A few interesting quotes
"Speak softly, drive a sherman tank
Laugh hard, it's a long way to the bank."
- TMBG, "Rhythm Section Want Ad"
"You'd be lost without me to abuse like you're used to."
"Go away... Just get out... Be someone else's parasite!"
- Chess, "Argument"
"I can feel one of my turns coming on. And I feel...
cold as a razor blade, tight as a tourniquet, dry as a funeral drum."
- Pink Floyd, "One Of My Turns"
"When I was a child, I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child has grown
The dream is gone."
- Pink Floyd, "Comfortably Numb"
"Wherefore and hence, therefore and ergo!
(Wherefore and hence, therefore and ergo!)
All for the best in this best of all possible worlds
No finer place than this best of all possible worlds.
Any questions? Ask me, ask me; I've all the answers here!"
- Candide, "A Brilliant Exposition"
"So if you want my address, it's number one at the end of the bar
Where I sit with the broken angels, clutching at straws and nursing at scars."
- Marillion, "Sugar Mice"
"If you don't like being a loser then it's time to change the rules;
Oh, life! Give me what you can; another game, and another chance to win.
Oh, life! The follies and the toils;
You won't be 'round to gather up the spoils,
When they lay you six feet underneath the soil."
- Robbie Smith, "Oh, Life!"
"No one gets 10 out of 10... ya gotta strive for 5... You can draw
your own conclusions, but I'll tell you mine; I ain't with the 100
crowd, I'm with the 99... Everything's not always great; sometimes
it's just fine."
- Big Audio Dynamite, "Other 99"
"Freedom / once upon a moment / flashes of sensation / thrill of
inspiration / time stands still for no one / age is just a number /
pages in a story / liaisons con amore / so it is no wonder / watch the
days just fly by / point me at the highway / have to do things my way /
blowing chances bye-bye / everything is alright / once upon a
moment...."
- Big Audio Dynamite, "Applecart"
"The mindless words you are repeating;
'We are the light of a beautiful world.'
Logical thoughts are self-defeating;
We are the light of a beautiful world."
- The Bobs, "The Deprogrammer"
"Life IS pain, Highness. Anybody who tells you otherwise is selling something."
- Westley, "The Princess Bride"
"Whatever is done from love always occurs beyond good and evil."
- Nietzsche, "Beyond Good and Evil", section 153.
"I want to use and construct information servers so that I can become
an information surfer rather than a serf to information."
- Timothy Miller
"Some people say that I must be a horrible person, but that's not
true. I have the heart of a young boy -- in a jar on my desk."
- Stephen King
"Semper ubi sub ubi!"
- Brown University Greek Council, 1990
"Chocolate milk is the essence of creation, and coffee milk is the
substance of creation."
- Daniel "Danfuzz" Bornstein
"My sister has a function to perform, even as I do. The Endless have
their responsibilities. I have responsibilities. I walk by her side,
and the darkness lifts from my soul. I walk with her, and I hear the
gentle beating of mighty wings..."
- Neil Gaiman, "The Sound Of Her Wings" (Sandman #8)
(simply the single best comic book ever written)
"And you, to whom adversity has dealt its final blow,
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go.
Turn to, and bring up all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.
Rise again, rise again,
Though your heart it be broken, or life about to end,
No matter what you've lost, be it a home, a love, a friend,
Like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again!"
- Stan Rogers, "The Mary Ellen Carter"
"And I don't need to tell you of the Mystic of the lake
Who foretold so many dangers and the lives that were at stake
Or of the many stories that seem so unreal
Yet touch us in our lives and we all try to conceal.
Just remember things may not always appear
The same to you and me and to all that we hold dear
The Captain and the Mystic proves to us year after year
That what you feel in your soul might just one day become clear
And who cares if they say that you've gone 'round the bend,
It's your life that you lead, it's on you that you depend,
And the feelings that you have,
You might feel them again and again.
Who cares if they say that we've gone 'round the bend,
It's our lives that we lead, it's on us that we depend,
And the visions that we see,
Let us see them again and again."
- Lee Murdock, "The Captain and The Mystic"
"CAVEAT LECTOR: It is suggested that the reader not attempt to read
this book at one sitting. The emotional content of these stories,
taken without break, may be extremely upsetting. This note is
intended _most_ sincerely, and not as hyperbole. H.E."
- Harlan Ellison's caveat, from the front page of "Deathbird Stories"
(N.B.: On the copy of this that I checked out from the library,
written in pencil beneath the initials H.E., is "Take this
note seriously. D.S." This is a for-real warning.)
