Library Update: quotes archive
The Library Update is emailed each week to subscribers. Each issue contains an interesting or humourous quote. All the quotes used since 2000 are listed here. Subscribe to the Library Update.
Quotes 2005
- no.51
- Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it. - Ellen Goodman, American journalist (1941 - )
- no.50
- The quickest way to a man's heart really is through his stomach, because then you don't have to chop through that pesky rib cage. - J. Jacques, Questionable Content webcomic, #478, 27-10-05.
- no.49
- Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right. - Laurens Van der Post, The Lost World of the Kalahari (1958).
- no.48
- When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once. - Samuel Butler, In Festing Jones, Samuel Butler: A Memoir, English composer, novelist, & satiric author, (1835 - 1902)
- no.47
- Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go straight upwards. - Fred Hoyle, English astronomer, mathematician, & popularizer of science (1915 - )
- no.46
- The Disney corporation has accomplished something I didn't think possible in today's world. They have created a land of make-believe that's worse than regular life. - P. J. O'Rourke, US humorist & political commentator (1947 - )
- no.45
- If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German dramatist, novelist, poet, & scientist (1749 - 1832)
- no.44
- The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder. - Alfred Hitchcock.
- no.43
- Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws. - Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", English science fiction novelist (1952 - 2001)
- no.42
- When a cat is dropped, it always lands on its feet, and when toast is dropped, it always lands with the buttered side facing down. I propose to strap buttered toast to the back of a cat; the two will hover, spinning, inches above the ground. With a giant buttered-cat array, a high-speed monorail could easily link New York with Chicago. - John Frazee, in "The Journal of Irreproducible Results"
- no.41
- If at first you don't succeed, find out if the loser gets anything. - Bill Lyon
- no.40
- Almost nobody dances sober, unless they happen to be insane. - H. P. Lovecraft, US horror & supernatural author, (1890 - 1937).
- no.39
- The reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have a common enemy. - Sam Levenson, (1911 - 1980).
- no.38
- Accomplishing the impossible means only that the boss will add it to your regular duties. - Doug Larson, author.
- no.37
- If television's a babysitter, the Internet is like a drunken librarian who won't shut up. - Cat and Girl
- no.36
- no.35
- Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge. - Paul Gauguin, French Post-Impressionist painter, (1848-1903).
- no.34
- The most overlooked advantage to owning a computer is that if they foul up there's no law against wacking them around a little. - Joe Martin, cartoonist.
- no.33
- If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do well matters very much. - Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929 - 1994)
- no.32
- I only know two pieces; one is 'Clair de Lune' and the other one isn't. - Victor Borge, US (Danish-born) comedian & pianist (1909 - 2000)
- no.31
- People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history. - Dan Quayle, US Republican politician (1947 - )
- no.30
- Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Thomas Cardinal Wolsey (1471-1530)
- no.29
- I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones. - John Cage, avant-garde composer, (1912 - 1992)
- no.28
- Parents were invented to make children happy by giving them something to ignore. - Ogden Nash, US humorist & poet, (1902 - 1971).
- no.27
- The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair. - Douglas Adams, English humorist & science fiction novelist, (1952-2001).
- no.26
- The prospect of a long day at the beach makes me panic. There is no harder work I can think of than taking myself off to somewhere pleasant, where I am forced to stay for hours and 'have fun'. - Phillip Lopate, author (1943- )
- no.25
- By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect 'Hungry' .... - Gary Larson, "The Far Side"
- no.24
- To keep your marriage brimming, With love in the loving cup, Whenever you're wrong, admit it; Whenever you're right, shut up. - Ogden Nash, author (1902-1971).
- no.23
- I am in the habit of looking not so much to the nature of a gift as to the spirit in which it is offered. - Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist, and poet (1850-1894)
- no.22
- If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done. - Peter Ustinov, English actor & author, (1921 - 2004)
- no.21
- Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it. - P.J. O'Rourke, US humorist & political commentator, (1947 - )
- no.20
- Too many parents make life hard for their children by trying, too zealously, to make it easy for them. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)
- no.19
- I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets. It seems to me they are wonderful things for other people to go on. - Jean Kerr, author, playwright and essayist (1923-2003).
- no.18
- There is nothing so awful - whether a week's-worth of rain, a marital quarrel, a refractory child - that it cannot be resolved in the kitchen. - Keith Botsford; Season of Soups and Mellow Vegetableness; The Independent (London, UK); Nov 6, 1993.
- no.17
- You see, I don't believe that libraries should be drab places where people sit in silence. That's been the main reason for our policy of hiring wild animals as librarians. - Monty Python's Flying Circus.
- no.16
- There are three truths: my truth, your truth, and the truth. - Chinese proverb
- no.15
- I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth. - Umberto Eco, Italian novelist & semiotician, (1932 - )
- no.14
- Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats. - Howard Aiken, US computer scientist, (1900-1973)
- no.13
- Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it. - Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
- no.12
- I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this. - Emo Phillips, comedian, actor (1956- )
- no.11
- Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up. - G. K. Chesterton, English author & mystery novelist, (1874 - 1936).
- no.10
- I believe that every human has a finite number of heart-beats. I don't intend to waste any of mine running around doing exercises. - Neil Armstrong, US astronaut, (1930 - )
- no.9
- The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. - Hunter S. Thompson, jounalist, author (1937-2005)
- no.8
- May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house. - George Carlin, US comedian and actor, (1937 - )
- no.7
- There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it. - Mary Wilson Little, U.S. author.
- no.6
- And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)
- no.5
- If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. - Antoine de Saint Exupery, pilot, poet (1900 - 1944).
- no.4
- If you torture data sufficiently, it will confess to almost anything. - Fred Menger, chemistry professor (1937- )
- no.3
- During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. - George Orwell, writer (1903-1950)
- no.2
- What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. - J.D. Salinger, writer (1919- )
- no.1
- Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. - Mahatma Gandhi, Indian ascetic & nationalist leader, (1869 - 1948)