General Quotes

These are quotes from various places that I have put here because they had some impact on me when I encountered them. In almost all cases, I either felt that the quote expressed some important truth, or that quote was deeply ironic. I would venture a guess that these quotes serve well to represent the type of person I was from early college (circa 1992) until around 2000. (Although at the top I have some good quotes I encountered after that.) I'm a pretty different person now.

The quotes are listed in roughly reverse chronological order of my encountering them.


``The patent holder is not allowed to pull away the football.''
                                                     -- Eben Moglen, 2002-06-01

``The PMRC?  They're a bunch of housewives with stationary!''
               -- VH1 Original Movie, "warning: parental advisory!", 2002-04-21

``So we were all there, waiting for Larry, [for the Perl6 language
 specification].  It was like waiting for Godot, only longer.''
  -- Nat Torkington, 2001-06-15, Perl6 Status Meeting,
     Yet Another Perl Conference 2001, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

A study in the January 2001 issue of the American Journal of Sociology
showed that teenagers who made pledges to remain sexual virgins until
marriage were more likely to delay sex (up to 18 months).  However, when
they did eventually have premarital sexual intercourse, they were more
likely to have sex without contraceptive than their counterparts who didn't
make such pledges.
                       -- National Public Radio, Morning Edition, 2001-01-04


``    TAINT_NOT;		/* Each statement is presumed innocent */
''
                 -- From pp_nextstate in pp_hot.c, in the source for perl 5.6.0

``You can be 'unfair' to a person, and you can hurt their feelings, even if
  you tell only the truth. But Pascal is a programming language, not a
  person. It has no feelings to hurt. Criticizing Pascal's type system is
  like complaining that your hammer has a scratched face. There is no use
  getting upset about it. You just have to get a new hammer or make
  do. Saying that the criticism is unfair to the hammer, for whatever
  reason, is just silly.''
           -- Mark-Jason Dominus, December 2000,
              http://www.perl.com/pub/2000/12/advocacy.html?wwwrrr_20001213.txt

``Whatever the relevant level of penetration is, it's here. We're now living
  in a very odd world with respect to free software. Under the skin of the
  beast, free software is everywhere. The penetration in the server market
  is nothing to worry about.  So what we really mean is, what's the
  difference between the technologically clued-in and the technologically
  checked-out? And the answer is, what they use. How big does the
  technologically clued-in population have to be before new ways of thinking
  about politics and economics and society take hold?  Quite large. But
  we're going there. It's like asking, 'What would the opposition to gas
  taxes in the United States be like in 1910?" - "Not enough drivers."''
       -- Eben Moglen, December 2000, http://www.immaterial.net/page.php3?id=45

``I'm not a coward                        / I've just never been tested  /
  I'd like to think if I was I would pass''
    -- The Mighty Might Bosstones, LET'S FACE IT, ``The Impression That I Get''

``If you're not angry    / Then you're just stupid and you don't care /
  How else can you react / When you know of something so unfair''
                                -- Ani DiFranco, OUT OF RANGE, ``Out of Range''

``Fortunately our postmodern culture is based on the happy contradiction
  that any decent culture must be countercultural. If you can't deconstruct
  your own program, you aren't really with the program.''
        -- Larry Wall, ``Uncultured Perl'', LINUX MAGAZINE, October 1999,
           http://www.linux-mag.com/1999-10/uncultured_03.html

``some chicks say  thank you for saying all the things i never do /
  i say you know the thanks I get     / is to take all the shit for you /
  it's nice that you listen           / it'd be nicer if you joined in /
  as long as you play their game girl / you're never gonna win''
                            -- Ani DiFranco, OUT OF RANGE, ``face up and sing''

``But the open source movement is energized by the other sort of
  joiner. This sort of person joins many tribes. These are the people who
  inhabit the intersections of the Venn diagrams. They believe in ANDs
  rather than ORs. They're a member of more than one subset, more than one
  tribe. The reason these people are important is, just like merchants who
  go between real tribes, they carry ideas from one intellectual tribe to
  another. I call these people `glue people', because they not only join
  themselves to a tribe, they join tribes together.''
                  -- Larry Wall, March 1999, http://www.wall.org/~larry/pm.html