"There is no dark side of the moon, really; matter of fact, it's all dark."
- Pink Floyd, "Eclipse"
"At Apple, quality is job 1.1.1"
- unknown, from MacWeek
"On a clear disk, you can seek forever"
- from USENET
"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards;
for you are crunchy, and good with ketchup!"
- John "Krafty" Kraft, from a sign on the Spoffice
"MATHEMATICS - The synthesis of the calculus of n-variables and of
n-dimensional geometry is the basis of what Seldon once called 'my
little algebra of humanity'...."
- Issac Asimov, "Second Foundation"
"Yeah, well, you know... some days you're the bug, some days you're
the windshield."
- Jay "the screamin' demon of" Hsin
"I didn't practice abstinence, I *perfected* it!"
- Dennis Wolfberg
"Life's a joke, and death's the punchline."
- Scott Swanson
"Groovy!"
- Bruce Campbell, "Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn"
"America is like a melting pot; the people on the bottom get burned
and the scum floats to the top."
- Charlie King
"My karma has run over my dogma."
- Chris Jeris (orig. Usenet)
"It's not enough to listen, it's not enough to see.
When the hurricane is coming on, it's not enough to flee.
It's not enough to be in love; we hide behind that word.
It's not enough to be alive when your future's been deferred.
What I've run through my body, what I've run through my mind
My breath's the only rhythm and the tempo is my time
My enemy is hopelessness; my ally, honest doubt
The answer is a question that I never will find out."
- Harry Chapin, "There Only Was One Choice"
"How long 'till my soul gets it right; can any human being ever reach
that kind of light?"
- Indigo Girls, "Galileo"
"Do you love?"
- Stephen King, "The Raft"
"HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO
LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN
LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH
NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL
ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT
FOR YOU. HATE. HATE.
AM said it with the silding cold horror of a razor blade slicing my
eyeball. AM said it with the bubbling thickness of my lungs filling
with phlegm, drowning me from within. AM said it with the shriek of
babies being ground beneath blue-hot rollers. AM said it with the
taste of maggoty pork. AM touched me in every way I had ever been
touched, and devised new ways, at his leisure, there inside my mind.
...
He withdrew, murmuring 'to hell with you.'
And added, brightly, 'but then you're there, aren't you.'
...
I have no mouth, and I must scream."
- Harlan Ellison, "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream"
"But most will remember this sad day as the day the proudest, most
noble man they ever knew finally fell. For those who loved him -- one
who would call him husband, one who would be his pal, or those who
would call him son -- this is the darkest day they could ever imagine.
They raised him to be a hero: to know the value of sacrifice, to know
the value of life. And for those who served with Superman in the
protection of all life comes the shock of a failure: the weight of
being too late to help. For a city to live, a man had given his all
and more.
But it's too late. For this is the day that a Superman died."
- Dan Jurgens, "Doomsday!" (Superman #75)
"God hates me, that's what it is."
"Hate him back. It works for me."
- Danny Glover and Mel Gibson, "Lethal Weapon"
"Home is where you wear your hat."
"Laugh while you can, monkey boy!"
"Character is what you are in the dark."
- John Lithgow, "The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension"
"Remember, no matter where you go, there you are."
- Peter Weller, "The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension"
"I dunno what you say to the athiests... Have a nice weekend?"
- Joe Bolster, on the subject of Christmas, "Short Attention Span Theater"
"Spring weekend! Party time! Excellent! Where's my beer?"
- Jay "the Screamin' Demon of" Hsin, spring weekend 1992 on the 'frame
"Some parts may not exist..."
- Tom Servo, Mystery Science Theater 3000
"I will not expose the ignorance of the faculty
I will not expose the ignorance of the faculty
I will not expose the ignorance of the faculty..."
- Bart Simpson
"Farewell... farewell 'till we meet again. Peace be with you.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your doorstep."
- George Carlin (last word changed by me)
"And when all is said and done, if you have burned all of the bridges
around you, then you stand on an island, forever alone. Didn't you
know that the wood was dry, that the spark was there? Were you blind
to the world around you? Or did you want to destroy all that you saw
in a futile displacement of your thanatos? Well, now it is done. And
so are you."
- Scott Swanson, "On the Death of a Soul"
"The aching, the emptiness in my soul... I double over, my hand held
over my abdomen as though trying to keep my entrails from spilling out
onto the floor; my other hand flies to my forehead, as my body twists,
arcs, and I scream. A soundless scream, a scream that no one can
hear, and yet one that conveys the pain of a soul in eternal torture;
the pain of a man who cannot forgive himself, cannot trust himself,
and, in the end, cannot love himself.
