text:
Janeane Garofalo

Janeane Garofalo (born September 28, 1964) is an American comic, actress, author and, as of 2003, political commentator. Garofalo, who is known for numerous film and television roles as well as her comedy, has since March 2004 hosted the Air America radio talk show Majority Report.

Documentaries

 * "[Conservative talk radio hosts] have conned the American people into thinking there is such a thing as a pro-life, pro-war, pro-gun, pro-death penalty Christian."
 * Left of the Dial (2005)

Television

 * "Iraq is a manufactured conflict for the sake of geopolitical dominance in the area."
 * CNN's Crossfire, 2003

from "Feel this Book"

 * "I think that by staying out of shape at the age of 33 I'm doing myself a huge favor for my future. There will never be anyone commenting on how I've 'let myself go.' I've gone. It's gone. It's not going, it's GONE."
 * Feel This Book, co-authored with Ben Stiller

 * "Many people feel that mass acceptance and smooth socialization are desirable life paths for a young adult... Many people are often wrong... Don't bother being nice. Being popular and well liked is not in your best interest. Let me be more clear; if you behave in a manner pleasing to most, then you are probably doing something wrong. The masses have never been arbiters of the sublime, and they often fail to recognize the truly great individual. Taking into account the public's regrettable lack of taste, it is incumbent upon you not to fit in."
 * Feel This Book, co-authored with Ben Stiller

Standup routines

 * "I can't wait for the next fad though, and I predict it's going to be Pennsylvania dutch culture, very Amish. It's going to be bonnets and butter churns."
 * From the TV comedy special Janeane Garofalo (1997)
 * after discussing ubiquitious rap influences upon mainstream culture

 * "The camera adds ten pounds. Why? What, we don't have the technology to remedy that one little thing? We can have fucking Forrest Gump cohorting with John F. Kennedy, and we can't just fix that one little thing, the ten pound variant on a lens...You can actually levitate now when you watch a movie about flying, but they just don't have the technology for that ten pound margin of error."
 * standup performance accessible through .WAV file available on the Internet

 * "I actually was class clown, but I don't know how that happened because I've never been considered an outwardly funny person — as the people in this room will attest."
 * standup performance, date unknown

 * "I think right about now I should answer some questions that are probably on your mind. You're probably thinking to yourself, 'Janeane, why are you not wearing the half-shirt that you're usually so fond of wearing? Because when we see you we like to see the half shirt.' You know I'm very fond of that and I'm fond of the low-slung jean and the thong, as you know. In fact when I go into a bar and I see ladies wearing the low-slung jeans and the half-shirts, I go up to them and say, 'On behalf of everyone here, thank you. Thank you!' 'Hey, pretty lady, are you wearing a thong? What a creative way to create favor with the opposite sex. That is so exciting. Let me understand the dynamic of the thong: so there's just a slender thread that just resides in your nether region for the better part of the day - just a string that rides in your anatomical hinterlands...it just hangs in there all day at work and then all day at the bar, so I can see how the gentlemen find that so exciting.'...Don't 'ooh' me, I'm not the one with the thong!"
 * standup performance accessible through .WAV files available on the Internet

 * "The notebook. Yes, as you know Garofalo's a little forgetful. Has to bring her notebook. Between the Nutrasweet and the Fen-phen, I don't know whether to shit or wind my watch at this point. I gotta have a thing happening here because I don't wanna forget what I wanna discuss with you. I owe you that much."
 * From the TV comedy special Janeane Garofalo (1997)

 * "But let me ask you this though, first and foremost: who's your favorite Spice Girl? Mine is Sporty Spice and I'll tell you why. You know what? She might not be as aesthetically pleasant as the rest but she'll do a backflip and steal your heart."
 * From the TV comedy special Janeane Garofalo (1997)

 * "No no no! Don't clap! No no no, you make me seem like I'm like a prophet or something and I'm so not!"
 * From the TV comedy special Janeane Garofalo (1997)

 * "Nationalism and patriotism in the wrong hands will destroy lives, it really will, because I'll tell you something: it takes a village to ruin a child. I think we've proven that time and time again in this country."
 * From the TV comedy special Janeane Garofalo (1997)

 * "I guess I just prefer to see the dark side of things. The glass is always half empty. And cracked. And I just cut my lip on it. And chipped a tooth."
 * standup performance accessible through .WAV files available on the Internet

 * "And here's some legislation: Thank the good lord that this passed before the break for vaycay. No cloning! No cloning! Urgent! Big red rubber stamper! Let's get this out of the way! Let's deal with this! The no cloning issue. Uhm, I wasn't really worried about it. I don't know about anybody else, but it really wasn't keeping me up nights. I think I'll worry about it when we finally get our jetpacks and our food pills for five course meals. I think then we'll deal with that because I think during Roddenberry times we were promised those two things and I haven't seen them, but just in case that wasn't enough for you, for Congress to get involved, the Vatican had something to say about it. The Vatican Counsel met, and I took this out of the New York Times, here's what they said after a big meeting, " 'Human cloning would not lead to identical souls because only God can create a soul,' a panel set up by Pope John Paul has concluded." Right on! They also took care of a couple other things that were burning issues. Apparently Trix are indeed for kids, and one other thing. After much deliberation it has been decided that no you cannot tackle the kid after he releases the ball in Smear The Queer. Can't do it. So we got that out of the way."
 * From the TV comedy special Janeane Garofalo (1997)

