I'm quoting, here (no spam)

Beldin · Post by **Beldin** » Sat Mar 16, 2002 10:49 am

This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic.

-- (Terry Pratchett)

- He might have been talking about SYM...

No worries,

Beldin

frogus · Post by **frogus** » Sat Mar 16, 2002 11:05 am

Dorothy Parker:

You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.

[when asked to use the word 'horticulture' in a sentence]
You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.

[upon questioning about her abortion]
Serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard.

fable · Post by **fable** » Sat Mar 16, 2002 12:30 pm

Good ones, @Frogus. Ms. Parker was a petite, innocent-looking thing, and one of the most ruthless wielders of a literary knife that ever existed. She used to take over the drama critic's chair from benevolent Robert Benchley at the New Yorker when he went to work in films; and every Broadway production tried to time their shows to begin runs when Benchley was around.

When Parker once saw a production of King Lear on Broadway (I forget who was in it), she wrote, "He played the King as though someone had just played the Ace."

On another occasion, she remarked that a particular actor "had run the gamut of emotions from A to B."

frogus · Post by **frogus** » Sat Mar 16, 2002 12:45 pm

The whole of her review of the play 'House Beautiful':

Play Lousy.

fable · Post by **fable** » Sat Mar 16, 2002 4:36 pm

More Parkerisms:

"This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."

"The only ism Hollywood believes in is plagirism."

On that business about "running the gamut of emotions from A to B," I just found the review. It was of Katherine Hepburn in the play, "The Lake."

A review of Milne's House at Pooh Corner: "Tonstant weader fwowed up."

Another review: ""He is beyond question a writer of power; and his power lies in his ability to make sex so thoroughly, graphically and aggressively unattractive that one is fairly shaken to ponder
how little one has been missing."

Beldin · Post by **Beldin** » Mon Mar 18, 2002 5:22 am

Another one I like.....

"Do I think I'm cool? I don't know. I know I'm for real,"
John Lee Hooker , August 22, 1917 - June 21, 2001

Curdis · Post by **Curdis** » Mon Mar 18, 2002 7:02 pm

Lifted from Stephen Pile's The Book of Heroic Failures

Tying this thread to Human stupidity and people say the dumbest things - We have The Art of Being Wrong :-

'Far too noisy, my dear Mozart. Far too many notes.' - The Emperor Ferdinand after the first performance of The Marriage of Figaro.

'If Beethoven's Seventh Symphony is not by some means abridged, it will soon fall into disuse' - Philip Hale, Boston music critic, 1837

'The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine' - Ernest Rutherford(1871 - 1937) after he had split the atom for the first time.
Curdis !

fable · Post by **fable** » Mon Mar 18, 2002 7:32 pm

Re: Lifted from Stephen Pile's The Book of Heroic Failures

Originally posted by Curdis
Tying this thread to Human stupidity and people say the dumbest things - We have The Art of Being Wrong :-

'Far too noisy, my dear Mozart. Far too many notes.' - The Emperor Ferdinand after the first performance of The Marriage of Figaro.

Your source is, unfortunately, inaccurate. (No offense meant to you.) The opera in question was Mozart's Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail (literally Abduction from the Seraglio), and the Emperor in question was Joseph II. The remarks were actually correct: Mozart was experimenting with a new, bold musical form, and in one aria, has the soprano sing a very long piece while the action grinds to a halt, and everybody watches. It *was* too long.

Curdis · Post by **Curdis** » Mon Mar 18, 2002 7:49 pm

Damn it! The book is (while probably wildly inaccurate) very funny over all.

'I played over the music of that scoundrel Brahms. What a giftless bastard! It annoys me that this self-inflated mediocrity is hailed as a genius. Why, in comparison with him, Raff is a genius' - Tchaikovsky's diary, 9 October 1886. - Curdis !

fable · Post by **fable** » Mon Mar 18, 2002 8:00 pm

Which book are you using?

Curdis · Post by **Curdis** » Mon Mar 18, 2002 8:12 pm

The book is the best non-chemical anti-depressant I know of called - "The Book of Heroic Failures" Stephen Pile, Futura Publications, 1980 ISBN 0 7088 1908 7. The English-Portuguese phrase book features as the star event in "The Worst Phrasebook"

"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..." The last words of General John Sedgwick spoken while looking over the parapet at enemy lines during the battle of Spotsylvania in 1864. - Curdis !

fable · Post by **fable** » Tue Mar 19, 2002 9:31 am

Originally posted by Curdis
The book is the best non-chemical anti-depressant I know of called - "The Book of Heroic Failures" Stephen Pile, Futura Publications, 1980 ISBN 0 7088 1908 7. The English-Portuguese phrase book features as the star event in "The Worst Phrasebook"

"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..." The last words of General John Sedgwick spoken while looking over the parapet at enemy lines during the battle of Spotsylvania in 1864.

