Quotes

• Music
• Books/Literature
• Television
• Movies
• Musicals
• Cartoons/Comics
• Plays
• People
• Me

Music


"This is the time to remember
 'Cause it will not last forever.
 These are the days to hold onto
 But we won't although we'll want to." 
  -- Billy Joel, This is the Time

"You think you're just not yourself these days
 Cause you're thinking everything's gone wrong,
 Some days you want to lay down and die
 That emotion can be so strong,
 But hold on
 'Til that old second wind comes along..." 
  -- Billy Joel, You're Only Human (Second Wind)

"Some things were perfectly clear, seen with the vision of youth
 No doubts and nothing to fear, I claimed the corner on truth
 These days it's harder to say I know what I'm fighting for
 My faith is falling away
 I'm not that sure anymore."
  -- Billy Joel, Shades of Grey

"They say that these are not the best of times
 But they're the only times I've ever known...
 So we choose between reality and madness
 It's either sadness or euphoria."
  -- Billy Joel, Summer, Highland Falls

"And I lose my composure
 And I could use some restraint
 I never claimed to be a hero and I
 Never said I was a saint."
  -- Billy Joel, Temptation

"They say there's a heaven for those who await,
 And some say it's better, but I say it ain't.
 I'd rather laugh with the sinners than die with the saints;
 The sinners are much more fun -- "
  -- Billy Joel, Only the Good Die Young

"I get the feeling that I'm running on ice
 It's taking me twice as long
 I'm slipping and sliding 'cause I'm running on ice
 Where did my life go wrong?"
  -- Billy Joel, Running on Ice

"I don't need any reasons --
 Left them all behind
 I'm in a New York state of mind."
  -- Billy Joel, New York State of Mind

"And children lived in Levittown
 And hid in their shelters underground
 'Til the Soviets turned their ships around
 And tore the Cuban missiles down
 And in that bright October sun
 We knew our childhood days were done
 As I watched my friends go off to war:
 What do they keep on fighting for?"
  -- Billy Joel, Leningrad

"I say I just don't see it;
 He says it's perfect sense
 You just can't get agreement in this present tense
 We all talk a different language
 Talk it in defense."
  -- Mike + the Mechanics, Living Years

"In other words, I hope and pray
 That time and tide will wash the pain away
 A simple man
 With simple thoughts
 Will turn to force as a last resort."
  -- Mike + the Mechanices, Call to Arms

"Now you may try to break my body
 Lock me up, and throw away the key
 But you'll never, never break my spirit
 I'm free."
  -- Mike + the Mechanics, Why Me?

"I would dial the numbers just to listen to your breath
 And I would climb inside my hell and hold the hand of death
 You don't know how far I'd go to ease this precious ache
 And you don't know how much I'd give, or how much I can take
 Just to reach you, just to reach you
 Oh, reach you..."
  -- Melissa Etheridge, Come to My Window

"As I watch the rising sun
 I see a new day just begun
 Thinking about the sacrifice,
 Wonder how to pay the price
 Now my world is growing cold..."
  -- Coverdale - Page, Take Me For a Little While

"But men get lost sometimes
 As the years unfurl
 One day he crossed some line and he was too much in this world
 But I guess that doesn't matter any more."
  -- Don Henley, New York Minute

"The walls are built up, stone by stone
 The fields divided, one by one
 And the train conductor says:
 Take a break, driver 8, driver 8, take a break
 We've been on this shift too long..."
  -- R.E.M., Driver 8

"Twenty thousand miles to an oasis
 Twenty thousand years will I burn
 Twenty thousand chances are wasted
 Waiting for the moment to turn
 I would give my life to find it
 I would give it all
 Catch me if I fall."
  -- R.E.M., Texarkana

"I'm a rocket ship on my way to Mars
 On a collision course
 I am a satellite
 I'm out of control
 I'm a six-shooter waiting to reload
 Like an atom bomb
 I'm going to oh, oh, oh, oh, oh explode."
  -- Queen, Don't Stop Me Now

"The wild dogs cry out in the night
 As they grow restless longing for some solitary company
 I know that I must do what's right
 Sure as Kiliminjaro rises like an empress above the Serengety
 I seek to cure what's deep inside,
 Frightened of this thing that I've become."
  -- Toto, Africa

"In another life, you're always the hero
 In another life, you always win the game
 In another life, no one ever cheats you
 In this other life, you never have to change...
 But
 This is the life you have
 This is the life you have
 This is the life."
  -- Living Colour, This is the Life

"In your real life
 Treat it like it's special
 In your real life
 Try to be more kind
 In your real life
 Think of those that love you
 In this real life
 Try to be less blind."
  -- Living Colour, This is the Life

"Through this world I stumble
 So many times betrayed
 Trying to find an honest word to find
 The truth enslaved
 You speak to me in riddles and you speak to me in rhyme
 My body aches to breathe your breath
 Your words keep me alive."
  -- Sarah McLachlan, Possession

"I'm just a poor boy
 But my story's seldom told
 I have squandered my existence
 For a pocket full of mumbles -- such are promises.
 All life's a jest
 Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."
 -- Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, The Boxer

"I have my books
 And my poetry to protect me
 I am shielded in my armor
 Hiding in my room
 Safe within my womb
 I touch no one and no one touches me."
  -- Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, I am a Rock

"Sit with me by the fire
 Let your dreams be profound
 Where the silence and the crickets
 Blend into one sound
 And I'll hold you so tight that your soul
 Will not be bound
 And I will make time stand still..."
  -- Tom Acousti, Still Stand

