text:
Bill Watterson

William B. "Bill" Watterson II (born July 5 1958) is the author of the comic-strip Calvin and Hobbes.

Calvin & Hobbes
[first lines]
 * Calvin: So long, Pop! I'm off to check my tiger trap! I rigged a tuna fish sandwich yesterday, so I'm sure to have a tiger by now!
 * Calvin's Father: They like tuna fish, huh?
 * Calvin: Tigers will do anything for a tuna fish sandwich!
 * Hobbes is eating sandwich and caught upside down in trap
 * Hobbes {talking to the reader, "breaking the fourth wall"}: We're kind of stupid that way.

 * Calvin: Hey Susie Derkins, is that your face, or is a 'possum stuck in your collar? I hope you suffer a debilitating brain aneurysm, you freak!
 * Hobbes: She's cute, isn't she?
 * Calvin: Go away.
 * p12 Susie Derkins' first mention by name - she would appear in the strip for the first time the following day

 * WAP! WAP! WAP!
 * Calvin's Mom: CALVIN!!! What are you DOING to the coffee table?!?
 * Calvin: pauses, looks at the table, which has dozens of nails hammered into its top
 * Calvin: Is this some sort of trick question, or what?
 * p. 23

 * Hobbes: What's that cereal you're eating?
 * Calvin: It's my new favorite, "Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs". Have a taste.
 * Hobbes: Thank you. (clutching throat) MFFPBTH!!!!! S-Sw-Sw SWEET!!!!!!!!!
 * Calvin: Actually, they're kinda bland till you scoop sugar on 'em.
 * p61

 * Hobbes: How come we play war and not peace?
 * Calvin: Too few role models.
 * Calvin: I'll be the fearless American defender of liberty and democracy... and you can be the loathsome godless communist oppressor. We're at war, so if you get hit with a dart, you're dead and the other side wins, OK?
 * Hobbes: Gotcha.
 * Calvin: GO! (they shoot each other simultaneously WAP-WAP) Kind of a stupid game,isn't it?
 * p62

 * Calvin: Somewhere in Communist Russia, I'll bet there's a little boy who has never known anything but censorship and oppression. But maybe he's heard of America, and he dreams of living in this land of freedom and opportunity! Someday, I'd like to meet that little boy...and tell him the awful TRUTH ABOUT THIS PLACE!!
 * Calvin's Dad: Calvin, be quiet and eat the stupid Lima beans.
 * p70

 * Hobbes: Look, it says you have to be eighteen to buy cigarettes.
 * Calvin: EIGHTEEN?!? By then I'll know better!
 * p90

 * [Calvin and Hobbes are riding along in their red wagon, careening through the woods]
 * Calvin: It's true, Hobbes, ignorance is bliss! Once you know things, you start seeing problems everywhere ... and once you see problems, you feel like you ought to fix them ... and fixing problems always seems to require personal change ... and change means doing things that aren't fun! I say phooey to that!
 * [Moving downhill, they begin to pick up speed.]
 * Calvin: [looking back at Hobbes] But if you're willfully stupid, you don't know any better, so you can keep doing whatever you like! The secret to happiness is short-term, stupid self-interest!
 * Hobbes: [looking concerned] We're heading for that cliff!
 * Calvin: [hands over his eyes] I don't want to know about it.
 * [They fly off the cliff: 'Waaaugghhh!']
 * Hobbes: [after crash landing] I'm not sure I can stand so much bliss.
 * Calvin: Careful! We don't want to learn anything from this!
 * (Source: ; Cartoon: )

 * Calvin: Hey! Where's the stocking for Hobbes? Where's Santa gonna stick Hobbes' loot, if Hobbes doesn't have a stocking?!?
 * Mom: Okay, okay, I'll make Hobbes a stocking. Don't worry.
 * Calvin: Make it big, but not as big as mine.
 * Mom: ..."Hobbes' loot"??
 * Dad: DON'T LOOK AT ME! I'M DONE SHOPPING!

Something Under the Bed Is Drooling

 * Calvin: Boy, what a day! I went to school, played outside, and did my homework. I'm exhausted. [to his dad] You know what time it is now?
 * Calvin's Dad: Uh, 7:35.
 * Calvin: It's Miller Time.
 * Calvin's Dad: Get back here!
 * p28

 * Calvin: Were there dinosaurs when you were a kid, Dad?
 * Calvin's Dad: Oh, sure! Your grandfather and I used to put on our leopard skins and hunt brontosaurus for all the clan rituals.
 * Calvin's Mom: [to Calvin's dad] Listen, buster, I think Calvin's grades are bad enough already, don't you?
 * p29

 * Calvin and Hobbes are asleep
 * Voice from Under Bed: Psst... hey, kid. C'mere under the bed. I've got a brand new toy for you.
 * Hobbes: Uh oh. I think I saw a tentacle under the bed!
 * Calvin: Monsters!
 * Hobbes: Turn on the lights! That makes monsters shrivel up.
 * Calvin: Good idea!
 * Calvin turns on light
 * Monsters: AARRGHHH! AIEEEE! AAHHHHHH! GAACKK!
 * Hobbes: Ha ha! We got 'em!
 * Calvin: Just the ones under the bed. We better open up the drawers and closet too, and get some light in those places!
 * Calvin and Hobbes open closet and dump dresser drawers
 * Calvin: By golly, no monsters are going to get us tonight! Wither and die, bloodsucking freaks of nature!
 * A sleepy Calvin's dad enters room
 * Calvin's Dad: Why is your light on? What in the world are you doing?!?
 * Calvin: Monsters, Dad. They could be anywhere.
 * Calvin's Dad: {enraged} YOU'RE TRASHING YOUR ROOM AT 1 IN THE MORNING, LOOKING FOR MONSTERS?! IF YOU DON'T GET BACK INTO BED THIS INSTANT, YOU'LL HAVE A LOT MORE TO WORRY ABOUT THAN STUPID MONSTERS!!
 * Light is off and Calvin and Hobbes are covered by the bedspread
 * Calvin{annoyed}: ...What we need is some way to shrivel him up.
 * ''Lazy Sunday book 23

 * Susie: Do you have your line memorized for the nutrition play, Calvin?
 * Calvin: I'm still learning it. Being an onion is a difficult role, you know. What are you?
 * Susie: I'm "Fat".
 * Calvin: No, I mean in the play.
 * Susie: [punches Calvin] Anyone ELSE want to say it?!?
 * Calvin: Aackk! Understudy! Understudy!
 * p43

 * Calvin's Dad: It's going to be a grim day when the world is run by a generation that doesn't know anything but what it's seen on TV.
 * p100

Yukon Ho!

 * Susie: {to Calvin} Talking with you is the conversational equivalent of an out of body experience.
 * p72

 * Calvin's Dad: Go break his little legs, will you, honey?
 * p77

Weirdos from Another Planet

 * Susie: I was going to ask you to play House, but I think you'd be a weird example for our children.
 * p36

The Revenge of the Baby-Sat

 * Calvin: If I was in charge, we'd never see grass between October and May.
 * p6

 * Calvin's Dad: I think "Santa" would rather have a cold beer.
 * p15

 * Hobbes: Strange that Santa would go to the trouble to wrap a box of coal.
 * p15

 * Calvin's Dad: (spotting Calvin's macabre snowmen) You can always tell when you get to our house.
 * p41

 * [Hobbes eating "Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs" to help Calvin get proof of the purchase seals to get a beanie.]
 * Hobbes: Blechh. I feel sick.
 * Calvin: Oh, c'mon. That's only your second bowl of cereal.
 * Hobbes: This stuff is pure sugar.
 * Calvin: But it's fortified with eight essential vitamins, so it's good for you.
 * Hobbes: Give me a break. This is like eating a bowl of Milk Duds.
 * Calvin: Look, it says right here, "Part of a wholesome, nutritious, balanced breakfast."
 * Hobbes: And they show a guy eating five grapefruits, a dozen bran muffins...
 * Calvin: (shaking) You know why you shake like that? Vitamin deficiency, I'll bet.
 * p43

 * Calvin's Mom: I haven't seen Calvin for about 15 minutes now. That probably means he's getting in trouble.
 * p76

 * Calvin: People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.
 * Hobbes: Isn't your pants zipper supposed to be in the front?
 * p100

 * Calvin's Mom: How can kids know so much and still be so dumb?
 * p109

 * [Calvin and Hobbes are waiting for the school bus]
 * Calvin: How long have we been waiting for the bus now?
 * Hobbes: (looking at his watch) About two and a half hours.
 * Calvin: I think Mom put me out here this early on purpose.
 * p123

 * Calvin's Dad: I'm going to the office and get some sleep.
 * p124

 * Calvin's Dad: I don't think I'd have been in such a hurry to reach adulthood if I'd known the whole thing was going to be ad-libbed.