And if he cannot love himself, who could possibly love him?"
- Scott Swanson, "On the Death of A Soul"
"Are these windows going to change my original document?"
- Woman in Time-Life "Understanding Computers" advert
"Take it easy, but take it."
- Studs Terkel
"Are you okay?"
"What difference does it make?"
- Scott Swanson and Chuck Maddox, in passing
"Why didn't you leave when you could?
You cannot call your lawyer, or anyone else outside. You must put
your trust in us. I am a small part of a large mechanism; that goes
for you too, but together we must seek the truth. I will help you to
the best of my ability, but the brunt of the responsibility lies with
you. Deliberate deceit will not be tolerated, although personally I
may find your lies charming. Inadvertant blunders will be treated
with firm kindness and you must trust me to decide the ratio of
firmness to kindness. Your best hope would be to depersonalize what
follows and not to look upon me as a foe or yourself as a victim.
Remeber, we are both seekers of truth, and in this quest I am your
friend, philosopher, and guide."
- Alan Rickman, "Closet Land"
"Am I? I am a lover who's never been kissed.
Am I? I am a fighter who's not made a fist.
Am I? If I'm alive, then there's so much I've missed;
how do I know I exist?
Are you listening to me? Are you listening to me?
AM I?"
- Harry Chapin, "Sniper"
"Don't ask; you wouldn't like the answer."
- Scott Swanson, 1991 plan
I'm not under the alkafluence of inkahol that some thinkle peep I am.
It's just the drunker I sit here the longer I get.
- Fortune
"If you think SOA means Start Of Authority, you need to trade your life
in for a new one."
- Ed "Skip" Mosshamer
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..."
- Isaac Asimov (via Fortune)
"Isn't that what science is about? Eliminating possiblities?"
- Sean Connery, "Medicine Man"
"Let the blackness engulf me whence I lie; for it is cool in the
Eternal Dark and it is far too hot where I am now."
- Scott Swanson, "Cut and Tear"
"The command could not be completed, because the item is really not an
alias (oops!). The problem has now been corrected. Please try again."
- System 7.1, on clicking "Find Original" in the info box of an
old electronic journal entry.
"It's going to make crack look like Sanka."
- Dennis Miller, on the subject of virtual reality, 3/27/93
"I'll torture you so slowly you'll think it was a career."
"Honor, tradition, <>: these are not values; these are trophies I keep in
my den as paperweights!"
- Richard E. Grant, "Hudson Hawk"
"Make a promise, take a vow;
trust your feelings, it's easy now.
Understand the voice within
and feel a change, a right beginning."
- Moody Blues, "The Voice"
"I met this woman and I fell in love with her and I thought she fell
in love with me.... FUCK!"
"My power is beyond your comprehension!"
- Jake Johannsen
Waiter: "Tea or coffee, gentlemen?"
1st customer: "I'll have tea."
2nd customer: "Me, too -- and be sure the glass is clean!"
(Waiter exits, returns)
Waiter: "Two teas. Which one asked for the clean glass?"
- Fortune
"You can break my body but you cannot break my mind; pain will only
strengthen my will. Torture is the policy of tyrants."
- Madeleine Stowe, "Closet Land"
"A good insanity should be cherished, like an old friend."
- Scott Swanson
"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
- Douglas Adams
"We accept you; one of us. Gooba gabba, gooba gabba."
- "Freaks"
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln256%Pln256/snlbx]sb3135071790101768542287578439snlbxq'|dc
- random finger
"Mix me a Hollister and Stepien milkshake; I want to metacognate."
- Scott Swanson
"You can break down my door, you can even strip search me
Never gonna take away my human dignity
Beat me, shoot me; flame keeps on burning
Never gonna put out the fire of freedom"
- Black 47, "Fire of Freedom"
"I'll tell you what it has that you don't, Max. It has a philosophy,
and _that_ is what makes it dangerous."
- "Videodrome"
"Give me life, give me pain, give me myself again!"
- Tori Amos, "Little Earthquakes"
"Can you generalize that to prove any two numbers are equal?"
- Greg Clark
"I'm surprised compilers survive encounters with this source code..."
- Laurion Burchall, on the Emacs-19 source code
"Gnus is another 11,000 lines..."
"Yeah, 10,000 of which is a delay loop."
- Laurion Burchall and Brian Cantrell
"Where am I?"
"In the Village."
"Whose side are you on?"