``It's funny how the colours of the like real world only seem really real when
  you viddy them on the screen.''
                                   -- Alex, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, Anthony Burgess

``i know so many white people   / i mean where do i start /
  the trouble with white people / is you just can't tell them apart''
                    -- Ani DiFranco, PUDDLE DIVE, ``names and dates and times''
  
``All paths lead into darkness.''         -- Paul Muad'dib, DUNE, Frank Herbert

``The one notable exception to the marked honesty of a good police witness,
  the only point in the legal process where law officers can be expected to
  lie routinely, or, at the very least, exaggerate, is probable cause.

   For narcotics or vice detectives in particular it's become a ridiculous
   game, this business of establishing he correct legal prerequisites for
   search and arrest.  Not surprisingly, it isn't enough to say the suspect
   was a squirrel who'd been out on that corner about ten minutes too long.
   No, the law of the land requires that the arresting officer had the
   opportunity to observe the defendant operating in a suspicious manner on
   a corner known for drug trafficking and that upon closer inspection, the
   officer noticed a glassine envelope sticking out of a sweatshirt package
   as well as a bulge in the front waist-band indicative of a weapon.

   Yeah Right.

   Probable cause on a street search is and always will be a cosmic joke,
   a systemic deceit.'' -- David Simon, HOMICIDE: A YEAR ON THE KILLING STREETS

``You're an asshole / but i'm getting used to you.''
                                  -- Ani DiFranco, PUDDLE DIVE, ``used to you''

``PAGING LARRY WALL....   LANGUAGE DESIGN EMERGENCY ON LINE ONE....''
                       -- Chip Salzenberg, 20 July 1999,
                          on handling iterators over infinite lists in perl6

``... and they stare at me           / wherever i go                      /
  i don't think they like my haircut / i don't think they like my clothes /
  i can't wait to get back to n.y.c. / where at least when i walk         /
  down the street                    / no one ever hesitates to tell me   /
  exactly what they think of me''
                             -- Ani DiFranco, IMPERFECTLY, ``Every State Line''

``Issac Newton:    Albert... So do you still believe that God doesn't play
                   dice?
  Albert Einstein: That quote isn't *relative* anymore.  Lately, I've been 
                   thinking that God doesn't play Pokemon.''
        -- Nitrozac, AFTER Y2K!, 1 November 1999
           http://www.geekculture.com/geekycomics/Aftery2k/y2Karchives/165.html

``Success seems to me a paulty value.''
              -- Robert Pinsky, 26 October 1999, _The News Hour with Jim Leher_

``And there is much to see, beginning with bodies battered by two-by-fours
  and baseball bats, or bludgeoned with tire irons and cinder blocks.  Bodies
  with gaping wounds from carving knives or from shotguns fired so close that
  the shell wadding is lodged deep into the wounds.  Bodies in public housing
  projects stairweells, with the hypodermic still in their forearm and that
  pathetic look of calm on their faces; bodies pulled out of the harbor with
  reluctant blue crabs clinging to the hnads and feet.  Bodies in basements,
  bodies in alleys, bodies in beds, bodies in the trunk of a Chrysler
  without out-of-state tages, bodies on gurneys behind a blue curtain in the
  University Hospital emergency room, with tubes and cathers wstill poking out
  of the carcasses to mock medicine's best arguments.  Bodies and pieces of
  bodies that fell from balconies, from rooftops, from marine terminal loading
  cranes.  Bodies crushed by heavy machinery, suffocated by carbon monoxde
  or suspended by a pair of sweatsocks from the top of a Central District
  holding cell.  Bodies on crib mattressses surronded by stuffed animals, tiny
  bodies in the arms of greiving mothers who can't understand that there is no
  reason.''             -- David Simon, HOMICIDE: A YEAR ON THE KILLING STREETS
                     