Scientific Progress Goes "Boink"

 * Calvin: Dad, how come old photographs are in black & white? Didn't they have colored pictures back then?
 * Calvin's Dad: Sure they did. In fact, those old pictures are in color. It is just that the world was in black and white then.
 * Calvin: Really?
 * Calvin's Dad: The world didn't turn color until sometime in the 1930s, and it was a pretty grainy color for a while, too.
 * Calvin: So how come old paintings are in color? Wouldn't they be black and white, too?
 * Calvin's Dad: Not necessarily. A lot of great artists were insane.
 * Calvin: But.....but how could they paint in color? Wouldn't their paint tubes have been shades of gray then?
 * Calvin's Dad: Precisely. But they turned color as did everything else in the 30s.
 * Calvin: So how come old photographs are in black & white?
 * Calvin's Dad: Because they were color photographs of a black and white world, remember?
 * Later, sitting on a branch
 * Calvin: The world is a complicated place, Hobbes.
 * Hobbes: Whenever I feel that way, I nap in a tree and wait for dinner.
 * p23 (29 Oct 89)

 * Calvin: (as they are walking and come upon some trash in the woods) I was reading about how countless species are being pushed toward extinction by man's destruction of forests. Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
 * p29 (08 Nov 89)

 * Calvin: Look, Hobbes! My newest invention!
 * Hobbes: Isn't that your transmogrifier?
 * Calvin: It was, but I made some modifications. See, the box is on its side now. It's a duplicator!
 * Hobbes: Ah.
 * Calvin: It combines the technologies of the transmogrifier and a photocopier, so instead of merely making a reproduction on paper, this machine actually creates a real duplicate!
 * Hobbes: {happy} So our financial worries are over?
 * Calvin: And counterfeiting is just one of its many uses around the home!
 * p. 55

 * Hobbes: Have you tested your duplicator machine yet?
 * Calvin: I was just about to. You can help.
 * Hobbes: Oh boy! What will we duplicate first?
 * Calvin: Me!
 * Hobbes: You??
 * Calvin: Yeah! Mom wants me to clean my room, so I'll duplicate myself with this, and let the duplicate do the work! Smart, huh?
 * Hobbes: I can picture the look on your parents' faces when they find out they've suddenly had twins.
 * Calvin: Twins, heck! This summer I can make a whole baseball team!
 * p. 55

 * Calvin: OK Hobbes, press the button and duplicate me.
 * Hobbes: Are you sure this is such a good idea?
 * Calvin: Brother! You doubting Thomases get in the way of more scientific advances with your stupid ethical questions! This is a brilliant idea! Hit the button, will ya?
 * Hobbes: I'd hate to be accused of inhibiting scientific progress... here you go. [presses button]
 * BOINK
 * Hobbes: Scientific progress goes "boink"?
 * Voice from under the box: It worked! It worked! I'm a genius!
 * Second voice from under the box: No you're not, you liar! I invented this!
 * p. 55

 * Calvin's Dad: Numb toes build character.
 * p64 (21 Jan 90)

 * [Calvin and Hobbes are playing Scrabble.]
 * Calvin: Ha! I've got a great word and it's on a "Double word score" box!
 * Hobbes: "ZQFMGB" isn't a word! It doesn't even have a vowel!
 * Calvin: It is so a word! It's a worm found in New Guinea! Everyone knows that!
 * Hobbes: I'm looking it up.
 * Calvin: You do, and I'll look up that 12-letter word you played with all the Xs and Js!
 * Hobbes: What's your score for ZQFMGB?
 * Calvin: 957.
 * p76 (28 Feb 90)

 * Susie: I see you're bringing a glove today. Did you sign up for recess baseball?
 * Calvin: Yeah, don't remind me. You're lucky that girls don't have to put with this nonsense. If a girl doesn't want to play sports, that's fine! But if a guy doesn't spend his afternoon chasing some stupid ball, he's called a wimp! You girls have it easy!
 * Susie: On the other hand, boys aren't expected to live their lives twenty pounds underweight.
 * Calvin: And if you don't play sports, you don't get to make beer commercials!
 * p99

Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons

 * Calvin's Dad: I have all these great genes, but they're recessive. That's the problem here.
 * p8 (20 Jun 90)

 * Calvin: Nothing spoils fun like finding out it builds character.
 * p9 (23 Jun 90)

 * Calvin: It seems like once people grow up, they have no idea what's cool.
 * p19 (01 Aug 90)

 * Hobbes: Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?
 * p38 (15 Nov 90)

 * Hobbes: Van Gogh would've sold more than one painting if he'd put tigers in them.
 * p52 (14 Oct 90)

 * Calvin: They say winning isn't everything, and I've decided to take their word for it.
 * p53 (19 Oct 90)

 * Calvin: In my opinion, we don't devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks.
 * p58 (29 Oct 90)

 * Calvin: It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
 * p62 (08 Nov 90)

 * Calvin's Dad: I don't know whether your grasp of theology or meteorology is the more appalling.
 * p68 (23 Nov 90)

 * Calvin: I like maxims that don't encourage behavior modification.
 * p90 (19 Jan 91)

 * Susie: Uh oh... here comes Calvin - the Incurable Weirdness poster child.
 * p125 (31 Mar 91)

 * Calvin's Dad: By the finite patience vested in me, I hereby dub thee "mud." You may rise.
 * p126 (10 Apr 91)

The Days Are Just Packed

 * Hobbes: So the secret to good self-esteem is to lower your expectations to the point where they're already met?
 * Calvin: Right. We should take pride in our mediocrity.
 * Hobbes: Remind me to invest overseas.
 * p23 (11 Feb 92)

 * Calvin: Mom and Dad drive me crazy. They don't understand me and I don't understand them. It's hopeless! I'm related to people I don't relate to.
 * p25 (13 Feb 92)

 * Calvin: [as Spaceman Spiff] Free to roam the heavens in man's noble quest to investigate the weirdness of the universe!
 * p50 (29 Mar 92)

 * Calvin: Do you believe in the Devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man?
 * Hobbes: I'm not sure man needs the help.
 * Calvin: You just can't talk to animals about these things.
 * p54 (06 Apr 92)

 * Hobbes: I don't know which is worse...that everyone has his price, or that the price is always so low.
 * p56 (08 Apr 92)

 * Susie: The way Calvin's brain is wired, you can almost hear the fuses blowing.
 * p64 (23 Apr 92)

 * Calvin: Isn't it strange that evolution would give us a sense of humor? When you think about it, it's weird that we have a physiological response to absurdity. We laugh at nonsense. We like it. We think it's funny. Don't you think it's odd that we appreciate absurdity? Why would we develop that way? How does it benefit us?
 * Hobbes: I suppose if we couldn't laugh at things that don't make sense, we couldn't react to a lot of life.
 * Calvin: (after a long pause) I can't tell if that's funny or really scary.
 * p64 (19 Apr 92)

 * Calvin: Paul Gauguin asked, "whence do we come? What are we? Where are we going?" Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I came from my room, I'm a kid with big plans, and I'm going outside! See ya later!
 * Calvin departs, and his mother is thinking to herself what was said
 * Calvin immediately returns
 * Calvin: Say, who the heck is Paul Gauguin anyway?
 * p69 (01 May 92)

 * Calvin: Our country was founded a long time ago, roughly around 200 B.C.
 * Miss Wormwood: 200 B.C.?!
 * Calvin: "Before Calvin." [Later, wearing a dunce cap] THAT'S WHAT'S IMPORTANT! (16 May 92)

 * Calvin: When I grow up, I'm not going to read the newspaper and I'm not going to follow complex issues and I'm not going to vote. That way I can complain when the government doesn't represent me. Then, when everything goes down the tubes, I can say the system doesn't work and justify my further lack of participation.
 * Hobbes: An ingeniously self-fulfilling plan.
 * Calvin: It's a lot more fun to blame things than to fix them.
 * p78 (18 May 92)

 * Calvin: The secret to happiness is short-term, stupid self-interest!
 * p79 (17 May 92)

 * Calvin: You call this news?! This isn't informative! This is a sound bite! This is entertainment! This is sensationalism! Fortunately, that's all I have the patience for.
 * p96 (19 Jun 92)

 * Hobbes: What would you call the creation of the universe?
 * Calvin: The Horrendous Space KABLOOIE!
 * Hobbes: Hmmm... that IS better.
 * Calvin: Almost ANYTHING would be.
 * p101 (21 Jun 92)

 * Outside. Calvin has just seen a cloud shaped like his head sticking its tongue out at him.
 * Calvin: Boy, there's nothing worse than an inscrutable omen.
 * p106 (06 Jul 92)

 * Calvin: Childhood is for spoiling adulthood.
 * p107 (08 Jul 92)

 * Hobbes: Science kind of takes the fun out of the portent business.
 * p107 (07 Jul 92)

 * Calvin: [I pray for] The strength to change what I can, the inability to accept what I can't, and the incapacity to tell the difference.
 * p137 (28 Aug 92)

 * Calvin: Everybody I know fails the acid test of friendship.
 * p154

Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat

 * Calvin: If mom and dad cared about me at all, they'd buy me some infra-red nighttime vision goggles.
 * p5

 * Calvin: Everybody I know needs a complete personality overhaul!
 * p36

 * Calvin: I'm being educated against my will! My rights are being trampled!
 * Hobbes: Is it a right to remain ignorant?
 * Calvin: I don't know, but I refuse to find out!
 * p41

 * Calvin: Life is full of surprises, but never when you need one.
 * p42

 * Calvin: Verbing weirds language.
 * p.53

 * Calvin: If you do the job badly enough, sometimes you don't get asked to do it again.
 * p55

 * [Calvin and Susie are playing "House." Every panel of the strip until the last one is drawn depicting Calvin and Susie as adults.]
 * Adult Susie: Mmmm. This dinner you fixed is delicious, honey. What is it?
 * Adult Calvin: It's dog food. And don't call me "honey."
 * Adult Susie: You can't feed me DOG food! I'm the President of the United States!
 * Adult Calvin: No, you're the president of Deluded Fruitcakes Anonymous! Give me a break!
 * Adult Susie: You're just mad because you're the "First Husband" and you have to vacuum the White House all day!
 * Adult Calvin: I AM NOT! As a matter of fact, I'm not your husband at all! [begins taking off his clothes]
 * Adult Susie: What are you doing?! Stop being such a little weirdo!
 * Adult Calvin: Me WONGA-TAA! King of Jungle!
 * Adult Susie: Oh, nice underpants! You're really gross.
 * Adult Calvin: Me off to jungle! Find tiger friend! Live with animals!
 * Adult Susie: I can run the country better without you! Good riddance, you moron!
 * Adult Calvin: It take one to know one!
 * Calvin: [to Hobbes, still stripped down to his briefs] Boy, am I glad to see you. Playing with Susie is a big waste of time. You wouldn't believe the junk she can imagine.
 * Hobbes: Nice underpants.
 * Calvin's Mom: [on phone] What do you mean Calvin left his clothes with Susie??
 * p.56

