It is better to be a beggar than uneducated; the beggars
must have money, the others need to be made human.
--Aristippus
Usenet is not a democracy. It is a weird cross between
an anarchy and a dictatorship.
--aahz@netcom.com
Perhaps Blair is an anatomically correct man-shaped
popsicle?
--Anne-Sigrid
I do not think you can catch me, for I am super-freaky.
-- Artie, the Strongest Man in the World, Pete&Pete
Suddenly I looked around and felt dangerously like
an emoticon on alt.folklore.urban.
--Steven Angelo
I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather.
Not screaming in terror like his passengers.
--Michael Aulfrey
Repetitive use of simile is also a bugger. "She opened
her arms to him like the parting of the seas. He went to her like a
moth to the flame. She cried out like an injured wolf. He entered her
like a black and decker power drill. He was as small as a pencil. She
was as bored as a golf spectator. He came more quickly than a bolt of
lightning. She left faster than a jackrabbit. He was as confused as
a newborn babe. She threw away his phone number like it was a used tampon."
--Agincourt
Perfect
Tommy: Why me?
Buckaroo Banzai: Because you're perfect.
Perfect Tommy: You've got a point.
--The Adventures of Buckaroo
Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
She put quarters up your nose, dammit, you should
spit out some fic.
--Basingstoke
Tonight on K-ELF, R&B Rivendell!
--Basingstoke
He could never stick with anything. The thing he stuck
longest with was being a junkie.
--Che Bell, about the former bass player in her band
I am, apparently, on the side of the neologists and
even of the romantacists; the latter discover hidden treasures in our
language, and the former are like mariners who sail to far lands to
seek out what we need.
--Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, tr. M.F.K. Fisher
natsukusa ya tsuwamonodomo ga yume no ato
Summer grasses --
traces of dreams
of ancient warriors
--Basho, from "Narrow Road", tr. Haruo Shirane
There -- I've now managed to warp reality enough so
that I can safely persist in my preconceived notions.
--Robin Barr
in determining what i eat or don't eat, the rule is to defer to the most ancient culture on the planet, since they are obviously the smartest. therefore, i eat whatever the chinese people eat.
which means 'everything'.
--Peter Berger
The very notion that one should *not* write for an audience was invented about 200 years ago by a bunch of independently wealthy poets who were hopped up on drugs. Virgil, Sappho, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Donne, all of the "great writers" of the past not only wrote for their audience, but often to the specific demands of specific patrons. Guess that makes them soulless prostitutes, huh?
What hogwash.
--Lucy Busker
ooh, my avocado is ripe.
--Basingstoke
Haven't seen an episode of Buffy The Series or Angel,
from what I understand they took the main joke of the movie that this
blonde barbie-girl cheerleader Valley princess was responsible for saving
mankind and turned her into some kind of geek-chic coolgal in a weird
universe. And Angel sounds too much like Forever Knight but with more
dramatic cheekbones.
--Besterette@aol.com
When was the last time
you honestly heard a straight man suggest that military uniforms be
accessorized with scarves?
--Kevin
Baird, arguing that Elim Garak (of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) is
gay.
I've got to stop lying
about things.
--David Bowie, Sept 13, 1995
Chemistry, in technical
terms, is the study of all the weensy little objects that make up the
large objects we can see with our naked eyes, such as toasters.
--Dave
Barry
Record
company official: You don't have to touch anyone if you don't want to.
Bowie: I don't mind touching people.
--David Bowie, Boston, 1995
Some useful definitions:
BEATLEMANIAC: A semi-deranged creature who has only two brain cells
left, which will die if the creature listens to "She Loves You." one
more time.
DOORS FREAK: A fully deranged individual who went and listened to "She
Loves You " one more time, has no more brain cells, and thereby is qualified
to become a Doors freak.
--Che
Bell
Van: Pathetic. I walk around campus and people recognize me regardless of what I am wearing. I have no need of silly props.
Keith: You should use them anyway. I mean, when they
say "that huge guy", that's not sufficiently specific to you, but if
they could say "that huge guy who wears a walrus on his head" then it
would be certain.
--Van
Butler and Keith Irwin
I
think it's negating a lot of art not to realize that pretension is very
valid.
-- David
Bowie, 1995
Honest
officer, the dwarf was on fire when I got here.
