776 Stupidest Things Ever Said (2 page)
Read 776 Stupidest Things Ever Said Online
Authors: Ross Petras
Julian Schnabel, in his memoirs,
CVJ: Nicknames of Maitre D’s & Other Excerpts From Life
Rembrandt is not to be compared in the painting of character with our extraordinarily gifted artist, Mr. Rippingdale.
John Hunt, nineteenth-century art critic
In terms of arting, where the reference condition is not fixed or even known conceptually but rather something coming to being, what can we hope through our formative hermeneutic movement? To make the “otherness” of the arting process more other, more “objective” in a newer sense and less “subjective” in the older sense, so that the arting process itself speaks more purely?
Kenneth R. Beittel, professor of art education at Penn State University, in
Art Education,
as reported in Edwin Newman’s Strictly Speaking
Culture is necessary, but it must be alive and not too much of it.
Virginio Gayda, official in Fascist Italy
When it comes to ruining a painting, he’s an artist.
movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn, on an abstract artist
My fellow astronauts …
Vice-President Dan Quayle, beginning a speech at an Apollo 11 anniversary celebration
Arnie [Palmer], usually a great putter, seems to be having trouble with his long putt. However he has no trouble dropping his shorts.
golf broadcaster on the air during a tournament
On Bad Deals:
My dear Mr. Wallis, just read Sea Wolf You told me in your office that it would be a 50-50 part (the role of Leach). I am sorry to say it is just the opposite.
George Raft, actor, in wire to Hal Wallis, producer
Half this game is ninety percent mental.
Danny Ozark, manager of the Philadelphia Phillies
Would the fans along the outfield please remove their clothes?
Tex Rikards, public address announcer at Ebbets Field, Brooklyn, New York, after fans had used the top of the outfield fence for their coats
In the case of the first possessive, the pattern is:
Basic form of the first possessive
, (or corresponding possessive form if modified by a possessive adjective in English) plus
dative of the third person “his” form of the second possessive
plus
definite article
plus
third person “his” form of word possessed, to agree in number and case according
to its form and use in the sentence.
Hungarian: Basic Course,
publication of the U.S. State Department
I’ve been traveling so much, I haven’t had time to grow it.
Bob Horner, Atlanta Braves third baseman, on why he hadn’t grown a beard
No refreshments shall be supplied to any member after the above named hours, and none shall be supplied for consumption off the club premises except to a member on the premises at the time.
By-law in a private social club rulebook
Isn’t it a blessing of God it didn’t hit him in the eye?
an elderly woman, when she and two others found a dead robber on the road, shot through the right temple
Well, sir, I met you this morning, but you did not come; however, I’m determined to meet you tomorrow morning, whether you come or not.
a challenger to a man who didn’t show up for a scheduled duel, reported by nineteenth-century British writer J. C. Percy
Anything that man says you’ve got to take with a dose of salts.
movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn
The lark is exclusively a Soviet bird. The lark does not like the other countries, and lets its harmonious song be heard only over the fields made fertile by the collective labor of the citizens of the happy land of the Soviets.
from a novel by the not so noted Soviet novelist D. Bleiman
A man could not be in two places at the same time unless he were a bird.
Sir Boyle Roche, eighteenth-century M.P. from Tralee
I called the doctor, and he told me that the contraptions were an hour apart.
Mackey Sasser, New York Mets catcher, on his wife’s labor
It is just not accurate to believe that blacks were confined somehow to the lowest-paying jobs; rather, there was some tendency for blacks to be congregated in certain units which had a variety of characteristics including, in some instances, a somewhat lower average pay than some units where there might be a heavy concentration of white employees.
Ben Fisher, special assistant to the president of United Steelworkers of America, in
New Times
We have only one person to blame, and that’s each other.
Barry Beck, New York Ranger, on who started a brawl during the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup playoffs
It will create an excitement that will sweep the country like wild-flowers.
movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn
This will start with a bang in Hollywood and degenerate throughout the whole world.
movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn
They [the bombs] are aimed exclusively at military targets…. Unfortunately there are some civilians around these targets.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, former President and general, standing up for the way the United States was handling bombing in North Vietnam
Everybody should rise up and say, “Thank you, Mr. President, for bombing Haiphong.”
Martha Mitchell, wife of Attorney General John Mitchell, addressing a Republican Women’s Conference
You always write it’s bombing, bombing, bombing. It’s not bombing, it’s air support.
U. S. Air Force Colonel David Opfer, air attaché in Cambodia, complaining to reporters about their coverage of the Vietnam War
If we didn’t have bonuses, we wouldn’t have had anybody working for us.