 * Calvin: I used to hate writing assignments, but now I enjoy them. I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog! Want to see my book report?
 * Hobbes: (Reading Calvin's paper) "The Dynamics of Interbeing and Monological Imperatives in Dick and Jane: A Study in Psychic Transrelational Gender Modes."
 * Calvin: Academia, here I come!
 * p62

 * Calvin: Reality continues to ruin my life.
 * p67

 * Hobbes: I wonder what people knew before there were magazine quizzes.
 * p.78

 * Calvin: Miss Wormwood, I protest this "C" grade! That's saying I only did an "average" job! I got 75% of the answers correct, and in today's society, doing something 75% right is outstanding! If government and industry were 75% competent, we'd be ecstatic! I won't stand for this artificial standard of performance! I demand an "A" for this kind of work!
 * (next panel)I think it's really gross how she drinks Maalox straight from the bottle.
 * p.85

 * Calvin: Do you think babies are born sinful, that they come into the world as sinners?
 * Hobbes: No, I think they're just quick studies.
 * Calvin: Whenever you discuss certain things with animals, you get insulted.
 * p.90

 * Hobbes: There's more to this world than just people, you know.
 * p105

 * Calvin's Dad: Cyclists have a right to the road too, you noisy, polluting, inconsiderate maniacs! I hope gas goes up to eight bucks a gallon!
 * p.106

 * Calvin: You know how people are. They only recognize greatness when some authority confirms it.
 * p109

 * Calvin's Dad: Calvin, losing is a part of life. You should learn to be a good sport about it and keep things in perspective. After all, winning isn't everything.
 * Calvin: Is that really what they believe on the planet you're from?
 * Calvin's Dad: You've been watching athletic shoes ads again, haven't you?
 * p.110

 * Calvin: Do you believe in evolution?
 * Hobbes: No.
 * Calvin: You don't believe humans evolved from monkeys?
 * Hobbes: I sure don't see any difference. [Calvin angrily chases him] Woo hoo hoo!
 * p.114

 * Calvin: I believe personal greed justifies everything. Also, private lives are legitimate public entertainment. And the lowest common denominator is always right. Do I have career options or what?
 * Hobbes: I think I need to start hanging around with other animals.
 * p.122

 * Calvin: Miss Wormwood, could we arrange our seats in a circle and have a little discussion? Specifically, I'd like to debate whether cannibalism ought to be grounds for leniency in murders, since it's less wasteful. [In the corner with a dunce cap] For some reason, they'd rather teach us stuff that any fool can look up in a book.
 * p125

 * Calvin: Like delicate lace, so the threads intertwine, oh, gossamer web of wond'rous design! Such beauty and grace wild nature produces... [disgusted] Ughh, look at that spider suck out that bug's juices!
 * p140

 * Calvin: Mom and Dad say I should make my life an example of the principles I believe in...But every time I do, they tell me to stop it.
 * p.140

 * Calvin: The only skills I have the patience to learn are those that have no real application in life.
 * p142

 * Calvin: From now on, I'm not doing anything I don't want to do! The world owes me happiness, fulfillment and success.... I'm just here to cash in.
 * p145

 * Calvin: What assurance do I have that your parenting isn't screwing me up?
 * p146

 (After Calvin hits a baseball and breaks a house window, walks up to Susie)
 * Calvin: Don't ask dumb questions. Just ring my doorbell, hold the bat, and yell HA! HA!
 * Susie: Why is that worth ten cents to you?
 * p.150

 * Calvin: History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.
 * p152

 * Calvin: These real-life video programs are great! Here are ordinary people having actual, horrible experiences, which are broadcast nationwide for the public's viewing amusement! It's intrusion, exploitation, and voyeurism all in one! You never know where a video camera will be! Everything's fair game!
 * Hobbes: Who'd have guessed Big Brother would go commercial?
 * Calvin: I love to snicker at other people's tragedy.
 * p.156

 * Calvin: Dad, what causes wind?
 * Calvin's dad: Trees sneezing.
 * Calvin: Really??
 * Calvin's dad: No, but the truth is more complicated.

(june 15, 1993)

There's Treasure Everywhere

 * Calvin: Today at school, I tried to decide whether to cheat on my test or not. I wondered, is it better to do the right thing and fail...or is it better to do the wrong thing and succeed? On the one hand, undeserved success gives no satisfaction...but on the other hand, well-deserved failure gives no satisfaction either. Of course, most everybody cheats some time or other. People always bend the rules if they think they can get away with it. Then again, that doesn't justify my cheating. Then I thought, look, cheating on one little test isn't such a big deal. It doesn't hurt anyone. But then I wondered if I was just rationalizing my unwillingness to accept the consequence of not studying. Still, in the real world, people care about success, not principles. Then again, maybe that's why the world is such a mess. What a dilemma!
 * Hobbes: So what did you decide?
 * Calvin: Nothing. I ran out of time and I had to turn in a blank paper.
 * Hobbes: Anymore, simply acknowledging the issue is a moral victory.
 * Calvin: Well, it just seemed wrong to cheat on an ethics test.
 * p. 12

 * Calvin: Look, a dead bird!
 * Hobbes: It must've hit a window.
 * Calvin: Isn't it beautiful? It's so delicate. Sighhh... once it's too late, you appreciate what a miracle life is. You realize that nature is ruthless and our existence is very fragile, temporary, and precious. But to go on with your daily affairs, you can't really think about that...which is probably why everyone takes the world for granted and why we act so thoughtlessly. It's very confusing. I suppose it will all make sense when we grow up.
 * Hobbes: No doubt.
 * p16

 * Calvin: I'm a 21st-century kid trapped in a 19th-century family.
 * p18

 * Susie: Sometimes I think books are the only friends worth having.
 * p25

 * Hobbes: So basically, this maverick is urging everyone to express his individuality through conformity in brand-name selection?
 * p29

 * [Calvin is posing in his underwear in front of his mirror.]
 * Calvin: Made in God's own image, yes sir!
 * Hobbes: God must have a goofy sense of humor.
 * p31

 * [Calvin is outside, looking up at the stars.]
 * Calvin: I'M SIGNIFICANT!...screamed the dust speck.
 * p30

 * Calvin: Everybody seeks happiness! Not me, though! That's the difference between me and the rest of the world. Happiness isn't good enough for me! I demand euphoria!
 * p34

 * Calvin: They say the world is a stage. But obviously the play is unrehearsed and everybody is ad-libbing his lines.
 * Hobbes: Maybe that's why it's hard to tell if we're living in a tragedy or a farce.
 * Calvin: We need more special effects and dance numbers.
 * p.62

 * Calvin: Incredibly, people never expect to get hit with a snowball in the house.
 * Hobbes: I'll see you in your room momentarily.
 * p78

 * Calvin: Some people complain all the time! They complain about the least little thing! If something bugs them, they never let go of it! They just go on and on long after anyone else is interested! It's just complain, complain, complain! People who gripe all the time really drive me nuts! You'd think they'd change the subject after a while, but they never do! They just keep griping until you start to wonder, 'What's wrong with this idiot?' But they go on complaining and repeating what they've already said!
 * Hobbes: Maybe they're not very self aware.
 * Calvin: Boy, that's another thing that gets on my nerves!
 * p.83

 * Calvin: As you can see, I have memorized this utterly useless piece of information long enough to pass a test question. I now intend to forget it forever. You've taught me nothing except how to cynically manipulate the system. Congratulations.
 * p.90

 * Calvin: I understand my tests are popular reading in the teachers' lounge.
 * p.91

 * Calvin: [to Moe, the bully] Your simian countenance suggests a heritage unusually rich in species diversity.
 * Moe: ...What?
 * Calvin: [handing over his milk money] Here. That was worth 25 cents.
 * p.91

 * Calvin's Dad: Why is it that I can recall a cigarette ad jingle from 25 years ago, but I can't remember what I just got up to do?
 * p93

 * Calvin: Trifle not with tired tigers.
 * p106

 * Calvin: This piece of pie is awfully darn small!
 * Calvin's Mom: Life could be a lot worse, Calvin.
 * Calvin: Life could be a lot better too! … But worse is more likely.
 * p121

 * Calvin: My internal clock is on Tokyo time.
 * p.129

 * Calvin: I sure am great! I'm one of the greatest people who ever lived! How lucky people are to know someone as great as me! I'm great in so many great ways! In fact, I'm so great that my greatness is...
 * Susie: You're not great! You're the most conceited blowhard I've ever met!
 * Calvin: When you're great, people often mistake candor for bragging.
 * p.130

 * Hobbes: Virtual reality is already here.
 * p132

 * Calvin: (writing, after being asked to explain Newton's First Law of Motion "in his own words") Yakka foob mog. Grug pubbawup zink wattoom gazork. Chumble spuzz. (speaking) I love loopholes.
 * p133

 * Calvin: I'm thinking of starting my own talk radio show. I'll spout simplistic opinions for hours on end, ridicule anyone who disagrees with me, and generally foster divisiveness, cynicism, and a lower level of public dialog!
 * Hobbes: It would seem you were born for the job.
 * Calvin: Imagine getting paid to act like a six-year-old!
 * p.138

 * Calvin: [sighs] I wish I could go to the moon.
 * Calvin's Dad: I wish you could too.
 * Calvin's Mom: Dear.
 * p.140

 * Calvin: Why should I have to WORK for everything?! It's like saying I don't deserve it!
 * p142

 * Calvin: One of my baby teeth came out! I have to say, I'm not entirely comfortable holding a piece of my own head.
 * p149

 * Calvin: My brain always rejects attitude transplants.
 * p158

 * Calvin: Look at how people are portrayed in the comic strips. The women are indecisive whiners, nagging shrews, and bimbos! And the men are no better. They're befuddled morons, heavy drinkers, gluttons, and lazy goof-offs! Everyone is incompetent, unappreciated, and unsuccessful! What kind of insidious social programming is this?? No wonder the world's such a mess! I demand politically correct, morally uplifting role models in the funnies!
 * Calvin's Dad: Yes, we all know how funny good role models are.
 * Calvin: And look, all the kids are obnoxious brats!
 * p.158

