776 Stupidest Things Ever Said (6 page)
Read 776 Stupidest Things Ever Said Online
Authors: Ross Petras
What really causes marital abuse is small families. If all women had a lot of brothers, this would never take place.
Charles Poncy, Iowa State Representative (D-Ottumwa)
The first would be our family. Your family, my family—which is composed of an immediate family of a wife and three children, a larger family with grandparents and aunts and uncles. We all have our family, whichever that may be.
Dan Quayle, then vice-presidential candidate, during the 1988 campaign in a speech to Virginia schoolchildren
I’ve just returned from 10 Drowning Street, so I know what I’m talking about.
movie mogul Sam Goldwyn in a political argument—he meant the Prime Minister’s residence, number 10 Downing Street
Don’t you know I’m a fascist? You know, a guy who says one thing and means another?
Danny Ozark, Phillies manager, quoted in Jay Johnstone, Temporary Insanity
The cows started to look tired, something from last season. Buffalo are much more
sympathique
.
fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, on why he bought a herd of buffalo for his estate in Normandy
The similarities between me and my father are different.
Dale Berra, Yogi Berra’s son
The clay feet of Germany will be revealed when we take off the gloves.
letter in the Sunday
Chronicle,
just before World War I
Information is voluntary. Failure to provide information could subject individual to be called on extended active duty when member might be eligible for assignment to Standby Reserve….
Privacy Act Statement, U. S. Air Force Reserve, mid-1970s
Once they were men. Now they are land crabs.
dialogue from
Attack of the Crab Monsters
Who ever heard of
Casablanca?
… I don’t want to star opposite an unknown Swedish broad.
George Raft, on the role of Rick in
Casablanca
(although some say he actually wanted the role and was merely expressing sour grapes)
Chairman Mao Reviews the Mighty Contingent of the Cultural Revolution for the Fifth and Sixth Times
1967 film, People’s Republic of China
I move, Mr. Chairman, that all fire extinguishers be examined ten days before every fire.
city councilman during debate
[I am] pro-choice with limitations, pro-life with exceptions.
Senator John Warner of Virginia, in a statement kicking off his bid for reelection
The right honorable gentleman has gone to the top of the tree and caught a very big fish.
Sir W. Hart Dyke, Member of Parliament
If you’re looking for a role model, you can’t have someone who is not physically fit. Margaret Mead was a good role model, but she may not have looked good in a swimsuit.
Leonard Horne, Miss America Pageant director, on why a swimsuit competition is necessary
The new Irish Flag would be Orange and Green, and would in future be known as the Irish tricolor.
Smith O’Brien, Irish revolutionary
I’ve lived under situations where every decent man declared war first and I’ve lived under situations where you don’t declare war. We’ve been flexible enough to kill people without declaring war.
Lewis B. Hershey, Lieutenant General and director of the Selective Service System, on the Vietnam War
The stewardesses of Southwest Airlines must go through four steps, such as hardship, tiredment, dirt feeling. Beside the quality of general stewardess.
from the first edition of Chinese airline Southwest Civil Aviation’s
Inflight Magazing
(sic)
Eric Show will be oh for ten if that pop fly comes down.
Jerry Coleman, San Diego Padres announcer
The witch wants quiet, regular, ordinary good government with everyone happy, plenty of fun and games, all fear of death being taken away.
Gerald Brousseay Gardner, famed British witch, explaining that most witches are actually conservatives
On the basis that it is essential and economical, economical for the country and for the Congress to have food available around here.
Representative Jamie L. Whitten (D-Miss.) on why food subsidies were being cut for the poor—but kept for the House and Senate restaurants
It’s not good for business if you care for a second whether blood is bubbling from a guy’s mouth.
Minnesota Viking Joey Browner
Football is one of the highest forms of spiritual exercise.
the Rt. Rev. William T. Manning as reported in the Manhattan press circa 1926
If there’s a pileup, they’ll have to give some of the players artificial insemination.
Curt Gowdy, television announcer, during an AFL all-star game marked by heavy rains that flooded the field
If you can’t make the putts and can’t get the man in from second on the bottom of the ninth, you’re not going to win enough football games in this league, and that’s the problem we had today.
Sam Rutigliano, Cleveland Browns coach, on why his team lost
I have no weakness for shoes. I wear very simple shoes which are pump shoes. It is not one of my weaknesses.
Imelda Marcos, former First Lady of the Philippines, and owner of 3,400 pairs of shoes
I must have had ambrosia.
Milwaukee Brewers Jim Gantner, on why he forgot to appear on a talk show
This form must not be used only in cases previously reported on proper blank.
Cleveland, Ohio, official police form heading
It just as easily could have gone the other way.
