by Ross Petras
On God, Mortality of:
I believe that, next to God, Andrew Jackson was the greatest man who ever lived.
John Trotwood Moore, State Historian of Tennessee, 1920s
On Golf Clubs, Extra Uses for:
[A gun is] a recreational tool, like a golf club or a tennis racket. You can kill someone with a golf club, you know.
Martel Lovelace, NBA official
On Good Advice:
Light pranks add zest to your services, but don’t pull the customer’s ears.
from the Japanese Tourist Industry Board, Rules for Hotel Chambermaids, 1936
On Good Advice, the Flip Side:
You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.
from a guest directory at a Japanese hotel, 1991
On Good News, Bad News:
The good news is the war is over. The bad news is we lost.
White House photographer David Hume Kennerly, running into the Oval Office on the day Saigon fell to the Communists
On Good Taste:
We’ll have a recording broadcast a fire fight, mortars exploding, bullets flying, Vietnamese screaming…. There’s nothing offensive about it.
a spokesperson for “Vietnam Village,” a 1976 Florida tourist theme park that reproduced a Vietnamese village during the war, complete with 56 Vietnamese refugees playing the parts of the villagers, describing what will happen after a tour group enters the park
On Government, Presidential Knowledge of the (Supposed) Branches of:
You know we have three great branches of this government of ours…. We have a strong President, supposedly in the White House. We have a strong Congress, supposedly in the legislative branch. We have a strong Supreme Court, supposedly heading the judiciary system.
President Gerald Ford in a 1974 speech
On Government, Truly Responsive:
No unmet needs exist and … current unmet needs that are being met will continue to be met.
Transportation Commission on Unmet Transit Needs, Mariposa County, California
On Grammar:
Tenses, Gender, and Number: For the purpose of the rules and regulations contained in this chapter, the present tense includes the past and future tenses, and the future, the present; the masculine gender includes the feminine, and the feminine, the masculine, and the singular includes the plural, and the plural the singular.
in the revised (1973) state code for the Department of Consumer Affairs, California
On Graves, Empty and Full:
… the empty grave where all our ruined industries lie.
J. Ramsay MacDonald, then leader of Labor Party in House of Commons, later British Prime Minister, during a parliamentary debate
On Great Expectations:
As the Reagan presidency ends, it is time for the Bush pregnancy to begin.
Tommy Thompson, Wisconsin governor, anticipating Bush’s inauguration
On Greeks, Stereotypes of:
Retraction: The “Greek Special” is a huge 18 inch pizza and not a huge 18 inch penis, as … described in [an ad]. Blondie’s Pizza would like to apologize for any confusion Friday’s ad may have caused.
a correction printed in the Daily Californian, cited in Ronald D. Pasquariello’s 1990 Almanac of Quotable Quotes
On Green Berets:
In a way, we’re a kind of Peace Corps.
training director of the Fort Bragg Green Beret Center in 1969
On Guilty, Innocent Until Proven:
[Hyackers should be given] a rapid trial … with due process of law at the airport, then hanged.
Edward Davis, police chief of Los Angeles in 1973
On Gymnastics, Military:
The pale face of the British soldier is the backbone of our Indian Army.
Scottish M.P. in debate
On Gymnastics, Military:
They would never agree to peace so long as Prussian militarism held its head above water to trample underfoot our liberties.
Sir Edward Carson, Anglo-Irish politician (and lawyer who cross-examined Oscar Wilde), talking about World War I
On Gymnastics, Personal:
She disentangled her foot in the netting and wound it up.
George Eliot, English novelist (Silas Marner, etc.), writing in a novel
On Gymnastics, Political:
Gentlemen, a member of this House had taken advantage of my absence to tweak my nose behind my back. I hope that the next time he abuses me behind my back like a coward he will do it to my face like a man, and not go skulking into the thicket to assail a gentleman who isn’t present to defend himself.
a Member of Parliament from Ballarat East, Australia
On Gymnastics, Political:
Against every bone in my body, I’m sitting here twisting both arms.
Representative Claude De Bruhl, North Carolina state legislator, when voting for a bill he opposed
On Gymnastics, Political:
They pushed their nomination down my throat behind my back.
J. Ramsay MacDonald, then British Member of Parliament, later the first Labour Prime Minister in the 1920s and 30s, modestly denying any role in the honor he was about to receive
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On Haircuts:
Bob Davis is wearing his hair differently this year, short and with curls…. I think you call it a Frisbee.
