If Michael Bolton hated Otis Redding that much, why didn’t he just break into his house and murder his wife and kids?
— The anonymous author of the Otis Redding boxed set liner notes (on Bolton’s cover of “Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay”)
Given recent events in Florida, the tourism board in Texas has developed a new advertising campaign based on the slogan “Ya’ll come to Texas, where we ain’t shot a tourist in a car since November 1963.”
— Unknown
I don’t think we can stand to have it [Mars] sitting out there without dinking with it.
— Arden Albee (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, on the Mars Observer mission)
“As your elf touches the gold doorknob, 45,000 volts of electricity run through his body. Your elf is now charcoal. What does your wizard do?”
“He calls the Dungeon Master a jerk.”
— Bill Amend, “Fox Trot”
Well, that was a piece of cake, eh K-9?
— The Doctor (Tom Baker), Doctor Who, “The Key to Time”
Piece of cake, Master? Radial slice of baked confection … coefficient of relevance to Key of Time: zero.
— K-9 (John Leeson), Doctor Who, “The Key to Time”
Before he became a hermit, Zarathud was a young Priest, and took great delight in making fools of his opponents in front of his followers.
One day Zarathud took his students to a pleasant pasture and there he confronted The Sacred Chao while She was contentedly grazing.
“Tell me, you dumb beast,” demanded the Priest in his commanding voice, “why don’t you do something worthwhile? What is your Purpose in Life, anyway?”
Munching the tasty grass, The Sacred Chao replied “MU”. (The Chinese ideogram for NO-THING.)
Upon hearing this, absolutely nobody was enlightened.
Primarily because nobody understood Chinese.
— Camden Benares, Zen Without Zen Masters
- Mythology, n.
- The body of a primitive people’s beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
It’s a trick. Get an axe.
— Ash (Bruce Campbell), Army of Darkness
- Bad Ash:
- You’re the good Ash. And I’m the bad Ash.
- Bad Ash: (dancing)
- Little goody two shoes, Little goody two shoes … etc …
- [Shotgun discharge]
- Good Ash:
- Good … bad … I’m the guy with the gun.
— Bruce Campbell and Bruce Campbell; Army of Darkness
You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.
— Albert Camus
A man said to the Universe: “Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the Universe, “the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.”
— Stephen Crane
How many seconds are there in a year? If I tell you there are 3.155 x 10^7, you won’t even try to remember it. On the other hand, who could forget that, to within half a percent, pi seconds is a nanocentury.
— Tom Duff (Bell Labs)
A hypothetical paradox: What would happen in a battle between an Enterprise security team, who always get killed soon after appearing, and a squad of Imperial Stormtroopers, who can’t hit the broad side of a planet?
— Tom Galloway
- Henry:
- I am Henry the Red, Duke of Shale, Lord of the Northlands and leader of its peoples.
- Ash:
- Well hello Mr. Fancy-pants. I got news for you pal, you ain’t leadin’ but two things right now. Jack and shit … and Jack left town.
— Marcus Gilbert and Bruce Campbell; Army of Darkness
I have trouble paying more than three digits for something that can’t be plugged into a wall.
— Sean Goller (on engagement rings, since recanted)
What is a magician but a practising theorist?
— Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness)
I guess she’ll stop acting weird now that i’m not a guy.
— Kerry Hagan
- NITVWIT, n.
- Any person who can’t find reverse gear in a Volkswagen.
— Rich Hall, Sniglets
There are three schools of magic.
One: State a tautology, then ring the changes on its corollaries; that’s philosophy.
Two: Record many facts. Try to find a pattern. Then make a wrong guess at the next fact; that’s science.
Three: Be aware that you live in a malevolent Universe controlled by Murphy’s Law, sometimes offset by Brewster’s Factor; that’s engineering.
— Robert A. Heinlein, The Number of the Beast
Opinions are like assholes — everyone’s got one, but nobody wants to look at the other guy’s.
— Hal Hickman
Waitaminit! Why are we following the Tarka??
— Mav (Chris Holly)
I don’t have an ego problem, I am an ego problem!
— Fiz (Faisal Jawdat)
It has been said [by Antaole France], “it is not by amusing oneself that one learns,” and, in reply: “it is only by amusing oneself that one can learn.”
— Edward Kasner and James R. Newman
She later confessed to me that I was the only person, besides herself, who could make her really laugh. It was the best grade I ever got.
— Chip Kidd, The Cheese Monkeys
What can you say about a society that says God is dead and Elvis is alive?
— Irv Kupcinet
if i kill my officemate, can one of you come to court and say I was in Baker or something at the time it happened?
— Len Lanphar
Peet’s Coffee should be included in a SF Welcome Bag. Alongside a KQED sticker, a dog, and your newly uncontrollable sense of moral outrage.
— Merlin Mann
FWIW the Vegas hotel that flew your live lobster from Maine into a desert would appreciate your reusing your towel. For the environment.
— Merlin Mann
Living in SF has made me suspicious of insanely beautiful days. Feels like a magic trick.
— Merlin Mann
Jeepers, he holds the world’s fate in his hands and he can’t drive a stick!
— Mike Nelson (MST3K)
Into love and out again,
Thus I went and thus I go.
Spare your voice, and hold your pen:
Well and bitterly I know
All the songs were ever sung,
All the words were ever said;
Could it be, when I was young,
Someone dropped me on my head?
— Dorothy Parker
All science is either physics or stamp collecting.
— Ernest Rutherford
Hier liegt ein Mann ganz obnegleich;
Im Leibe dick, an Suden reich.
Wir haben ihn in das Grab gesteckt,
Weil es uns dunkt er sei verreckt.
Here lies a man with sundry flaws
And numerous Sins upon his head;
We buried him today because
As far as we can tell, he’s dead.
— Peter Schickele, The Definitive Biography of PDQ Bach (PDQ Bach’s epitaph, as requested by his cousin Betty Sue Bach and written by the local doggerel catcher)
A “BAD TRIP”?!? You mean, we could smoke this and end up in Cleveland? This could be risky!
— Tom Servo (MST3K)
Nature abhors a hero. For one thing, he violates the law of conservation of energy. For another, how can it be the survival of the fittest when the fittest keeps putting himself in situations where he is most likely to be creamed?
— Solomon Short
I’m not here to judge, I’m just here to point and giggle.
— Hal Sparks, Talk Soup
- Rosencrantz:
- Do you think Death could be a boat?
- Guildenstern:
- No, no, no … Death is … not. Death isn’t. The ultimate negative. Not-being. You can’t not be on a boat.
- Rosencrantz:
- I’ve frequently not been on boats.
- Guildenstern:
- No, no, no … What you’ve been is not on boats.
— Tom Stoppard, “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead”
Must … defy … laws … of … physics …
— The Tick
Football combines two of the worst things about American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings.
— George Will
You have to understand, he spells “anal–retentive” with an en-dash.
— Stork (Dave Zabowski)