Subject: 1993 Moriarty Quote List [Corrected 1992 List, Part 5 of 11] Message-ID: <1993May10.035302.21900@tc.fluke.COM> Keywords: Acres O' Quotes Organization: The Institute for Criminal Science, Gizmonics Control References: <1993May10.032105.21262@tc.fluke.COM> <1993May10.035215.21830@tc.fluke.COM> Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 03:53:02 GMT Lines: 1846 SELECTIONS from ECLECTIC MUSIC SURVEY #4: Alphaville "Sentimental favorite of billions of US high school kids who chose `Forever Young' as a class theme song." -- Lazlo Nibble ---- SELECTIONS from ECLECTIC MUSIC SURVEY #4: Alphaville "Pretty boys with pretty synthesizers and misplaced feelings for drama." -- Wingerde van FJ ---- SELECTIONS from ECLECTIC MUSIC SURVEY #4: AC/DC "Perhaps the world's most boring heavy metal band." -- rmiller@sbcs.sunysb.edu ---- SELECTIONS from ECLECTIC MUSIC SURVEY #4: AC/DC "Eternal adolescents of Australian metal. Actually quite enjoyable if you turn off your brain." -- sco!martyst@ucscc.UCSC.EDU ---- Hardware: The parts of a computer system that can be kicked. [From an amusing computer glossary e-mailed to me] ---- Machine-independent program: A program that will not run on any machine. [From an amusing computer glossary e-mailed to me] ---- Meeting: An assembly of computer experts coming together to decide what person or department not represented in the room must solve the problem. [From an amusing computer glossary e-mailed to me] ---- Office Automation: The use of computers to improve efficiency in the office by removing anyone you would want to talk with over coffee. [From an amusing computer glossary e-mailed to me] ---- Pascal: A programming language named after a man who would turn over in his grave if he knew about it. [From an amusing computer glossary e-mailed to me] ---- ADA: Something you need to know the name of to be an Expert in Computing. Useful in sentences like, "We had better develop an ADA awareness." [From an amusing computer glossary e-mailed to me] ---- Performance: A statement of the speed at which a computer system works. Or rather, might work under certain circumstances. Or was rumored to be working over in Jersey about a month ago. [From an amusing computer glossary e-mailed to me] ---- Regression analysis: Mathematical techniques for trying to understand why things are getting worse. [From an amusing computer glossary e-mailed to me] ---- Strategy: A long-range plan whose merit cannot be evaluated until sometime after those creating it have left the organization. [From an amusing computer glossary e-mailed to me] ---- "My name's Johnny Nemo, and I'm a bastard. No. Wait. Let me rephrase that. I'm a bastard, and my name's Johnny Nemo." [From the adventures of JOHNNY NEMO.] ---- "It's not brain surgery. It's not nuclear physics. It's television. It's only television." -- Linda Ellerbee ---- What do lawyers use for birth control? Their personalities. -- Nolo Press ---- "I must admit I kept having this vision of Worf standing over the dead body of Q, and saying, `Whoa. Well, *I'm* convinced.'" -- Peter David ---- "If the Old Man blows by you in his weird sports car, just wave at him." "Right. What kind of sport car?" "I can't pronounce it... but I think it's Italian for 'money.'" [Vinnie and Stem from WISEGUY] ---- "Do I have to take an oath or something?" "You swear to do what I tell you?" "I swear." "You've taken the oath." [Vinnie and Stem from WISEGUY] ---- "Oh, *very* clever, Worf. Eat any good books lately?" [Q from ST:TNG] ---- "I have never seen anyone eat 10 chocolate sundaes." "I'm in a REALLY bad mood." [Q from ST:TNG] ---- "You're right, of course. I'm extraordinarily selfish. But it has served me so well in the past." [Q from ST:TNG] ---- "I'm IMMORTAL again! OMNIPOTENT again!" "Swell." [Q from ST:TNG] ---- "Mom, it's Prohibition!" "Oh, shut up -- stop acting like a fag choir boy." [From JOHNNY DANGEROUSLY] ---- "They made it for him special. It's an .88 Magnum." "It shoots through schools." [From JOHNNY DANGEROUSLY] ---- "The `New Kids On The Block' this week posed for photographers with their new line of `New Kids On The Block' dolls. The dolls are incredibly lifelike and realistic except for one major difference: the dolls play their own instruments." -- Dennis Miller, SNL Weekend Update ---- "It's rumored that when the divorce becomes final, Mrs. Trump will leave the city and move back to Czechoslovakia for a simpler country life. When asked to comment on that rumor, Mrs. Trump said: `New York is where I'd rather stay; I get allergic smelling hay.'" -- Dennis Miller, SNL Weekend Update ---- "Nelson Mandella returned home this week, and within an hour, was yelling at his neighbors to keep it down." -- Dennis Miller, SNL Weekend Update ---- "Welcome to Bellevue, where Microsoft works on pull-down menus, and the highway department works on pop-up bridges." [Off the net] ---- "I-5, official parking lot of the Goodwill Games." [Off the net] ---- "It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea." -- Robert Anton Wilson ---- "I know what you mean. The show is so of the moment and so culture-locked that it doesn't have a really good shelf life, and my persona's the same way. CAN I be 'Ed the caretaker,' or whatever? I dunno. I do intend to waste some of Disney's money trying to find out." -- David Letterman ---- "I can say with confidence I know a fair bit about LSD." -- Dan Rather ---- "Actually the first fast-food franchise in the Soviet Union was supposed to be Taco Bell, but it was called off the Soviet officials heard the Taco Bell slogan: `RUN FOR THE BORDER!'" -- Jay Leno ---- "While he was in New York on location for BRONCO BILLY (1980), Clint Eastwood agreed to a television interview. His host, somewhat hostile, began by defining a Clint Eastwood picture as a violent, ruthless, lawless, and bloody piece of mayhem, and then asked Eastwood himself to define a Clint Eastwood picture. `To me,' said Eastwood calmly, `what a Clint Eastwood picture is, is one that I'm in.'" -- HOLLYWOOD ANECDOTES by Boller & Davis ---- "Nobody cuts off my nuptials and gets away with it!" [the BEETLEJUICE cartoon program] ---- "So-called Cardinal, I put it to you that you died in December 1642." "That is correct." "Ah ha! He fell for my little trap." [Monty Python's Inspector Dim of the Yard] ---- "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." -- H.L. Mencken ---- "The only really happy folk are married women and single men." -- H.L. Mencken ---- "I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would affront your intelligence." -- William F. Buckley, Jr. ---- "My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated, but never signed." -- Christopher Morley ---- "My father hated radio and could not wait for television to be invented so he could hate that too." -- Peter De Vries ---- "Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile." -- Albert Schweitzer ---- "The art of business is the art of making irrevocable decisions on the basis of inadequate information." -- Wallace B. Donham ---- "One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being." -- May Sarton ---- Selections from The Top 10 List Of Reasons Why ROLLING STONES Magazine Hates RUSH: 10. They don't have a 1-900- "Chat With Rush" line 9. They aren't a group of 3 ten-year-old middle school kids who ride skate boards and eat Happy Meals 8. They don't come on TV and tell you to vote 6. They don't write socially conscious songs that you can dance to -- Buck Dharma ---- "I'm the Descartes of anxiety. I panic, therefore I am." -- Richard Lewis ---- "Don't worry about feeling critically isolated. It builds character." [moi] ---- "Sir, I'll have you know that I cannot be bought and I cannot be threatened. But you put the two together and I'm your man." -- Norm Peterson ---- "I hear [Spielburg's] going to do a comedy based on Joseph Conrad's _Lord_Jim_ and call it 'Big White Guy'. There will be a few changes though. For example, the banana does NOT stick to the wall. And he's going to change the ending so that Jim is transported back into his own time thanks to a fortunate bolt of lightning." -- Shelley Louie ---- "Thus I send you back to your mortal realms! And you don't even have to put your eyes out for having gazed on us!" "Gosh, thanks." [From Bill Loebs' EPICURUS THE SAGE] ---- "Perhaps we can sneak by his ghastly retinue. The last thing we want is a terrible battle with the Undead." "Shit. That's why I came." [From Bill Loebs' EPICURUS THE SAGE] ---- "And what is the traditional method of succession to the throne of Macedonia?" "Generally, we smother our fathers with a pillow." [From Bill Loebs' EPICURUS THE SAGE] ---- "See that comely wench, yonder? She inflames me with desire. I could raise an army, breach the walls, put everyone to the sword and then carry her off to ravish at my pleasure!" "Actually, that's Goldie, the flower girl. You could just give her an obol. It would have the same effect." [From Bill Loebs' EPICURUS THE SAGE] ---- "*S*uper *H*eroes *I*n *E*spionage-*L*ike *D*rag?" "Nope. Hand over the five bucks." [DAMAGE CONTROL] ---- "Hey! Aren't you Nick Fury, the world-famous secret agent?" "Beat it, kid." [DAMAGE CONTROL] ---- "Broke into the WRONG GODDAMN REC ROOM, didn't you, YOU BASTARD!!" [TREMORS] ---- "My motto is: love like a poet, pray like a lawyer." -- Joe Kogel ---- "I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a book." -- Groucho Marx ---- "IMPIETY: Your irreverence towards my deity." -- Ambrose Bierce ---- "If God created us in his own image we have more than reciprocated." -- Voltaire ---- "My only aversion to vice, is the price." -- Victor Buono ---- "One should forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged." -- Heinrich Heine ---- "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin ---- "No, Vince... you carry enough." [A weary Frank McPike on WISEGUY] ---- "Rimmer, love is... love is what makes us different from animals." "No, Lister, what makes us different from animals is we don't use our tongues to clean our own genitals." [RED DWARF] ---- "The line between actually very serious and actually very funny is actually very thin." -- John Le Carre [THE RUSSIA HOUSE] ---- "This film is basically pro-humanity and anti-bad things and it rips aside the hypocritical facade of our society's gin and tonic and leaves a lot of sacred cows rolling around in agony, have a drink, have a drink." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "Pretty strong meat there from Longueur who is saying, of course, that ultimately materialism, in this case the Webb's Wonder lettuce, must destroy us all." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "I'll do what I like, because I'm six foot five and I eat punks like you for breakfast." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "But the village idiot's dirty smock and wall-falling are a far cry from the modern world of the urban idiot. What kinds of backgrounds do these city idiots come from?" "Eton, Sandhurst and the Guards, ha, ha, ha, ha." "Father was Home Secretary and mother won the Derby." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "Yes, we have quite a number of idiots banking here." "What kind of money is there in idioting?" "Well, nowadays a really blithering idiot can make anything up to ten thousand pounds a year -- if he's the head of some big industrial combine." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "That I don't know. I just don't know. I really just don't know. I'm afraid I really just don't know. I'm afraid even I really just don't know. I have to tell you I'm afraid even I really just don't know. I'm afraid I have to tell you..." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "There's a whole horde of them marauding Visogoths to see y'all." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "No, no, no -- it's spelt Raymond Luxury Yach-t, but it's pronounced `Throatwobbler Mangrove.'" "You're a very silly man and I'm not going to interview you." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "I'm afraid there's been a mistake. The man who has been speaking to you is an imposter. He is not in fact the Bishop of East Anglia, but a man wanted by the police. *I* am the Bishop of East Anglia, and anyone who doesn't believe me can look me up in the book." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "Obviously boxing has its limits, but providing they're both perfectly fit I can see nothing wrong with one healthy man beating the living daylights out of a little schoolgirl. It's quick and it's fun." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "The great thing about Ken is that he's almost totally stupid." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "That's clever. How do they do that?" "Colour separation, you cotton head." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "One thing worries me, Fritz." "Ja?" "Where's the traditional cheeky and lovable Cockney sergeant?" [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "The BBC would like to apologize for the poor quality of writing in that sketch. It is not BBC policy to get easy laughs with words like bum, knickers, botty or wee-wees." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "Morning, madam, I'm here to read your poet." "Oh yes, he's in the cupboard under the stairs." "What is it, a Swinburne? Shelley?" "No, it's a Wordsworth." "Oh, bloody daffodils." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "We was too late. The Reverend Gumby bit the ceiling." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "OK, Devious... Don't move!" "The Bishop!" [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "Also, in the Inverness pantomime last Christmas, the part of Puss in Boots was played by a native of New Guinea with a plate in her lip, so that every time Dick Whittington gave her a French kiss, he got the back of his throat scraped." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "Thank you. I didn't want to seem a bit of an old fusspot just now you know, but it's just as easy to get these things right as they are easily found in the BALPA handbook." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "Oh, `an aeroplane'. Oh, I say, we are grand, aren't we? `Oh, oh, no more buttered scones for me, mater. I'm off to play the grand piano.' `Pardon me while I fly my aeroplane.' Now get on the table!" [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "When the Piranhas left school they were called up, but were found by an Army Board to be too mentally unstable even for National Service." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "I'm afraid I'm going to have to operate. It's nothing to worry about although it is *extremely* dangerous. I shall be juggling with your life, I shall be playing ducks and drakes with your very existence, I shall be running me mitts over the pith of your marrow. Yes! These hands, these fingers, these sophisticated organs of touch, these bunches of five, these maulers, these German bands that have pulled many a moribund unfortunate back from the very brink of Lazarus' box. No, it was Pandora's box, wasn't it? "Well anyway, these mitts have earned yours truly a lot of bread. So if you'll just step through here I'll slit you up a treat." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "What if nothing happens, sergeant?" "He's Alexander the Great!" "Ha, ha! Caught you, Mr. A. T. Great!" "Oh, curses! Curses! I thought I was safe, disguised as Attila the Hun." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "U-P Y-O-U-R-S" "Up yours? What a rude Ouija board!" [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "Now if you and your pal had one big wish, Trevor, what would you like to see on television?" "I'd like to see more fairy stories about the police." "And so you shall!" [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "And Oliver has run himself over! What a great twit!" [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "Ah Hein... Reginald you have the wrong map here you silly old leg-before-wicket English person." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "As a character in Gore Vidal's new novel, `Hollywood', says: `What we invent, others reflect.' The problem is that the only thing worse than Guns n' Roses is censorship." -- The Economist, 12/23/89 ---- "So [Thomas Pynchon] wants a private life and no photographs and nobody to know his home address. I can dig it, I can relate to that (but, like, he should try it when it's compulsory instead of a free-choice option)." -- Salman Rushdie ---- "A stocking full of ammo! He's a Santa for the nineties!" "That's from *me*, Sam! Santa Claus hates that kind of crap." [Sam and Max, from one of their comic adventures] ---- "He was a thief, and a terrorist, but on the other hand he had a tremendous singing voice." [The BATMAN film] ---- "I don't sing, I don't dance, and I don't like people who do." [Late Night with David Letterman] ---- "Happiness is being famous for your financial ability to indulge in every kind of excess." [Calvin And Hobbes] ---- "Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K." [BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE] ---- "Ho! Ha-ha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!" [The classic Daffy Duck Robin Hood sketch] ---- "Lacquered frog bands are no longer popular with America's influential trend-setters, Max. We'd be hosed." [Sam and Max, from one of their comic adventures] ---- "And stop referring to dinner as `the recent unpleasantness'." [THE LOCKHORNS] ---- "I am successful because I am the only person in my city who is not heavily addicted to powerful narcotics." [Cerebus] ---- "Logic is a tweeting bird, chirping in your ear. Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers that smell BAD." [Star Trek: I, MUDD] ---- "Inconceivable!" "You use that word a lot. I don't think it means what you think it does." [THE PRINCESS BRIDE] ---- "What about these commandments then?" "You again? All right... There shall be TWO commandments, and this shall be the first of them: 'Keep the noise down.'" "Just that? `Keep the noise down'?" "You got it." "Hmmm. And the second of Your commandments, Lord?" "Do what thou wilst, sayeth the Lord, just go away and don't bother Me now. For behold, some of Us are trying to get some sleep around here." [Seven Deadly Sins] ---- "...And since the stench of death will always attract flies and vermin, the arrival of Geraldo was perhaps inevitable." [Doonesbury] ---- "Better the pride that resides in a citizen of the world Than the pride that divides when a colorful rag is unfurled." -- N. Peart ---- "I quote others only to better express myself." -- Michel de Montaigne ---- "Looks like she's having her monthly visit by 'Mr. Cranky'." -- Dan Fielding [NIGHT COURT] ---- "Well, Brian.... I'm opening a boutique." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "Well, I object to all this sex on television. I mean, I keep falling off." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "Are you mad?" "No, sir." "Well, that's a relief. 'Cos if you were, your story would be less plausible." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "Oh, how horrible... Will they stop at nothing?" "I don't know -- do you think they will?" "I meant that rhetorically." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "Yes, there's no place for sentiment in big business." "Oh you're no fun anymore." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "It's the uniform that puts them off, that and my bad breath." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "I must warn you, sir, that outside I have police dog Josephine, who is not only armed and trained to sniff out certain substances, but is also a junkie." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "What can we ever do to repay you?" "No need to, sir. It's all in a day's work for Confuse-a-Cat." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "Funny, isn't it, how naughty dentists always make one fatal mistake." -- Lemming of the BDA [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "IT'S A MAN'S LIFE IN THE BRITISH DENTAL ASSOCIATION" [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "Oh look -- is it a Stockbroker?" "Is it a Quantity Surveyor?" "Is it a Church Warden?" "No! It's BICYCLE REPAIRMAN!" [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "With a brilliant mind like yours, Dim, you could have been something other than a policeman." "Yes." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "None of your smart answers... you think you're so clever. Well, I'm Dim." DIM OF THE YARD! [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "Well, speaking as a member of the Stock Exchange, I would suck their brains out with a straw, sell the widows and orphans and go into South American Zinc." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "He's that most dangerous of animals -- a clever sheep." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "A cop is a one-man zoo... with a gun!" -- Sledge Hammer ---- "I can't tell the difference between Whizzo butter and this dead crab." "Yes, you know, we find that nine out of ten British housewives can't tell the difference between Whizzo and a dead crab." "It's true, we can't, no." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "What's it feel like?" "Death? It's like being on holiday with a bunch of Germans." [RED DWARF] ---- "First rule in murder, old love: never ask the customer if they did it, in case they tell you." -- Horace Rumpole ---- "I'm not in the mood for jokes." "How about *sight gags*?!" [DOCTOR, DOCTOR] ---- "Mom! How?!" "Girl Scouts." ["Another Mother" episode of QUANTUM LEAP] ---- "Just look! I've been greatly deceived. The fellow's a raving heterosexual!" ["Rumpole and the Quality of Life", RUMPOLE OF THE BAILEY] ---- "There is no mystery why the media and advertising are fields in which Britons should be thriving. In the global, information-based economy which THE ECONOMIST keeps touting, Britain has a comparative advantage in mastery of the English language -- not just in relation to foreign-tongued peoples but in relation to America, too. Brits remain great talkers. This gift will support them when the oil runs out." -- Michael Kinsley ---- "Decent ice cream is almost unobtainable in Britain. On the other hand, America has inexplicably failed to discover the chocolate-covered digestive biscuit -- possibly the greatest single foodstuff ever invented." -- Michael Kinsley ---- "Watching Mrs. Thatcher's performance from my living room in America brought home (literally) how impossible it is to imagine President George Bush, or any leading American politician, uttering such an obvious but unpleasant truth so forthrightly. Whatever happens to Mr. Bush, he will never have the problems Mrs. Thatcher is now going through, which stem from ideological hubris. She knows what she believes and is willing to pursue it past the point of either good sense or political prudence. Mr. Bush believes in very little." -- Michael Kinsley ---- "We're mostly sympathetic, only occasionally empathic, and very very very rarely telepathic." -- Kathy Li ---- "H-h-hi, boys and girls! I'm here, and Pluto's here, and Donald's here, and Goofy's here, and we're all sick and we're all going to throw up for distance!" [I'm still not sure -- got it from Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, and he says it's from two guys, but wasn't specific] ---- "It is not the criminal things which are hardest to confess, but the ridiculous and shameful." -- Jean Jacques Rousseau ---- "Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man." -- Rabindranath Tagore ---- "I have just learned that only two things are necessary to keep one's wife happy. First, let her think she's having her way. And second, let her have it." -- Lyndon B. Johnson ---- "Good conversation is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after." -- Anne Morrow Lindbergh ---- "I like men to behave like men -- strong and childish." -- Francoise Sagan ---- "The greatest cunning is to have none at all." -- Carl Sandburg ---- "I'm an atheist, and I thank God for it." -- George Bernard Shaw ---- "You don't need much in the law except a certain amount of common sense and relatively clean fingernails." -- John Mortimer's father ---- "Rumpole shall sleep no more." [RUMPOLE OF THE BAILEY] ---- "How big is Greenville [Maine]?" "Let us just say that the chances of the Boston Pops stopping here for a concert are remote." [My dad, when asking about the position he took in the backwoods of Maine when I was but a toddler] ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- December 26th "The world weeps with joy as Britain's royal family agrees to just stay inside and shut up for a couple of years." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- December 8th "Gunfire erupts on the strife-torn TODAY show; fortunately, nobody is killed except Gene Shalit. Ratings soar." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- November 21st "The House and Senate, responding to growing public disgust over their inability to control spending or eliminate corruption, finally set aside petty partisan differences and unite in another effort to jack up their salaries. This time the concept is an 'ethics' bill, under which congressmen will get a large pay raise, in return for which they will agree to stop robbing convenience stores." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- November 17th "Despite fierce opposition from the National Rifle Association, the California Legislature passes a bill prohibiting the sale of assault rifles to people on Death Row." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- November 9th "True item: The Department of Energy acknowledges that Charlton Heston, who narrates films for the Energy Department, has for six years held the nation's highest nuclear-weapons security clearance." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- November 3rd "The Federal Aviation Administration OKs smoking on flights where two or more engines have failed." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- October 26th "In what should serve as a harsh warning to those who seek to make money by exploiting the religious faith of others, convicted televangelist Jim Bakker appears before a judge for sentencing, and, as a hushed courtroom looks on, is struck by lightning. Random House publishes former first lady Nancy Reagan's heart-warming new book, 'I'll Get All You Bastards.'" ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- September 30th "After a trial that receives considerably more publicity than the ozone layer, Zsa Zsa Gabor is convicted and, in what is widely viewed as an overly lenient punishment, sentenced to death." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- September 15th "The legendary Rolling Stones embark on a nationwide tour with a spectacular show that reaches its electrifying climax when, during 'Honky Tonk Woman,' bass player Bill Wyman, age 53, hurls his teeth to the audience." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- September 4th "In New York, the Leona Helmsely trial comes to a satisfactory conclusion when a little girl throws a bucket of water on the defendant, causing her to dissolve." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- August 12th "The federal government, finally fed up with the savings and loan industry's appalling stupidity, irresponsibility, corruption and greed, gives it several hundred billion taxpayer dollars. 'And there's plenty more where that came from,' the government warns." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- August 8th "Warner Communications merges with the Medellin Drug Cartel." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- July 21st "The B-2 'stealth' bomber, which has so far cost $17 billion, is test-flown and proves to be, as advertised, virtually invisible to radar. Unfortunately, it can be easily picked up on regular television." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- July 8th "Thousands of refugees stream out of Beirut, fleeing the increasing violence and devastation caused by British soccer fans." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- July 5th "In what some observers feel could be a tactical error, Hotel Queen Leona Helmsely arrives at her tax-evasion trial riding a broom." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- June 25th "President Bush, responding with bold swift visionary leadership to the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in China, proposes a constitutional amendment to prohibit flag-burning." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- June 21st "In a decision that outrages the nation, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that, no matter how repugnant it may be to most people, the constitutional guarantee of free speech protects the right of politicians to propose foolish and ludicrously unnecessary anti-flag-burning amendments and posture and bluster and writhe like hypocritical slugs in a bog of pandering slime. In the House of Representatives, long lines immediately form in front of the C-Span cameras." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- June 19th "Barry Switzer, fed up with constant harassment over alleged NCAA rules violations, resigns as coach of the University of Oklahoma, deeply saddening his players, some of whom have been with him more than 15 years." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- June 16th "Jerry Falwell announces that he's dissolving the Moral Majority so he can spend more time at the track." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- June 6th "At funeral services for the Ayatollah Khomeini, grief-stricken Iranian moderates express their love for their fallen leader by ripping off his clothes, revealing that he is wearing large red silk undershorts on which are printed the words 'Home of the Whopper.'" ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- June 4th "The U.S. Postal Service warns that a number of consumers have had 'unusual' reactions after licking the Jimi Hendrix commemorative stamp." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- June 3rd "On the TODAY show, Willard Scott 'accidentally' stabs Bryant Gumbel with a pitchfork." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- May 31st "Somebody wins yet another exciting and memorable running of the Indianapolis 500, an exhibition of driving skill featuring cars sponsored by Budweiser, Miller, Budweiser Light, Miller Dry, Budweiser Wet, Jim Beam, Marlboro, Miller Flat, Camel and the Medellin Drug Cartel." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- May 23rd "The New York mayoralty race heats up as Mayor Ed Koch, seeking a fourth term, is shot and wounded by subway vigilante Bernard Goetz, who immediately surges ahead in the polls." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- May 3rd "In Bejing's Tiananmen Square, hopes for democracy soar as thousands of Chinese students erect a replica of Batman." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- May 1st "Amid a massive wave of publicity disguised as news, the Disney Corporation opens its latest theme park, 'A World Of Cranky People Waiting In Lines.'" ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- April 11th "After hearing lengthy and complex court arguments between American and Australian yachtsmen over who should get the prestigious America's Cup, a federal judge orders everybody to get a real job." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- April 8th "The heartening spread of Western-style democracy continues as the Soviet Union, which has never had truly free elections, announces that delegates to the Soviet General Assembly will henceforth be selected via caucuses in Iowa." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- April 1st "Two scientists announce that they have figured out how to create a nuclear fusion reaction in a glass of ordinary tap water. For some reason, this is hailed as good news." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- March 25th "An Exxon tanker runs aground and begins spewing oil into ecologically delicate waters. The company's highly trained Emergency Disaster Response Team immediately swings into action; within hours, gasoline prices have been jacked up worldwide." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- March 24th "Michael Jordan becomes the first human being to land on Saturn. He is fouled on the play." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- March 12th "In other boxing news, Mike Tyson, citing 'irreconcilable differences,' drops Robin Givens from a jet." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- February 26th "In an unusually upbeat Grammy Awards ceremony, Bobby McFerrin, composer of the hugely popular song 'Don't Worry, Be Happy,' is shot." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- February 17th "The Ayatollah Khomeini signs a $3 million contract with Viking publishers to promote sales of Salman Rushdie's book, 'The Satanic Verses.'" ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- January 26th "Secretary of Defense nominee John Tower, angrily responding to charges that he has a drinking problem, tells a Senate hearing that he can lick any man in the room." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- January 17th "As the eight historic years of the Reagan administration draw to a close, White House staffers begin the melancholy but at the same time satisfying task of getting Nancy out with a water cannon." ---- DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- January 8th "The savings and loan industry announces heavy fourth-quarter bingo losses." ---- "We're very kinky, in a Republican sort of way." -- Sue Pauloz ---- "Well, I wouldn't exactly call it 'working'... more like 'groveling for dollars.'" [NIGHT COURT] ---- "Shh. It's satire." "No it isn't. This is zany madcap humour." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "I am never more serious than when I am joking." [From the PBS series CAMPION] ---- "There are a great many people in the country today who, through no fault of their own, are sane." [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "One day you'll realize there's more to life than culture! There's dirt, and smoke, and good honest sweat!" [Monty Python's Flying Circus] ---- "What's the difference between the United States and Eastern European countries? The United States still has a communist party." [Joke on Carson] ---- "But HE loved *pure* and *chaste* from *afar*.... Well, that part was never big with me, either." [QUANTUM LEAP] ---- "When a network changes a show, it's like brain surgery with a baseball bat." -- Stephanie A. Wiltse ---- "Into the mud, scum queen!" -- THE MAN WITH TWO BRAINS ---- "You try my patience!" "Don't mind if I do; you must come over and try mine sometime!" [Groucho and Margot Dumont, from one of their pictures] ---- "Xerox sue someone for copying?" -- David Letterman ---- "Michael Palin was on 'Carson' last night... and he talked a little about Graham Chapman and the memorial service they held for him. Ten or so people got up and gave tributes to Graham, and then it fell to John Cleese. He said, 'Graham Chapman, co-writer of the 'Dead Parrot' sketch, is no more. He has ceased to be. He's expired and gone to meet his maker...' and ran the whole gamut of his parrot speech, winding up with 'He is an EX-Chapman.' Cleese went on to add that some people might find that tribute offensive, which was exactly why he did it: Graham loved to offend people." -- Barb Prillaman ---- "Okay, I'm tired of talking to myself. Fade the music and let's see if there's really an audience out there watching cable." [Molly Dodd] ---- "You know, Molly, we all get what we deserve, whether we deserve it or not." [Molly Dodd] ---- "What we had was so darn genuine; it was like fine nylon." [Molly Dodd] ---- "I was married to a musician named Fred C. Dodd, and the guy's got a hold on my heart so tight that sometimes I think I'm never going to breathe again." [Molly Dodd] ---- "Baldrick, you wouldn't see a subtle plan if it painted itself purple and danced naked on top of a harpsichord singing 'Subtle Plans Are Here Again'." [Black Adder] ---- "McPike. McPIKE!" [WISEGUY. You hadda be there.] ---- "Don't you care about this country?" "Damn right I care... about *this* country. That's why I own it." [WISEGUY] ---- "So in our vast files, we have about as much on this guy as, uh, The National Enquirer?" "Our files are *from* The National Enquirer." [WISEGUY] ---- "I'm a recluse, dammit. I don't see people. If I did, I wouldn't be a recluse." [WISEGUY] ---- "You're maudlin and full of self-pity. You're magnificent." [SUNSET BOULEVARD] ---- "'E's not the Messiah! 'E's a very naughty boy!" -- LIFE OF BRIAN ---- "Save your breath, pork chop. We scrapped all that." "'Screpped', Your Grace?" "The real estate checklist and who I can beat at dominoes. We don't use that anymore." [Cerebus] ---- "In the forest, the Aliens learn what hundreds of thieves, cut-throats and enemy spies have learned! Flaming Carrot is a mounting inferno of blasting, blazing death to all who oppose him!" [FLAMING CARROT COMICS] ---- "We are Earth's only chance! We must fight and die like famous heroes! Fight for a world that perhaps considers us, that considers us all, well, let's say, perhaps, goofy!" [FLAMING CARROT COMICS] ---- "OK, I got it. We get out of the dreaming, while he's busy with the bozo, cut open Barnaby and Clarice, scoop out their insides and hide inside their skins. He'd *never* think of looking for us there..." "HE would." "...Yeah, he would." [Neil Gaimen, SANDMAN] ---- "The possible ramifications of my actions are endless. Do you want half of a ham sandwich?" [Bernie Mireault, THE JAM] ---- "Unk! Tarzan catch pizza! Tarzan kill pizza with empty wallet! Bring home to Janet! Tarzan get laid tonight?" [Bernie Mireault, THE JAM] ---- "What?" "You know you just threw the Second-assistant Attorney General out of his own war room?" "Well, so what?" "So, I always wanted to do that." [WISEGUY] ---- Selections from TOP TEN THINGS LINCOLN WOULD SAY IF HE WERE ALIVE TODAY: 10. Through the years, the Union has been preserved 8. How much money do I get from these Lincoln Logs? 6. What the hell is Donahue doing in Russia? 5. Why is the video store always out of "Mandingo"? 