 * Calvin: Cigars are all the rage, Dad. You should smoke cigars!
 * Calvin's Mom: Flatulence could be all the rage, but it would still be disgusting.
 * Calvin: I see.
 * Dad: Nicely put, dear.
 * p.166

 * Calvin: Sometimes when I'm talking, my words can't keep up with my thoughts. I wonder why we can think faster than we speak?.
 * Hobbes: Probably so we can think twice.
 * p.171

It's a Magical World

 * Calvin: I hate all this wind! Boy, this is unpleasant! Stupid, miserable wind! What lousy weather! What an awful day!
 * Hobbes: Well if you can't change it, what's the point in griping about it?
 * Calvin: I'm not going to let a little wind be more annoying than me.
 * p20

 * Calvin: You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help.
 * p33

 * Calvin: I'm a great believer in the value of novelty. I say anything new is good by definition! It can shock, insult, or offend me, so long as it doesn't bore me! If you can't give me something new, then repackage the old so it looks new! Novelty is all that matters! I won't pay attention if it's not fresh and different!
 * Hobbes: I see why timeless truth doesn't sell.
 * Calvin: Give me a good flash in the pan any day.
 * p38

 * Calvin: I'd hate to think that all my current experiences will someday become stories with no point.
 * p39

 * Hobbes: If you couldn't find any weirdness, maybe we'll just have to make some!
 * Calvin: Now yer talkin'!
 * p45

 * Calvin: People always make the mistake of thinking art is created for them. But really, art is a private language for sophisticates to congratulate themselves on their superiority to the rest of the world. As my artist's statement explains, my work is utterly incomprehensible and is therefore full of deep significance.
 * Hobbes: You misspelled Weltanschauung.
 * p68 (July 15, 1995)

 * Calvin: Shock and titillate me! I've got money!
 * p74

 * Susie: Did you know that nobody on our street sets an alarm clock in the morning?
 * p97

 * Calvin: To make a bad day worse, spend it wishing for the impossible.
 * p113

 * Calvin: Trick or treat!
 * Adult: Where's your costume? What are you supposed to be?
 * Calvin: I'm yet another resource-consuming kid in an overpopulated planet, raised to an alarming extent by Madison Avenue and Hollywood, poised with my cynical and alienated peers to take over the world when you're old and weak. [Next panel, walking away eating candy] Am I scary, or what?
 * p130

 * Calvin: It's a magical world, Hobbes, ol' buddy...Let's go exploring!
 * Last line of the final Calvin and Hobbes strip

The Essential Calvin and Hobbes

 * Calvin: Leave it to a girl to take all the fun out of sex discrimination.
 * p26

 * Calvin: (Talking on a pay phone) Hello Dad! It is now three in the morning. Do you know where I am?
 * p29

 * Hobbes: How come we play war and not peace?
 * Calvin: Too few role models.
 * p72

 * Hobbes: Did you ask your Mom if you could jump off the roof?
 * Calvin: Questions I know the answers to I don't need to ask, right?
 * p75

 * Calvin's Dad: The world isn't fair, Calvin.
 * Calvin: I know, but why isn't it ever unfair in my favor?
 * p82

 * Calvin: There's no problem so awful that you can't add some guilt to it and make it even worse!
 * p100

 * Calvin: I try to make everyone's day a little more surreal.
 * p152

 * Calvin: Where do we keep all our chainsaws, Mom?
 * Calvin's Mom: We do not own any.
 * Calvin walks away disappointed
 * Calvin{talking to himself}: Then how am I ever supposed to learn how to juggle?
 * p212

 * Calvin: I wonder if you can refuse to inherit the world.
 * Hobbes: I think if you're born, it's too late.
 * p227

The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes

 * Calvin: Do you have any money?
 * Hobbes: No.
 * Calvin: How can we get some? Who do you know that we could sue?
 * p29

 * Calvin: Happiness is being famous for your financial ability to indulge in every kind of excess.
 * p35

 * Hobbes: You know, there are times when it's a source of personal pride to not be human.
 * p39

 * Calvin: Girls are like slugs—they probably serve some purpose, but it's hard to imagine what.
 * p71

 * Calvin: Hey Susie, what's the answer to Question 7?
 * Susie Derkins: Imadoofus.
 * Calvin: Thanks.
 * (Calvin realizes Susie has tricked him)
 * Calvin: The Tooth Fairy's gonna make you rich tonight, Susie.
 * p76

 * Calvin: I won't eat any cereal that doesn't turn the milk purple.
 * p86

 * Hobbes: If you don't get a good night kiss, you get Kafka dreams.
 * p87

 * Calvin: But Calvin is no kind and loving god! He's one of the old gods! He demands sacrifice!
 * p99

 * Hobbes: I had resolved to be less offended by human nature, but I think I blew it already.
 * p111

 * Susie: Haven't you even been paying attention? What would you do if I wasn't here to ask?  You'd flunk and be sent back to kindergarten, that's what!
 * Calvin: Says you! I heard that some kids don't do well in school because the class goes at too slow a pace for them.  Some of us are too smart for the class.
 * Susie: {sarcastically} Oh, right. You're too smart.
 * Calvin: Believe it, lady. You know how Einstein got bad grades as a kid? Well, mine are even worse!
 * p121

 Looking at the macabre snowmen scenery made by Calvin
 * Calvin's Dad: I think we'd better get that kid to a psychologist.
 * p136

 * Calvin: Life's a lot more fun when you're not responsible for your actions.
 * p152

 * Calvin: That's one of the remarkable things about life. It's never so bad that it can't get worse.
 * p190

 * Calvin: I'd hate to have a kid like me.
 * p203

 * Calvin: There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want.
 * p213

 * Hobbes: Most people don't sleep well next to a hungry tiger.
 * p214

 * Calvin: Why am I standing out here in the cold pouring rain to take me somewhere I don't even want to go. I go to school, but I never learn what I want to know.
 * p235

The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes

 * Calvin: As far as I'm concerned, if something is so complicated that you can't explain it in 10 seconds, then it's probably not worth knowing anyway.
 * p25

 * Calvin: Childhood is short and maturity is forever.
 * p33

 * Calvin: I'm sick of everyone telling me what to do all the time! I hate my life! I hate everything! I wish I was DEAD! [pause] Well, no I don't. Not really. I wish everyone ELSE was dead.
 * p.56

 * Calvin: I think nighttime is dark so you can imagine your fears with less distraction.
 * p77

 * Calvin: Things are never quite as scary when you've got a best friend.
 * p77

 * Calvin: True friends are hard to come by...I need more money.
 * p86

 * Calvin and Hobbes are in wagon
 * Calvin: I think life should be more like TV. I think all of life's problems ought to be solved in 30 minutes with simple homilies, don't you? I think weight and oral hygiene ought to be our biggest concerns. I think we should all have powerful, high-paying jobs, and everyone should drive fancy sports cars. All our desires should be instantly gratified. Women should always wear tight clothing, and men should carry powerful handguns. Life overall should be more glamorous, thrill-packed, and filled with applause, don't you think?
 * Calvin crashes wagon; Hobbes recovers from dizziness
 * Hobbes: I think my life is too scatterbrained as is.
 * Calvin: Then again, if real life was like that, what would we watch on television?
 * p94

 * Calvin: I am inventing a robot who will make my bed. First I need to draft blueprints, then I need to get the materials.
 * Hobbes: Wouldn't inventing a robot be more work than making a bed?
 * Calvin: It's only work if somebody makes you do it.
 * p126

 * Calvin: Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
 * p157

 * Calvin: But for my own example, I'd never believe one little kid could have so much brains!
 * p182

 * [Calvin has created several duplicates of himself.]
 * Calvin: The worst part is that I don't even have the fun of doing the things I'm getting blamed for.
 * p188

 * Hobbes: Live and don't learn, that's us.
 * p190

 * Calvin: This morning I had a wonderful dream. By holding my arms out stiff and pushing down hard, I found I could suspend myself a few feet above ground. I flapped harder, and soon I was soaring effortlessly over the trees and telephone poles! I could fly! I folded my arms back and zoomed low over the neighborhood. Everyone was amazed, and they ran along under me as I shot by. Then I rocketed up so fast that my eyes watered from the wind. I laughed and laughed, making huge loops in the sky! ... That's when Mom woke me up and said I was going to miss the bus if I didn't get my bottom out of bed; 20 minutes later, here I am, standing in the cold rain, waiting to go to school, and I just remembered I forgot my lunch. Tuesdays don't start much worse than this.
 * p207

 * Calvin: [as Stupendous Man] Yahh! Freedom and justice shall always prevail over tyranny, babysitter girl!
 * p218

 * Calvin: Every time I've built character, I've regretted it.
 * p225

Interview with John Campanelli of The Plain Dealer

 * The only part I understand is what went into the creation of the strip. What readers take away from it is up to them. Once the strip is published, readers bring their own experiences to it, and the work takes on a life of its own. Everyone responds differently to different parts. I just tried to write honestly, and I tried to make this little world fun to look at, so people would take the time to read it. That was the full extent of my concern. You mix a bunch of ingredients, and once in a great while, chemistry happens. I can't explain why the strip caught on the way it did, and I don't think I could ever duplicate it. A lot of things have to go right all at once.

 * It's always better to leave the party early. If I had rolled along with the strip's popularity and repeated myself for another five, 10 or 20 years, the people now "grieving" for "Calvin and Hobbes" would be wishing me dead and cursing newspapers for running tedious, ancient strips like mine instead of acquiring fresher, livelier talent. And I'd be agreeing with them.

 * Ah, the life of a newspaper cartoonist -- how I miss the groupies, drugs and trashed hotel rooms!