Chicago Cubs manager Don Zimmer on his team’s 4-4 record on a road trip
The poor man was absolutely robbed by that accursed system by fully one-tenth of his hard earnings. Nay! he was sometimes deprived of as much as one-twentieth.
Major O’Gorman, Member of Parliament, discussing the Tithe Bill
Tolstoy was an unconscious Kiwanian.
Edward Scheve in a speech to the Huntington Park, California, Kiwanis Club, as quoted in the Watts
Review
When I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.
movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn, to a young writer
Man has been given his freedom to a greater extent than ever and that’s quite wrong.
Martha Mitchell, wife of former Attorney General John Mitchell
Freedom of speech of the individual citizen must be based on the four basic principles of insisting on the socialist road, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the leadership of the party, and Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong thought. The citizen has only the freedom to support these principles and not the freedom to oppose them….
People’s Republic of China prosecutor, during the Wei Jingsheng case in 1979, in which defendant Wei, a human rights champion, cited the Chinese constitution guaranteeing free speech in his defense. He lost.
We need laws that protect everyone. Men and women, straights and gays, regardless of sexual perversion … ah, persuasion.
Bella Abzug, New York politician, addressing a rally for the Equal Rights Amendment
I am speaking of a great man who should have been President and would have been one of the greatest Presidents in history—Hubert Horatio Horn-blower.
Jimmy Carter in a speech at the 1980 Democratic Convention
For seven and a half years I’ve worked alongside President Reagan. We’ve had triumphs. Made some mistakes. We’ve had some sex … uh … setbacks.
George Bush
[I ask you to] work together with me for a better life for oil … I mean all.
Senator Henry Jackson, campaigning in 1976
The United States has much to offer the third world war.
Ronald Reagan in a speech, on what the United States had to offer the Third World. He repeated this error nine times in the same speech.
His friends are legend. And I trusted him explicitly.
boxing announcer Harry Balogh, on a famous boxing commissioner
My men grumble that they are frustrated—that there are no good targets left any more. But I always remind them of the plight of the pilots back in the States. “Let’s face it,” I tell them, “Vietnam is the only place in the world today where you can drop real bombs.”
a U. S. Air Force wing commander during the Vietnam War
We have to pursue this subject of fun very seriously if we want to stay competitive in the twenty-first century.
Singapore Minister of State for Finance and World Affairs George Yeo
A jolly bunch of our young people went on a kayaking expedition Sunday that resulted in many exposures and a very enjoyable time.
an item in the
Bald Knob (
Arizona
) Eagle
If we maintain our faith in God, our love of freedom, and superior global air power, I think we can look to the future with confidence.
General Curtis LeMay, in a speech given at Notre Dame’s Washington’s Birthday exercises, February 1956
Our pitching could be better than I think it will be.
Sparky Anderson, then Detroit Tigers manager, on the outlook for the coming year
I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy. But that could change.
Vice-President Dan Quayle
We see nothing but increasingly brighter clouds every month.
President Gerald Ford, on the economy, to a group of Michigan businessmen
We are not ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur.
Vice-President Dan Quayle in an interview with the
Cleveland Plain Dealer
We should not look at the immediate situation in terms of planning a new move in any time frame that is now immediately foreseeable.
Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State, speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
The Baltimore Colts are a bright young team. It seems as if they have their future ahead of them.
Curt Gowdy, sports announcer
It’s a question of whether we’re going to go forward into the future, or past to the back.
Vice-President Dan Quayle
Yogi Berra
Lorenzo Pietro Berra, or Lawrence Peter Berra, better known as Yogi Berra, is an American institution.
A great New York Yankee catcher and manager of both the New York Yankees and Mets, elected three times as the American League’s most valuable player, Berra was noted on field for his hitting and catching, and off field for his pithy way of saying the wrong thing in a way that made the Yogi-ism
wiser and more meaningful than the right way of saying it. For example, there’s a lot of wisdom in Yogi’s:
You got to be careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.
Of course, other Yogi-isms are just plain fun. When someone asked Manager Yogi if Don Mattingly’s performance as a first baseman had exceeded his expectations, Yogi answered: “I’d say he’s done more than that.”
Many Yogi-isms may have been attributed to Yogi rather than actually said by him. And some things he said evolved a bit in the retelling. For example, a careful
Sports Illustrated
survey found that Yogi’s famous “It ain’t over till it’s over” probably began as “We’re not out till we’re out,” referring to a 1974 pennant race. That became “You’re not out of it till you’re out of it” and so on until it became the quintessential Yogi-ism in its final, pithy form.
But no matter. The fun of Yogi-isms is the fun of them, whether he actually said them or not. And he himself admitted he often didn’t remember if he said a specific Yogi-ism or not. So, when reading Yogi, remember what Yogi said:
