Top 817 Quotes & Sayings by Dave Barry - Page 11

Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask whether your country has been inhaling paint-thinner fumes.

I am a world-class weenie when it comes to letting people stick needles into me. My subconscious mind firmly believes that if God had wanted us to have direct access to our bloodstreams, He would have equipped our skin with small, clearly marked doors.

France: As a professional journalist, I like the idea of a society where it is considered an acceptable occupation to basically sit around and drink.

Smee! Raise the Ladies!

The only really good place to buy lumber is at a store where the lumber has already been cut and attached together in the form of furniture finished and put inside boxes.

When preparing your return, you should be sure to avoid common mistakes. The two most common taxpayer mistakes, states the IRS booklet, are (1) "failure to include a current address," and (2) "failure to be a large industry that gives humongous contributions to key tax-law-writing congresspersons."

Never board a commercial aircraft if the pilot is wearing a tank top.

Think, for a moment, of the countless happy childhood hours you spent with this amazing device: Drawing perfect horizontals, drawing perfect verticals, drawing really spastic diagonals, trying to scrape away the silver powder from the window so you could look inside.

A full-grown manatee, which can weigh more than 1,000 pounds, looks like the result of a genetic experiment involving a walrus and the Goodyear Blimp.

2. The instant the doors open, you want to push forward as hard as possible, in an effort to get onto the train without letting anybody off. This is very important. If anybody does get off, it is legal to tackle him and drag him back on.

You must prepare yourselves, young people, because Uncle Dave's generation is getting old. We are almost ready to go to the retirement home to spend the rest of our days tapping our bedpans rhythmically in time to "easy listening" rock 'n' roll. We must pass the torch on to you, and you must grasp it, ideally by the end that is not on fire.

The term SAT is a set of initials, or autonym, standing for Scholastic Attitude Treaty Organization.

We journalists... are also extremely impressed with scientists, and we will, frankly, print just about any wacky thing they tell us, especially if it involves outer space.

UNIVAC: a device, which contained 20,000 vacuum tubes, occupied 1,500 square feet and weighed 40 tons; there was also a laptop version weighing 27 tons.

Playing an unamplified electric guitar is like strumming on a picnic table.

This is true; virtually all edible substances, and many automotive products, are now marketed as being low-fat or fat-free. Americans are obsessed with fat content.

You don't have to think really hard to get the joke. I think humor in general appeals to all people.

The porpoises said hello to Molly. She told them all her teeth were green.

The method preferred by most balding men for making themselves look silly is called the comb over.

The United States tried, by depressing the clutch of diplomacy and downshifting the gearshift lever of rhetoric, to remain neutral, but it became increasingly obvious that the nation was going to get into a war, especially since it was almost 1812.

What I want to know is: Why is it important to have visible stomach muscles? I grew up in an era (the Paleolithic) when people kept their stomach muscles discreetly out of sight.

Before going on a diet you should consult your doctor, or at least send him some money.

Humor is an escape, because you cannot think about your problems when you are trying to be funny; so, in essence, "being a humorist" gives you a valid excuse to hide from your pain.

As a taxpayer, you are required to be fully in compliance with the United States Tax Code, which is currently the size and weight of the Budweiser Clydesdales.

Do not put this product in a big vat and drop rats into it from a cat-walk.

...Hell, which as every frequent traveler knows, is in Concourse D of O'Hare Airport.

American business long ago gave up on demanding that prospective employees be honest and hardworking. It has even stopped hoping for employees who are educated enough that they can tell the difference between the men's room and the women's room without having little pictures on the doors.

Without good grammar, the United States would have lost World War II.

The question is, why are politicians so eager to be president? What is it about the job that makes it worth revealing, on national television, that you have the ethical standards of a slime-coated piece of industrial waste?

Eventually everyone has to die, except Elvis.

The Japanese tend to be far more co-operative and docile and group-oriented. It would be easier to get the entire population of Tokyo to wear matching outfits than to get any two randomly selected Americans to agree on pizza toppings.

You men out there probably think you already know how to dress for success. You know, for example, that you should not wear leisure suits or white plastic belts and shoes, unless you are going to a costume party disguised as a pig farmer vacationing at Disney World.