Quotes about Bill Watterson

 * (What kind of reader were you as a child? Which childhood books and authors stick with you most?)…then, of course, Bill Watterson’s “Calvin and Hobbes,” whose run almost exactly matched my childhood. I firmly believe there’s a relevant “Calvin and Hobbes” strip for every moment, and I’m irrationally proud that I can usually think of one offhand.
 * Celeste Ng [http

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Bill Watterson


text:
User:Sasha~enwikiquote

No longer relevant.

title: User:Sasha~enwikiquote


text:
Robert Benchley

Robert Charles Benchley (September 15, 1889 – November 21, 1945) was an American humorist, critic and actor.

Quotes

 * There may be said to be two classes of people in the world; those who constantly divide the people of the world into two classes, and those who do not. Both classes are extremely unpleasant to meet socially, leaving practically no one in the world whom one cares very much to know.
 * Vanity Fair (February 1920)

 * The way to go to the circus, however, is with someone who has seen perhaps one theatrical performance before in his life and that in the High School hall. … The scales of sophistication are struck from your eyes and you see in the circus a gathering of men and women who are able to do things as a matter of course which you couldn’t do if your life depended on it.
 * LIFE magazine (14 April 1921)

 * The English language may hold a more disagreeable combination of words than "The doctor will see you now." I am willing to concede something to the phrase "Have you anything to say before the current is turned on?" That may be worse for the moment, but it doesn't last so long. For continued, unmitigating depression, I know nothing to equal "The doctor will see you now." But I'm not narrow-minded about it. I'm willing to consider other possibilities.
 * "The Tooth, the Whole Tooth, and Nothing but the Tooth", in Love Conquers All (1922)

 * A baby is shown sitting on the floor. He appears to be about a year and a half old. Incidentally, he is a very plain baby. Strewn about him on the floor are the toys that he has been playing with. There are a ball, a rattle, a ring, a doll, a bell and a pair of roller-skates. Evidently, the candidate is supposed to be aghast at the roller-skates in the possession of such a small child. The man who drew that picture had evidently never furnished playthings for a small child. I can imagine nothing that would delight a child of a year and a half more than a pair of roller-skates to chew and spin and hit himself in the face with. They could also be dropped on Daddy when Daddy was lying on the floor in an attempt to be sociable. Of all the toys arranged before the child, the roller-skates are the most logical. … That is my great trouble in taking tests and examinations of any kind. I always want to argue with the examiner, because the examiner is always so obviously wrong.
 * "Measure Your Mind", in Love Conquers All (1922)

 * At fifteen one is first beginning to realize that everything isn’t money and power in this world, and is casting about for joys that do not turn to dross in one’s hands.
 * LIFE magazine (27 November 1924)

 * In America there are two classes of travel — first class, and with children.
 * "Kiddie-Kar Travel", Pluck and Luck (1925); also in D.A.C. News, September 1923

 * I can’t quite define my aversion to asking questions of strangers. From snatches of family battles which I have heard drifting up from railway stations and street corners, I gather that there are a great many men who share my dislike for it, as well as an equal number of women who … believe it to be the solution to most of this world’s problems.
 * "Ask That Man" in Pluck and Luck (1925)

 * Nine-tenths of the value of a sense of humor in writing is not in the things it makes one write but in the things it keeps one from writing. It is especially valuable in this respect in serious writing, and no one without a sense of humor should ever write seriously. For without knowing what is funny, one is constantly in danger of being funny without knowing it.
 * LIFE magazine (8 March 1929)

 * A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down.
 * "Your Boy and His Dog," Liberty magazine, (30 July 1932)
 * Also published in Chips Off the Old Benchley (1949)

 * I don’t want to be an alarmist, but I think that the Younger Generation is up to something.... I base my apprehension on nothing more definite than the fact that they are always coming in and going out of the house, without any apparent reason.
 * "The Children’s Hour" in My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew (1936)

 * The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him. That remark in itself wouldn’t make any sense if quoted as it stands.
 * "Quick Quotations" in My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew (1936)

 * The only cure for a real hangover is death.
 * "Coffee Versus Gin", My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew (1936)

 * There is no such place as Budapest. Perhaps you are thinking of Bucharest, and there is no such place as Bucharest, either.
 * "What — No Budapest", My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew (1936)

 * Anyone will be glad to admit that he knows nothing about beagling, or the Chinese stock market, or ballistics, but there is not a man or woman alive who does not claim to know how to cure hiccoughs.
 * "Stop Those Hiccoughs!", My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew (1936)

 * I am more the inspirational type of speller. I work on hunches rather than mere facts, and the result is sometimes open to criticism by purists.
 * My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew (1936)

 * There seems to be no lengths to which humorless people will not go to analyze humor. It seems to worry them.
 * "What Does It Mean?" in After 1903 — What? (1938)

 * Why don't you get out of that wet coat and into a dry martini?
 * Spoken to Ginger Rogers in the film, The Major and the Minor (1942)

 * A great many people have come up to me and asked how I manage to get so much work done and still keep looking so dissipated.
 * "How to Get Things Done", Chips off the old Benchley (1949)

 * The free-lance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.
 * Quoted by James Thurber in The Bermudian (November 1950)

 * It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.
 * Quoted in Robert Benchley (1955) by Nathaniel Benchley, ch. 1

 * So who's in a hurry?
 * To a friend who had told him that his particular drink was slow poison, as quoted in Robert Benchley (1955) by Nathaniel Benchley, ch. 1.

 * Drinking makes such fools of people, and people are such fools to begin with, that it's compounding a felony.
 * Quoted in The New Speaker's Treasury of Wit and Wisdom (1958) by Herbert Victor Prochnow, p. 129

 * I do most of my work sitting down; that's where I shine.
 * Quoted in The Algonquin Wits, (1968) by R E Drennan, p. 5

 * Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment.
 * Quoted in The Algonquin Wits, (1968) by R E Drennan, p. 5

 * Great literature must spring from an upheaval in the author's soul. If that upheaval is not present then it must come from the works of any other author which happens to be handy and easily adapted.
 * As quoted in The Routledge Dictionary of Quotations : A Dictionary of Quotations (1987) by Robert Andrews, p. 154

 * Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing.
 * As quoted in With Truth as Our Sword (2005) by C E Sylvester, p. 205

title: Robert Benchley


text:
The Time Machine

The Time Machine (1895) is a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells. Wells is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle that allows an operator to travel purposefully and selectively. The term "time machine", coined by Wells, is now universally used to refer to such a vehicle. This work is an early example of the Dying Earth subgenre.

Quotes

 * There are really four dimensions, three which we call the three planes of Space, and a fourth, Time. There is, however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction between the former three dimensions and the latter, because it happens that our consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along the latter from the beginning to the end of our lives. ...Really this is what is meant by the Fourth Dimension, though some people who talk about the Fourth Dimension do not know they mean it. It is only another way of looking at Time.
 * Chapter 1

 * There is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along it.
 * Chapter 1

 * Space, as our mathematicians have it, is spoken of as having three dimensions, which one may call Length, Breadth, and Thickness, and is always definable by reference to these planes, each at right angle to the others. But some philosophical people have been asking why three dimensions particularly—why not another direction at right angles to the other three?—and have even tried to construct a Four Dimensional geometry.
 * Chapter 1

 * Professor Simon Newcomb was expounding this to the New York Mathematical Society only a month or so ago. You know how on a flat surface, which has only two dimensions, we can represent a figure of a Three-Dimensional solid, and similarly they think that by models of three dimensions they could represent one of four—if they could master the perspective of the thing. See?
 * Chapter 1

 * Well, I do not mind telling you I have been at work upon this geometry of Four Dimensions for some time. Some of my results are curious. For instance, here is a portrait of a man at eight years old, another at fifteen, another at seventeen, another at twenty-three, and so on. All these are evidently sections, as it were, Three-Dimensional representations of his Four-Dimensioned being, which is a fixed and unalterable thing.
 * Chapter 1

 * Are you so sure we can move freely in Space? Right and left we can go, backward and forward freely enough, and men always have done so. I admit we move freely in two dimensions. But now about up and down? Gravitation limits us there.
 * Chapter 1

 * We are always getting away from the present moment. Our mental existences, which are immaterial and have no dimensions, are passing along the Time Dimension with a uniform velocity from the cradle to the grave. Just as we should travel down if we began our existence fifty miles above the earth's surface.
 * Chapter 1

 * If I am recalling an incident very vividly I go back to the instant of its occurrence; I become absent minded, as you say. I jump back for a moment. Of course we have no means of staying back for any length of time any more than a savage or an animal has of staying six feet above the ground. But a civilized man is better off than the savage in this respect. He can go up against gravitation in a balloon, and why should we not hope that ultimately he may be able to stop or accelerate his drift along the Time Dimension; or even to turn about and travel the other way?
 * Chapter 1

 * Long ago I had a vague inkling of a machine... That shall travel indifferently in any direction of Space and Time, as the driver determines.
 * Chapter 1

 * The thing the Time Traveler held in his hand was a glittering metallic framework, scarcely larger than a small clock, and very delicately made. There was ivory in it, and some transparent crystalline substance. ...This little affair... is only a model. It is my plan for a machine to travel through Time. You will notice that it looks singularly askew, and that there is an odd twinkling appearance about this bar, as though it was in some way unreal.
 * Chapter 1

 * Now I want you clearly to understand that this lever, being pressed over, sends the machine gliding into the future, and this other reverses the motion. This saddle represents the seat of a time traveler. Presently I am going to press the lever, and off the machine will go. It will vanish, pass into future time, and disappear. Have a good look at the thing. Look at the table too, and satisfy yourselves there is no trickery. I don't want to waste this model, and then be told I'm a quack.
 * Chapter 1

 * Strength is the outcome of need; security sets a premium on feebleness.
 * Chapter 4

 * We are kept keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity and, it seemed to me, that here was that hateful grindstone broken at last.
 * Chapter 4

 * Very simple was my explanation, and plausible enough—as most wrong theories are!
 * Chapter 4

 * I was too restless to watch long; I am too Occidental for a long vigil. I could work at a problem for years, but to wait inactive for twenty-four hours—that is another matter.
 * Chapter 5

 * Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life. I thought of their unfathomable distance, and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future.
 * Chapter 7

 * In a moment I knew what had happened. I had slept, and my fire had gone out, and the cold bitterness of death had come over my soul.
 * Chapter 9

 * I grieved to think how brief the dream of the human intellect had been. It had committed suicide. It had set itself steadfastly towards comfort and ease, a balanced society with security and permanency as its watchword, it had attained its hopes—to come to this at last. Once, life and property must have reached almost absolute safety. The rich had been assured of his wealth and comfort, the toiler assured of his life and work. No doubt in that perfect world there had been no unemployed problem, no social question left unsolved. And a great quiet had followed. It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble. An animal perfectly in harmony with its environment is a perfect mechanism. Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change. Only those animals partake of intelligence that have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers.
 * Chapter 10

 * He, I know—for the question had been discussed among us long before the Time Machine was made—thought but cheerlessly of the Advancement of Mankind, and saw in the growing pile of civilisation only a foolish heaping that must inevitably fall back upon and destroy its makers in the end. If that is so, it remains for us to live as though it were not so. But to me the future is still black and blank—is a vast ignorance, lit at a few casual places by the memory of his story. And I have by me, for my comfort, two strange white flowers—shrivelled now, and brown and flat and brittle—to witness that even when mind and strength had gone, gratitude and a mutual tenderness still lived on in the heart of man.
 * Epilogue

title: The Time Machine


text:
Ernest Rutherford

Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, OM PC FRS (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a Nobel Prize winning nuclear physicist from New Zealand. He was known as the "father" of nuclear physics. He pioneered the orbital theory of the atom based upon his previous discovery of Rutherford scattering in the gold foil experiment. Rutherford worked under J. J. Thomson as a research student in the Cavendish laboratory and, following prize-winning research at other institutions, became director of the Cavendish in 1919. As director, he oversaw the Nobel Prize winning research of Ernest Walton and John Cockcroft, who split the lithium atom using an early particle accelerator, called the Cockcroft–Walton generator.

 * See also:
 * Radio-activity (1904)

Quotes
listed in chronological order

 * Radioactivity is shown to be accompanied by chemical changes in which new types of matter are being continually produced. … The conclusion is drawn that these chemical changes must be sub-atomic in character.
 * "The Cause and Nature of Radioactivity" in Philosophical Magazine (September 1902)

 * It is not in the nature of things for any one man to make a sudden violent discovery; science goes step by step, and every man depends on the work of his predecessors. When you hear of a sudden unexpected discovery—a bolt from the blue, as it were—you can always be sure that it has grown up by the influence of one man on another, and it is this mutual influence which makes the enormous possibility of scientific advance. Scientists are not dependent on the ideas of a single man, but on the combined wisdom of thousands of men, all thinking of the same problem, and each doing his little bit to add to the great structure of knowledge which is gradually being erected.
 * As quoted in The Birth of a New Physics (1959) by I. Bernard Cohen
 * We may in these processes obtain very great quantities of energy, but on the average we cannot hope to obtain energy for practical use in this way. The bombardment of the atom is a very poor and inefficient way of producing energy and anyone who is looking for a source of cheap power in the transformation of the atom, is talking pure moonshine... Some day the knowledge we may gain may be of practical value, but there is no indication of it yet.
 * 1933 October 7, The Calgary Daily Herald, Power Flow From Atoms Impossible by A. C. Cummings (Calgary Herald’s London Bureau), Quote Page 28, Column 1, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

 * All science is either physics or stamp collecting.
 * As quoted in Rutherford at Manchester (1962) by J. B. Birks. The earliest known attribution of the principle to Rutherford was by John Desmond Bernal in 1939

 * That which is not measurable is not science. — also attributed to Lord Kelvin

 * It is just as surprising as if a gunner fired a shell at a single sheet of paper and for some reason or other the projectile bounded back again.
 * Rutherford, discussing the results of a 1909 experiment investigating alpha particle scattering, during the Cawthron Lecture at the Cawthron Institute in Nelson, New Zealand in 1925. Quoted in Arthur Stewart Eve (1939). Rutherford: Being the Life and Letters of the Rt. Hon. Lord Rutherford, O. M., p. 311

 * It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you.
 * From a lecture delivered on October 15, 1936 at Cambridge University, discussing the result of an experiment in 1909 where alpha particles were scattered backwards when fired at a thin sheet of metal foil, which led to the discovery of the atomic nucleus. The full lecture was reprinted in Background to Modern Science: Ten Lectures at Cambridge arranged by the History of Science Committee 1936.

 * Don't let me catch anyone talking about the Universe in my department.
 * As quoted by John Kendrew in "J.D. Bernal and the Origin of Life," BBC Radio Talk (26 July 1968), and in Biographical Encyclopedia of Scientists, Third Edition by John Daintith, p. 662

 * An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid.
 * As quoted in Einstein: The Man and His Achievement (1973) by G. J. Whitrow, p. 42
 * Variants:
 * If you can't explain your physics to a barmaid it is probably not very good physics.
 * As quoted in Journal of Advertising Research (March-April 1998)
 * A theory that you can't explain to a bartender is probably no damn good.
 * As quoted in The Language of God (2006) by Francis Collins, p. 60

 * I know what the atom looks like!
 * David Wilson, Rutherford, Simple Genius (1983)

 * When we have found how the nucleus of atoms is built up we shall have found the greatest secret of all — except life. We shall have found the basis of everything — of the earth we walk on, of the air we breathe, of the sunshine, of our physical body itself, of everything in the world, however great or however small — except life.
 * As quoted in The Wit and Wisdom of the 20th Century : A Dictionary of Quotations (1987) by Frank S. Pepper, p. 226

 * I came into the room which was half-dark and presently spotted Lord Kelvin in the audience, and realised that I was in for trouble at the last part of my speech dealing with the age of the Earth, where my views conflicted with his. To my relief, Kelvin fell fast asleep, but as I came to the important point, I saw the old bird sit up, open an eye and cock a baleful glance at me. Then a sudden inspiration came, and I said Lord Kelvin had limited the age of the Earth, provided no new source [of heat] was discovered. That prophetic utterance referred to what we are now considering tonight, radium! Behold! The old boy beamed upon me.
 * As quoted in "Rutherford's Timebomb" in The New Zealand (15 May 2004)

 * I must confess it was very unexpected and I am very startled at my metamorphosis into a chemist.
 * On his 1908 Nobel Prize in chemistry, as quoted in Nobel Laureates and Twentieth-Century Physics (2004) by Mauro Dardo, p. 69

 * We're like children who always want to take apart watches to see how they work.
 * As quoted by Freeman Dyson, "Seeing the Unseen," New York Review of Books (Feb. 24, 2005), quoting Rutherford in the London Daily Herald

 * We've got no money, so we've got to think.
 * As quoted in Quips, Quotes, and Quanta : An Anecdotal History of Physics (2007) by Anton Z. Capri, page 65.
 * Quoted by Edward Andrade (collaborated with Rutherford in 1914) in Rutherford and the Nature of the Atom (1964)
 * "...Rutherford never spent more than £2500 a year on his research programme. He resisted suggestions that an industrial appeal might provide him with more money and he did not believe in the economic significance of any of the work he was doing. He used to boast that ‘we have no money, so we shall have to think’."
 * As written by Lord Bowden (worked under Rutherford c. 1931); in "Effects of World War II on education in science", Bowden 1975
 * Unsourced variant: We didn't have the money, so we had to think.

 * I have broken the machine and touched the ghost of matter.
 * As quoted by Richard Reeves, A Force of Nature The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford (2008) citing Ernest Rutherford Atom Man

 * The first point that arises is the atom. I was brought up to look at the atom as a nice hard fellow, red or grey in colour, according to taste. In order to explain the facts, however, the atom cannot be regarded as a sphere of material, but rather as a sort of wave motion of a peculiar kind. The theory of wave-mechanics, however bizarre it may appear... has the astonishing virtue that it works, and works in detail, so that it is now possible to understand and explain things which looked almost impossible in earlier days. One of the problems encountered is the relation between the electron, an atom and the radiation produced by them jointly; the new mechanics states the type of radiation emitted with correct numerical relations. When applied to the periodic table, a competent and laborious mathematician can predict the periodic law from first principles.
 * A. S. Eve, Rutherford (2013)

Quotes about Rutherford

 * In 2005, we had a couple of things going for us. First, of course, we knew how the experiment was supposed to come out. They had been out there in the blue. We also had faster, stronger, and more reliable equipment to pull vacuums, greatly reducing the results contaminated by the odd air molecule or hydrogen atom. But we, and the world, now know the deadly dangers of radioactivity. Rutherford used to toss bits of radioactive material in his pocket and then, before dinner, into the top drawer of his desk at home. ...If we tried to use what they used, we couldn't all be in this room... We couldn't be in the building.
 * Kurt Becker, on recreating the Gold Foil Experiment, as quoted by Richard Reeves, A Force of Nature The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford (2008)

 * Rutherford's discovery was the beginning of the science that came to be called nuclear physics. ...The projectiles that he used to explore the nucleus were particles produced in the disintegration of radium... discovered by Marie Curie in 1898. The particles are helium nuclei that are emitted at high speed when radium atoms decay...The twenty years between 1909 and 1929 were the era of tabletop nuclear physics. ...Small and simple experiments were sufficient to establish the basic laws of nuclear physics.
 * Freeman Dyson, The Scientist As Rebel (2006)

 * The switch from natural sources of particles to accelerators would start a new era in the history of science, the era of accelerator physics. ...The two men who actually built the first accelerator were John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton, graduate students working... under the supervision of Rutherford. ...For five years they struggled to create a technology of big machines in a laboratory of tabletop experiments, just as the Wright brothers had struggled to create a technology of flying machines in a bicycle shop ....In April of 1932, they had a machine that produced a steady stream of hydrogen nuclei with an energy of about half a million volts. ...Walton was... ready to do the experiment... to bombard a target made of the light metal lithium. The result was spectacular. The lithium nuclei were split in two and fell apart into pairs of helium nuclei. The helium nuclei came out with thirty times as much energy as the hydrogen nuclei going in. ...Rutherford happily spent the rest of the day serving as Walton's assistant... That day, the era of tabletop nuclear physics ended and the era of big machines and big projects began.
 * Freeman Dyson, The Scientist As Rebel (2006)