4. I really think I should have been the king in that Civil War chess set 2. EEAAGH! Iron bird! 1. That fruit Jefferson gets Monticello. I get a tunnel. -- Late Night with David Letterman ---- Selections from TOP NINE GOOD THINGS ABOUT STEROIDS: 9. They don't leave your breath all mediciney 6. We'll all need to bulk up when the giant ants arrive 4. Great for community theater groups putting on Ibsen's "The Incredible Hulk" -- Late Night with David Letterman ---- "Fleet Street finally signed off. The Daily Express was printed in its Black Lubianka building for the last time on November 17th, the last national newspaper to quit the street." -- THE ECONOMIST, 11/25/89 ---- "After the Earthquake, word around Stanford campus is that the Law School is planning a Class Action Suit against God. "As a result of the quake, the Business School has been condemned. My personal feeling is that if God takes this line of defense, no jury on Earth would convict him." -- William Fischer ---- "I dreamed a show in days gone by When all the scenery was so pretty I didn't sing one song then die And all my costumes weren't so gritty I did a tap dance and I smiled And pathos wasn't overstated My lips were red, my hair was styled I didn't act so constipated But now that misery's in style It's more artistic if you suffer So they tore my dress apart And all the chorus girls walk lame--- I dreamed a show in days gone by Neil Diamond didn't sing my hit song A pretty girl they'd glorify And Act One wasn't so damn long Come watch us grovel in the dirt Then buy a souvenir and don it Rich folks pay twenty bucks a shirt That has a starving pauper on it" --"Forbidden Broadway" ---- "Once again, Paul, you have crystallized my thoughts perfectly." [David Letterman] ---- "There is nothing funny about a clown in the moonlight." -- Lon Chaney Sr. ---- "Happiness is lots of little things. Green, about 2.5' by 6'." [Off of a Usenet sign-off line. Forgot -- sorry!] ---- "It's easier to write an ad than save a beach." -- Bill Moyers ---- "20 years ago, with `The Selling of the President', was the first time that people realized that President was packaged... like a bar of soap. 20 years later, people have gotten to the point where that analogy seems unfair to soap." -- Barbera Lippert ---- "Nothing can disguise the quiet jubilation of this November [Czech] revolution. The fear that change could slip away again, though still present, now seems to be receding. Mr. Ludvik Vaculik, a writer with a mordant tongue who well remembers the disappointment of 1968, was asked what had made him laugh the most this past week. `Nothing made me,' he said, `I laughed voluntarily.'" -- THE ECONOMIST, 12/2/89 ---- "We sleep better when we read `TALES OF GORE'?" [QUANTUM LEAP] ---- "Adversity is the first path to Truth." -- Lord Byron ---- "The word love has by no means the same sense for both sexes, and this is one cause of the serious misunderstandings that divide them." -- Simone de Beauvoir ---- "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone." -- Bill Cosby ---- "A bad review is like baking a cake with all the best ingredients and having someone sit on it." -- Danielle Steel ---- "Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel coast to coast without seeing anything." -- Charles Kuralt ---- "Where love rules, there is no rule to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other." -- C. G. Jung ---- "Every man is a damn fool at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit." -- Elbert Hubbard ---- "That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem to be, or to be, when it suits him, a coward." -- Edgar Allan Poe ---- "One day the people of the world will want peace so much that the governments are going to have to get out of their way and let them have it." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower ---- "He's an honest man -- you can shoot craps with him over the telephone." -- Earl Wilson ---- "Whenever I'm caught between two evils, I take the one I've never tried." -- Mae West ---- "If you achieve success, you will get applause. Enjoy it -- but never quite believe it." -- Robert Montgomery ---- "Men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all the options." -- Abba Eban ---- "Superstition is foolish, childish and irrational -- but how much does it cost you to knock on wood?" -- Judith Viorst ---- "Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation." -- Henry Kissinger ---- "I make progress by having people around who are smarter than I am -- and listening to them. And I assume that everyone is smarter about something than I am." -- Henry Kaiser ---- "I write to understand as much as to be understood." -- Elie Wiesel ---- "A conservative is a person who does not think anything should be done for the first time." -- Frank Vanderlip ---- "To listen well is as powerful a means of communication and influence as to talk well." -- John Marshall ---- "All I know of love is that Love is all there is." -- Emily Dickinson ---- "Advice after injury is like medicine after death." -- Danish proverb ---- "You punch me, I punch back. I do not believe it is good for one's self-respect to be a punching bag." -- Edward Koch ---- "How I wait for my good is more important than what I wait for. Life is not living in a 'waiting room', but rather waiting in a 'living room'." -- Dr. Dorothy Kobak ---- "Somebody's boring me... I think it's me." -- Dylan Thomas ---- "Worries go down better with soup." -- Yiddish proverb ---- "It is easier to love humanity than to love your neighbor." -- Eric Hoffer ---- "People everywhere enjoy believing things that they know are not true. It spares them the ordeal of thinking for themselves and taking the responsibility for what they know." -- Brooks Atkinson ---- "There is a scarcity of friendship, but not of friends." -- Thomas Fuller ---- "Whosoever shall not fall by the sword or by famine shall fall by pestilence, so why bother shaving?" -- Woody Allen ---- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas Edison ---- "Love and do what you will." -- St. Augustine ---- "Futility: playing a harp before a buffalo." -- Burmese proverb ---- "You may be imperious, but the effect is always spoiled when you apologize." -- Karen Williams ---- "Any last requests?" "Yes, do you know `Heartbreak Hotel'?" [NINJA HIGH SCHOOL] ---- Selections from TOP 10 REASONS DAN QUAYLE WOULD MAKE A GREAT PRESIDENT: 8. His willingness to don inspiring Eagle Man costume on national holidays 5. State of the Union Address would be three minutes, tops 3. Would satisfy little-known Constitutional requirement that Chief Executive be "dumb as a tree" 2. We'd get to watch him grow up on TV -- Late Night with David Letterman ---- Selections from TOP TEN PROMOTIONAL SLOGANS FOR THE SAN SALVADOR SHERATON: 10. Live through two nights, and the third night's free 9. As seen on TV's "Nightline"! 