``A prime example of the Rule Number One in the guidebook of death
  investigation, the page 1 entry in a dective's lexicon: Everyone lies.''
                        -- David Simon, HOMICIDE: A YEAR ON THE KILLING STREETS

``Brad, someday you are going to be Larry Wall and RMS all rolled into one.''
                                             -- Matthew O'Connor, 9 August 1999

``Java and C++ programmers are homeless on every corner, willing to trade
  Lines Of Code for crack.  Perl folks are harder to find.''
                                             -- Nathan Torkington, 29 June 1999

``X-Windows: It was hard to write; it should be hard to use.''
                                                              -- Jamie Zawinski

``My experience and some of my friends' experience is that Linux is quite
  unreliable. Microsoft is really unreliable but Linux is worse. In a non-PC
  environment, it just won't hold up. If you're using it on a single box,
  that's one thing. But if you want to use Linux in firewalls, gateways,
  embedded systems, and so on, it has a long way to go.''
         -- Ken Thompson, ``Unix and Beyond: An Interview with Ken Thompson'',
            IEEE Computer Magazine,  May 1999, 
            http://computer.org/computer/thompson.htm

``Hating, or at least disliking, RMS has become a gimmick, much like hating
  Bill Gates and Windows. [...] When we judge RMS, we do not do it based on
  his coding skills but rather on how his philosophical ideas differs from
  ours.''                                        --  Jonas Oberg, 29 March 1999

``True greatness is measured by how much freedom you give to others, not by
  how much you can coerce others to do what you want.''
                  -- Larry Wall, March 1999, http://www.wall.org/~larry/pm.html

``Well you say I'm twenty-something and should be slacking              /
  But I'm working harder than ever and you could call it macking        /
  So I'm supposed to sit upon my couch watching my T.V...               /
  I'm that kid in the corner;  All fucked up and i wanna so I'm gonna   /
  Take a piece of the pie; Why not? I'm not quitting;                   /
  Think I'm gonna change up my style just to fit in?''
                              -- Beastie Boys, ILL COMMUNICATION, ``Sure Shot''

``But back to the monoculturism of Modernism, or rather the assumption of
 monoculturalism. Nowadays we've managed to liberate ourselves from that
 assumption, by and large (where by and large doesn't yet include the
 Midwest).''
                  -- Larry Wall, March 1999, http://www.wall.org/~larry/pm.html

``Since there are a lot of non-techies here, maybe this needs to be said, if
  it weren't for Richard Stallman, none of us would be here today. ''
                                               -- Eric S. Raymond, 3 March 1999

``I also suggest that UNIX offers something else prized in literature: a
  coherence, a consistent style, something writers call a voice.''
           -- Thomas Scoville, ``The Elements of Style: Unix As Literature'',
              Unix Review's Performance Computing, September 1998

``It's like chain smoking, but with soda instead.'' 
                                            -- Matthew D. Meyer, 31 August 1998

``Note that the famous Java Man fossil is Homo Erectus -- a
  pre-Neanderthal hominid.  Java Man looks very much like a cross
  between a gorilla and a modern human, possessing a flat and thick
  skull and very few teeth.  Java Man was believed to have been
  vegetarian and strongly typed.''
        -- Jon Orwant in <9809010117.AA15073@fahrenheit-451.media.mit.edu>
           on perl5-porters@perl.org on 31 August 1998

``I want to be part of a certain kind of community in which people have
  certain freedoms. Community and freedom are primary, not business. A
  software industry can be a good thing, as long as it develops free
  software; but if our choice is between having the community and having a
  software industry, we should keep the community.''
                                        -- Richard M. Stallman, 10 August 1998

``He who can destroy a thing has the real control of it.''
                                          -- Paul Muad'dib, DUNE, Frank Herbert

``Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.?  That's a tough one.  But I'll take  
  a shot.  Say I'm working at the N.S.A. and somebody puts a code on my
  desk; something no one else can break.  Maybe I take shot at it and maybe
  I break it, and I'm real happy with myself, because I did my job well.
  But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or
  the Middle East, and once they have that location, they bomb the village
  where the rebels were hiding.  Fifteen hundred people I never met, never
  had no problem with, get killed.  Now the politicians are saying, `Oh, send
  in the marines to secure the area' because they don't give a shit.  It
  won't be their kid over there, getting shot, just like it wasn't them when
  their number got called, because they were off pulling a tour in the
  National Guard.  It'll be some kid from Southie over there taking shrapnel
  in the ass.  He comes back to find that the plant he used to work at got
  exported to the country he just got back from, and the guy who put the
  shrapnel in his ass got his old job, because he'll work for fifteen cents
  a day and no bathroom breaks.  Meanwhile, he realizes the only reason he
  was over there in the first place was so that we could install a
  government that would sell us oil at a good price, and of course the oil
  companies used the little skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil
  prices---a cute little ancillary benefit for them, but it ain't helping my
  buddy at two-fifty a gallon.  They're taking their sweet time bringing the
  oil back, of course, and maybe they even took the liberty of hiring an
  alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fucking play slalom with
  the icebergs.  It ain't too long until he hits one, spills the oil and
  kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic.  So now my buddy's out of
  work; he can't afford to drive, so he's walking to the fucking job
  interviews, which sucks, because the shrapnel in his ass is giving him
  chronic hemorrhoids, and meanwhile he's starving because each time he tries
  to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they're serving is North
  Atlantic scrod with Quaker State.  So what did I think?  I'm holding out
  for something better.  I figure, fuck it, while I am at it, why not just
  shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas
  prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the
  National Guard?  I could be elected president.''
                                           -- Will Hunting, _GOOD WILL HUNTING_

``I could viddy what it was clear enough.  It was old age having a go at
  youth, that's what it was.''     -- Alex, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, Anthony Burgess

``I'm getting intense, not talking nonsense                  /  
  I made up my mind, not sitting on the fence                /
  I don't always know the right from the wrong               /
  I do my best to figure it out and work it out in the long  /
  I try to do a lot, more than I can chew                    /
  Balance out my ambition's what i've got to do''
                              -- Beastie Boys, ILL COMMUNICATION, ``The Scoop''

``If I could control tomorrow's haze    / The darkened shore wouldn't bother me
  If I can't control the web we weave   /
  My life will be lost in the fallen leaves''
                                        -- David Bowie, OUTSIDE, ``No Control''

``Were Jesus Christ himself here today, and were he to fall in love with me
  and I with him, I do not believe he would in the slightest object to our
  mutual love.  I could make passionate love to him tonight and we would
  cuddle under the sheets together, to awaken tomorrow morning under a golden
  sun that shines equally as bright on every person.''
  -- Eric Morrison, THE REVIEW (The Univ. of Delaware Newspaper), 29 Sept. 1995

``And I'm a pacifist             / So I can fuck your shit up     /
  Oh yea I'm small               / Fuck you asshole               /
  You homophobic redneck dick    / You're big and tough and macho /
  You can kick my ass            / So fucking what''
                             -- Red Hot Chili Peppers,  ONE HOT MINUTE, ``Pea''

``Shallow be thy game        / 2000 years look in the mirror /
  You play the game of shame / And tell your people live in fear''
             -- Red Hot Chili Peppers,  ONE HOT MINUTE, ``Shallow Be Thy Game''

``Smoke me a kipper; I'll be back for breakfast.''
                                   -- Ace Rimmer RED DWARF,  ``Dimension Jump''

``Power to the Poultry!''
                   -- Crackers, the Corporate Crime Fighting Chicken, TV NATION

``You suck my blood like a leech     /   You break the law and you breach
  Screw my brain till it hurts       /   You've taken all my money  - 
  you still want more ...            /   But now you can kiss my ass goodbye''
                     -- Queen, A NIGHT AT THE OPERA,
                                       ``Death on Two Legs (Dedicated to...)''

