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From: cate3@netcom.com (Henry Cate)
Message-Id: [199408021442.HAA18284@netcom6.netcom.com]
To: JWry.dl@netcom.com
Subject: Life B.F
Reply-to: cate3@netcom.com
Status: R
---------------
Date: 9 Dec 93 13:55:36 PST (Thursday)
Subject: Life B.F
The following are selections from the "Quote of the Day" mailing list
To get on send your request to: qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca
Quotes can be submitted to: qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca
----------------------------------------------------
lessons on proper husband-wife relationships...
"... wives should address their spouses respectfully as 'Husband', and
to avoid such demeaning endearments as 'sweet, sweeting, heart, sweetheart,
love, joy, dear, duck, chick or pigsnie', as well as such egalitarian
modes as the first name.".
-- William Gouge, 1622, a Puritan moral theologian.
--------------------------
]From CONSCIOUSNESS EXPLAINED, by Daniel Dennett, p. 177
"The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching
for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make
its home for life. For this task, it has a rudimentary
nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it
doesn't need its brain anymore so it eats it! (It's rather
like getting tenure.)"
Submitted by: "Eric J. Olson" [ejo@kaja.gi.alaska.edu]
--------------------------
"Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and
demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of
justice and mercy."
- Wendell Berry
--------------------------
"None of the daytime talk shows would be on the air if the states of
Florida, Texas, and California didn't exist. That's where every
bizarre act happens and every weird person alights."
- schlock talk show host Maury Povich
--------------------------
"We now sell virtually the same toys all over the world. So it stands
to reason, if all these kids are playing with the same toys, how could
they ever possibly fight with each other? There's a common thread
about how they grow up and what they play with. I thinks that's
terrific. It makes for one world."
- Charles Lazarus, founder and C.E.O., Toys "R" Us, and his big
plans for world peace
Submitted by: dkirkham@ccs.carleton.ca (Della Kirkham)
--------------------------
The local paper reprinted a column by Tom FitzGerald, a sports writer
for the SF Chronicle. He was presenting a selection of great quotes.
Two that I really liked:
"President Clinton said today that from now on he would try to give
more attention to our nation's disasters," says Jay Leno. "In fact,
he said in the next few weeks he would try to attend at least one Mets
game."
Submitted by: Gene Spafford [spaf@cs.purdue.edu]
--------------------------
"Unlike with Reagan and Bush, who seemed groomed for this kind of thing,
you get the feeling with Clinton that every now and then he closes the
shades to the Oval Office, locks the door and screams, 'Whoa! This is
really cool!'"
- comedian Mike Tilford, of The Capitol Steps
Submitted by: terry (Terry Labach)
--------------------------
"..."Junkies" is an unsuitable term for intravenously challenged persons, who
should be referred to as "the epidermally accessible" so as not to degrade
their lifestyle. In addition, I do not like the word "dope" for the
pharmaceutically liberated substances in question because it both devalues the
laboatory technicians who create it and insults the intellectually original
persons whose derogatory name it perpetuates. Addictive drugs of this sort
should be called "non-prescription chemicals of long-term commitment potential."
Doktor Kultur responding to a letter charging that "Junkie" is a degrading
term used to describe people who sell their babies for drugs as well as
injecting themselves in the spaces between their toes because they run out of
room in their arms.
Ottawa Citizen Sunday, August 1, 1993
Submitted by: "The Patman (Oh my head!)" [PATMAN@hpb.hwc.ca]
--------------------------
"I got pressures, man. I've got a demanding family, an expensive life,
and I'm lonesome."
- the late Elvis Presley, explaining to a crony why he shot up his
Ferrari when the engine wouldn't start, quoted by Barbara Holland
Submitted by: terry (Terry Labach)
--------------------------
"Mr. President, of all the world leaders you've met in your
life...which one has the largest pants?"
- Question posed to former Russian president Mikhail
Gorbachev by Nardwuar the Human Serviette, who was later
questioned by the RCMP.
"No, we didn't experiment with [pot], we smoked it!"
- Canadian author Pierre Berton explaining the 60s to
Nardwuar the Human Serviette.
"Keep on rockin' in the Free World."
- Nardwuar the Human Serviette to both Gorbachev (in Russian)
and Berton (in English).
Submitted by: mjn@sco.COM
--------------------------
"Thank you for your incoherent screaming."
