Quote of the Day

(Quotes from news, business, friends)

Copyright 1996-1998. Bruce A. Epstein. All Rights Reserved.

Last Updated June 1, 1998

Also check out:

"Do you REALLY want some cheesy poofs?" Hell yeah, we want cheesy poofs!"
-- Roy Pardi 06/10/98, annoyed at the proliferation of confirmation dialog boxes

"Jazz fans, gun owners and those who lack confidence in the president are among the most sexually active Americans. Just why was unclear. "

AP-NY-01-14-98

"I'm just an Englishman. We don't talk about erections."
-- Ray Davies talking about Viagara on "Politically Incorrect" 04/28/98

"You can have a sane conversation with her once in a while. Moreso when she was working."
MFS 11/17/97

"A court, nonetheless, is not a casino."
Judge Hiller B. Zobel 11/10/97 addressing whether the "Defendant [Louise Woodard] should be able to escape the consequences of a decision by her experienced lawyers which she personally and publicly approved."

"The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable PI can be given that value with a DATA statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change."
-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers

"If you owned both Hell and Texas, you'd rent out Texas and live in Hell."
-- William Tecumseh Sherman

"We may do dumb things from time to time, but we are not certifiably insane."
-- 09/15/97, White House spokesman Mike McCurry denying involvement in the IRS's recent decision to audit Paula Jones and her husband.

"As long as no one gets hurt, all of my imitators have my complete respect, even admiration." -- 09/03/97 Great Train Robber Ronald Biggs, 68, on the robbery of $35 million from a Zurich post office this week. Biggs also advised the thieves to lie low for a while.

"Apple's in a situation now where you either have to give the man the responsibility and authority to do what he's already doing - or you have to tell him to stop doing it.''
-- Pieter Hartsook, publisher of The Hartsook Letter 07/30/97
speaking on Steve Job's current status as the de facto CEO of Apple

"It's not supposed to be sexual or sexy and it won't be.''
-- Leonard Horn, president of the Miss America organization, announcing that two-piece suits, but no thongs or bikinis, will be allowed in this year's Miss America pageant's swimsuit competition. 07/21/97

"You're going down that road. You might as well do it in pink."
--MFS 07/21/97

"It should be understood that if you push beyond the level of your abilities, and you happen to land on your head, even with a helmet, you could kill yourself."
-- from the inline skating FAQ.

"Everybody wants a big fish."
-- Robert Epstein 07/05/97

"He spit out his mouthpiece and bit my ear. After the first one, my corner told me to keep cool.
I went back and hit him with some good shots and he bit my ear again. He bit me on purpose.
I'm thankful that we have a referee like Mills Lane who can see the situation and that this was intentional."
-- Evander Holyfield who had to get part of his ear re-attached, speaking about Mike Tyson 06/28/97

"He butted me in the first round and he butted me in the second round.
What am I supposed to do? I've got children to raise. I have to retaliate."
-- "Iron" Mike Tyson, 06/28/97

"I saw him bite his ear off. It's the most incredible thing I have ever seen in
boxing. He should be tested or something."
-- Holyfield's trainer, Don Turner, 06/28/97

"Lawyers already outnumber humans in some cities."
-- Dave Barry 06/97

"Can that sentence be diagrammed? Not without powerful pharmaceuticals."
-- Dave Barry 06/97

"[Most dance music is] Sonic Wallpaper. The reason drugs are prevalent in the dance club culture, is because if you're not on drugs you'd be really bored by the monotonous music."
-- DJ from WRSU New Brunswick 90.x FM 06/10/97

"It's got some weight to it. Filling. Nutritious."

-- Same DJ contrasting the album "If 60s were 90s" by Beautiful Family with most dance music.

(Also check out "The World Goes Ska")

"I was looking at the clock so I didn't see the shot. It was in the air for a long time. When it went through it got so loud that it was surreal. I'm not sure what surreal means, but I heard someone say it on TV and it sounded real smart."

Charles Barkley of the Houston Rockets on his teammate's game-winning shot at the buzzer during the playoffs against the Utah Jazz. 05/26/97

"You personally? You're a salt-water fish man."
-- RWE 05/25/97

"The ratios are not interesting."
-- RWE 05/25/97

"I haven't seen Oz in a way long time"
-- Dave Gewirtz 05/21/97

"Informal. Consider a form of 'irritate' if you mean 'bother'."

MS-Word 5.1's grammar checker upon encountering the word "bug". 05/18/97

"People here, you know, this is the ghetto. They see money, they're gonna take it, you know". Okland resident Chaka Grace explaining why no one had turned in $500,000 in cash that vanished after it spilled from an armored car that overturned in a traffic accident.
AP 05/04/97

"Mother Theresa is one of the outstanding symbols of evil in the 20th century."
-- John Ridpath of the Ayn Rand Institute, speaking at the "anti-volunteerism" summit held in protest of President Clinton's Summit for America's Future 04/30/97

"Ah yes, the prom. Who could forget it? I threw up all over my tuxedo in front of my date. It was certainly a memorable night."
-- Nicholas Cage 04/28/97

"I went to my sister's prom. I didn't have a dress, so I turned this big American flag into this great evening gown. I also had spray-painted blue hair and had two big pompoms on each side of my head. I was stylin'"
-- Actress Rose McGown of Doom Generation 04/28/97

"If we throw things away, our world will be filled with garbage and there won't be room for people. Fish and sea animals will die in the polluted oceans, and the food chain will be broken. If the food chain is broken, we will not have any meat to eat. The only foods we could eat would be vegetables and fruits. Recycle!"
Letter to the Editor of the Newark Star-Ledger from Jessice Schempp, Fourth Grade, John Hill School, Boonton NJ 04/27/97

"They got me busier than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest."
-- Dolly Parton 04/21/97

"The executive said, 'First, it's about blacks, which means no whites will go; second, it was written by a white, which means no blacks will go; third, it's an opera, which means no one will go'."
-- recollection of the of the movie version of "Porgy and Bess"

"These are little companies. I mean, like, buy a goat and sell the milk."
-- Economist Pierre Cremieux on the successful "micro-loan" program for entrepreneurs in developing nations. 05/02/97

"They have unions, and they are crazed left-wing radical maniacs."
-- PYC, an admitted left-wing socialist, on the socioeconomic climate in Haiti, 05/02/97

"I picked a guy who I thought was over the hill, and the next thing you know, I'm in Africa on the floor and he's scremaing 'I'm The Greatest.'"