Jerry Coleman, announcer for the San Diego Padres, on a ball player
On Haircuts:
Hrabosky looks fierce in that Fu Manchu haircut.
Jerry Coleman, talking about another ball player
On Haircuts:
On the mound is Randy Jones, the left-hander with the Karl Marx hairdo.
Jerry Coleman, talking about one more ball player
On Hairs, Splitting:
We didn’t turn him down. We didn’t accept him.
Springdale Golf Club (Princeton, NJ) president explaining why a black applicant was rejected. (Runner-up for Second Annual Doublespeak award.)
On Hawaii:
Hawaii has always been a very pivotal role in the Pacific. It is in the Pacific. It is a part of the United States that is an island that is right here.
Vice-President Dan Quayle, during a visit to Hawaii in 1989
On Health:
I’ve been laid up with the intentional flu.
movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn
On Hearing:
So long as Ireland remains silent on this question England will be deaf to our entreaties.
Irish politician, late 1800s
On Helpful Hints:
Warning: Never use while sleeping
warnings with hair dryer, cited in US News & World Report
On Helpful Hints:
Replacing battery: Replace the old battery with a new one.
directions for a mosquito repeller, reported in Far Eastern Economic Review
On Hermeneutics, Quickie Definition of:
For John Caputo, hermeneutics means radical thinking without transcendental justification: attending to the ruptures and irregularities in existence before the metaphysics of presence has a chance to smooth them over. Radical Hermeneutics forges a closer collaboration between the hermeneutics and deconstruction than has previously been attempted.
an ad for Radical Hermeneutics, Repetition, Deconstruction, and the Hermeneutics Project
On Hispanics:
Ecuadorians. I don’t know what they are. I know they’re not Hispanic.
Hazel Dukes, civil rights activist and New York City Off-Track Betting Corporation chief
On History, Finding Precedence in:
We have to go back centuries for a parallel to such treatment, and even then we don’t find it.
anonymous speaker during a British parliamentary debate
On Holding Big Tilings:
I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs, A palace and a prison on each hand.
Romantic poet Lord Byron, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, evidently meaning one on each side. This erro
r was noted as early as 1870.
On Holidays:
Today is Father’s Day, so everyone out there: Happy birthday!
Ralph Kiner, announcer for the New York Mets
On Honesty, Congressional Opinions of Their Own:
He’s trying to take the decision out of the hands of twelve honest men and give it to 435 Congressmen!
Representative Charles Vanik of Ohio, when he heard that the indicted Spiro Agnew was asking to have his corruption case tried by the House instead of in a regular court
On Horses:
Bring on the empty horses!
director Michael Curtiz, telling film crew to bring on (riderless) horses for filming
On the House of Representatives, What They Do in:
Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (acting as Chairman):
Title IX of the recorded bill is now title X.
Rep. William L. Dickinson:
So there is no title IX. There is a title X and we have reopened title VIII, if I am correct.
Rostenkowski:
A new title IX was inserted by amendment, so there is now a title IX and a title X.
Dickinson:
There is a title VIII, there is a title IX, there is a title X, is that correct?
Rostenkowski:
Title X is the last title in the bill.
Dickinson:
So an amendment to either title VIII or title IX or title X would be in order at this time?
Rostenkowski:
Not title IX. Just title VIII and title X are open to amendment.
Dickinson:
Well, I had an amendment that I would like to offer. I thought it was to title IX if there is a title IX.
Rostenkowski:
If the gentleman’s amendment was drafted to title IX, it will be in order to title X.
Dickinson:
Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk which I would like to offer to title VIII.
a few moments of discussion on the floor of the House of Representatives in 1982, as reported by The Washington Monthly
On Human Kidneys, in Dogs:
No one as yet had exhibited the structure of human kidneys, Vesalius having only examined them in dogs.
Henry Hallam, famous Oxford historian, in his monumental work, A View of the ’State of Europe in the Middle Ages, 1818
On Human Rights, Great Moments in:
The rights you have are the rights given to you by Committee. We will determine what rights you have and what rights you have not got.
J. Parnell Thomas, House Un-American Affairs Committee, to a witness
On Human Rights, Great Moments in:
You hear about constitutional rights, free speech, and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to myself, “That man is a Red, that man is a Communist!” You never hear a real American talk like that.
Mayor Frank Hague, Jersey City, New Jersey, 1938
On Hunger:
There shouldn’t be hunger, at least hunger unnecessarily of the people who would want otherwise to be fed.
