"Unquoted" Quotes


Quotes without a difinitively known origin:

But what... is it good for?
-- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM,
1968, commenting on the microchip.

Gauls! We have nothing to fear; except perhaps that the sky may fall on our heads tomorrow. But as we all know, tomorrow never comes!!
-- Adventures of Asterix

The only reason Bill Gates is alive today is that the Unabomber never used Windows 95.
-- Anonymous

I want you to take your balls in your hand and bounce them on the floor and then throw them as high as you can. Now, have you all got your balls in your hands?
-- announcer of children's radio show
"Life With Mother" to her audience

Now the Lord God planted a garden East of Whittier in a place called Yorba Linda, and out of the ground he made to grow orange trees that were good for food and the fruits thereof he labeled SUNKIST...
-- "The Begatting of a President"

Signs of crime: screaming or cries for help.
-- The Brown Security Crime Prevention Pamphlet

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

Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you out of Casablanca and the Germans have outlawed miracles.
-- from Casablanca

Of all the radio stations in Chicago... we're one of them.
-- Chicago Classic Rock Station, 105.9

At the Lincoln Park traps on Sunday... over 80 shooters took part
in the program. Rotarians, be patriotic! Learn to shoot yourself."
-- from Chicago Rotary Club journal, "Gyrator"

Have you ever tried to tickle yourself? Everybody has some wacko aunt or uncle that can just point at you and have you rolling with laughter. But if you shove your fist in your underarm for a week and a half you won't laugh. Somehow your underarm just knows that it's your fist. Thank God other parts of our bodies are dumber.
-- Comedian at the "Improv"

The exports include thumbscrews and cattle prods, just routine
items for the police.
-- Commerce Department spokesman on a regulation
allowing the export of various products abroad

You start coding. I'll go find out what they want.
-- Computer Analyst to Computer Programmer

On Criticism: "That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass--and 'm just the one to do it."
-- A congressional candidate in Texas

We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.
-- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

This compact disc is made from analog masters recorded without noise reduction. Half the tracks, in fact, were recorded in a dismal, cheap basement eight-track studio with puddles of water on the floor. Digital Technology will now faithfully reproduce these noisy, low-fi, un-professional masters at great expense. Feel stupd yet?
-- Disclaimer on a CD

If they don't want us to drink and drive, why do you have to have a driver's license to buy beer?
-- Drexell's Class

Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy...
-- Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project
to drill for oil in 1859.

The supervisor and compositor shall be flogged thirty times for an error per chapter; the printer shall be flogged thrity times for bad impression, either too dark or too light, of one character per chapter.
-- "Early Movable Type in Korea"

I am sick unto death of obscure English towns that exist seemingly for the sole accommodation of these so-called limerick writers -- and even sicker of their residents, all of whom suffer from physical deformities and spend their time dismembering relatives at fancy dress balls.
-- Editor of the Limerick Times (Limerick, Ireland)

In the land of the dark, the Ship of the Sun is driven by the Grateful Dead.
-- Egyptian Book of the Dead

There is no realizable power that man cannot, in time, fashion the tools to attain, nor any power so secure that the naked ape will not abuse it. So it is written in the genetic cards -- only physics and war hold him in check. And also the wife who wants him home by five, of course.
-- Encyclopadia Apocryphia, 1990 ed.

I am not sure what this is, but an "F" would only dignify it.
-- English Professor

I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top.
-- English Professor, Ohio University

A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research
reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make.
-- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting
Mrs. Fields' Cookies.

Now that I have taken the Dallas Cowboys bumper sticker off my car, it's passing and running better...
-- Former Cowboys Fan

I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers.
-- A Bit of "Fry and Laurie"

New York's got the ways and means; Just won't let you be.
-- The Grateful Dead


You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.
-- Guest directory at a Japanese hotel, 1991

A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis of being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite series of incomprehensive answers calculated with micrometric precisions from vague assumptions based on debatable figures taken from inconclusive documents and carried out on instruments of problematical accuracy by persons of dubious reliability and questionable mentality for the avowed purpose of annoying and confounding a hopelessly defenseless department that was unfortunate enough to ask for the information in the first place.
-- IEEE Grid newsmagazine

On Government Ability to Communicate After Death: "Beginning in February 1976 your assistance benefits will be discontinued... Reason: It has been reported to our office that you expired
on January 1, 1976."
-- Illinois Department of Public Aid

Call on God, but row away from the rocks.
-- Indian proverb

You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across
all of your muscles? It can't be done. It's just a fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an
unalterable condition of weight training.
-- Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the "unsolvable"
problem by inventing Nautilus.