-- Boxer George Foreman on why he hasn't hand-picked an opponent since picking Ali in 1974, as quoted on 04/20/97

"In these pizzerias, an order of pizza and coke didn't mean a snack and soda. [Buyers would order] 20 pizzas with extra 'cheese' or 'sauce'."

-- US Attorney Faith Hochberg on the series of arrest made following a 20-month investigation of the "Pizza Connection" network, alleged to be distributing drugs through pizza parlors. 04/17/97

"Address:Unkown"

-- The alumni update for Unabomber suspect Ted Kaczynski, in the 35th Anniversary Report of the Harvard College Class of 1962 which went out the week of April 15, 1997. Kaczynski had been in the Sacramento (California) County Jail for several months at that point.

"Serving humanity with half my brain tied behind my back - just to make it fair, I am Rush Limbaugh."

-- From a printed advertisement for 77 WABC NewsTalk Radio in New York, promoting Rush Limbaugh's radio program. 04/09/97

"The isolation of a chemical that produces orgasms in women...could lead one day to a pill that would give a person the same sensation as an orgasm and might have use in treating pain, said Barry R. Komisaruk, a professor at Rutgers".

--Associated Press 04/07/98

"There is no orgasm pill and we're working on no orgasm pill. There was pain blockage in women during orgasm and we found that some women with complete spinal cord injuries can experience orgasm, that is it."

-- Beverly Whipple, a Rutgers University sex researcher at a press conference called to clarify confusion over the alleged comments of her colleague Barry R. Komisaruk, from a Newark Star-Ledger article by Lisa Peterson

Really, he called me that? Ellen DeGenerate? I've been getting that since the fourth grade."
-- Ellen DeGeneres responding to Rev. Jerry Falwell's name-calling. 04/07/97

"Can I leave a message for the IRS, or do they have to be home when I call them?"
-- Robert Epstein 03/29/97

"It is about two sisters who get involved in a cult and kind of take the [cult's] rules and make them into their own. One decides she has to strip for the Lord and the other decides she's got to kill somebody to redeem herself in the eyes of God. It's about the contradicitions of religion. I guess I am still working out some of that childhood stuff."

-- Anne Heche, 03/29/97, discussing her strict Baptist upbringing and the short film, Stripping for Jesus which she wrote and directed.

"That was the worst movie on the planet, almost soft porn. I'm a lesbian [and a hooker] and I, of course, at the time, being a very intense actress, thought, 'I can do this dark seedy thing.' I wanted to work with [Joan Chen] - 'Yeah, I'll make love to her, she's a beautiful woman.' Oh man, it was just pathetic."

-- Anne Heche, 03/29/97, on the film, The Wild Side which went straight to video. (Heche also starred in Volcano, opposite Tommy Lee Jones, and has publicly acknowledged her relationship with Ellen DeGeneres.)

"Finding Charles Manson unsuitable for parole is the easiest decision you will have this year. Mr. Manson and I both know that Charles Manson will never be suitable for parole."

-- Los Angeles Country Deputy District Attorney Stephen Kay, an original prosecutor at Manson's trial, at Manson's ninth parole hearing on March 27, 1997

"I accept this decision. That's cool. I'm involved in too many things,
[and just too busy to be free]. I have a Web site I am working on."

-- Charles Manson, March 27, 1997, after the parole board denied his parole for
at least another five years, having deliberated for 20 minutes, from a March 28, 1997 Associated Press article by Linda Deutsch

"These monks that just took their heads in San Diego -- they're way behind the times."
-- Charles Manson, March 27, 1997, at his parole hearing.

"I like soft money. I like the whole idea"
-- Brian "BamBam" Johansen March 6, 1997

Q: What did the Zen Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor?
A: "Make me one with everything."
-- Jim Carey, et al, Feb 1997

"Clearly, a cult is a minority religion. The Southern Baptists consider the Mormons a cult."
-- D.L. aka Pookie, 02/03/97, commenting on the German government's persecution of members of the Church of Scientology.

"Freedom isn't measured by the ability to show tits and dicks at a subway magazine shop."
- R.$. 02/03/97 commenting on freedom of the press, the internet and religion in the US vs. Europe, in the wake of the German government's persecution of members of the Church of Scientology.

'' Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.''
-- Philip K. Dick

"Lastly, if you are a dedicated dog lover, a one year old disciplined golden retriever might also come with the house. I will be leaving on a three year long assignment for London, UK, a country to which bringing your pet is virtually unthinkable."

-- T. Taniguchi Jan 1997, in an advertisement to sublet his house.

"It's so simple, I feel like an idiot for believing the manual."
-- AC 08/26/96 on Lingo's the timeOutLapsed property

"First of all, I don't 'sweat', I 'perspire'. Secondly, I don't perspire."
-- Charles Emerson Winchester of M*SH

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.) said:
"All paid employments absorb and degrade the mind"

[Ed. although he probably said it in Greek].