``There is in each of us an ancient force that takes and an ancient force that
  gives.  A man finds little difficulty facing that place within himself where
  the taking force dwells, but it's almost impossible for him to see the giving
  force without changing into something other than a man.  For a woman, the
  situation is reversed.''                -- Paul Muad'dib, DUNE, Frank Herbert

``But the consciousness of power came, and with it, the desire to make up for
  the miserable position of my earlier life.  Maybe you can understand it.
  Maybe you can try to understand it.  It isn't easy to be a freak---to have a
  mind and an understanding and be a freak.  Laughter and cruelty!  To be
  different!  To be an outsider!  You've never been through it!''
                               -- The Mule, FOUNDATION AND EMPIRE, Issac Asimov

``Youth must go, ah yes.  But youth is only being in a way like it might be an
  animal.  No, it is not just like being an animal so much as being like one
  of these malenky toys you viddy being sold in the streets, like little
  chellovecks made out of tin and with a spring inside and then a winding
  handle on the outside and you wind it up grrr grrr grrr grrr and off it
  itties, like walking, O my brothers.  But it itties in a straight line and
  bands straight into things bang bang and it cannot help what it is doing.
  Being young is like being like one of these malenky machines.''
                                   -- Alex, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, Anthony Burgess

``One of the most terrible moments in a boy's life is when he discovers his
  father and mother are human beings who share a love that he can never quite
  taste.  It's a loss, an awaking to the fact that the world is there and here
  and we are in it alone.  The moment carries its own truth; you can't evade
  it.''                                   -- Paul Muad'dib, DUNE, Frank Herbert

``But the not-self cannot have the bad, meaning they of the government and the
  judges and the schools cannot allow the bad because they cannot allow the
  self.  And is not our modern history, my brothers, the story of brave malenky
  selves fighting these big machines?  I am serious with you, brothers, over
  this.  But what I do I do because I like to do.''
                                   -- Alex, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, Anthony Burgess

``Alex's adventures are a kind of psychological myth.  Our subconscious finds
  release in Alex, just as it finds release in dreams.  It resents Alex being
  stifled and repressed by authority, however much our conscious mind
  recognizes the necessity of doing this.''                  -- Stanley Kubrick

``How many friends have I really got? / (I can count them all on one hand)
  How many friends have I really got  / That love me
  That want me                        / That will take me as I am?''
                           -- The Who, THE WHO BY NUMBERS, ``How Many Friends''

``you can have my isolation        / you can have the hate that it brings
  you can have my absence of faith / you can have my everything''
                            -- Nine Inch Nails, THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL, ``closer''

``i speak religion's message clear / and i control you
  i am denial guilt and fear       / and i control you
  i am the prayers of the naive    / and i control you
  i am the lie that you believe    / and i control you
  i take you where you want to go  / i give you all you need to know
  i drag you down i use you up     / mr self destruct''
                  -- Nine Inch Nails, THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL, ``mr self destruct''

``If your eye got poked out in this life /
  would it be waiting up in heaven with your wife''
        -- Crash Test Dummies, GOD SHUFFLED HIS FEET, ``God Shuffled his Feet''

``I know how things are now.  Nobody wants or loves me.  I've suffered and
  suffered and suffered and everybody wants me to go no suffering.  I know.''
                                   -- Alex, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, Anthony Burgess

``I have this conscience and it gets in the way.''  -- Chip Crowe, 10 Oct. 1994

``Being an outsider isn't so bad; it gives one a unique perspective.  It's
  a pity you've forgotten that.''                -- Odo, ST:DS9, ``The Search''

``Thank you; drive thru.''                                            -- Beavis

``I'm god, but it's bit of a drag, actually...God returns in all his splendor
  and says `Sorry, it's all been a total cock-up.' ''
                                      -- Rimmer, RED DWARF, ``Waiting for God''

