• Whatever women do, they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult. — Charlotte Whitton

America…

• L'Amérique est le pays de la Liberté, mais elle lui tourne le dos et elle regarde de l'autre côté. — Boris Vian

• It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it. — Mark Twain

• America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilisation in between. — Oscar Wilde

… and its rulers

• [The U.S. victory in Gulf War was a] stirring victory for the forces of aggression. — James Danforth (Dan) Quayle

• [12 May 1996, Lesley Stahl, 60 minutes, on U.S. sanctions against Iraq] We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
  Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price – we think the price is worth it.

• [Saddam Hussein's] forces continue to surrender and capitulate. His regime is running out of real soldiers. And soon, all that will be left will be the war criminals. — Donald H. Rumsfeld

• I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy – but that could change. — Dan Quayle

• You teach a child to read and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test. — George "Dubelious" Bush

• People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history. — Dan Quayle

• We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur. — Dan Quayle

• The future will be better tomorrow. — Dan Quayle

• The United States, for all its faults, is still the greatest nation in the country. — Spiro T. Agnew

• You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. — Anne Lamott

• The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence, clamorous to be led to safety - by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblin, all of them imaginary. — H.L. Mencken

Mae West

• Too much of a good thing is wonderful!

• When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm even better

• Whenever I have to decide between two evils, I always choose the one I haven't tried before.

• It's hard to be funny when you have to be clean.

• If writers were bakers, this sentence would be exactly a dozen words long. — Douglas R. Hofstadter

• Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good. — Samuel Johnson

• There's no such thing as a tough child. If you parboil them first for seven hours, they always come out tender. — W. C. Fields

• Right now I'm having amnesia and déjà vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before. — Steven Wright

Groucho Marx

• Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.

• Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.

• I never forget a face. However, in your case, I'll be glad to make an exception.

Alphonse Allais

• Chaque fois que les gens découvrent son mensonge,
  Le châtiment lui vient, par la colère accru.
  Je suis cuit, je suis cuit ! gémit-il comme en songe.
  Moralité
  Le menteur n'est jamais cru.

• Dans la vie, il ne faut compter que sur soi-même, et encore pas beaucoup.

Yogi Berra

• This is like déjà vu all over again.

• You can observe a lot just by watching.

• In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.

Laws and principles

• If anything can go wrong, it will.

• Corollary: If nothing can go wrong, it will.

Last update 2009-07-01