Drexel Burnham Lambert spokesperson, explaining why the company gave over $195 million in bonuses just before it filed for bankruptcy
[Does] the published book contain the unpublished part?
James H. Campbell, King’s Counsel, to a witness in Britain’s
Times
Book Club case in the early 1900s
Correctly English in 100 Days
title from an East Asian book for beginning English speakers
I first saw [President Reagan] as a foot, highly polished brown cordovan wagging merrily on a hassock. I spied it through the door. It was a beautiful foot, sleek. Such casual elegance and clean lines! But not a big foot, not formidable, maybe a little … frail. I imagined cradling it in my arms, protecting it from unsmooth roads.
Peggy Noonan, speechwriter for the Reagan administration and Bush campaign who wrote the famous “slipped the surly bonds of earth” speech on the Challenger disaster and Bush’s famous speech accepting the Republican nomination in her memoirs
Every pint bottle should contain a quart.
Sir Boyle Roche, eighteenth-century M.P. from Tralee and preeminent word mangier, on government regulation
If you let that sort of thing go on, your bread and butter will be cut right out from under your feet.
Ernest Bevin, British Foreign Minister from 1945 to 1951
I didn’t want it to be too big. It would have made it look like we bought the decision.
Jake Jacobsen, former Associated Milk Producers lawyer, testifying to a federal jury on the $10,000 he gave to former Treasury Secretary John Connolly for help on milk prices
Really
Are:
I would categorize them more as gifts.
aerospace manufacturer Lockheed’s chief operations officer, trying to explain about the over $7 million paid to government officials from Holland and to an influential Japanese right-winger
I don’t see anything unusual about it.
Edwin Edwards, Louisiana governor, in 1976, after admitting that his wife accepted $10,000 from a Korean businessman with ties to the South Korean CIA
We are experiencing audio technicalities.
Ralph Kiner, announcer for the New York Mets
Due to an administrative error, the original of the attached letter was forwarded to you. A new original has been accomplished and forwarded to AAC/JA (Alaskan Air Command, Judge Advocate office). Please place this carbon copy in your files and destroy the original.
a memo from the Alaska Air Command, February 1973
It is deplorable to think of a parish where there are 30,000 people living without a Christian burial.
clergyman fund-raising for a graveyard, as reported in the London Spectator, mid-1800s
I suppose you think that on our board half the directors do the work and the other half do nothing. As a matter of fact, gentlemen, the reverse is the case.
a chairman of the board of a prominent company defending his fellow directors
I’ll tell you, it’s Big Business. If there is one word to describe Atlantic City, it’s Big Business. Or two words—Big Business.
Donald Trump, real estate tycoon, looking down on Atlantic City from his helicopter, as quoted in a 1989
Time
On Campaign Promises, Strange:
[I want to] make sure everybody who has a job wants a job.
George Bush, during his first campaign for the presidency
Mike Andrews’ limits are limitless.
Danny Ozark, Philadelphia Phillies’ manager, about one of his players
Capital punishment is our society’s recognition of the sanctity of human life.
Orrin Hatch, Republican senator from Utah, explaining his support of the death penalty
While you are away, movie stars are taking your women. Robert Redford is dating your girlfriend, Tom Selleck is kissing your lady, Bart Simpson is making love to your wife.
Baghdad Betty, Iraqi radio announcer, to Gulf War troops
For this part of a lady, somebody that’s couth.
movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn
[I introduce to you the Reverend Father McFadden] known all over the world, and other places besides.
introduction in Parliament, nineteenth century
We do not have censorship. What we have is a limitation on what newspapers can report.
Louis Nel, former Deputy Minister of Information for South Africa
Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.
General William Westmoreland on why the media should be muzzled in wartime
Your commitment and compassion, your humanitarian principles and your interest in protecting individual liberty and freedom have made an outstanding contribution to furthering the cause of human dignity.
Joseph Califano, Jr., then Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, in a letter of reference for cult leader and mass murderer Jim Jones
Chickens, like two-edged swords, ofttimes come home to roost.
small-town newspaper editor in Wisconsin
The boys never meant any harm against the girls. They just meant to rape.
Joyce Kithira, deputy principal of a Kenyan boarding school, commenting on a raid of a girls’ dormitory by a gang of boys who raped 71 girls and killed 19
China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.
Charles De Gaulle, French President
Hey, listen. I’m a member of the NRA. You’re hurting my feelings, as they say in China.
President George Bush, explaining why he didn’t come out strongly against violence against women in an address to the National Rifle Association
Chivalry is only reasonably dead.
George Bush, offering a chair to a woman
The astonished Yahoo, smoking, as well as he could, a cigar, with which he had filled all his pockets.