"Who puts big breasted babes in the ads in the magazines
 Who sells the TVs that show the blood spill
 And who will stand up and say
 Lord, it's not me, 'cause I'm just doing my job
 I'm down on my knees, and I pray to God
 Show me a way, send me a sign
 I'm just doin' my job, doin' my time."
  -- Tom Acousti, Lord It's Not Me

"The dust is piling like snowflakes
 On the books that I have not yet read
 And Sunday has turned into Monday
 And there's no sense in making this bed
 Where did the time go?"
  -- Tom Acousti, Where Does Time Go

"There's only one thing that I know how to do well
 And I've often been told that you only should do what you know how to do well
 And that's be you
 Be what you're like
 Be like yourself..."
  -- They Might Be Giants, Whistling in the Dark

"Can't I talk to you?
 You broke the bounds of
 Life's stagnant grey
 I nearly walked there, too
 But as the crowd jeered, I turned away
 Turned away."
  -- Vastly Untapped, Abdication

"Big steamroller just ran over my mom,
 And I cut myself shaving, and they're dropping the bomb; 
 It's just one of those days..."
  -- "Weird Al" Yankovic, One of Those Days

Books


"The future rushed at you.  You had a single instant, as it flashed by, to
  change it into an amiable, recognizable, and decent past.  Instant by
  instant, tomorrow blinked in your grasp.  If you did not seize without
  holding, shape without breaking, that continuity of moments, you left
  nothing behind.  Your object, her object, all of our objects, was to
  mold and print ourselves on those single bits of future that, in the 
  touching, aged into swiftly vanishing yesterdays."
  -- Ray Bradbury, A Graveyard for Lunatics

"I'd like to go walking some spring night -- you know, one of those nights 
  that are warm all night long.  I'd like to walk.  With a girl.  Walk for 
  an hour, to a place where you can barely hear or see anything.  Climb a 
  hill and sit.  Look at the stars.  I'd like to hold the girl's hand.  I'd 
  like to smell the grass and the wheat growing in the fields, and know I 
  was in the center of the entire country, in the very center of the United 
  States, and towns all around and highways away off, but nobody knowing 
  we're right there on top of that hill, in the grass, watching the night."
   -- Ray Bradbury, One Night in Your Life

"There must be one night in your life that you will remember forever... And
  And if you know that the night is coming on and that this night will be that
  particular night, then take it and don't question it and don't talk about it
  to anyone ever after that.  For if you let it pass it might not come again.
  Many have let it pass, many have seen it go by and have never seen another
  like it, when all the circumstances of weather, light, moon and time, of 
  night hill and warm grass and train and town and distance were balanced upon
  the trembling of a finger."
   -- Ray Bradbury, One Night in Your Life

"Because I was born and raised in a time, in the sixties, seventies, and 
  eighties, when people had stopped believing in themselves.  I saw that 
  disbelief, the reason that no longer gave itself reasons to survive, and
   was moved, depressed, and then angered by it." 
  -- Ray Bradbury, The Toynbee Convector

"Of all the stupidity, of all the rank, gross, crawling, jelly-mouthed 
  stupidity!  He had never seen the like of it in his life!  Bringing the 
  children up without so much as an ounce of imagination!  Where was the 
  fun in being children if you didn't imagine things?" 
  -- Ray Bradbury, Pillar of Fire

"After that, college, work, and marriage separated you.  Suddenly, you found
  yourself with some other group.  And you never felt as comfortable or as
  much at ease in all your life."
  -- Ray Bradbury, The Pumpernickel

"'In an ideal climate, Bob, maybe someday they will be able to judge the
  oldness in a person's mind so accurately that they can say, This is a man,
  though his body is only thirteen; by some miracle of circumstance and
  fortune, this is a man, with a man's recognition of responsibility and
  position and duty; but until that day, Bob, I'm afraid we're going to have
  to go by ages and heights in the ordinary way in an ordinary world.'"
  -- Ray Bradbury, A Story of Love

"I knew it was all over.  I was lost.  From this moment on, it would be a
  touching, an eating of foods, a learning of language and algebra and logic,
  a movement and an emotion, a kissing and a holding, a whirl of feeling that
  caught and sucked me drowning under... I could have gone on fighting my
  war against Mother and Dad and school and food and things in books, but I
  couldn't fight this sweetness on my lips and this warmness in my hands and
  the new odor in my nostrils..."
  -- Ray Bradbury, One Timeless Spring

"Do not fear, no matter how he may assail you.  There is still love in the
  world."
  -- Mhoram, from The Wounded Land

"Religion!  Is what you hear at church religion?  Is that which can bend and
  turn, and descend and ascend, to fit every crooked phrase of selfish,
  worldly society, religion?  Is that religion which is less scrupulous, less
  generous, less just, less considerate for man, than even my own ungodly,
  unworthy blinded nature?  No!  When I look for a religion, I must look for
  something above me, and not something beneath."
  -- Augustine St. Clare, from Uncle Tom's Cabin

"Why let them order you about?  Why let them tell you to hurry and scurry
  like ants or maggots?  Take your time!  Saunter a while!  Enjoy the
  sunshine, enjoy the breeze, let life carry you at your own pace!  Don't be
  the slaves of time, it's a helluva way to die, slowly, by degrees...
  down with the Ticktockman!"
  -- Harlan Ellison, "Repent, Harlequin!", Said the Ticktockman

"There are four billion people in the world.  A world that has grown so 
  complex and uncaring with systems and brutalization of individuals because
  of the inertia produced by those systems' pepetuation of self, that merely
  to live is to be assaulted daily by circumstances."
  -- Harlan Ellison, The Man Who Was Heavily Into Revenge