``Life is like a box of chocolates - you never know what you're going to get.
  (Unless it's a box of all chocolate-covered Macadamia nuts.)
  (Or unless the box has a little diagram on the inside of the upper lid 
   showing exactly what all the pieces are.)''    -- Forrest Gump & John Morton

``I don't want to take 100-level classes; I want to go to graduate school.''
                                    -- Elizabeth A. McKeever, 14 September 1994

``I love you, honey, oh yes, I do, you know that's true of course;
  and if your dog or cat ever died I'd buy you a ewe''
                                           -- Phish, LAWN BOY, ``My Sweet One''

``and don't you just love this life  / when it's holding you down             /
  and maybe the day will come        / when you'll never have to feel no pain /
  after all my complaining           / gonna love this life''
                        -- Crowded House, TEMPLE OF LOW MEN, ``Love This Life''
           
``No one understands / No one knows my plan''
                  -- They Might Be Giants, JOHN HENRY, ``No one Knows My Plan''

``Sometimes when I look in your eyes I swear I can see your soul''
                                 -- James, LAID, ``Sometimes (Lester Piggott)''

``Not everyone in New York would pay to see Andrew Lloyd Webber''
                                 -- Crowded House, WOODFACE, ``Chocolate Cake''

``Get Binkley and have him shot!''                 -- Coach Bloom, Bloom County

``Don't put Decartes' before the horse''       -- Scot Carpenter, 28 March 1994

``That was Zen, this is Tao''                  -- Peter da Silva, 24 April 1993

``When you gonna love you as much as I do / When you gonna make up your mind /
  Because things are gonna change so fast''
                                   -- Tori Amos, LITTLE EARTHQUAKES, ``Winter''

``I got lizards and snakes running through my body  /
  Funny how they all have my face                    /
  Sweet Dreams / You say, You say that you have them /
  I say that you're a liar''             -- Tori Amos, WINTER, ``Sweet Dreams''

``Growing up isn't always fun...Butterflies don't belong in nets''
                                            -- Tori Amos, CRUCIFY(UK), ``Mary''

``What will you do with your life / That's all you hear from noon 'till night''
                                              -- Tori Amos, ``Flying Dutchman''

``The atrocities of school I can forgive /
  The Happy Phantom has no right to bitch''
                            -- Tori Amos, LITTLE EARTHQUAKES, ``Happy Phantom''

``I never understood what my body was for /
  That's why I always leave it lying out of the floor''
                                         -- Phish, HOIST, ``Axilla (Part II)''

``Twenty years of schoolin' and they put you on the day shift.''
                        -- Bob Dylan, BIOGRAPH, ``Subterranean Homesick Blues''

``I saw worst bands of my generation applied by magic marker to dry wall''
          -- They Might Be Giants, JOHN HENRY, ``I Should Be Allowed to Think''

``Eddie was the best Computer Science major this side of Brad Kuhn.''
                                                                 -- Rich Sigler

``Do you know those days when you just want to sit at home, watch TV, eat
   corn chips, and masturbate?''       -- Bruce McCulloch, THE KIDS IN THE HALL

``god is dead / and no one cares / if there is a hell / i'll see you there''
                            -- Nine Inch Nails, THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL, ``Heresy''

``There are those who are happy / And there are those who are wise /
  But it's the truly sad people / Who get the most out of life''
                                      -- David Byrne, DAVID BYRNE, ``sad song''

``I got enough guilt to start my own religion''
                                 -- Tori Amos, LITTLE EARTHQUAKES, ``Crucify''

``One sentimental moment in your arms    / 
  Is like a shooting star right through my heart, /
  It's always a rainy day without you,   /  I'm a prisoner of love inside you -
  I'm falling apart all around you.      /  My heart cries out to your heart,
  I'm lonely but you can save me,        /  My hand reaches out for your hand,
  I'm cold but you light the fire in me, /  My lips search for your lips,
  I'm hungry for your touch,             /  There's so much left unspoken
  And all I can do is surrender          /  To the moment just surrender''
                                -- Queen, A KIND OF MAGIC, ``One Year of Love''