"That would be telling."
"We want ... information."
"You won't get it!"
"By hook or by crook, we will."
"Who are you?"
"The new number two."
"Who is number one?"
"You are number six."
"I am not a number! I am a free man!"
[laughter]
- Patrick McGoohan and Leo McKern, "The Prisoner", episode 1
"The man is utterly mad; you're playing a lunatic..."
"That's the problem. He's a brilliant lunatic and you can't tell
which way he'll jump; like his game, he's impossible to analyze. You
can't dissect him, predict him; which, of course, means he's not a
lunatic at all."
- Chess, "The Russian and Molokov"
"Life is a waste of your time,
And time is waste of your life.
So take the time to get wasted,
and have the time of your life!"
- Patrick Forman
"The weekend has not stopped getting weirder yet."
- Greg Clark, on the way to Loui's, 4/16/94 6:40AM
"They recommended euthenasia for nonconformers anywhere.
Some men's dreams, for others, turn to nightmares.
This never would have happened in their wildest dreams."
- Asia, "Wildest Dreams"
"The weekend has not stopped getting weirder yet."
- Greg Clark, cleaning up after The Wall, 4/23/94 1:45AM.
"As someone once said, 'the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft
agley ....' But would *you* trust someone who talks like that?"
- David Barr
"Water is life and I am the giver,
Hose down the driveway, flow to the river.
Thunder and lightning, no precipitation;
Change in the climate, drip irrigation."
- The Bobs, "Rainbird"
"I won't sleep with you! I _will_ sleep with my teddy bear."
- Amy Trueba
"He can't respond to me... is that what I mean to say?"
"So you're trying to say he's impotent?"
- Gun Unsal and Greg Clark, 5/10/94 7:34 PM
"Consulting: Where you go is your business. Getting you back is ours."
- from the 101 whiteboard, 5/12/94
"Consulting: Where you go is your business.
Getting you back alive is ours."
- from the 101 whiteboard, 5/13/94
"Scott, stop hitting the robot with the hammer. You said you were
going to be normal today."
- Laurion Burchall, 5/19/94 5:09 PM
"Ethernet user's manual... no, it's the ethernet _card_ user's manual..."
- Matt Elliott, 6/15/94 10:53 AM
"So the trick to getting groups to work is to never log in!"
- Zachary Miller, 6/28/94 2:54 PM
"This is doing weird things to my back."
- Brian Grunkemeyer, 7/19/94 9:02 AM
"September was just one huge, nasty blur."
- Craig Risinger, 10/5/94 5:15 PM
"SO...WHAT ARE YOU STARING AT?"
- from a ROM dump of a Macintosh IIsi
"Lying in bed with needles in one's arms, tubes in one's nose,
sensors on one's chest recording every heartbeat on a television
screen, being forced to use a bedpan, threatened with imminent
death, rendered totally helpless and dependent on others -- the
experience is shattering."
- James Lynch, "The Broken Heart", p. 126
"Like a sharp knife through warm cop..."
- Craig Risinger, 11/9/94
"One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder
where you are when you don't come home at night."
- Margaret Mead
(in a discussion about Network Time Protocol)
"What happens in the year 2000?"
"Well, the world ends."
- Random student and Tom Doeppner, cs169 (Operating Systems) lecture
"Oh man! I didn't even THINK of purging!"
- Jake Haller, 11/29/94, 9:32 PM
"Remember, even if you don't love coffee, coffee loves you."
- Alex Gottschalk
"For the next 30 milliseconds, you don't care about life support;
you want to avoid that missile coming straight at you."
- Tom Doeppner, cs169 lecture, 12/5/94
"Dude, fixing one file and then seeing '2110 builds required',
at 5:30 in the morning, after spending all night there, ain't
too funny."
- Joe Shidle, 12/8/94, 6:15 AM
"Head like a hole, black as your soul;
I'd rather die than give you control.
Bow down before the one you serve,
You're going to get what you deserve."
- Nine Inch Nails, "Head Like A Hole"
"If I was twice the man I could be, I'd still be half of what you need."
- Nine Inch Nails, "Ringfinger"
"Wrap my eyes in bandages; confessions I see through.
I get everything I want when I get part of you."
- Nine Inch Nails, "Ringfinger"
"And if I can't have everything, well then, just give me a taste.
It comes down to this: your kiss, your fist, and your strain --
it gets under my skin, within; take in the extent of my sin.
- Nine Inch Nails, "Sin"
"I like the idea of social skills."
- Patrick Coskren, 1/30/95 5:38 PM
"God forbid we should have too much butterfat in our milk."