"The deranged traditions of science fiction 'fandom' are overwhelmingly
  attractive, particularly to those few boys and girls who are the
  outcasts of their high school classes because of wonky thought processes,
  a flair for the bizarre, and physical appearance that denies them the 
  treasures of sorority membership or a position on the football team.  For
  the pimply, the short, the weird and the intelligent... the camaraderie
  of fandom is a gleaming, beckoning Erewhon; an extended family of other
  wimps, twinks, flakes and oddballs."
  -- Harlan Ellison, All the Lies That Are My Life

"I write this because I am a thinking creature with an enormous ego, and I
  couldn't bear to consider having been here, being gone, and leaving 
  nothing behind...  Since I will never make a mark in the world, because
  there is nothing left... Since I will never write a novel, or paste up a
  billboard, or have my face carved on Mt. Rushmore... I am writing this."
  -- Harlan Ellison, Cold Friend

"Things are better in a lot of ways.  People don't die from some of the old
  diseases any more.  Cars go faster and get you there more quickly on better
  roads... But I still think we've lost a lot of good stuff... There's no
  such thing as oilcloth any more; you'll never again smell that special, 
  sweet smell from your grandmother's kitchen.  Furniture isn't made to last
  thirty years or longer because they took a survey and found that young
  homemakers like to throw their furniture out and bring in all new, color-
  coded, borax every seven years... Things may be better, but why do I keep 
  thinking about the past?"
  -- Harlan Ellison, Jeffty is Five

"Kris always smiled when he saw the kids; they were truly the only hope; 
  they had to be protected; not cut off from reality, but simply protected;
  and the increasing cynicism in the young had begun to disturb him; yet it
  seemed as though the young activists were fighting against everything
  S.P.I.D.E.R. stood for, unconsciously, but doing a better job than their
  elders."
  -- Harlan Ellison, Santa Claus Vs. S.P.I.D.E.R.

"Man adapts to the world, and the world adapts to man.  The only thing man
  couldn't seem to adapt to was himself..."
  -- Alan Dean Foster, Cyber Way

"The capacity of a human mind to believe devoutly in what seems to me to be
  highly improbable... has never been plumbed.  Faith strikes me as an 
  intellectual laziness, but I don't argue with it -- especially as I am 
  rarely in a position to prove it is mistaken."
  -- Jubal Harshaw, from Stranger in a Strange Land

"Somehow, the burning of millions of books felt more brutally obscene than
  the killing of people.  All men must die, it was their single common
  heritage.  But a book need never die and should not be killed; books were
  the immortal part of man.  Book burners -- to rape a defenseless friendly
  book."
  -- Robert Heinlein, Farnham's Freehold

"How he yearned for a truly old-fashioned girl, one who would always be 
  on-line when he logged on; one who would treasure his input in her 
  permanent database; one would would always respond to his dot commands; 
  yet all the while knowing that in this new world risen from the ruins of
  the past after the revolt against technology, he would have to settle for
  one of these modern women who insisted on face-to-face communication and 
  a 'back to nature' life-style."
  -- Dena Leathem, submission Bulwer-Lytton contest

"The only magic that's left in the world right now is the magic that we make
  ourselves, deliberately.  You're not going to stumble over enchantment by
  chance.  You have to be open to it, looking for it, and when you first think
  you might have glimpsed it, you have to will it into your life with every
  machination available to you."
  -- Megan Lindholm, Silver Lady and the Fortyish Man

"'Science can say how, but it never asks why,' he had told Monica.  'It
  can't answer.'
 'Who wants to know?' she'd replied.
 'I do.'"
  -- Michael Moorcock, Behold the Man

"Your policy may have the appearance of justice, but it is really neither
  just nor expedient.  If you allow people to be badly brought up and their
  habits to be corrupted little by little from childhood, and if you then
  punish them for crimes to which their early training has disposed them,
  what else is this, I ask, but first making them thieves and then punishing
  them for it?"
  -- Sir Thomas More, Utopia

"The tender fact that her bare, soft shoulders were drawn slightly forward;
  the inviting fact that her pallid lips were even now roseate with a flush
  of palpable longing; the warming fact that her eyes seemed to glow with a
  gemlike yet supple flame; the electrifying fact that her murmuring voice
  was wrapping itself wetly around his name in a hastily repeated pattern; the
  hardening reality of the moment about to settle so unexpectedly but friskily
  upon them: all these brought his attention to a staggeringly specific point;
  but the mere fact that she was a female -- this was what really cranked him."
  -- Tim Myers, submission Bulwer-Lytton contest

"'I always wanted to live in Helena, Montana,' he said with a faraway look
  in his eye; 'I'd open a little bistro and call it the 'Handbasket' and
  the whole world would go there!"
  -- Ned Olson, submission Bulwer-Lytton contest

"It is on those days, when I place the birds in the ground, that I find myself
  thinking of her again, and wishing that I were just a simple man, tending 
  my cattle and worrying about my crops and thinking the thoughts of simple
  men, rather than a mundumugu who must live with the consequences of his
  wisdom."
  -- Mike Resnick, For I Have Touched the Sky

"The notes blatted skyward as the sun rose over the Canada geese, feathered
  rumps mooning the day, webbed appendages frantically pedaling unseen
  bicycles in their search for sustenance, driven by cruel Nature's maxim,
  'Ya wanna eat, ya gotta work,' and at last I knew Pittsburgh."
  -- Sheila B. Richter, winner 1987 Bulwer-Lytton contest

"'No! No! A thousand times no!' poor Penelope squealed as her pixyish frame
  disappeared beneath the lust-engorged loins of Hector the hulk, mindful all
  the while that she still had 997 'no's' to go."
  -- Brian Smith, submission Bulwer-Lytton contest