On the Little-known Importance of Poultry Inspectors: "The crime bill passed by the Senate would reinstate the Federal death penalty for certain violent crimes: Assassinating the President; hijackiing an airliner; and murdering a government poultry inspector."
-- Knight Ridder News Service dispatch

It's Fabulous! We haven't seen anything like it in the last half an hour!
-- Macy's

     The New Testament offers the basis for modern computer coding theory, in the form of an affirmation of the binary number system.
    But let your communication be Yea, yea; nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
-- Matthew 5:37

Take your dying with some seriousness, however. Laughing on the way to your execution is not generally understood by less-advanced life-forms, and they'll call you crazy.
-- Messiah's Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul

There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. Under no circumstances can the food be omitted.
-- Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour

The government is not doing enough about cleaning up the environment. This is a good planet.
-- Mr. New Jersey contestant when asked what
he would do with a million dollars.

A recent inquiry finds that the New Kids on the Block earn $550,000 for every concert they do. I guess that means they've got money to burn.
-- MTV

Go placidly amid the noise and waste, and remember what value there may be in owning a piece thereof.
-- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada"

Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and
reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.
-- 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's
revolutionary rocket work.

Russian tanks steamrolling through New Jersey! Details at eleven!
-- News flash

Don't worry about temptation--as you grow older, it starts avoiding you.
-- Old Farmer's Almanac

I don't understand these white men... They drag us over here from Africa, they enslave us, and then they go to the beach and try to look like us... It's got me baffled!!!
-- One Black guy to another

It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it
is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs.
-- Oxford University Press, Edpress News

Good afternoon, this is your captain speaking. I would like to remind you that according to FAA regulations, this flight has been declared a non-smoking flight. If you absolutely must light up, you are invited to step outside.
-- Pilot

     It is always preferable to visit home with a friend. Your parents will not be pleased with this plan, because they want you all to themselves and because in the presence of your friend, they will have to act like mature human beings...
-- Playboy, January 1983

Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.
-- Popular Mechanics,
forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

They're multipurpose. Not only do they put the clips on, but they take them off.
-- Pratt & Whitney spokesperson explaining
why the company charged the Air Force
nearly $1000 for an ordinary pair of pliers.

I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked
with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year.
-- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

...Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, if you'd stuck with pussy, you'd still be with us...
-- The Priest's benediction at Rock Hudson's funeral

A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what's left of your unit.
-- PS magazine, August 1993, page 9,
"The Army's magazine of preventive maintenance"

The hypothalamus is one of the most important parts of the brain, involved in many kinds of motivation, among other functions. The hypothalamus controls the "Four F's":
     1.    Fighting,
     2.    Fleeing,
     3.    Feeding, and
     4.    Mating.
-- Psychology professor in neuropsychology intro course

The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who
would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?
-- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings
for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

We pray for MacArthur's erection.
-- sign erected by Japanese citizens in Tokyo,
when MacArthur was considering a run for President

G:     If we do happen to step on a mine, Sir, what do we do?
EB:     Normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump 200 feet in the air
     and scatter oneself over a wide area.
-- Somewhere in No Man's Land, BA4

Making files is easy under the UNIX operating system. Therefore, users tend to create numerous files using large amounts of file space. It has been said that the only standard thing about all UNIX systems is the message-of-the-day telling users to clean up their files.
-- System V.2 administrator's guide

Benson, you are so free of the ravages of intelligence
-- Time Bandits

As part of the conversion, computer specialists rewrote 1,500 programs -- a process that traditionally requires some debugging.
--- USA Today, referring to the IRS switchover
to a new computer system.

When you make your mark in the world, watch out for guys with erasers.
-- The Wall Street Journal

President Thieu says he'll quit if he doesn't get more than 50% of the vote. In a democracy, that's not called quitting.
-- The Washington Post


At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial challenge roughly comparable to herding cats.
-- The Washington Post Magazine, June 9, 1985

New Year's Eve is the time of year when a man most feels his age, and his wife most often reminds him to act it.
-- Webster's Unafraid Dictionary

This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.
-- Western Union internal memo, 1876.

We ARE as gods and might as well get good at it.
-- Whole Earth Catalog

The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn
better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible.
-- A Yale University management professor in response to
Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable
overnight delivery service.
(Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

If God lived on Earth, people would knock out all His windows.
-- Yiddish saying

When I first encountered C, things were simple. A number was a number, and a pointer was a pointer. When I had studied it a while, it became much more complex, with many rules to memorize. A number was a no longer a number, a pointer was no longer just a pointer. Now that I understand C, it is simple again. A number is a number. A pointer is a pointer.
-- The Zen of C