fairbanks Tundra Times
WASHINTON (AP) -- Former
Mice President Spiro T. Egnew
drew applause when he arrived
at a local sports arena for a
concert by singer Frank Sinatra.
- Richmond (VA) News-Leader
TV LISTINGS:
7:00 PM (4) Policital: Daniel J. Evans
for Governor. Paid policital broadcast.
(Local preemption of To Tell The Truth.)
- Seattle Times
KILL 11-1
BULLETIN KILL
EDITORS:
KILL FLYNN NEW YORK 299A. FLYNN IS NOT DEAD.
UPI NEW YORK
UPI 11-01 09:14 PES
- United Press International newswire
RHODE ISLAND SENATOR JOHN PASTORE SAYS THE NAVY HAS ALMOST
COMPLETELY WIPED OUT MASSACHUSETTS AND RHODE ISLAND.
- Associated Press New England Radio
newswire
MIAMI, Fla.-Albert Cox, embezzler,
endorsed checks for $90,299.77 last
year. For nine months he played the
daily double, sipped dry martinis,
dallied with expensive prostitutes,
flew first class city to city, and
spent the rest foolishly.
- Boston Evening Globe
Einstein said, "A clock in motion keeps
time more slowly than one that is moving."
- San Francisco Chronicle
Then, just for kicks, John
Kazian walks along the top
wing at speeds approaching
200 miles per hour.
- Milwaukee Sentinel
Police Officer Bill Avery
relied on intuitive judgement
when he exposed himself to
an armed suspect who had
abducted two children. The
gamble paid off when the man
surrendered.
- Arlington Citizen Journal
A hand grenade was discovered and later
successfully detonated at McDonald's Res-
taurant late Friday night.
The device, according to Kinston police
reports, turned out to be a dud.
- Kinston (NC) Daily Free Press
Baron, 51, a former Illinois resident,
was accused of wire and mail fraud and
of understanding his gross income on a
1974 federal income tax return.
- The Washington Post
The macadamia was named for Dr. John
MacAdam, an enthusiastic scientist who
promoted the nut in its native Australia,
and was dubbed "the perfect nut" by
Luther Burbank.
- The Los Angeles Herald Examiner
HOROSCOPE:
Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) - You
do well to shape erry wilder 10-1
P2 your course around existing
materials; otherwise, frustrations
result.
- Grand Rapids (MI) Express
"The reason nothing has been
done is because no one has made
any effort to do anything about
it," said one transportation
official.
- The Washington Post
Deaf viewers with the signal
decoding device will see the
picture with the captions; to
others the TV picture will
appear exactly as it does not.
- The Boston Globe
Mussels give up a good deal of their own
liquor as they cook and this is one of the
finest broths known to any cook. Or to
anyone who dies on them.
- The Sunday Cape Cod Times
Meanwhile, the Commerce
Department's report on dur-
able goods was seen as an
encouraging sign that the
economy may finally be end-
ing.
- Post-Register (Idaho Falls)
Our paper carried the notice last week
that Mr. Herman Ogle is a defective in
the police force. This was a typograph-
ical error. Mr. Jones is, of course, a
detective in the police farce.
- Ootlewah (TN) Times
The book is nicely printed and contains
few typographical errors; however, it is
strange that the proo readers should rave
permitted "Lay on MacDuff" to come out
"Law on MacDuff."
- Fairmont West Virginian
Q - I was recently given a bottle
of walnut oil. I have no notion of
what to do with it. Can you tell
me?
A - A few drops applied with a
soft, lint-free cloth every three
months will, in all but the most
stubborn cases, effectively prevent
your walnuts from squeaking.
- The New York Times
"Hawaii is a unique state. It is a small state. It is a state that
is all by itself. It is a -- it is different than the other 49
states. Well, all the states are different, but it's got a
particularly unique situation."
- J. Danforth Quayle, on Hawaii's
universal health care program
AUGUSTA, MAINE (UPI) -- THE PRESIDENT OF BANGOR'S STUDENT TEACHER
ASSOCIATION HAS TOLD THE LEGISLATIVE EDUCATION COMMITTEE A
QUESTIONNAIRE DISTRIBUTED TO BANGOR TEACHERS SHOWED THAT MANY
USED CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN MAINTAINING ORDER IN THEIR CLASSROOMS.
- United Press International radio wire
Brown told the group he'll be
in his office now "burning the
midnight oil from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m."
- San Bernardino Sun
Entire contents © 1995-2003 by Mike Harney. World rights reserved. Steve Allen, this means you.