"I've been up against that all my life.  I have something in my head that just
  won't quit.  It's a way I have of asking the next question:  why is so-and-
  so the way it is?  Why can't it be such-and-such instead?  There is always
  another question to be asked about anything or any situation -- especially
  you shouldn't quit when you like an answer because there's always another
  one after it.  And we live in a world where people just don't want to ask
  the next question!"
  -- Theodore Sturgeon, Slow Sculpture

"But what can you do in a world where people would rather kill each other
  in a desert, even when they've shown it can turn green and bloom -- where
  they'll fall all over themselves to pour billions into developing a new
  oil strike when it's been proved over and over again that the fossil fuels
  will kill us all?  Yes, I'm angry.  Shouldn't I be?"
  -- Theodore Sturgeon, Slow Sculpture

"People are living, growing things, too.  I don't know a hundredth part of what
  you do about bonsai, but I do know this -- when you start one, it isn't 
  often the strong straight healthy ones you take.  It's the twisted sick
  ones that can be made the most beautiful.  When you get to shaping humanity,
  you might remember that."
  -- Theodore Sturgeon, Slow Sculpture

"The worst part of living here is that nothing is beautiful.  There must be
  something beautiful in the twentieth, and maybe I just haven't seen it yet,
  but the way everyone acts, this is all there is.  Magic doesn't work. There
  is no other way."
  -- Sheri S. Tepper, Beauty

"'He's scratching my neck again,' thought Muffy desperately, 'this time I
  must be strong,' but it was too late, for Muffy's left leg -- which seemed
  to have a mind of its own -- was already making the bizarre twitching
  movements."
  -- Michael Young, submission Bulwer-Lytton contest

Television


"To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and 
  the dancers hit each other."
  -- Deep Thoughts, from SNL

"Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball."
  -- Happy Fun Ball, from SNL

"Not a problem." 
  -- Parker Lewis, from Parker Lewis Can't Lose

"Women -- can't live with 'em.  Pass the beer nuts."
  -- Norm, from Cheers

"What do you say to a cold one, Mr. Petersen?"
"See you later, Vera, I'm going to Cheers."
  -- Woody and Norm, from Cheers

"I am the luckiest sonofabitch in the world."
  -- Sam Malone, from Cheers

"If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck -- "
"Go to hell."
  -- Brenda and Kelly, from Beverly Hills 90210

"Do bears beareth? Do bees bee-eth?"
"What?"
"Hell, yes!" 
  -- Dave and Bert, from Moonlighting

"Mom, I've been alone with Danielle before."
"Yes, and I can't help but recall the time you put her in the dryer."
"Oh Mom!  That was so long ago.  I can't believe you're still talking
  about that.  Anyway, she *begged* me to do it."
  -- Patty and Angela, from My So-Called Life

"Grownups like to tell you where they were when President Kennedy was shot,
  which they all know to the exact second.  Which makes me almost jealous,
  like I should have something important enough to know where I was when it
  happened.  But I don't yet.  And in fact it was a better time then, and
  people know what they were supposed to do and how to make the world better.
  Now nobody knows anything.  We know who's popular, or that social studies is
  boring, or that Brian always has stomach trouble."
  -- Angela Chase, from My So-Called Life

"Love is when you look into someone's eyes and suddenly you go all the way
  inside, to their soul, and you both know instantly.  I always imagined I'd 
  fall in love nursing a blind soldier who was wounded in battle, or maybe
  while rescuing someone in the middle of a blizzard seconds before the
  avalanche hits.  I thought at least by the age of 15 I'd have a love life,
  but I don't even have a like life."
  -- Angela Chase, from My So-Called Life

"It's amazing the things you notice.  Like the corner of his collar that was
  coming undone, like he was from a poor family and couldn't afford new
  shirts.  That's all I could see.  The whole world was that unravelled
  piece of fabric.  It's such a lie that you should do what's in your heart.
  If we all did what was in our hearts, the world would come to a halt."
  -- Angela Chase, from My So-Called Life

"Hatred is like food; it gives you, like, this energy that you can,
  like, live off of."
  -- Angela Chase, from My So-Called Life

"They tell you to be yourself.  Like 'yourself' is this definite
  thing, like a toaster, or something."
  -- Angela Chase, from My So-Called Life

"I became a yearbook photographer because I liked the idea that I
  could sort of watch life without having to be a part of it.  But
  when you're yearbook photographer, you're like, never in the picture."
  -- Brian Krakow, from My So-Called Life

"...But the really great wallpaper, let's say, is like totally out of 
  your price range.  So -- do you take the other wallpaper, even though
  you don't, let's say, really desire it that much, or do you wait until 
  the really great -- wallpaper is -- cheaper?"
"Well, I guess it depends on how -- badly you need wallpaper."
  -- Graham and Brian, from My So-Called Life

"I can't believe this.  Apparently Delia Fisher smiles at everyone.  She's
  probably from one of those small towns where everyone's friendly and
  smiles at you for no reason.  I *hate* that type of town."
  -- Brian Krakow, from My So-Called Life

"See, I have this philosophy... if I go somewhere and someone I know
  is there, then cool, there's something -- natural about it.  But
  once you start making plans, then you have like, like obligations --
  and that basically blows."
  -- Jordan Catalano, from My So-Called Life

"I seem to be having enormous difficulty with my lifestyle."
  -- Arthur Dent, from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

"Her husband is dead. The police accuse her for his murder. You people 
  call her 'The Hanging Bitch' every day... she is unhappy." 
  -- Tommy Mulaney, from LA Law

"Does anyone here know a religion that *is* reasonable?"
  -- Tommy Mulaney, from LA Law

Movies


"It's immature and silly, but then again -- so is high school."  
  -- Ferris Bueller, from Ferris Bueller's Day Off

