Fun_People Archive
27 Jun
Nineteen Unfamiliar Quotations

Date: Sun, 27 Jun 93 11:35:45 PDT
To: Fun_People
Subject: Nineteen Unfamiliar Quotations

[Mea culpa; the value judgements in [brackets] are mine...  -psl]

 From: <pep@research.att.com>
 From: schaefer@hri.com (Rich Schaefer)
 <some fwds lost>
 From: the book "The 776 Stupidest Things Ever Said."


[First, eight really clueless quotes...]

"Things are more like they are now than they have ever been."
 - President Gerald Ford

"Wherever I have gone in this country, I have found Americans."
 - Alf Landon, during his speech in his presidential campaign against FDR

"My fellow astronauts"
 - Vice-President Dan Quayle, beginning a speech at an Apollo 11 anniversary
 celebration

"Isn't it a blessing of God it didn't hit him in the eye?"
 - an elderly woman, when she and two others found a dead robber on the
 road, shot through the right temple

"While you are away, movie stars are taking your women.  Robert Redford is
dating your girlfriend, Tom Selleck is kissing your lady, Bart Simpson is
making love to your wife."
 - Baghdad Betty, Iraqi radio announcer, to gulf war troops

"This country needs a spear chucker, and I think we've got him up on this
podium."
 - Eugene Dorff, mayor of Kenosha, Wisconsin, introducing presidential
 candidate Jesse Jackson.  He said later he had intended to say "straight
 shooter."

"I want to gain 1,500 or 2,000 yards, whichever comes first."
 - George Rogers, Saints running back

"If crime went down 100%, it would still be 50 times higher than it shoud be."
 - Councilman John Bowman commenting on the high crime in Washington [DC].


[Then six questionable logic quotes...]

"I believe that mink are raised for being turned into fur coats and if we
didn't wear fur coats those little animals would never have been born.  So
is it better not to have been born or to have lived for a year or two to
have been turned into a fur coat?"
 - Barbi Benton, ex-Playboy bunny

"I've been traveling so much, I haven't had time to grow it."
 - Bob Horner, Atlanta Braves third baseman, on why he hadn't grown a beard

"That's part of American greatness, is discrimination.  Yes, sir.
Inequality, I think, breeds freedom and gives a man opportunity."
 - Lester Maddox, ex-Governor of Georgia

"I paint paintings because I can't get the experience in any other way but
there are many more experiences that are equally satisfying to me and
equally inept at answering all my questions, but hover in exactitude in
describing themselves and defying me to define their logic."
 - Julian Schnabel [See what reading art criticism will do to you?]

"Captial punishment is our society's recognition of the sanctity of human
life."
 - Orrin Hatch, Republican senator

"If we didn't have bonuses, we wouldn't have had anybody working for us."
 - Drexel Burnham Lambert spokesperson, explaining why the company gave
 over $195 million in bonuses just before it filed for bankruptcy.


[Then three pleasantly silly quotes...]

"Half this game is 90% mental."
 - Danny Ozark, manager of the Phillies

"A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on."
 - movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn

"You're a parasite for sore eyes."
 - actor Gregory Ratoff


[And finally, two sick quotes...]

"The boys never meant any harm against the girls.  They just meant to rape."
 - Joyce Kithira, boarding school deputy principal, commenting on a raid of
 a girls' dormitory by a gang of boys who raped 71 girls and killed 19.

"I first saw President Reagan as a foot, highly polished brown cordovan
wagging merrily on a hassock.  I spied it through the door.  It was a
beautiful foot, sleek.  Such casual elegance and clean lines!  But not a
big foot, not formidable, maybe a little ...frail.  I imagined cradling it
in my arms, protecting it from unsmooth roads."
 - Peggy Noonan, speechwriter for the Reagan administration

© 1993 Peter Langston