``I hope something GOOD came in the mail today so I have
  a REASON to live!!''                              -- M-x yow, GNU Emacs 19.22

``You're the best friend that I ever had                        /
  I've been with you such a long time                           /
  You're my sunshine        / And I want you to know            /
  That my feelings are true / I really love you''
                                            -- Queen, ``You're My Best Friend''

``Why do human beings invent words and then forbid people to use them?''
                                              -- paraphrased from George Carlin

``I built a little empire out of some crazy garbage /
  Called the blood of the exploited working class''
             -- They Might be Giants, MISCELLANEOUS T., ``Kiss Me, Son of God''

``I am what I am; most mother fuckers don't give a damn...Look at me,
  can't you see, all I really wanna be is free from world that hurts me...
  Hit me; you can't hurt me---Suck my kiss!''
             -- Red Hot Chili Peppers,  BLOOD SUGAR SEX MAGIK, ``Suck My Kiss''

``The people all stared--didn't understand / But you knew my name on sight... /
   Don't I love her so                     / She made me live again...        /
   Now I'm here                            / Think I'll stay around           /
   Don't I love you so''                            -- Queen, ``Now I'm Here''

``This one,  There Must Be Giants, it's called...
  What kind of money does he make; it don't make no sense.
  Well, he don't make any money, right?...Whose There May Be Giants?...
  Well, I can't explain it, 'cause I don't know what it is...
  Don't blame me if the guy's a nut.''      -- TMBG, MISC. T, Woman on Track 13

``The world is a cage for your impotent RAGE / But don't let it get to you''
                                         -- Rush, ROLL THE BONES, ``Neurotica''

``We go out in the world and take our chances / But fate is just the weight
  of circumstances''               -- Rush, ``Roll the Bones,'' ROLL THE BONES

``I would not think of quarreling with your interpretation nor offering any
  other, as I have found it always the best policy to allow the film to speak
  for itself.''                                              -- Stanley Kubrick

``SANTA CLAUS comes down a FIRE ESCAPE wearing bright blue LEG WARMERS..
  He scrubs the POPE with a mild soap or detergent for 15 minutes,
  starring JANE FONDA!!''                           -- M-x yow, GNU Emacs 19.22

``FUCK YOU, I won't do what you tell me!''
                        -- Rage Against the Machine, ``Killing In the Name Of''

``when you see a famous smile    / no matter where you run your mile /
  to be right in that photograph / andy where's my fifteen minutes''
                                               -- Tin Machine, ``i can't read''
 
``The world isn't run by weapons anymore, or energy, or money.  It's run 
  by little ones and zeros---little bits of data.  It's all just electrons....
  There's a war out there---a world war---and it's not about who's got the most
  bullets.  It's about who controls the information...
  It's all about the information.''                            -- Coz, SNEAKERS

``We'll strike back and we'll strike back HARD!''   -- Londo Mollari, BABYLON 5

``While my BRAINPAN is being refused service in BURGER KING,
  Jesuit priests are DATING CAREER DIPLOMATS!!''    -- M-x yow, GNU Emacs 19.22

``When you eat, eat well.   When you love, love for a long time.
  When you kill, kill for pleasure.''
                  -- Xavier St. Cloud, HIGHLANDER, ``Unholy Alliance, Part II''

``[We] Infiltrated business cesspools / Hating through Our sleeves / 
  Yea, and We slit the Catholic throat / Stoned the poor on slogans such as /
  `Wish You Could Hear' / `Love Is All We Need' / `Kick Out The Jams' /
  `Kick Out Your Mother' / `Cut Up Your Friend'/ `Screw Up Your Brother or
   He'll Get You In the End.' ''       -- David Bowie, ``The Cygnet Committee''

``The sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace, where
  hydrogen is converted to helium at a temperature of millions of degrees.''
     -- They Might Be Giants, WHY DOES THE SUN SHINE?, ``The Sun Is a Mass...''

``Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you.''
                                -- Nirvana, NEVERMIND, ``Territorial Pissings''

``It [being a Vulcan] means to adopt a philosophy, a way of life which
   is logical and beneficial.  We cannot disregard that philosophy
   merely for personal gain, no matter how important that gain might be.''
                       -- Spock, ST:TOS, ``Journey to Babel'' (stardate 3842.4)

``When something goes wrong, I'm the first to admit it...and the last
  to know.  When something goes right...it's apt to confuse me; it's
  such an unusual sight.  I can't get used to something so right.''
             -- Paul Simon, NEGOTIATIONS AND LOVE SONGS, ``Something So Right''

``If you could see the you that I see, when I see you seeing me, you'd see
  yourself so differently...Believe me!''
                         -- Henry Rollins, END OF SILENCE, ``Low Self Opinion''

``Wake up and smell the cat food, in your bank account.''
                        -- They Might Be Giants, MISC. T, ``Don't Let's Start''

``A generation of amateur programmers is afoot across the land...the programs
  are written without regard to anyone else having to understand, debug, or
  maintain them.''
            -- Henry Ledgard, ``Programmers: The Amateur vs. the Professional''

``In the end, there can be only one!''                  -- MacCleod, HIGHLANDER

``I can't do that, Dave.''                                    -- HAL 9000, 2001

``The Sons of Sung have joined forces...''         -- Data, ST:TNG, ``Descent''

``You got the *wrong* Ferengi!  I never traded Vulcan ships!''
                                  -- The Fat Ferengi, ST:TNG, ``Reunification''

``Sure beats cartoon food''         -- Bulwinkle J. Moose, Taco Bell Commercial

``I am Locutus of Borg.  Resistance is futile.  Your life, as it has been, is
  over.  From now on, you will service US.''
                                    -- Locutus, ST:TNG, ``Best of Both Worlds''

``Everything must go''                           -- The Senator, ``Wild Palms''

``A fat ferengi just entered the establishment.''
                          -- Lt. Cmdr. Worf, ST:TNG, ``Reunification, Part II''

``Clever, but the schoolteacher beat him anyway to show him that definitions
  belong to the definers -- not the defined.''    -- ``Beloved'', Toni Morrison

``Move along; Move along home.''                 -- ST:DS9, ``Move Along Home''

``It's not you I hate, Cardassian; I hate what I became because of you.''
                                      -- Miles O'Brien, ST:TNG, ``The Wounded''

``It's what you learn after you know everything that's important.''
                                                          -- Michael J. Kuhn

``I yanked on one thread, and I ended up pulling apart the very tapestry of my
  life.''                              -- Jean-Luc Picard, ST:TNG, ``Tapestry''

``What man needs is simply independent choice, whatever that independence
  may cost and wherever it may lead.''
                               -- Fyodor Dostoevsky, ``Notes from Underground''

``Die Well!''                                    -- A common Klingon salutation

``Neither you Simon, nor the 50,000, nor the Romans, nor the Jews, nor
  Judas, nor the 12, nor the priests, nor the scribes, nor Jerusalem itself,
  understand what power is, understand what glory is, understand at all.''
                                            -- Jesus,  JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR

``All of this may be an elaborate simulation inside a device sitting on
  someone's desk.''           -- Jean-Luc Picard,  ST:TNG, ``Ship in a Bottle''

``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

``If I had a pointer big enough, I could move the world.''
                                              -- (allegedly) Brain W. Kernighan

``Everybody wants a rock to wind a piece of string around.''
                             -- They Might Be Giants, FLOOD, ``We want a rock''

`` `Son I am able,' she said `though you scare me.'  `Watch,' said I `beloved,'
  I said `watch me scare you though.' said she,  `able am I, Son.' ''
                       --  They Might Be Giants,  APOLLO 18, ``I Palindrome I''

Updated on: $Date: 2002/06/02 03:23:48 $

Bradley M. Kuhn
bkuhn@ebb.org