-- Leonard Cohen to a member of his audience at a recent performance
in New York.
Submitted by: dkirkham@ccs.carleton.ca (Della Kirkham)
--------------------------
"It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in an argument."
- William Gibbs McAdoo
Submitted by: terry (Terry Labach)
--------------------------
"Singapore is an astonishingly efficient and repressive hyper-modern
state, like Disneyland with death penalties."
- writer William Gibson
--------------------------
Q.What's the difference between Jurassic Park and IBM?
A.One's a theme park full of old mechanical monsters that scare the
customers and the other is a movie.
Sydney Morning Herald, front page, Column 8, 1 September, 1993
(as heard on 2UE, a Sydney radio station)
Submitted by: Earl Fogel [fogel@herald.usask.ca]
--------------------------
An amusing bit from the pages of the Ottawa Citizen:
"When it comes to disguise, some hold-up artisits apparently never
quite master the art of anonymity. Police in the southwestern
Pennsylvanian town of Perryopolis report that a convenience store
robber gave up on the traditional stocking mask for something more
theatrical last week -- large, pink-and-white bunny ears. Store
employees who willingly turned over cash to the axe-wielding bunny,
had little trouble identifying him to investigators."
Submitted by: dkirkham@ccs.carleton.ca (Della Kirkham)
--------------------------
[From the "Ask a Great Canadian" feature in Frank magazine: ]
Q. What is Post Modernism?
A. Post Modernism is a widely-misunderstood term that describes this
government's ongoing efforts to modernize Canada Post. Our automated
sorting methods and stamp forgery detection software are second to
not many, but we're not resting on our laurels. Recent innovations
in delivery systems will see the introduction of the first robotic
mail carrier by the turn of the century. In 20 years, every super
mailbox will be outfitted with X-Ray specs, to enable you to read
your letters, and your neighbours' without tearing the envelope.
- The Hon. Bobbie Sparrow
Submitted by: terry (Terry Labach)
--------------------------
"The ideological discussion raging in the NDP is whether it is better
to have a deck chair on the Titanic or a window seat on the Hindenberg."
from Hugh's Views by Hugh Arscott, in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix
submitted by Sean and Theresa Wells
[note for our foreign readers: in the current Canadian national election
campaign, the New Democratic Party, Canada's traditional third party, is
facing a life-or-death struggle for its very existence. Its drop in the
public opinion polls has been substantial. Your humble editor notes a
conflict of interest, as he holds a membership in the aforementioned party.]
Submitted by: "Sean P. Wells" [wellss@sask.usask.ca]
--------------------------
An average English word is four letters and a half. By hard, honest
labor I've dug all the large words out of my vocabulary and shaved it
down till the average is three and a half...
- Mark Twain
[If someone has a more accurate reference, please let me know.
Thanks... Dan. dsmith@ann-arbor.applicon.slb.com]
Submitted by: dsmith@ann-arbor.applicon.slb.com (J. Daniel Smith)
--------------------------
"Everything I learned at IBM is worthless."
-- laid-off engineer, quoted in the Los Angeles Times
Submitted by: brennan@hal.com (Dave Brennan)
--------------------------
"At some point in the mid-Seventies, American academics stopped buying
ugly Volkswagens and started buying ugly Volvos (a few
nonconformists opted for ugly Saabs). On the surface there seems to be
an obvious explanation for this shift: graduate-student stipends gave
way to the more generous salaries of assistant and associate
professorships, and growing families requires more than a rudimentary
backseat. But the question remains, why Volvos? Why not Oldsmobiles,
or Chryslers, or Mercury station wagons?
"The answer, I think, is that Volvos provide a solution to a dilemma
facing many academics - how to enjoy the benefits of increasing
affluence while simultaneously maintaining the proper attitude of
disdain toward the goods that affluence brings. In the context of this
dilemma, the ugliness of the Volvo becomes its most attractive feature,
for it allows those who own one to plead innocent to the charge of
really wanting a nice car."
- academic and professor Stanley Fish
Submitted by: terry (Terry Labach)
--------------------------
"The difference between me and the TV Jerry is sort of like that Nice n'
Easy hair coloring. The TV Jerry is me, only better....
All comedians are cranky. I never met a funny person who wasn't. To
be funny, you've got to be cranky. Now, I'm a contented person, but a
thousand and one things irritate me. That's why New York produces good
comedians. It's that constant chafing. If you've got a comedic bent,
New York's going to provide you with plenty of ammo. The place is a
gymnasium of irritation."