8. Touch the towels, and we'll blow your damn head off 4. We put the hospital in hospitality -- Late Night with David Letterman ---- "And, after all, it is the 200th anniversary of the presidency. That's something to celebrate. From George to George -- in only 200 years, we've gone from 'I cannot tell a lie' to 'I cannot tell'." -- A. Whitney Brown ---- "Reading, editing or printing of this text without the express written consent of Major League Baseball is prohibited." [Ken Kubey] ---- "But Alex, I don't want to be rich for the same reason as other men." "Not for the cars, the houses, the women?" "Oh, I guess it is the same reason." [TAXI] ---- "Writers, by definition, have tremendous egos. Because a writer is someone who says, 'Look at me! What I have to say is so important that it deserves to be written down and preserved and have my name on it for future generations to mull over!'" -- Harlan Ellison ---- "Eat right. Sleep tight. Get goodly exercise, and life's full splendor will poke you in the eyes." [From a King Arthur parody at a Renaisannce Fair] ---- "And what IS this crap about fighting on HORSEBACK? The Warrior Code doesn't sanction that shit!" "Real warriors stand toe to toe and SLUG IT OUT!" [Foolbert Sturgeon's AMAZONS] ---- "Oh! Brilliant! We're getting MASSACRED and he quibbles over semantics!" [Foolbert Sturgeon's AMAZONS] ---- "Stay cool, boys." "Don't call us BOYS!" "What do you want me to call you?" "How 'bout `Me Hearties!'" "I like `Buckos'!" [Foolbert Sturgeon's AMAZONS] ---- "Meanwhile, on MT. OLYMPUS, the gods are watching on the big screen..." [Foolbert Sturgeon's AMAZONS] ---- "FASTER than a speeding bullet... More POWERFUL than a locomotive... Able to LEAP tall buildings... "...I can live with it!" [The slightly de-powered Power Girl in JLE] ---- "You're in worse shape that you look! You're quoting Dan Quayle." [Steve Gerber, SHE-HULK] ---- "Okay. Got it. I hit him with something that doesn't HAVE a psychological makeup -- like a car." [Steve Gerber, SHE-HULK] ---- "Ladies. Gentlemen. You have eaten well. You've eaten Gotham's wealth. Its spirit. Your feast is nearly over. "From this moment on -- none of you are safe." [Frank Miller, BATMAN: YEAR ONE] ---- "Mrs. Gordan. You have to trust me. I won't let your boy die." [Frank Miller, BATMAN: YEAR ONE] ---- "Would you call that an elegant solution, Mr. Spock?" "Indeed, Captain. When I am required to testify at a court martial I shall use those very words." "I knew I could count on you, Spock." [STAR TREK, the comic] ---- "I take the ugly weight off my hip... I hold it up like a dead rat and pray the man understands..." [Frank Miller, BATMAN: YEAR ONE] ---- "...I pray he's strong. And smart enough to stay alive. How did I let this happen? How did I screw up so badly... to bring an innocent child to life in a city without hope..." [Frank Miller, BATMAN: YEAR ONE] ---- Selections from TOP TEN REASONS EXXON IS LEAVING ALASKA: 10. Sometimes had to drive miles to find liquor store. 8. Going to start really big job of cleaning up Exxon station restrooms 4. Big party this weekend at Captain Hazelwood's -- Late Night with David Letterman ---- "Although the [Berlin] Wall will come down, Checkpoint Charlie will remain, but it's already been changed into a 4-hour photo service." -- Dennis Miller, SNL Weekend Update ---- "I place my faith in fools. Self confidence, my friends call it." -- Edgar Allen Poe ---- "Oh, Tim, take a ladder, and ascend alone to Heaven." -- Elliot Wilen ---- "You deliver a good argument, but speaking personally, I'd rather have an exhibitionist nymphomaniac, especially one who looked like Julie Newmar." -- Jerry Boyajian ---- "[Mort] Sahl and [Alexander] Haig were discussing Henry Kissinger. Sahl mentioned that, of course, Kissinger could not be the US President since he was not born in the US. Haig said, no, that's a common misconception, Kissinger was born in the US. 'How did he get that accent?' asked Sahl. Haig replied, 'From never listening to anybody.'" ---- "A born-again Christian, Mr. [Rupert] Murdoch claimed that his newspapers -- including the evangelizing SUN -- are aids to a moral revival." -- The Economist, 10/21/89 ---- Fortune has me well in hand; Armies wait at my command. My gold lies in a foreign land Buried deep beneath the sand. The angels guide my every tread; My enemies are sick or dead. But all the victories I've lead Haven't brought you to my bed. Everybody loves me, baby; What's the matter with you? Won't you tell me: What did I do To offend you? -- Don McLean ---- No land is beyond my claim When land is seized in the people's name By evil men who rob and maim -- If war is hell, *I'm* not to blame. Why, you can't blame me, I'm heaven's child And the second son of Mary Mild; And I'm twice removed from Oscar Wilde [But he didn't mind, why, he just smiled!] -- Don McLean ---- Selections from TOP TEN WAYS THE IRANIANS WILL SPEND THE $567 MILLION (recently unfrozen by the West): 10. Upgrade hijackers to First Class 9. Have the Reagans visit 283 times 8. Set up research lab to develop untippable coffin 5. Pay for tourism campaign: "Iran -- sort of like Amish country" -- Late Night with David Letterman ---- Selections from TOP TEN THINGS OVERHEARD AT THE BERLIN WALL: 10. I came for the political freedom -- I'm staying for the McRibs! 9. Is this the line for BATMAN? 7. As long as you're already in the trunk, let's go to a drive-in 6. We're coming to save you, Zsa Zsa! 2. This ought to scare the crap out of the French 1. We're going to Disney World! -- Late Night with David Letterman ---- "Colleges should teach sex education, after all, when it comes to screwing people they're the best." -- Patrick J. Murphy ---- "Everything has a boolean value, if you stand far enough away from it." -- Galena Alyson Canada ---- "Y'know, I heard about people like me, But I never made the connection..." -- Don McLean ---- "In our college newspaper, `The Daily Collegian', there was an article on how the BATMAN Movie flopped in Norway. In the Norwegian version, Batman's name was changed to `Lightning Wing' because the literal translation of `Batman' is something like `Fluttering-mouse Man'." -- Akbar ---- "So after today, Germans can go into any country they want. ...Say, wasn't that the problem in 1939?" -- Carson on THE TONIGHT SHOW ---- "The new slogan in East Germany these days is `Ich bin ein Outahere!'" -- Carson on THE TONIGHT SHOW ---- #1 THING THE REAGANS DID FOR THE $2 MILLION IN JAPAN: Make Gerald Ford's post-presidential career look dignified. -- David Letterman ----