 * He died a year before the discovery of the fission of the uranium nucleus in Berlin in 1938, the discovery which turned nuclear physics into a big industry and a weapon of war.
 * Freeman Dyson, The Scientist As Rebel (2006)

 * Rutherford did not pretend to understand quantum mechanics, but he understood that the Gamow formula would give his accelerator a crucial advantage. Even particles accelerated at much lower energies... would be able to penetrate into nuclei. Rutherford invited Gamow to Cambridge in January 1929... [They] became firm friends and Gamow's insight gave Rutherford the impetus to go full steam ahead with the building of his accelerator.
 * Freeman Dyson, The Scientist As Rebel (2006)

 * One can hardly speak of being friendly with a force of nature.
 * Paul Langevin, referring to his fellow research assistant Rutherford at Cavendish Laboratory, as quoted by Richard Reeves, A Force of Nature The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford (2008)

 * He seemed bored with his radio work. ...he had transmitted signals more than half a mile through Cambridge's stone builidings, and there was great interest in finding a way to use such signals in ship-to-shore communications... Some scientists, astonished at those demonstrations, believed that Rutherford's work in New Zealand and then at the Cavendish was actually ahead of the work being done by Guglielmo Marconi...
 * Richard Reeves, A Force of Nature The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford (2008)

title: Ernest Rutherford


text:
Charles Barkley

Charles Wade Barkley (born February 20, 1963, in Leeds, Alabama) is a former American basketball power forward. A current resident of Arizona, Barkley is commonly nicknamed Sir Charles and occasionally The Round Mound of Rebound. Barkley was named Most Valuable Player of the NBA in 1993. In 1996, the NBA's 50th anniversary, he was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History. Barkley won the Olympic gold medal with the U.S. Dream Teams in the 1992 and 1996 Games. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006.

Quotes

 * Can I Play??
 * Series of McDonald's commercials

 * I am not a role model. I’m not paid to be a role model. I’m paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court. Parents should be role models. Just because I dunk a basketball doesn’t mean I should raise your kids.
 * Series of Nike commercials

 * Oklahoma is nothing but vast wasteland; no place for black people.
 * As quoted in "Barkley: Oklahoma a vast wasteland" (10 February 2006), by Andrew Gilman, The Oklahoman

 * The Oklahoma Sooners and the Hornets are the only brothers in town.
 * As quoted in "Barkley: Oklahoma a vast wasteland" (10 February 2006), by Andrew Gilman, The Oklahoman
 * At the time of this comment, the NBA team then known as the New Orleans Hornets (now the New Orleans Pelicans) was playing in Oklahoma City following extensive damage to New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina.

 * I don't know anything about Angola, but Angola's in trouble.
 * Press conference before the USA played Angola in the 1st round of the 1992 Olympics.

 * I was going to sue her for defamation of character, but then I realized that I have no character.
 * Barkley's response to Tonya Harding calling herself "the Charles Barkley of figure skating", quoted in

 * You know it's gone to hell, when the best rapper out there is a white guy and the best golfer is a black guy.
 * Interview in the New York Post in October 2000.
 * Notes: Although Barkley popularised the phrase, it was likely first used several months earlier by Chris Rock.

 * Kids are great. That's one of the best things about our business, all the kids you get to meet. It's a shame they have to grow up to be regular people and come to the games and call you names.
 * Verified on Late Late Show Oct 22 2004

 * Anytime a fan touches you, you have the right to beat the hell out of him.
 * From CNN interview, Nov 22 2004, following a fight between players and fans at a recent Pistons-Pacers game.

 * I'd have played against him (Len Bias) for the next 14 years. I would have been in my prime and he would have been in his. I'll never forget what he looked like. He was a 'Wow!' player. When Maryland played and was on television, I watched. It was like, 'I need to watch this guy; I'll be seeing him real soon.' . . . It was just shocking. Thing is, cocaine was huge then. My brother had been in and out of rehab a few times. . . . It was a popular drug at the time. And guys I was playing against, like John Lucas and Michael Ray Richardson and John Drew had done cocaine. I was thinking: 'What the hell is up with this cocaine? I should try this once to see what it was all about.' Then, we heard the reports were that Bias only used it once . . . that it was his first time. When I heard that, it scared me to death . . . scared the daylights out of me. It scared me into not trying it even once, not going anywhere near it.
 * Asked to comment on the 20th anniversary of the cocaine-overdose death of Len Bias,

 * Only poor people go to jail.
 * From interview on Jim Rome show

 * You can't start a diet in the middle of the week, that's just stupid.
 * From The Jay Leno Show, November 2009

 * It's great to be hosting SNL again. I hosted sixteen years ago. Back then I was in great shape, I was coming off an MVP season with the Phoenix Suns - now, I play bad golf, drink, sometimes I get arrested.
 * From Saturday Night Live, January 9, 2010

 * I can't screw up Alabama... We are number 48 in everything and Arkansas and Mississippi aren't going anywhere.
 * About running for governor of Alabama, on Campbell Brown, CNN, October 27, 2008.

 * Poor people have been voting for Democrats for the last fifty years... and they are still poor.
 * Attributed to Charles Barkley in Walter W. Moore's Wise Sayings (2012), p. 89

 * If you’re gay, bless you. If you’re transgender, bless you. If you have a problem with that, f--- you!
 * TikTok video quoted in censored form by FoxNews] (July 17, 2023)

title: Charles Barkley


text:
Paul Wolfowitz

Paul Dundes Wolfowitz (born December 22, 1943) is an American political scientist and diplomat who served as the 10th President of the World Bank, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia, and former dean of Johns Hopkins SAIS. As Deputy Secretary of Defense under President George W. Bush, he played a key role in the War on Terror and the decision to invade Iraq. He is currently a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Quotes

 * A new regime would have become the United States’ responsibility. Conceivably, this could have led the United States into a more or less permanent occupation of a country that could not govern itself, but where the rule of a foreign occupier would be increasingly resented.
 * Quoted in John Calabrese, The future of Iraq (The Middle East Institute, 1997, ISBN 0916808467, 9780916808464 ).

 * Up for grabs.
 * Describing the future, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. - Eric Schmitt, "Washington at Work; Ex-Cold Warrior Sees the Future as 'Up for Grabs'" The New York Times, December 23, 1991.

 * I think one has to say it's not just simply a matter of capturing people and holding them accountable, but removing the sanctuaries, removing the support systems, ending states who sponsor terrorism. And that's why it has to be a broad and sustained campaign. It's not going to stop if a few criminals are taken care of.
 * Dep't of Defense News Briefing (September 13, 2001).

 * There has been a good deal of comment — some of it quite outlandish — about what our postwar requirements might be in Iraq. Some of the higher end predictions we have been hearing recently, such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq, are wildly off the mark. It is hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army — hard to imagine.
 * House Budget Committee testimony on Iraq (February 27, 2003).

 * I can't imagine anyone here wanting to spend another $30 billion to be there for another 12 years.
 * House subcommittee on Iraq testimony (February 28, 2003).

 * I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq. Those who want to come and help are welcome. Those who come to interfere and destroy are not.(2003)
 * Press conference in Mosul, Iraq (July 21, 2003) Commentary on comments by Wolfowitz.

 * ...the importance of leadership and what it consists of: not lecturing and posturing and demanding, but demonstrating that your friends will be protected and taken care of, that your enemies will be punished, and that those who refuse to support you will regret having done so.
 * .

 * Fuck you.
 * To Al Franken at the White House correspondents dinner after Franken asked, "Hi. Dr. Wolfowitz. Hey, the Clinton military did a great job in Iraq, didn't it?" (see page 221 of the paperback edition of Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right).

 * There's a lot of money to pay for this. It doesn't have to be U.S. taxpayer money. We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.
 * Congressional Testimony, March 27, 2003.

 * There's definitely a rule in the Convention against humiliating prisoners and I'd have to see exactly the interview to see whether that in itself violated the Convention, but the Convention is very clear that prisoners have got to be treated properly. We are treating the Iraqi prisoners extremely well. In fact I think they get good food and shelter and they're free from the horrible commanders they used to work for. I think most of them are much happier, frankly.
 * Sunday March 23, 2003.

 * We know that in Basra and in the other cities the people do not want to repeat the experience of 12 years ago where they rise up against Saddam and then they're slaughtered. But before we take care of the killers that are left behind in those cities, we've got to take care of the regime. It's almost like cutting off the head of the snake and then the rest of the body will go.

 * This word 'imminent' keeps coming up. The President never said that there was an imminent threat.
 * On the Roger Hedgecock Show (transcript) (February 6, 2004).

 * Firing employees, that's unfortunately a part of doing business.
 * (2006).

Misattributed

 * "The terrorists in Iraq believe their attacks on innocent people will weaken our resolve. They believe we will run from a challenge. They are mistaken. Americans are not the running kind."
 * Yahoo News article October 10, 2003 This statement is identical to one made by President George W. Bush on October 9, 2003 and is likely to have been a mis-reporting of Wolfowitz quoting Bush's statement.