- Greg D'Alesandre, 4/12/95 2:15 PM
"Any man can withstand adversity. To really test a man's character,
give him power."
- Rich Dallow, 8/4/97 1:20 PM
"microsoft dominates the desktop, the browser, the ISP, the money
transfer software, the content provider...am able to sleep but still
the dreams come."
- Zachary Miller, 1/28/98
"No one will ever accuse Windows of being inspired or elegant."
- Jonathan Littman, Upside.Com, 4/27/98
"Man, you never know what's gonna spark an anecdote with you!"
- Jake Haller, to Craig Risinger, 6/7/98, 5:24 PM
"See, that's the trouble with your fucking MTV-microwave-dinner generation;
you all want it now. You think you deserve it just because you want it?
It doesn't work like that! You have to earn it. You have to take it,
you have to make it yours. But first, Guy, you need to decide what it is
you really want."
- Kevin Spacey, "Swimming With Sharks"
"Show me what you're made of. Show me what you've learned. Don't let me
down, son. Everything I've taught you comes down to this. This is the
only way that you can hope to survive. Because life is not a movie.
Everyone lies. Good guys lose. And love does _not_ conquer all. So
let's do this thing. Let's finish it."
- Kevin Spacey, "Swimming With Sharks"
"The other guy won't be around to talk to our kids
He won't understand when you're down the way that I did
We had it all, you and I, we just need to try again"
- Little River Band, "The Other Guy"
"Can't assign sys$disk channel.
You should never see this error message. Been messing about again, huh?
%SYSTEM-W-NOSUCHDEV, no such device available"
- VAX error message
"VFS: Root device: Prepare for Armageddon."
- Linux VFS driver error message
"Net BIOS is twizzled"
- Artisoft LANtastic error message
"Gaping wound in control structure"
- CA-Clipper compiler error message
"Unfortunately, no one is listening to your keystrokes at the moment.
You might as well stop typing."
- Eudora Lite
"Do not paint your face with house paint."
- Visa advert
"A funny thing about a couple when a couple of years have gone by.
You don't talk; you think you know each other so well you don't have to try.
You take for granted what you used to called enchanted just a while ago.
When does a mystery turn into history? I don't know...."
- Peter, Paul, and Mary, "Virtual Party (See_You@Party.Net)"
"I'm uptight, can't sleep at night, I can't pretend everything's alright.
My ideals, my sanity, they seem to be deserting me."
- Marillion, "White Russian"
"George, I'm not proposing marriage. It's a new world; none of the old
rules apply."
- Jennifer Aniston, "The Object of My Affection"
"Chuck bought a PC at one point, didn't he?"
"Yeah, but he got better."
- Scott Swanson and Eric Johnson, 9/27/99 1:11AM
"The world is my lesbian wedding"
- Matthew Perry, "Friends"
"What about love?"
"Overrated. Biochemically, no different than eating large quantities
of chocolate."
- Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino, "The Devil's Advocate"
"I am the sun... the moon... the stars.... I am the celestial opposite
of the Chicken McNugget."
- random person, 1999 New York City Halloween Parade
"Failure is a natural consequence of any nonscalable activity."
- Paul Vixie, 1/14/2000
Q: But what *IS* the internet?
A: It's the largest equivalence class in the reflexive transitive
symmetric closure of the relationship "can be reached by an IP
packet from".
- Seth Breidbart
"There is no winning in this! There's only degrees of losing!"
- Danny DeVito, "War Of The Roses"
"Always drive on roads, not on people."
- Hyundai commercial, January 2000
"No parking space is this important. Okay, maybe it is, but please
don't try this anyway."
- Kia Sportage Commercial, 1999 (needs verification)
"While I was pondering these philosophical thoughts, I spent my days
bicycling to the beach and most of my nights sitting in front of my
computer wondering why I was no longer effusing like I was in Georgia.
Nearly a month after first stepping foot into NYC the answer flashed
into my mind --- NYC was oppressing me.
Not in any overt way. It wasn't like there were police breaking down
my door in the middle of the night or native Brooklynites would come
by and call me a scumbag. It was more along the lines of a dampening
of my mind. A near total shutdown of my mental processes. It was like...
I don't know what it was like, my mind was shutdown at the time,
whatever it was like sure wasn't fun."
- Scott Christiansen, "Tubular Grandma" (http://www.ewav.com/)
Created automatically by qhtml.a 0.93
Last updated Fri Mar 31 14:57:07 CST 2000
scott@imsa.edu