Software is usually accompanied by documentation in the form of big fat scary manuals that nobody ever reads. In fact, for the past five years most of the manuals shipped with software products have actually been copies of Stephen King's The Stand with new covers pasted on.

I am absolutely sick unto death of hearing people say - they all say this; it must be Item One on the curriculum in Trend College - "I just hate to talk to a machine!" They say this as though it is a major philosophical position, as opposed to a description of a minor neurosis. My feeling is, if you have a problem like this, you shouldn't go around trumpeting it; you should stay home and practice talking to a machine you can feel comfortable with, such as your Water Pik, until you are ready to assume your place in modern society.

Never trust anything you read in a travel article.

In more than 20 years of opening beers with guys, I have NEVER seen the Swedish Bikini Team show up. Almost always, the teams that show up in beer drinking situations consist of guys who have been playing league softball and smell like bus seats.

Of course, the truth is that the congresspersons are too busy raising campaign money to read the laws they pass. The laws are written by staff tax nerds who can put pretty much any wording they want in there. I bet that if you actually read the entire vastness of the US tax code, you'd find at least one sex scene. ("Yes, yes, YES!" moaned Vanessa as Lance, his taut body moist with moisture, again and again depreciated her adjusted gross rate of annualized fiscal debenture...)

Can we move this conversation along, I'm getting frightfully tired of 'hoa'.

Miami drivers will attempt to pass you inside a car wash.

Congress shall also create a tax code weighing more than the combined poundage of the largest member of the House and the largest member of the Senate, plus a standard musk ox.

It would be hard to conceive of any activity more useless than stamp collecting.

The Spanish government, having run completely out of money, secretly sold the Pyrenees to China, and is now separated from France only by traffic cones.

Dear Hotel People: We don't need a cheeseball clock-radio. WE NEED PLACES TO PLUG STUFF IN. Thank you.

Japan has a low crime rate, unless you count the fact that approximately every fifteen minutes the entire Cabinet gets indicted for taking bribes.

In foreign countries such as Italy, the government puts strict-looking speed limit signs everywhere, but nobody ever sees them because light does not travel fast enough to catch the Italian drivers.

The greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison Edison's first major invention, in 1877, was the phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of American homes, where it basically sat until 1923, when the record was invented.

Rembrandt's first name was Beauregard, which is why he never used it.

You should not use your fireplace, because scientists now believe that, contrary to popular opinion, fireplaces actually remove heat from houses. Really, that's what scientists believe. In fact many scientists actually use their fireplaces to cool their houses in the summer. If you visit a scientist's house on a sultry August day, you'll find a cheerful fire roaring on the hearth and the scientist sitting nearby, remarking on how cool he is and drinking heavily.

I care about our young people, and I wish them great success, because they are our Hope for the Future, and some day, when my generation retires, they will have to pay us trillions of dollars in social security

There are two kinds of solar-heat systems: passive systems collect the sunlight that hits your home, and active systems collect the sunlight that hits your neighbors' homes, too.

I think I became funny because I grew up in the Bronx. I was small and weak and Jewish instead of large and fierce and Puerto Rican. You need something.

The story you envision as you start out is always a great story; when the facts turn out to be different from, or more complex than, what you expected, your first reaction is always disappointment. That's when you must fight the urge to bend the story to your preconceived notions. First, it's dishonest. And second, in the end, the truth is always the best story.

The great thing about golf - and this is the reason why a lot of health experts like me recommend it - you can drink beer and ride in a cart while you play.

Today's toys contain computer chips, so they can move and talk; this stimulates the mind of your child. Notice I say "your child." MY child just wants to eat the toys.

Greyhound Bus Lines motto: "We Stop For Some Damn Thing Every 200 Yards."

All these people helped make this book possible. But let me make one thing clear: If there are any errors or omissions in this book, these people are not responsible. In the end, there is only one person responsible for what I write, and that person, of course, is: Donald Trump.

Just get on any major highway, and eventually it will dead-end in a Disney parking area large enough to have its own climate, populated by large nomadic families who have been trying to find their cars since the Carter administration.

Like all writers, my greatest inspiration, my ultimate muse, is a deadline.

The population of earth has reached 7 billion people, every single one of whom send you irritating emails to join something called "LinkedIn."

I have read that, on the average, the Japanese are getting taller, but at the moment they seem to be about the same height as American junior-high-school students, only with fewer guns.