Quotes about

 * At the same time, Kissinger, Carter and détente were condemned as weakening the West by a group of conservative Democrats led by Henry (Scoop) Jackson, a critic of SALT, as well as by key Republicans who were influential in the Ford administration (1974–7), notably his Chief of Staff, Richard (Dick) Cheney, and the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. They drew on advice from commentators such as Richard Perle, Richard Pipes and Paul Wolfowitz who warned about Soviet intentions. The continuity of this group, through 1990s’ opposition to Clintonian liberal internationalism, to the neo-conservative activism of the early 2000s, especially against Iraq, is notable.
 * Jeremy Black, The Cold War: A Military History (2015)

 * You know, I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq, even though I think he should have waited until the U.N. inspections were over. I don't believe he went in there for oil. We didn't go in there for imperialist or financial reasons. We went in there because he bought the Wolfowitz-Cheney analysis that the Iraqis would be better off, we could shake up the authoritarian Arab regimes in the Middle East, and our leverage to make peace between the Palestinians and Israelis would be increased.
 * Bill Clinton, Interview with Time, June 2004

 * About 10 days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon, and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the joint staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, “Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second.” I said, “Well, you’re too busy.” He said, “No, no.” He says, “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.” This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, “We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?” He said, “I don’t know.” He said, “I guess they don’t know what else to do.” So I said, “Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?” He said, “No, no.” He says, “There’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.” He said, “I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments... I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.”... he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” I said, “Is it classified?” He said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Well, don’t show it to me.”
 * Wesley Clark, quoted in Chomsky on 9/11, Syria’s “Bloody Partition” and Why U.S. Role Ensures Failure of Mideast Talks, Democracy Now! (11 September 2013)

 * That war in the early 1990s changed a lot for me. I never thought I would see, in Europe, a full-dress reprise of internment camps, the mass murder of civilians, the reinstitution of torture and rape as acts of policy. And I didn't expect so many of my comrades to be indifferent – or even take the side of the fascists. It was a time when many people on the left were saying 'Don't intervene, we'll only make things worse' or, 'Don't intervene, it might destabilise the region. And I thought – destabilisation of fascist regimes is a good thing. Why should the left care about the stability of undemocratic regimes? Wasn't it a good thing to destabilise the regime of General Franco? It was a time when the left was mostly taking the conservative, status quo position – leave the Balkans alone, leave Milosevic alone, do nothing. And that kind of conservatism can easily mutate into actual support for the aggressors. Weimar-style conservatism can easily mutate into National Socialism. So you had people like Noam Chomsky's co-author Ed Herman go from saying 'Do nothing in the Balkans', to actually supporting Milosevic, the most reactionary force in the region. That's when I began to first find myself on the same side as the neocons. I was signing petitions in favour of action in Bosnia, and I would look down the list of names and I kept finding, there's Richard Perle. There's Paul Wolfowitz. That seemed interesting to me. These people were saying that we had to act. Before, I had avoided them like the plague, especially because of what they said about General Sharon and about Nicaragua. But nobody could say they were interested in oil in the Balkans, or in strategic needs, and the people who tried to say that – like Chomsky – looked ridiculous. So now I was interested.
 * Christopher Hitchens, "In enemy territory? An interview with Christopher Hitchens.", Interview with Johann Hari (2004-09-23): On the Bosnian War

title: Paul Wolfowitz


text:
Donald Knuth

Donald Ervin Knuth (born 10 January 1938) is an American computer scientist, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University, and winner of the 1974 Turing Award.

Quotes

 * Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
 * Donald Knuth's webpage states the line was used to end a memo entitled Notes on the van Emde Boas construction of priority deques: An instructive use of recursion (1977)

 * I can’t be as confident about computer science as I can about biology. Biology easily has 500 years of exciting problems to work on. It’s at that level.
 * Computer Literacy Bookshops Interview Computer Literacy Bookshops Interview (1993)
 * On why bioinformatics is very exciting

 * The psychological profiling [of a programmer] is mostly the ability to shift levels of abstraction, from low level to high level. To see something in the small and to see something in the large.
 * Jack Woehr. An interview with Donald Knuth. Dr. Dobb's Journal, pages 16-22 (April 1996)

 * The important thing, once you have enough to eat and a nice house, is what you can do for others, what you can contribute to the enterprise as a whole.
 * Jack Woehr. An interview with Donald Knuth. Dr. Dobb's Journal, pages 16-22 (April 1996)

 * The whole thing that makes a mathematician’s life worthwhile is that he gets the grudging admiration of three or four colleagues.
 * Jack Woehr. An interview with Donald Knuth. Dr. Dobb's Journal, pages 16-22 (April 1996)

 * Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.
 * Foreword to the book A=B (1996)

 * A mathematical formula should never be "owned" by anybody! Mathematics belong to God.
 * Digital Typography, ch. 1, p. 8 (1999)

 * I define UNIX as 30 definitions of regular expressions living under one roof.
 * Digital Typography, ch. 33, p. 649 (1999)

 * I can’t go to a restaurant and order food because I keep looking at the fonts on the menu.

 * Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things. What I do takes long hours of studying and uninterruptible concentration.
 * Knuth versus Email''

 * How can you own [...] numbers? Numbers belong to the world.
 * In his video account on the creation of TeX, he comments that Xerox offered to allow him to use their equipment, but that the fonts he created would belong to them.

 * In fact, my main conclusion after spending ten years of my life working on the TEX project is that software is hard. It’s harder than anything else I’ve ever had to do.

 * If you find that you're spending almost all your time on theory, start turning some attention to practical things; it will improve your theories. If you find that you're spending almost all your time on practice, start turning some attention to theoretical things; it will improve your practice.
 * Donald Knuth, quoted in: Arturo Gonzalez-Gutierrez (2007) Minimum-length Corridors: Complexity and Approximations. p. 99

 * In a way, you'd say my life is a convex combination of English and mathematics. ... And not only that, I want my kids to be that way: use left brain, right brain at the same time – you got a lot more done. That was part of the bargain.

 * A good technical writer, trying not to be obvious about it, but says everything twice: formally and informally. Or maybe three times.

 * I am assuming that God exists and I am glad that there is no way to prove this. [Because] I would run through the proof once, and then I'd forget it, and I would never speculate about spiritual things and mysteries otherwise. And, I think, my life would be very incomplete.

 * I came to philosophy finally phrased as "0.8 is enough". … If I had a way to rate happiness, I think it's a good design to have an organism that's happy about 80% of the time. If it was 100% of the time, it would be like everybody's on drugs and everything collapses and nothing works because everybody is just too happy. … There are times when I am down and I know that I've actually been programmed to be depressed a certain amount of time.

 * Let's face it, if there were 10 people like me in the world, we wouldn't have time to read each other's books.

 * Most people only know pi in decimal.

The Art of Computer Programming (1968–2011)

 * By understanding a machine-oriented language, the programmer will tend to use a much more efficient method; it is much closer to reality.
 * Vol. I, preface (October 1967) to the first edition. (p. x 1973, p. ix 1997)

 * An algorithm must be seen to be believed.
 * Vol. I, Fundamental Algorithms, Section 1.1 (1968)

 * People who are more than casually interested in computers should have at least some idea of what the underlying hardware is like. Otherwise the programs they write will be pretty weird.
 * Vol. I Fasc. 1, "MMIX, a RISC computer for the new millennium"

 * Random numbers should not be generated with a method chosen at random
 * Vol. II, Seminumerical Algorithms

 * The sun comes up just about as often as it goes down, in the long run, but this doesn't make its motion random.
 * Vol. II, Seminumerical Algorithms, Section 3.3.2 part B, first paragraph (1969)

 * The reason is not to glorify "bit chasing"; a more fundamental issue is at stake here: Numerical subroutines should deliver results that satisfy simple, useful mathematical laws whenever possible. [...] Without any underlying symmetry properties, the job of proving interesting results becomes extremely unpleasant. The enjoyment of one's tools is an essential ingredient of successful work.
 * Vol. II, Seminumerical Algorithms, Section 4.2.2 part A, final paragraph [Italics in source]

 * Any inaccuracies in this index may be explained by the fact that it has been sorted with the help of a computer.
 * Vol. III, Sorting and Searching, End of index (1973)

 * Trees sprout up just about everywhere in computer science...
 * Vol. IV - A, Combinatorial Algorithms, Section 4.2.1.6 (2011)

Computer Programming as an Art (1974)
1974 Turing Award Lecture, Communications of the ACM 17 (12), (December 1974), pp. 667–673

 * Science is knowledge which we understand so well that we can teach it to a computer; and if we don't fully understand something, it is an art to deal with it.
 * p. 668

 * In this sense, we should continually be striving to transform every art into a science: in the process, we advance the art.
 * p. 669 [italics in source]

 * The real problem is that programmers have spent far too much time worrying about efficiency in the wrong places and at the wrong times; premature optimization is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming.
 * p. 671
 * Programmers waste enormous amounts of time thinking about, or worrying about, the speed of noncritical parts of their programs, and these attempts at efficiency actually have a strong negative impact when debugging and maintenance are considered. We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. Yet we should not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3%.
 * Variant in Knuth, "Structured Programming with Goto Statements". Computing Surveys 6:4 (December 1974), pp. 261–301, §1.
 * Knuth refers to this as "Hoare's Dictum" 15 years later in "The Errors of Tex", Software—Practice & Experience 19:7 (July 1989), pp. 607–685. However, the attribution to C. A. R. Hoare is doubtful.
 * All three of these papers are reprinted in Knuth, Literate Programming, 1992, Center for the Study of Language and Information ISBN 0937073806

 * To summarize: We have seen that computer programming is an art, because it applies accumulated knowledge to the world, because it requires skill and ingenuity, and especially because it produces objects of beauty. A programmer who subconsciously views himself as an artist will enjoy what he does and will do it better. Therefore we can be glad that people who lecture at computer conferences speak of the state of the Art.
 * p. 673 [italics in source]

Literate Programming (1984)

 * Let us change our traditional attitude to the construction of programs: Instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a computer what to do, let us concentrate rather on explaining to human beings what we want a computer to do.
 * "Literate Programming", The Computer Journal 27 (1984), p. 97. (Reprinted in Literate Programming, 1992, p. 99.)

Quotes about

 * For his major contributions to the analysis of algorithms and the design of programming languages, and in particular for his contributions to the "art of computer programming" through his well-known books in a continuous series by this title.
 * 1974 Turing Award Citation

title: Donald Knuth