Here are some of the many quotes I’ve included in my zines.
“The diagram shows the alternation of generations in a species which is heteromorphic, sporophytic, oogametic, dioicious, heterosporic and dioecious.” — Wikipedia (sometimes a textbook)
“In humans, the nose is located centrally on the face.” — Wikipedia (sometimes a children’s book)
“A confusion is just the categorical dual of a fusion, which is just a fusoid in the category of brainofunctors.” — ciaranm
“Now also of such among the Nobilitie or gentrie as be very well seene in many laudable sciences, and especially in making of Poesie, it is so come to passe that they haue no courage to write & if they haue, yet are they loath to be a knowen of their skill. So as I know very many notable Gentlemen in the Court that haue written commendably, and suppressed it agayne, or els suffred it to be publisht without their owne names to it: as if it were a discredit for a Gentleman, to seeme learned, and to shew himselfe amorous of any good Art. In other ages it was not so.” — George Puttenham, 1589 (but not all other ages)
“The reason most folksongs are so atrocious is that they were written by the people.” — Tom Lehrer
“If its individual citizens, to a man, are to be believed, it always is depressed, and always is stagnated, and always is at an alarming crisis, and never was otherwise; though as a body, they are ready to make oath upon the Evangelists, at any hour of the day or night, that it is the most thriving and prosperous of all countries on the habitable globe.” — Charles Dickens on America, 1844
“Can you imagine being in the real world? You could be surrounded by idiots.” — Scott Lever
“It’s a bug that cars were invented before computers.” — Eric Schmidt, Google CEO
“We have two important systems in our brains, the fear system and the reward system. The third, the reasoning system, doesn’t seem to be so important.” — Borwin Bandelow (my translation)
“Oh it’s my mistake, sorry. I was mixing Beijing and Pamplona.” — Hideki Kato
“When you’re dealing with the universe, ignorance can be deadly.” — Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer
“Vague, humorously hyperbolic, and with no explicit timescale: all the essential ingredients of a successful prediction.” — John Siracusa
“How can I sleep when an example of an adjunction might pop into my mind at any moment?” — sigfpe
“The most exciting explanation is assumed to be true until it is proven false.” — “Carl Sagan’s Razor” by Chris McKay
“I’d give dollar for indefinite article.” — Mig Greengard
“I have kissed her once, but now that she has spoken of goats I must do it again.” — Ariel Schrag, from Potential
“Please talk to your son or daughter about parametric polymorphism.” — Dave Benjamin
“A colorless, odorless gas, which, given enough time, turns into people.” — S. Rasmussen on hydrogen
“Cindy and George have a great personality.” — grammar induction program ADIOS
“You’re like alchemists who stand beside a cyclotron and exclaim, ‘Our side won!’” — Raissa Berg, from the book Acquired Traits
“Hitler was a teetotalitarian.” — Anthony Burgess
“Lots of people aren’t self-promoters. You’ve just never heard of them.” — Dorothy Gambrell, from Cat and Girl
“I don’t like [being on] Earth time.” — Scott Maxwell, Mars rover driver
“Being attacked by the undead would suck even worse if I weren’t able to blog about it.” — Andy Ihnatko
“Classic authors should be older than I am, and wiser, and on-top of all their deadlines.” — Neil Gaiman
“These discs are made of an activated ceramic that breaks up water molecules enchanting their solvent ability.” — from an As Seen On TV ad
“Relax, it’s not the police. It’s just burglars.” — caption by Soviet cartoonist Bogachev
“I personally would consider it to be an honour to be fossilized.” — Richard Dawkins
“Instructions for Head Injury” — title of a pamphlet I saw on the ground (I didn’t pick it up)
“Industrial education prepares the way for a millennium of labor.” — Turner (from a building)
“Imagine what it would be like if TV actually were good. It would be the end of everything we know.” — Marvin Minsky
“I live for meetings with suits. I love them because I know they had a really boring week and I walk in there with my orange velvet leggings and drop popcorn in my cleavage and then fish it out and eat it. I like that.” — Madonna
“I don’t think about the real future very much.” — William Gibson (it shows)
updated 14 february 2016