“Who are you really and what were you before,
what did you and what did you think ay?"
– Rick Blaine
"Silence lends consent."
– Fran Russillo
“Daddy go faster!”
– Miranda Beer
"If there's one thing I won't stand for, it's loose vowels!"
– Great Aunt Adelaide
"If everything is under contol, you are going too slow."
– Mario Andretti
"I thought it was ludicrous to take one of those gongs from the establishment
when they did their very best to throw us in jail."
– Keith Richards
"Nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge."
– Scott Adams
“It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly,
just as it is to be angry with a car that won't go."
– Bertrand Russell
”People under 75 need more seasoning”
– Bob Lutz
“No house should ever be on a hill or on anything. It should be of the hill. Belonging to it. Hill and house should live together each the happier for the other.”
– Frank Loyd Wright
“Television is chewing gum for the eyes.”
– Frank Loyd Wright
“The only people for me are the mad ones”
– Jack Kerouac
"This is the kind of car that sticks it's hand down the front of your trousers when the road gets curly."
– Jeremy Clarkson
"I came into this game for the action, the excitement. Go anywhere, travel light, get in, get out, wherever there's trouble, a man alone. Now they got the whole country sectioned off, you can't make a move without a form."
– Harry Tuttle
"Government that borrows from Peter to pay Paul can count on the support of Paul."
– Bernard Shaw
“Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
– Douglas Adams
“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they never use.”
– Kierkegaard
“Given a choice between two theories, take the one which is funnier.”
– Blore's Razor
“How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?”
– Charles De Gaulle
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.”
– Bertrand Russell
“Last year I went fishing with Salvador Dali. He was using a dotted line. He caught every other fish.”
– Steven Wright
"I wouldn't dream of working on something that didn't make my gut rumble and my heart want to explode."
– Kate Winslet
“When it is not necessary to make a decision, it is necessary not to make a decision.”
– Lord Falkland
“To err is dysfunctional, to forgive co-dependent.”
– Berton Averre
“It’s time for the human race to enter the solar system.”
– Dan Quayle
“The time to stop talking is when the other person nods his head affirmatively
but says nothing.”
– Henry S. Haskins
“Never trust a man who speaks well of everybody.”
– John Collins
“The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.”
– Douglas Adams
“Never give a party if you will be the most interesting person there.”
– Mickey Friedman
“Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use.”
– Wendell Johnson
“The higher the buildings, the lower the morals.”
– Noel Coward
“I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.”
– Oscar Wilde
“Hey there, Toots. When I want something to happen, I wave my Boomerang Toomerang Soomerang and—it happens."
– Lady Elaine Fairchilde
Galahad: “Look, let me face the peril!”
Lancelot: “No, no, it's much too perilous!”
“You like a close shave, don't you?”
– P. Galore
Tatiana: “The mechanism is... Oh James, James... Will you make love to me all the time in England?”
James Bond: “Day and night. Go on about the mechanism.”
“You've arrived on a rather special night. It's one of the master's affairs.”
– Riff Raff
“You don't want to get mixed up with a guy like me. I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel.”
– Pee Wee Herman
Joanna: “So you're going to get another job?”
Peter Gibbons: “I don't think I'll like another job.”
Joanna: “Well what are you going to do about money? Bills?:”
Peter Gibbons: “You know I never really liked paying bills,
I don't think I'm going to do that either.”
“It’s not a contraption, It’s an intricate assembly.”
– Tony Beatty
“It’s a squadron of nuts and bolts flying in loose formation.”
– Colin Beer
“I know every nut and bolt and cog – I built it with my own hands!''
– No.6, concerning his car
"There's a certain inefficiency in constantly questioning me on things you've already made up your mind about."
– Spock
”On my planet "to rest" is to rest, to cease using energy. To me it is quite illogical to run up and down on green grass using energy instead of saving it.”
– Spock
“Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.”
– Anatole France
“If you haven't found something strange during the day, it hasn't been much of a day.”
– John A. Wheeler
"Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away, plus you have their shoes."
– Unknown
"People who speak in metaphors should shampoo my crotch."
– Jack Nicholson
“Happiness is good health and a bad memory.”
– Ingrid Bergman
“Faith is much better than belief. Belief is when someone else does the thinking.”
– R. Buckminster Fuller
“Attention to health is life’s greatest hindrance.”
– Plato
“Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.”
–Plato
“The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
– Douglas Adams
“The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.”
– Douglas Adams
“It is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built upon a renunciation of instinct.”
– Sigmund Freud
Droxine: and can nothing disturb this cycle Mr. Spock?
Spock: Extreme feminine beauty is always...disturbing.
“I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.”
– Mae West
“He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy!“
– Brian's Mother
“We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road.
They get run over.”
– Ambrose Bierce
Renton: Sick Boy's always been lacking in moral fiber.
Swanny: He knows a lot about Sean Connery.
Renton: That's hardly a subsitute.
“You don't frighten us, English pig dogs! Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of a silly person! I blow my nose at you, so-called "Arthur King," you and all your silly English K-nig-hts.”
– French Knight
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.”
– Mark Twain
“O Lord, bless this thy hand grenade that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.' And the Lord did grin, and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats and large chu--”
–Second Brother
"Rules are for the obidience of fools and interpretations of smart men."