Robert Carleson, Office of Policy Development
On Huston, John:
John, if you weren’t the son of my beloved friend, Walter Huston, and if you weren’t a brilliant writer, a fine actor, and a magnificent director—you’d be nothing but a common drunk.
Gregory Ratoff, producer, to John Huston, after John Huston refused to make a film history of his life
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On Ideas:
I had a great idea this morning, but I didn’t like it.
movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn to an aide
On Identities, Mistaken:
Due to a typing error, Gov. Dukakis was incorrectly identified in the third paragraph as Mike Tyson.
Fitchburg-Leominster (Mass.) Sentinel and Enterprise correction
On Immigrants, Eating All the Leftovers:
When I go to hotels in midtown for various conventions and awards ceremonies, I am continually served my food and drink by someone who not only isn’t black, but can’t even speak English. These people take home all excess food, including soda and in some cases wine.
Hazel Dukes, civil rights activist and New York City Off-Track Betting Corporation chief
On Immutability:
This strategy represents our policy for all time. Until it’s changed.
Marlin Fitzwater, White House spokesperson under George Bush, on a just-released national security strategy
On Incest:
Inbreeding is how we get championship horses.
Carl Gunter, Louisiana state representative, explaining why he was fighting a proposed antiabortion bill that allowed abortion in cases of incest
On India:
India is the finest climate under the sun; but a lot of young fellows come out here, and they drink and they eat, and they drink and they die: and then they write home to their parents a pack of lies, and say it’s the climate that has killed them.
Sir Colin Campbell, British officer charged by British War Department to report on morale problems with the British Army in India
On Injuries:
Benedict may not be hurt as much as he really is.
Jerry Coleman, announcer for the San Diego Padres, talking about a player’s injury during on-air game coverage
On Injuries:
The doctors X-rayed my head and found nothing.
baseball great Dizzy Dean explaining how he felt after being hit on the head by a ball in the 1934 World Series
On Innovation:
We’re launching this innovation for the first time.
New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker
On Instructions, Easy to Follow:
I’m the football coach around here and don’t you remember it.
ex-Houston Oiler and Florida State coach Bill Peterson
On Instructions, Easy to Follow:
Fans, don’t fail to miss tomorrow’s game.
Dizzy Dean
On Integrity, Congressional
Grassley praised Senate colleagues “for making tough decisions to close tax loopholes which have led to abuses,” and said he was particularly pleased at the Senate’s willingness to protect farmers through a special concession.
in a press release from the office of Senator Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, quoted in The Washington Monthly
On Integrity, Congressional
I suppose I felt my votes on these issues would carry me on the integrity image on all these other things I got careless on. I have come to the conclusion I have let my integrity become restricted to the issues too much, and not enough, perhaps, to every act and procedure of my office.
Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield, in a Portland Oregonian article, commenting on the gifts and free tuition for his son he was given by James Holderman, the (indicted) president of the University of South Carolina
On Intelligence, Military:
The infiltration group was composed of ⅓ males, ⅓ females, and ⅓ party officials.
from a military intelligence document during the Vietnam War, quoted by ex-Army intelligence officer Bruce E. Jones
On Intelligence, Military:
This unit had an estimated strength of about 2,000 men, of which 300 were women.
from a military intelligence document during the Vietnam War, quoted by ex-Army intelligence officer Bruce E. Jones
On Interruptions:
Don’t talk to me while I’m interrupting.
director Michael Curtiz
On Interruptions:
Keep quiet, you’re always interrupting me in the middle of my mistakes.
director Michael Curtiz
On Inventing; or Preinventing:
It is curious to observe the various substitutes for paper before its invention.
Isaac D’Israeli, noted author and father of British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, in his book, Curiosities of Literature
On Invisibility, Visibility of:
Unseen powers, like the deities of Hom
er in the war of Troy, were seen to mingle at every step with the tide of sublimary affairs.
Sir Archibald Alison, famous nineteenth-century Scottish historian and lawyer, author of multi-volume histories of France, in his review of Guizot
On Irrevocability:
I am giving you a chance to redeem your character, something you have irretrievably lost.
Serjeant Arabin, famous London justice, Advocate General in the Whig government of the late 1830
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On Jail-Building:
Resolved, by this council, that we build a new jail.
Resolved, that the new jail be built out of the materials of the old jail.
Resolved, that the old jail be used until the new jail is finished.
resolution of Board of Councilmen, Canton, Mississippi, mid-1800s
On Judgment, Good:
There’s no textbook on judgment. I might make one or two other [mistakes], but it will certainly be with great forethought.