"My philosophy in life is this -- if you don't have a sense of humor, you're
   better off dead." 
  -- Roger Rabbit, from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

"You know, Mr. Bernstein -- if I hadn't been very rich, I might have been
  a really great man."
"Don't you think you are?"
"I think I did pretty well under the circumstances."
"What would you have liked to have been?"
"Everything you hated."
  -- Charles Foster Kane and Walter Parks Thatcher, from Citizen Kane

"Well, you're pretty young, Mister -- Mr. Thompson.  A fella'd remember a
  lot of things you wouldn't think he'd remember... One day back in 1896 I
  was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry.  And as we pulled out, there was
  another ferry pulling in, and on it was a girl waiting to get off. A white
  dress she had on, and she was carrying a white parasol.  I saw her for
  only one second; she didn't see me 't all.  But I bet a month hasn't gone
  by since I haven't thought of that girl."
  -- Mr. Bernstein, from Citizen Kane

"There are inner demons in all of us, called anger, hatred, and fear.  If
  you do not defeat these demons inside you, then a life of a hundred years
  is a tragedy.  But if you overcome them, than a life of a single day becomes
  a triumph."
  -- Bruce Lee's father, from Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story

"It's one hundred and six miles to Chicago.  We have a full tank of gas, a
  half pack of cigarettes, it's dark out, and we're wearing sunglasses."
"Hit it."  
  -- Elwood and Jake, from The Blues Brothers

"Now that you're on this, I hope we're gonna see some gratuitous sex and
  violence."
"I'll do my best."
  -- Q and James Bond, from Never Say Never Again

"'A man without a plan is not a man.' -- Nietzche."
  -- Big Boy Caprice, from Dick Tracy

"Do you believe in God?"
"I believe in me."
  -- Joe Banks and Patricia Granymere, from Joe Vs. The Volcano

"Remember, no man is a failure who has friends."  
  -- Clarence, from It's a Wonderful Life

"There is a wonderful freedom in being completely screwed." 
  -- Clark Kellogg, from The Freshman

"I'm too young to be old and I'm too old to be young..."
  -- Evelyn Couch, from Fried Green Tomatoes

"Of course it's hard.  If it wasn't hard, everybody would do it.  It's the
  hard that makes it great."
  -- Jimmy Dugan, from A League of Their Own

"Remember this moment! Savor it! For it is the doom of men that they forget."
  -- Merlin, from Excalibur

"I've fallen for you like a blind roofer."
  -- Topper Harley, from Hot Shots!

"How did you know she was a Nazi?"
"She talks in her sleep."  
  -- Henry Jones and Indiana Jones, from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

"My soul is prepared -- how's yours?" 
  -- a Brother of the Grail, from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

"The fact that I am talking to this machine means one of three things: 
  you're not at home; you're at home and don't want to talk to me; or 
  you're at home, want desperately to talk to me, but are trapped under 
  something heavy.  If the choice is a) or c) give me a call."  
  -- Harry, from When Harry Met Sally

"You're just stalling."
"You'd like to think so!  You've beaten my giant, which means that you're
  exceptionally strong, so you could have placed the poison in your own glass,
  trusting in your strength to save you, so I can clearly not choose the wine
  in front of you.  But you've also bested my Spaniard, which means that 
  you've studied, and in studying you must have learned that man is mortal, so
  you'd want to put the poison as far away from yourself as possible, so I
  can clearly not choose the wine in front of me!"
  -- Westley and Vincini, from The Princess Bride

"Who are you?"
"No one of consequence."
"I must know."
"Get used to disappointment."
  -- Inigo and Westley, from The Princess Bride

"You are using Bonavetti's defense against me, ah?"
"I thought it better considering the rocky terrain."
"Naturally, you must expect me to attack with Capaferra."
"Yes, but I find that Tybalt cancels out Capaferra, don't you?"
"Unless the enemy has studied his Agrippe -- which I have."
  -- Inigo and Westley, from The Princess Bride

"So what happens now?"
"We face each other as God intended.  No twicks, no weapons.  Skill against
  skill."
"You mean, I'll put down my sword and you'll put down your rock and we'll
  try to kill each other like civilized people?"
"I could kill you now."
  -- Westley and Fezzik, from The Princess Bride

"You fool!  You fell for one of the classic blunders!!  The first is 'Never 
  get involved in a land war in Asia', but only slightly less well known is 
  this -- 'Never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line!!'" 
  -- Vincini, from The Princess Bride

"Life *is* pain, highness.  Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you
  something."
  -- Westley, from the Princess Bride

"I know engineers. They love to change things." 
  -- Bones, from Star Trek, The Motion Picture

"I had to try, or the cost would have been my soul." 
  -- James Kirk, from Star Trek III, The Search for Spock

"Sleep..."  
  -- Picard/Locutus, from ST:TNG

"You 'n' me are going nowhere slowly
 And we're trying to get away from the past
 There's nothing wrong with going nowhere, baby
 But we should be going nowhere fast."
  -- Ellen Aim and the Attackers, from Streets of Fire

 I got a dream that the darkness is over we'll be lying in the rings of the sun
 But it's only a dream, and tonight is for real
 You'll never know what it means but you'll know how it feels
 It's gonna be over (over)
 Before you know it's begun (before you know it's begun)
 We've got tonight, we'll be crying out loud -- tonight
 Before you know that it's gone -- tonight
 Tonight is what it means to be young; 
 Tonight is what it means to be young."
  -- Ellen Aim and the Attackers, from Streets of Fire

Musicals


"I just heard on the news where the mailman won the lottery --
 Goes to show, when you lose, what you do is try again
 You can be what you want, from a mailman to a president.
 There are prizes all around you, if you're wise enough to see
 The delivery boy's on Wall Street, and the usherette's a rock star..."
  -- The Balladeer, from Assassins