I remember reading that Sedgwick was hit twice, while leading his men in a charge, which leads me to suspect he didn't say the words mentioned above. As for the "English-Portugese Phrasebook," that was intended as a joke volume.

Might be time to find another book.

fable · Post by **fable** » Tue Mar 19, 2002 9:38 am

More Einstein quotes:

"Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."

"We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality."

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity."

All our lauded technological progress -- our very civilization - is like the axe in the hand of the pathological criminal."

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."

"Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love."

Maharlika · Post by **Maharlika** » Sat Mar 23, 2002 6:25 am

Just came from a working mini-conference...

...sponsored by The Faculty of Education, Assumption University of Thailand in collaboration with The College of Education, Washington State University, USA on "Strategies for Developing Autonomous Universities."

One quote in one of the presentations caught everyone's attention and laughter as well:

"STAY IN HERE, WE DIE.

GET OUT, WE MIGHT DIE." --- Sujin Jinayont. Former President, Naresuan University

The author of the quote was referring to the danger of choosing to stay stagnant, just because of the fear of disrupting the status quo (as regard to the present situation of the Thai Education System) and getting the blame when things don't work well when such changes take place.

fable · Post by **fable** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 10:00 am

In honor of Dubyah, here are some quotes about George W. Bush:

"Bush is just like McDonald's : pre-packaged, filled with empty calories and controlled by corporate interests." -Paul Begala

"If Martin Luther King, Jr. were to come back today, he wouldn't recognize the country it's changed so much ... unless he tried to vote in Florida." -David Letterman

"If George W. Bush is a reformer, I'm an astronaut." -John McCain

"And now a new administration takes office, with the narrowest political base in memory, consisting of no more than corporate power, the professional military, and the Christian Right." -John Kenneth Galbraith

“We see no alternatives to the Kyoto protocol. It took us 10 years to conclude this agreement. We can’t just start from scratch. We can negotiate on the climate, but we can’t negotiate with the climate." -Jan Eliasson, Sweden's Ambassador to the UN

"By simultaneously destabilizing global security in China, Korea, the Middle East and Russia, by recklessly abrogating the Kyoto climate change treaty, by bullying his allies in Europe and Asia, by pursuing a tax policy that will turn America into the most unequal society in modern history, George W. Bush is fully living up to my expectation that he would become the worst U.S. President since Herbert Hoover." -Anatole Kaletsky, The London Times

"I hope he is not as stupid as he seems." -Editorial, Kenya's Daily Nation

Aragorn Returns · Post by **Aragorn Returns** » Fri Mar 29, 2002 1:29 am

do guys realize how old this topic is? i mean, my original Aragorn of OC is on here, wow, that's old.

"I had a dog--at least I had him for a few days until he ran away--and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman, who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove" The Great Gatsby, page 3

Beldin · Post by **Beldin** » Thu May 02, 2002 5:01 am

Bump !

People who drink light "beer" don't like the taste of beer; they just like to pee a lot. ... Capital Brewery, Middleton, WI

Jace · Post by **Jace** » Thu May 02, 2002 6:50 am

"From the moment I picked up your book until I put it down I was convulsed with laughter. One day I may even read it."
- Groucho Marx

"Which of the Marx brothers had the dirtyest underpants?
Skid. They didn't let him do any of the movies"
- From a radio show I listened to a week or so ago.

Beldin · Post by **Beldin** » Thu May 02, 2002 6:57 am

I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day.
... Frank Sinatra

fable · Post by **fable** » Thu Oct 17, 2002 4:32 pm

Today, featuring...political quotes!

Patriotism is the veneration of real estate above principles. (George Jean Nathan)

After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing. (Dwight D. Eisenhower)

I'm in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal. (Milton Friedman)

A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls. (J. Danforth Quayle)

Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either. (Gore Vidal)

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously. (Hubert H. Humphrey)

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. (Upton Sinclair)

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. (CS Lewis)

A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by a common hatred of its neighbors. (WR Inge)