- Colin Chapman
"Fortunately, I say fortunately, I keep my feathers numbered for just such an emergency."
– Foghorn Leghorn
"I distrust a close-mouthed man. He generally picks the wrong time to talk and says the wrong things. Talking's something you can't do judiciously, unless you keep in practice. Now, sir, we'll talk if you like. I'll tell you right out, I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk."
– Kasper Gutman
“Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof
and gets stuck.”
– George Carlin
Bond: You’re one of the most beautiful girls I’ve evr seen.
Tatiana: I think my mouth is too big.
Bond: No it’s the right size. For me that is.
“My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music.”
– Vladimir Nabokov
“Frugality without creativity is deprivation.” – Amy Dacyczyn
“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”
– Sir Winston Churchill
“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.”
– Herm Albright
“Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.”
– Groucho Marx
“Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.”
– Mark Twain
“One can always judge the character of a man by the way he treats those who can do nothing for him.”
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Winston Churchill's parrot has been found alive, well and as potty-mouthed as ever.
Charlie the parrot, spry at 104, still sometimes repeats sayings her master taught her — "Bleep the Nazis" and "Bleep Hitler" — according to London's Daily Mirror.Churchill bought the blue-and-gold female macaw (search) in 1937, adding her to an extensive collection of pets that included pigs, sheep, swans and one leopard.The future prime minister apparently began to teach the bird to curse, particularly if company was present.Charlie's current owner, Peter Oram of Reigate, Surrey (search), south of London, bought Charlie after Churchill died in 1965. At first he kept her in his pet shop, but had to bring her home because she kept swearing at children.James Humes, a Churchill expert, told the Mirror: "Churchill may no longer be with us, but that spirit and those words of defiance and resolve continue."
“So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.” – Peter Drucker
“The car is the closest thing we will ever create to something that is alive.” - Sir William Lyons
“and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it
was called.” – Pooh
(created by A A Milne not Disney)
“The music business has let me touch a lot of people with my talent.”
– Britney Spears
"Say what you mean and mean what you say"
– Cheshire Cat
(created by Lewis Carroll not Disney)
“Only boring people are brilliant at breakfast.”
– Oscar Wilde
"The important thing is not what they think of me, but what I think of them."
– Queen Victoria
“Look at our boys –– bringing in these stray waifs. This will ruin my reputation as a classical administrator.”
– Mrs. B.
“Spring...that wrenching feeling.”
– Colin Beer
“I like nice things that are made well.”
– Tom Bauer
“Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.” – Laurence J. Peter
“I realized that If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.”
– Charles Lindbergh
“The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”
– Bertrand Russell
“To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”
– Bertrand Russell
“Go, and never darken my towels again.”
– Groucho Marx
“Personally, before I’m on the job, I like to give my undercarriage a bit of a how’s
your father.” – A. Powers
“I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it
through not dying.”
– Woody Allen
"We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us."
– Winston Churchill
“If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”
– Carl Sagan
“A bike ride. Yes, that's it! A simple bike ride. It's what I love to do and most days I can't believe they pay me to do it. A day is not the same without it...”
– Lance Armstrong
“I love this race from the very depths of my heart. It gives me motivation and it transcendsme like nothing else in the world.”
– Lance Armstrong
“I become a happier man each time I suffer.”
– Lance Armstrong
“This is my body. And I can do whatever I want to it. I can push it. Study it. Tweak it. Listen to it. Everybody wants to know what I'm on. What am I on? I'm on my bike busting my ass six hours a day. What are you on?
– Lance Armstrong
”You like apples? Well, how do you like these F-ing apples?
– Lance Armstrong
”Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile.”
– Tony Blair
“Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.”
– Ambrose Bierce
"If a husband states his opinion in the forest and his wife is not there to hear him, is he still wrong?"
– Kent Oldknow
"I've no desire to hang around with a bunch of upper-class delinquents, do twenty minutes' work and then spend the rest of the day loafing about in Paris drinking gallons of champagne and having dozens of moist, pink, highly experienced French peasant girls galloping up and down my - hang on..."
– Edmund Blackadder
"Personally, I believe a rocking hammock, a good cigar, and a tall gin-and-tonic is the way to save the planet."
– P.J. O'Rourke
"Some people are like slinkies.... not really good for anything, but they bring a smile to your face when you push them downstairs."
– A.W.
"Eat up, Son. This'll put lead in your pencil."
– Gordon Beer
"I'm making a wigwam for a goose's bridle."
– Gordon Beer
"Simplify and add lightness." - Colin Chapman
"The beast in me is caged by frail and fragile bars."
– Johnny Cash
"A man can't ride your back unless it's bent."
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive."
– Robert Louis Stevenson
"Say it with flowers. Give 'em a triffid."
– Anon
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
– Larry Elder
“Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?”
– Steve Jobs
"Let someone else acknowledge your virtues.”
– Maori proverb
"Silence lends consent."
– Fran Russillo
“There's two theories to arguin' with a woman. Neither one works."
– Texas proverb
“There is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and railways and iron bridges and engineering devices to oblige them to be ugly. Ugliness is the measure of imperfection.”
– H. G. Wells
"Bad planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."
– Proverb
"I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way."
– Robert Frost
“A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought.”
– Dorothy L. Sayers
randomly selected by stephen beer