"There are giants in the sky;
 There are big, tall, terrible giants in the sky
 When you're way up high and you look below
 At the world around and the things you know
 Nothing more than a glance is enough to show
 You just how small you are."
  -- Jack, from Into the Woods

"Green finch and linnet bird
 Nightingale, blackbird
 Teach me how to sing
 If I cannot fly...
 Then teach me how to sing."
  -- Johanna, from Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

"Agony
 Misery
 Woe
 Though it's different for each
 Always ten steps behind
 Always ten feet below
 And she's just out of reach..."
  -- Cinderella's Prince and Rapunzel's Prince, from Into the Woods

"Our lives will change when tomorrow comes
 Tonight our hearts drown the distant drums
 And we'll have music all right, tearing the night
 A song
 Played on a solo saxophone...
 It's telling me to hold you tight
 And dance
 Like it's the last night of the world."
  -- Chris and Kim, from Miss Saigon

"Why do you do the things you do?
 Why do you do these things?
 Why do you rush at the world all alone --
 Fighting mad battles that aren't your own?
 Why do you live in a world that can't be
 And what do you want of me?"
  -- Aldonza, from Man of La Mancha

"There is no Dulcinea;
 She's made of flame and air,
 And yet how lovely life would seem
 If every man could weave a dream
 To keep him from despair.
 To each his Dulcinea
 Though she's only flame and air."
  -- the Padre, from Man of La Mancha

"There's a man that no one sees
 There's a man that's left alone
 There's a heart that beats in silence for the life he's never known."
  -- Interlude, from The Secret Garden

"What you've got to do is finish what you have begun
 I don't know just how, but it's not over 'til you've won
 When you see the storm is coming, see the lightning part the skies
 It's too late to run; there's terror in your eyes
 What you do then is remember this old thing you heard me say
 It's this storm, not you, that's bound to blow away."
  -- Martha, from The Secret Garden

"Give a living thing a little chance to grow
 And that's how you will know if she is wick, she'll grow
 So go to greet the morning
 Leave the ground below
 'Cause when a thing is wick it has a will to grow
 And grow..."
  -- Mary and Dickon, from The Secret Garden

"I want adventure in the Great White Somewhere --
 I want it more than I can tell;
 And for once it might be grand
 To have someone understand
 I want so much more than they've got planned..."
  -- Belle, from Beauty and the Beast

"LeFou, I'm afraid I've been thinking."
"A dangerous pasttime."
"I know."
  -- Gaston and LeFou, from Beauty and the Beast

"She glanced this way --
 I thought I saw
 And when we touched she didn't shudder at my paw.
 No, it can't be --
 I'll just ignore;
 But then she's never looked at me that way before..."
  -- The Beast, from Beauty and the Beast

"Riffraff, street rat -- I don't buy that;
 If only they'd look closer --
 Would they find a poor boy?  Nosiree --
 They'd find out 
 There's so much more to me."
  -- Aladdin, from Aladdin

"A whole new world
 A hundred thousand things to see
 I'm like a shooting star
 I've come so far
 I can't go back to where I used to be."
  -- Jasmine, from Aladdin

"I know you; I walked with you once upon a dream
 I know you; the gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam
 Though I know it's true that visions are seldom what they seem
 I know you, I know what you do
 You loved me at once
 The way you did once upon a dream."
  -- Aurora and Philip, from Sleeping Beauty

Cartoons/Comics


"Getting into trouble already, Aladdin?"
"Who, me?  No way; you're only in trouble if you get caught.  Whoa -- I'm in
  trouble."
  -- a girl and Aladdin, from Aladdin

"Oy!  Ten thousand years will give you such a crick in the neck."
  -- the Genie, from Aladdin

"Think about it, Batman.  To never again walk on a summer's day with a hot
  wind in your face and a warm hand to hold.  Oh, yes, I'd *kill* for 
  that." 
  -- Mr. Freeze, from Batman: The Animated Series

"It just goes to show that science is a two-headed beast.  One head is
  good and gives us things like aspirin and other modern conveniences.
  But the other head is bad!  Oh, beware the bad head of science!  It bites!"
  -- The Tick, from The Tick animated series

"You know, it's funny, Arthur.  I've always hated broccoli, and yet,
  in a sense, I *am* broccoli."
  -- The Tick, from the Tick animated series

"Ha ha ha ha!  I don't even rule the world, and already I make a joke."
  -- El Seed, from the Tick animated series

"Comic books aren't just escapist fantasy.  They're sophisticated social
  critiques."
"Is Amazon Girl's super power the ability to squeeze into that figure into
  that suit?"
"Nah.  They can all do that."
  -- Calvin and Hobbes

"Wabbit season."
"Duck season."
"Wabbit season."
"Duck season."
"Wabbit season."
"Wabbit season."
"Duck season! Fire!" 
  -- Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck

"And girls, *never* underestimate the power of Spandex." 
  -- Babs Bunny, from Tiny Toon Adventures

"Oh -- I'm toast." 
  -- Silas Wonder, from Tiny Toon Adventures

"Don't try this at home, kids.  This should be done only by trained, 
  professional idiots."
  -- Plucky Duck, from Tiny Toon Adventures

"Oh, like save me and some junk."
  -- Shirley the Loon, from Tiny Toon Adventures

"Take away your props and your costumes; what would you be?"
"Naked."
  -- Buster and Babs Bunny (no relation), from Tiny Toon Adventures

"How come you get to catch all the beautiful, half-naked girls that fall
   out of the sky?" 
  -- Blue Beetle

"Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!" 
  -- Blue Beetle

"Four men living on borrowed time... time's up." 
  -- from Challengers of the Unknown

"I'm going to practice an ancient Martian meditation technique... It's 
  called screaming." 
  -- J'onn Jonzz

"...but the world is so full of people, so crowded with these miracles
  that they become commonplace and we forget... We gaze continually at the
  world and it grows dull in our perceptions.  Yet seen from another's
  vantage point, as if new, it may still take the breath away."
  -- Doctor Manhattan, from Watchmen

"Rorschach... Rorschach, wait!  This is too big to be hard-assed about!
  We have to compromise..."
"No.  Not even in the face of Armageddon.  Never compromise."
  -- Nite Owl and Rorschach, from Watchmen

"Oh, it's sweet.  Being alive is so damn sweet... I want you to love me. 
  I want you to love me because we're not dead... I want to see you.  I
  want to see you and taste you and smell you just because I can."
  -- Laurie Juspeczyk, from Watchmen

"What is that, Dan?  What's that you smell of?"
"Nostalgia."
  -- Dan Dreiberg and Laurie Juspeczyk, from Watchmen

"Heard joke once:  Man goes to doctor.  Says he's depressed.  Says life
  seems harsh and cruel.  Says he feels all alone in a threatening world
  where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain.  Doctor says, 'Treatment is
  simple.  Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight.  Go and see him.  That
  should pick you up.'  Man bursts into tears.  Says, 'But, doctor...
  'I am Pagliacci...'"
  -- excerpt from Rorschach's journal, from Watchmen

"If you wear black, then kindly, irritating strangers will touch your arms
  consolingly and inform you that the world keeps on turning.  They're right.
  It does.  However much you beg it to stop.
It turns and tips people out of their beds and into their cars, their offices,
  an avalanche of tiny men and women tumbing through life... Sometimes it 
  turns and sends us reeling into each other's arms.  We cling tight, excited
  and laughing, strangers thrown together on a moving funhouse floor."
  -- Abby Holland, from Swamp Thing

"We do what we must, Lucien.  Sometimes we can choose the path we follow.
  Sometimes our choices are made for us.  And sometimes we have no choice
  at all."
  -- Dream, from A Season of Mists

"They use my name as if I spend my entire day sitting on their shoulders,
  forcing them to commit acts they would otherwise find repulsive.  'The Devil
  made me do it.'  I have never made one of them do anything... No. They 
  belong to themselves -- they just hate to have to face up to it."
  -- Lucifer, from A Season of Mists

"I'm dead.  Bugger off."
  -- Wilkinson, from A Game of You

"Just what the world's been waiting for.  The charge of the trenchcoat
  brigade."
  -- John Constantine, from The Books of Magic

"But it's definite summat to tell yer grandchildren, eh, Master Redlaw?
  'Coincidentally the werry same day I was popped into a cookpot, I 
  discovered Empusa's Infinitely Extensible Chain on an owl.'"
  -- Master Leveret, from the Books of Magic

"Do you believe in magic?"
"I -- I did when I was a kid.  And sometimes I wish there was magic --
  It'd make things, I dunno... Better?  Weirder?  More exciting?  But it's
  like Santa Claus, isn't it?  You grow up and you discover there's no such
  thing..."
  -- The Phantom Stranger and Tim Hunter, from The Books of Magic

"They say humanity only gets one chance at the carousel's golden ring.
  But the carousel goes round and round, and round and round.  And the
  golden ring is not going anywhere."
  -- The Phantom Stranger, from The Books of Magic

Plays


"The fan awaits the shit, madame."
  -- Clitandre, from The Misanthrope

"We should thank God for making the world so large -- lots of room for
  different ideas."
  -- Jack Twinning, from Pillar of Salt

"This man wishes to be accorded the same rights as a sponge! -- He wishes 
  to think!"  
  -- Henry Drummond, from Inherit The Wind

"If I am to leave this world, it shall be in a manner worth remembering."
  -- Philip D'Artegan, from D'Artegan: a Requiem

People


"Now I'm no fag, and I'm no homo, but that sunset is really very nice." 
  -- Lew Schneider, from his performance in Skibo

"Hey, Beth, wanna get naked and boink?"
"Orson!  How rude!  Where are your manners?"
"Please?"
  -- Dan Horn, from his performance at Spring Carnival '91

"Shut up!  I'll kill you all; I swear it."
  -- Marty Putz, from his performance at Spring Carnival '91

"I'm sick of hearing about race; there's only one race -- the human race.
  The rest of them are Iraqis or something."
  -- Dan Sheehan, from his Skibo performance

"My favorite curse is 'fuck'.  None of this messing around with ss's or th's.
  You get the ff, you get the k -- you've got 'fuck'."
  -- Kathy Buckley, from her Skibo performance

"Coincidences are a spiritual sort of puns."
  -- G.K. Chesterton

"I think a lot of us have lists in our head of the things we'd like to do 
  if we ever find the time and the means... It's become pretty clear at this
  point in my life that there are a lot of things on this list that I'm just
  not going to get to... That sounds like a dismal thought, but it really
  isn't.  We're the lucky ones, we who have the long lists... We'll never
  get to anything -- er, everything -- that's on the list, but who cares?
  To have a long list, that's what counts.  That's to be rich."
  -- Hugh Young, How to Write a Good Obituary

"Don't do things half-assed.  If a thing is worth doing at all, it's worth
  doing as well as you can possibly do it.  Pick out something you think
  is worthwhile and do it or work at it with passion.  Do it with all your
  might."
  -- Hugh Young, How to Write a Good Obituary

"To be able to find interest wherever you are -- interest and excitement and
  wonder.  That's the trick."
  -- Hugh Young, How to Write a Good Obituary