-- Black
Dragon
I
seriously cannot believe that it is possible to be an effective ghost
without violating the natural order.
-- The
BOB(c)
Any
society that allows people like Lou Reed and I to become rampant is
pretty well lost.
-- David
Bowie
You
probably think that we are sad and weird. But I don't care. I am a happy
nerd in cyberspace, where nobody can see my haircut.
--Dave
Barry
I'm
an instant rock star...just add water and stir.
-- David
Bowie
Bishop: You fiend! Never have I encountered such corrupt and foul-minded perversity. Have you ever considered a career in the church?
Queen: Oh Edmund, I do love it when you get cross. Sometimes I think about having you executed, just to see the expression on your face...
Percy: Oh, how I would love to be an actor! I had
a great talent for it in my youth. I was the man of a thousand faces.
Edmund: How'd you come to choose the ugly mug you've got now?
Percy: Oh, tush, my lord.
Edmund: And don't say tush, either. It's only a short step from tush
to hey nonny, nonny, and then I shall have to call the police.
-- Blackadder
Adolescence,
n.: The stage between puberty and adultery.
-- Ambrose
Bierce
Some
of the dumbest people I know have PhD's.
-- Leo
Busgalia
Paranoia
is a social disease--you get it from screwing other people.
-- Paul
Brodeur
No,
no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical.
-- Niels
Bohr
Compromise,
n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary
the satisfaction of thinking that he has got what he ought not to have,
and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.
--Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
Freud
was misinterpreted.
-- Peter
Borden
You're
a total sociopath in your own right!
-- David Baggett
All that glitters may not be gold, but at least it
contains free electrons.
-- J. D. Bernal
Blair isn't very distracting when he bleeds; he keeps trying to macho it out & doesn't *want* attention. Really, the only person paying attention to Blair when he's hurt is Jim. Everyone else is watching Jim, waiting for the hissy fit.
Which is to say, Jim's a big
old drama queen. But we knew that.
--cmshaw, about "The Sentinel"
There was a land where lived no violets.
A traveller at once demanded : "Why?"
The people told him:
"Once the violets of this place spoke thus:
'Until some woman freely gives her lover
To another woman
We will fight in bloody scuffle.'"
Sadly the people added:
"There are no violets here."
-- Stephen Crane, "War is Kind
and Other Lines"
In Ireland, we have Catholics acting like savages
and we have Protestants acting like savages. Now we have people who
call themselves Muslims acting like savages. It's not because of their
religion. It's because they're fools.
-- Tom Clancy, 11 September 2001
Testicles? Isn't he some Greek guy who hung out with
Hercules?
-- Jen Chapman
...of course, superior deconstructive efforts were
made in the seventeenth century by Fisher, who was an eclectic door-attacker,
bringing down many prominent portals in his day...
-- Cara Chapel, when Basingstoke attacked a door with pliers
I've been out meandering among the Jacobian tensors
and the affine vector spaces, altho do not ask me to define what those
are for I have forgotten more than I know.
-- Debra Cooper
Whoa, I didn't know he sung backup for The Village
People.
-- Jen Chapman, on Jim Ellison
Warmongers like to kill and hurt people indiscriminately.
I only kill people I know and truly enjoy killing for a definite reason.
-- Jen Chapman
To my eye, he might as well be wearing a sandwich
board saying, "I'm bi, conventional sexuality is *your* problem. *I*
concentrate on giving very, very good head."
-- Mary Ellen Curtin, on Blair Sandburg
I didn't see the word 'manpussy' but I'll bet there
is the equivalent of it in there somewhere.
-- Jen Chapman
Barbie sucks. Did you ever fantasize about Barbie's
real life? No-don't call out the boys in the padded wagon yet. I always
thought that if Barbie was real she'd be an alcoholic who is secretly
sleeping with every action figure from GI Joe to the full size Pocahontas
dolls. Ken is probably having a long term affair with his 'friend' Steven,
and Skipper is a nympho. Some people hate Barney, I hate Barbie. I happen
to like Barney. Take any child, no matter how young or however bad the
tantrum-pop a Barney video in the VCR, and they go into a coma. I looooove
Barney.
-- Jen
Chapman
...when
righteousness has its back to the wall, when Babylon is all but triumphant,
when defeat seems imminent and hope is all but gone...is as good a time
as any to start fighting.
