Quotes

Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
-- P.J. O'Rourke

It is forbidden to enter this area. Anyone carrying a weapon will be shot on sight. Thank you.
--Announcement broadcast from U.S. military vehicle patrolling Baghdad's Paradise Square.

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
-- Benjamin Franklin, 1759

"The FDA says there's no -- zilch, zero, nada -- shred of medicinal value to the evil weed marijuana. This is going to be a setback to the long-haired, maggot-infested, dope-smoking crowd." -- Rush Limbaugh, noted drug addict and idiot.

Keith Richards, 61, wears a tattered scarf around his head, and random charms -- an eagle head, a cross, a Chinese coin -- hanging from his matted quasi-dreads. He says he has no idea what-all is in his hair: his kids and friends like to decorate him while he's passed out.
--Aug. 15, 2005 issue of Newsweek magazine.

I, myself, thought we had dodged a bullet. You know why? Because I was listening to people, probably over the airways, say "The bullet has been dodged." -- Leader of the free world, George W. Bush. Is no one but me frightened by this?

Whether or not it needed to happen, I'm still convinced it needed to happen.
--George W. Bush, explaining why he sent U.S. troops into Iraq, Dec. 12, 2005.

Hey Chris, this is Sgt. Kelt at the Army, man...By federal law you've got an appointment with me at two o'clock this afternoon at Greenpoint mall, OK?...Fail to appear, and, uh, we'll have a warrant. OK? So give me a call back.
-- U.S. Army recruiter Sgt. Thomas Kelt, cold-calling to leave a message he later described as a "marketing technique."

Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.
--George W. Bush, during a campaign speech in LaCrosse, Wisconsin.

I was not lying. I said things that later on seemed to be untrue.
-- Richard Nixon, discussing Watergate in 1978

May I -- if I might, you said that I have to circumvent it [the law]. There -- wait a minute. That's a -- there's something -- it's like saying, you know, you're breaking the law. I'm not. See, that's what you've got to understand..... But also -- and we -- look -- I said, look, is it possible to conduct this program under the old law? And people said, it doesn't work in order to be able to do the job we expect us to do.
-- President G.W. Bush, Jan. 26, 2006. (Well, that clears that up. He's "not a crook." When the light shines on Bush, I see Nixon's shadow on the wall.)

Facts are stupid things.
-- Ronald Reagan

Guns have little or nothing to do with juvenile violence. The causes of youth violence are working parents who put their kids into daycare, the teaching of evolution in the schools, and working mothers who take birth control pills.
-- Tom Delay (R - Texas), on Columbine.

I want to be reincarnated as your tampon. -- Prince Charles, 1991
(Not recommended as a pick up line. Kids, don't try this at home.)

You always write it's bombing, bombing, bombing. It's not bombing, it's air support.
-- Air Force Colonel David Opfer, complaining to reporters about their coverage of the Vietnam War.

I wonder why prostitution is illegal. Why should it be illegal to sell something that's perfectly legal to give away?
-- George Carlin

Now we are forced to do something that societies often do when people can't control their desires. We have to pass laws to stop their desires.
-- Sen. Rick Santorum (R - PA) 2005, on the Senate filibuster issue.

During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.
-- Vice President Al Gore

And a year from now, I'll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush.
-- Richard N. Perle, Pentagon policy adviser, 9/22/2003

Capital punishment is our societies recognition of the sanctity of human life.
-- Orrin Hatch, Senator from Utah.

Don't be humble. You're not that great.
-- Golda Meir

It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by resorting to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.
-- H. L. Mencken

I think that the undecideds could go one way or the other.
-- George Bush, 1988

We may be finding that in some blacks, when the choke hold is applied, the veins or arteries do not open up like in normal people.
-- Daryl Gates, former L.A. police chief and complete idiot.

I'm not against the blacks, and a lot of the good blacks will attest to that.
-- Evan Mecham, then governor of Arizona

Honest businessmen should be protected from the unscrupulous consumer.
-- Lester Maddox, then governer of Georgia, on why his state should not create a consumer protection agency.

Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.
-- Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, D.C.

I did what any normal person would do at that age. You call home. You call home to mother and father and say, "I'd like to get into the National Guard."
-- Dan Quayle, vice-presidential hopeful, defending his National Guard service during the Vietnam War.

Casual drug users should be taken out and shot.
-- Daryl Gates, Asshole Deluxe.

I didn't inhale.
-- Presidential candidate Bill Clinton

Who ever heard of Casablanca? I don't want to star opposite some unknown Swedish broad.
-- George Raft, on the role of Rick in Casablanca.

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.
-- Aristotle

Ward, come upstairs and talk to The Beaver.
-- June (Mrs. Frisky) Cleaver

I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy. But that could change.
-- Vice-President Dan Quayle

A woman, occasionally, is quite a serviceable substitute for masturbation.
-- Karl Kraus

Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life.
-- Brooke Shields, on why she wanted to become spokesperson for a federal antismoking campaign.

It is more profitable for your congressman to support the tobacco industry than your life.
-- Jackie Mason

Isn't there any other part of the matzo you can eat?
-- Marilyn Monroe, after being served matzo ball soup three meals in a row.

My work is done, why wait?
-- Suicide note of Kodak founder George Eastman

Bachelors should be heavily taxed. It's not fair that some men should be happier than others.
-- Oscar Wilde

A husband is what is left of the lover after the nerve has been extracted.
-- Helen Rowland

I love California. I grew up in Phoenix.
--Vice-President Dan Quayle

Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.
-- Lenny Bruce

Bite the wax tadpole.
-- Coca-Cola name as originally translated into Chinese (later changed to "May the mouth rejoice").

Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave.
-- Ad slogan "Pepsi comes alive" as initially translated into Chinese.

If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war.
-- Senior Pentagon official, explaining why the U.S. military censored footage showing Iraqi soldiers sliced in two by U.S. helicopter fire.

They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist--
-- Last words of Union commander General John Sedgwick, spoken as he was watching enemy troops at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House.

Sure, it's going to kill a lot of people, but they may be dying of something else anyway.
-- Othal Brand, member of a Texas pesticide review board, on Chlordane.

I have no weakness for shoes. I wear very simple shoes which are pump shoes. It is not one of my weaknesses.
-- Imelda Marcos, owner of 3,400 pairs of shoes.

Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many OB/GYN's aren't able to practice their, their love with women all across this country.
-- President George W. Bush, on malpractice insurance. September 6, 2004.
(This quote, and other Bush sound files are on my Oddities page)

I don't know, maybe I made it up. Anyway, it's an arbo-tree-ist, somebody who knows about trees.
-- President George W. Bush, on the arborist coming to identify trees on his ranch.

The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him.
-- President George W. Bush, September 13, 2001.
I don't know where he [Osama] is and I really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority.
-- President George W. Bush, May 13, 2002.
Gosh, I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those exaggerations.
-- President George W. Bush, October, 13, 2004 (Apparently, the 13th is not a lucky day for George.)

Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.
-- President George W. Bush, August 5, 2004. The most honest and frightening statement Americans have ever heard.

Why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's, it's not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?
-- Barbara Bush on Good Morning America, March 18, 2003

Where would Christianity be if Jesus got eight to fifteen years, with time off for good behavior?
-- New York Senator James H. Donovan commenting on capital punishment.

Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.
-- General William Westmoreland on why the media should be controlled in wartime.

I stand by all the misstatements.
-- Dan Quayle, then vice-presidential hopeful, defending his verbal gaffes.

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