"To fail at anything is painful... but not to try is ever so much worse.  
  Try with all your might; at least you have the satisfaction of knowing
  you did your best.  We can't all be the best there is, but we can all be
  the best that we can be, and that's what it's all about."
  -- Hugh Young, How to Write a Good Obituary

"The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they're going to be 
  when you kill them."  
  -- William Clayton

"Although it is not widely known, the random nature of cows has been held in
  high regard by mathematicians for quite some time.  When grazing, the common
  cow will turn left or right with no measurable bias toward either direction.
  Studies carried out over the past two centuries have measured the random
  nature of the cow to twenty-three decimal places with no deviation.  
  Statisticians will often spontaneously burst into tears at the slightest 
  mention of our bovine friend, the cow, and in rare circumstances, at the
  sight of an uncooked hamburger."
  -- Drew Olbrich

"I wonder how much credit we'll be able to get if we can't even get our code 
  to compile."
"Mine compiles fine if I comment out my code."
  -- Bob Igo

"If you hate violence, carry heavy weaponry.  That way, if violence breaks
  out, you can kill everybody, at which point the violence stops."
  -- Nathan Loofbourrow

"There's a word that's very important to living at CMU.  The word is:
  Deal."
  -- Todd Masco

"Carnegie Mellon is just like a woman... you get all excited about getting 
  in, and nine months later, you wish you'd never come." 
  -- Adam Glass

"Ergo, you either agree with me or are wrong.  QED."
  -- Michael Gordon Shapiro

"Actually, a friend of mine came up with an even better argumentative system.  
   I'll demonstrate.  Make any assertion, and I'll refute it."
"Dan Quayle is a weenie."
"Dude, you're lying."
  -- Michael Gordon Shapiro

"The only thing I think we should all discourage is the notion that your
  culture should somehow be determined by your race, or your peers.  Everyone
  should be free to be what they are."
  -- Arthur Hu

"Adopting some 'culture' or 'heritage' just to separate oneself from others
  is the same thing as wearing long hair for the sole purpose of shocking
  one's parents."
  -- Franklin Chen

"Those who stress race and culture promote stereotypes.  I may be an old-
  fashioned liberal, but I think that one can not tell much about an individual
  just by knowing his ancestry, and it is an insult to that person to think
  you can.  Individuals are the important unit, not national or racial
  groups."
  -- Alan Filipski

"The idea that unconstrained human beings would naturally form an egalitarian
  utopia is romanticism of the most dangerous kind.  Don't high school kids 
  have to read Lord of the Flies any more?"
  -- David A. Johns

"I don't deal with stress; I kill people."  
  -- an Army ROTC, during the "Stress at CMU" T-shirt sale

"It's love of God, dude."  
  -- a student, during one of the verbal slugfests with Cliffe

"Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity." 
  -- someone on the .net

"Things are seldom as bad as they first seem.  Unless, of course, we're talking
  about a 9 centimeter, gaping avulsive wound of the occipital-parietal region
  of the skull.  Then you're pretty much stuck, since no matter how you look at
  it (and that's tough because it'll be around the side and back of your head,
  quite far from where your eyes normally are, although something that could 
  give you such a wound could stand a good chance of relocating your eyes, but
  I digress) things aren't that good."
  -- Jerry Kuch

"The way I understand it, Daylight Saving Time lets the government steal an 
  hour of our sleep in the spring, collect interest on it all summer, and 
  return it to us in the fall.  The most notable recent use of the government's
  massive stockpile of sleep (stored in Fort Nox) was to allow Reagan to 
  spend both terms of office dead to the world, with nobody the wiser."
  -- Andy Plotkin

"There's an old saying, 'You can pretend to be intelligent, but you can't
  pretend to be witty.'  This comic about a man who is returned from the dead
  with miraculous powers -- and the common sense of a diced radish -- is
  neither... No, I *don't* know how much common sense radishes have, but it
  stands to reason that the ones that get caught and diced don't have much.
  After, if not before."
  -- Dani Zweig

"You haven't begun to tote up the real cost of the Dreaming being out of 
  control from most of the twentieth century.  Results include the development
  of daytime soaps, deconstruction, Piers Anthony, and the CCA."
  -- Dani Zweig

"When I got up, I explained that I'd been waiting for Harry to say the
  squid line.  'They took that out,' somebody said.  'They took out the
  SQUID?' I said.  'The squid is GONE?'... So we had to do that part again,
  with my brain feverishly repeating 'No squid!  Smaller yuppies!' (This
  would be a good slogan for a restaurant.)"
  -- Dave Barry

"Desaad: Master, I have found it!  Doom plus Magic plus IRC plus netnews
  plus MUDding!"
"Darkseid: You cringing fool!  That is *not* the Anti-Life Formula, it is 
  the No-Life Formula!"
  -- Dave Van Domelen

"Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom: No matter how great your triumphs or
  how tragic your defeats -- approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care
  less."
  -- wisdom from the Fortune Daemon

"There are three schools of magic.  One:  State a tautology, then ring the 
  changes on its corrolaries; 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."
  -- wisdom from the Fortune Daemon

"Angst means the fear for having no chance of finding out what sex is."
  -- from netnews.alt.angst

Me


"CMU life, if I slightly embellish,
For the most part, to me, seems quite swellish,
     Tho' papers and tests
     And complete lack of rest
Do threaten to make it more hellish."  

"I'm not a CCon, but I act like one in real life."

"You have three guesses.  The first two don't count."

"Somewhere right now, God is laughing his ass off."

"Girls -- you can't live with 'em, you can't buy 'em enough shoes."

"What.  Ever."

"Boredom is the mother of invention."

"An open Wean is a happy Wean."