- comic Jerry Seinfeld
Submitted by: terry (Terry Labach)
--------------------------
"Midlife crisis is no different from adolescence except that your face
doesn't break out and you have more money."
- Howell Raines, author of Fly Fishing Through the Midlife Crisis
Submitted by: terry (Terry Labach)
--------------------------
"I'm better than I was before, and I was the best *then*."
-- A friend, Jason Kraus,
on being asked if he had
been practicing, just before
a friendly table tennis match.
Submitted by: jblaine@ma.itd.com (Jeff Blaine)
--------------------------
"Andy had to stop smoking. Too many kids read the cartoon and it was
time he set a good example."
- cartoonist Reg Smythe, on his creation - the lovable lazy alcoholic
chauvinist Andy Capp - who has given up smoking in the cartoon strip.
Submitted by: terry (Terry Labach)
--------------------------
"Whenever you promote sharing and loving, I think it's a very positive
thing, and as a parent, I'm able to transcend my personal dislike for
large purple puppets."
- actor and father David Cassidy, on PBS dinosaur Barney
Submitted by: terry (Terry Labach)
--------------------------
In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the
cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat
could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.
-- Schrodinger's Moggy explained
(Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)
--------------------------
Today's quote is from _Frank_ columnist Michael Coren:
Thursday, Oct. 14, Victoria, B.C.
I am sent by the Times to observe the trial of those four and forty
courageous environmentalists who were arrested for blocking logging
roads in the Vancouver rain forests this summer. All were sentenced
to 45 days imprisonment and were fined between $1,500 and $3,000.
As local leader Jean McPhee commented, "This is unacceptable, crazy.
We are being put in prison. I can't believe it, just can't believe
it." Quite so. These people are white, university educated and wear
delightful mock-ratafarian woollen hats; what right does the state
have to place them in jail simply because they repatedly broke the law
after receiving eight separate warnings. This is little more than Nazi
Germany all over again.
Submitted by: thorntn@CC.UManitoba.CA
--------------------------
"According to one recent study, single women who have affairs with
married men are generally untroubled by feelings of guilt; by contrast,
many dieters feel powerful guilt and self-loathing after succumbing to
a pint of Haagen-Dazs."
- from a recent Utne Reader
Submitted by: terry (Terry Labach)
--------------------------
"Keifer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, and Oliver Platt play The Three
Musketeers as though they were Archie, Reggie, and Jughead."
- CBC Radio Calgary movie reviewer describing the new version of _The
Three Musketeers_, which he claimed reduced the Dumas story to "a
bunch of fraternity pranks" and compared the acting to the comic book
characters noted above. The review was so vicious that the on-air
staff forgot to mute their microphones and were heard laughing well
into the national news broadcast.
Submitted by: terry (Terry Labach)
--------------------------
"Even when you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just
sit there."
- Will Rogers
Submitted by: Lisa Chabot [Lisa.Chabot@Eng.Sun.COM]
--------------------------
"The weirder you are going to behave, the more normal you should look.
It works in reverse, too. When I see a kid with three or four rings in
his nose, I know there is absolutely nothing extraordinary about that
person."
- humourist P. J. O'Rourke
Submitted by: terry (Terry Labach)
--------------------------
"The possibilities are endless. I plan to hide in the woods."
- Gordon Fitch
Submitted by: Lisa Chabot [Lisa.Chabot@Eng.Sun.COM]
--------------------------
Today's quote is from _The Brothers Karamazov_.
"There are so many different ways a man may seem funny
to someone else. Especially these days when everyone
who has any talent seems to be morbidly afraid that he
may appear ridiculous. That's why so many gifted people
are unhappy."
- Duncan
[Longtime readers of the quote for the day may recall
that my first quote from _The Brothers Karamazov_
appeared about two years ago. It's a long book, and
it's about Russia.]
Submitted by: thorntn@CC.UManitoba.CA (Nov. 27, 1993)
--------------------------
"`The Macintosh helps students write faster and more neatly,' says
English Department Chair Marlene Bosanko. `Because it's designed to
work like the human brain, a student can be up and running in just a
few minutes.'"
- from the Tacoma Community College Catalogue
Submitted by: terry (Terry Labach) (Nov. 29, 1993)
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