-- Roy
Carr and Charles Murray, reviewing David Bowie
I
don't want to spend the rest of my life cleaning up after Ridley Scott.
-- James
Cameron, when asked to do a sequel to Blade Runner
If
the programme's not the one you want, get up, turn off the set
The shit we have to climb through is the shit we choose to take
If you don't like religion you can be the antichrist
If you don't like politics you can be an anarchist
But no one ever changed the church by pulling down a steeple
And you'll never change the system by bombing number ten
If you don't like the rules they make, refuse to play their game
If you don't want to be a number, don't give them your name
If you don't want to be caught out, refuse to hear the question
Silence is a virtue! Use it for your own protection!
-- Crass
When
trolls are outlawed, only outlaws will troll.
-- James
Coffey
It's
spelled D-r-e-w C-l-a-r-k, but it's pronounced Dang Fool.
-- Drew
Clark
Farmboy
acts like a wuss because he is a wuss.
-- Steve
Cross, about Luke Skywalker
I
would find burning my individual rectal hairs out with a zippo, nicking
myself countless times from head to toe with a straightrazor, and then
diving into a vat of salt more pleasant than what I went through today.
-- Tobin
Coziahr, about Online Registration
Michael
Stipe shows home movies: "That's me in the corner..."
-- Coyote
Caffeine
is a wonderful thing and without it I think my eyeballs could fall out.
-- Melissa
Chambers
Never say, and never take seriously anyone who says,
"I cannot believe that so-and-so could have evolved by gradual
selection." I have dubbed this kind of fallacy "the Argument
from Personal Incredulity." Time and again, it has proven the prelude
to an intellectual banana-skin experience.
-- Richard Dawkins, "River Out of Eden"
The Revs. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson had a televised discussion this week about the terror attacks.
"Pagans and abortionists, feminists, gays and
lesbians ... the ACLU, People for the American Way, I point the finger
in their face and say, 'You helped this happen,' "Falwell said,
saying that God has lifted his protection of the U.S. because of such
people. Robertson said, "I concur."
[...]
Neighbors. Citizens. Patriots. My fellow Americans. Any other sentiment
at
this time strikes me as unspeakably profane.
So, bearing in mind the pain those of us who live
in and love this great city are suffering now, you know what I have
to say, with hot tears in my eyes and cold rain falling on the living
and the dead here? Jerry, Pat, you heartless bastards, your timing is
awful.
-- Rod Dreher, 16 September 2001. For the article this comes from,
click here.
Hm, that might explain the woody. Never did much care
for putting wood in my mouth.
-- Dina
There's no serenity like the serenity that comes from
knowing that you can kick every ass in the room.
-- Debra Doyle
Ray Bradbury had it wrong, they won't burn books.
The death of literature lies in the faces full of indifference that
walk by libraries.
-- Alexander
Darke
Reality
is whatever refuses to go away when I stop believing in it.
-- Philip
K. Dick
Any
content-based regulation of the Internet, no matter how benign its purpose,
could burn the global village to roast the pig.
-- Judge
Dalzell, ruling against the Communications Decency Act
Get
the thing straight once and for all. The policeman isn't there to create
disorder. The policeman is there to preserve disorder.
-- Mayor
Richard Daley
The
one-X'd Exon, he's an ass,
The two-X'd Exxon, that's a gas,
But here's one you can bet your necks on:
You'll never see a three-X'd Exxxon.
-- Doctorb
Science. If you don't get the reference click
here
I
caught a falling star. It cut my hands to pieces.
-- duVivier
I
listen to Billy Idol, am I a Cyberpunk?
I read Mondo 2000 once, am I a Cyberpunk?
I read half of Neuromancer, am I a Cyberpunk?
I almost ate squid one time, am I a Cyberpunk?
I play Shadowrun, am I a Cyberpunk?
I hate Barney the Dinosaur, too, am I a Cyberpunk?
Huh? Huh? Where can I sign up?
-- Erich
Delcamp
Well,
I have an English father and a Scottish mother. Which means I'm both
stuck-up and mean.
-- Angus Deayton
all material on these pages
copyright laura j. valentine, except where otherwise
noted.
email: jacquez@dementia.org