 * "You see the objectification of women on men's magazines all the time. I accept that, they're trying to move a product. What I don't get is when I walk past a cover of Mademoiselle magazine and I'm like, 'Do you want to fuck me, Heather Graham? Because it looks like you want to fuck me, Heather Graham, and I don't really understand why you have that look on your face, wearing almost nothing on the cover of a women's magazine. Oh, hey, Sarah Jessica Parker! Do you want to fuck me too on the cover of Marie Claire? Because it looks like you like me. I don't know why you're looking at me like that, but I certainly now want to buy this empowering women's magazine."
 * standup performance accessible through .WAV files available on the Internet

 * "Let me just stress that I'm not anti-religion. I know what it's like to be spiritual. I know what it's like to try and think of these things. Now after much deliberation in my thirty-second year of life, I feel that I am not religious. I feel secular and drawn to science. I don't believe. And I'm not saying that's good bad or indifferent. I am not better than anyone who believes. I realize the need in the human condition to feel that there is a being that does things for you and will take care and all that kind of thing. I understand it. I respect you for it. So the thing that kills me though when it comes to religion is very few religious people will refuse to allow you to have your opinion. They will boycott you, they will write a letter, they are allowed to scream from the mountain tops what they believe in. You are not allowed that same thing, you are just wrong, that's all there is to it. It's interesting that when you come from that perspective and you think about what's going on in the world geopolitically and religious-wise whether it's the Taliban fighters, the Muellas, the protestants, the Irish, the Israeli Palestinian conflict. If you are not religious you kind of see it as just insanity and I realize that their issues are not just religious based, but they are about sovereignty and things of that nature but it all goes back to the fact that these seeds were planted on these books. The books of religions which are beautiful works of fiction. They're just lovely. I mean somebody's a great writer. I-- You don't have to applaud that I'm just saying these guys are great writers these guys who wrote and added addendums to suit their fancies and made arbitrary rules these guys are great writers, but the important thing being that we keep the women in the back seat. That's the main gist of all religions because we're scared of the vagina. Somehow it all leads to fear of the vagina. I can hear the typewriters clicking as we speak. So the thing is if you see these books this way and I respect that you may not see them that way, it's like as if in this country we were fighting over Grisham novels, or we had declared the Bridges of Madison County sacred ground whereupon nobody builds. Nobody builds."
 * From the TV comedy special Janeane Garofalo (1997)

 * "Granted, not really a joke, but how often do you get a mic in your hand? You know? So. I am sorry but don't anybody trip on my soap box on the way out. Don't anybody trip over that. And the chip on my shoulder's a little heavy. I have back problems now."
 * From the TV comedy special Janeane Garofalo (1997). Said after she proposed a "buddy system" in which the federal government places orphaned babies in the care of pro-lifers.

 * "To me, there is no greater act of courage than being the one who kisses first."
 * standup performance, date unknown

 * "I think we all remember where we were when Rush Hour hit the water. That was an important day."
 * From the TV comedy special Janeane Garofalo (1997)

 * "Red flag of the eating disorder: the muffin. Keep your eye on the ladies with the muffins...and sometimes I'll just eat the muffin top."
 * From the TV comedy special Janeane Garofalo (1997)

 * "You know what is good about these Dixie Chicks burnings or bashings? It's a wonderful, wonderful way for really stupid people to hook up. They meet, they throw some things on the fire, they talk about Vin Diesel, they tell stories about who their favorite Fox anchor is, they exchange phone numbers and in some cases has led to marriages."
 * standup performance, 2003

 * "There's always [on women's magazines] that great photo of the actress or model lifting up her shirt just to show you the bone structure and the six-pack of her own. It's almost like when horses are auctioned and they show you their teeth. 'Am I good enough?'"
 * standup performance (accessible through .WAV files available on the Internet)

 * "All roads lead to my dogs, don't they?"
 * From the TV comedy special Janeane Garofalo (1997)

 * "When I see guys in bars wearing the real fitted kind of Calvin Klein v-neck t-shirts I just want to go up to them and be like, 'Oh, do you work out? Your tricep looks so great - thank you.'"
 * standup performance (accessible through .WAV files available on the Internet)

 * "I loved Chasing Amy. I absolutely loved it. I really, really did. I thought it was so great. It was a romantic comedy for people who hate romantic comedies basically, and it spoke to a demographic that never, ever, ever gets addressed. The kind of smoking, comic-book-reading, you know um—I can't even be really clear on what I mean, but if you know what I mean you know exactly what I'm talking about. It was such a great movie but here's the thing about that movie that made me weep. The scene wherein Ben Affleck, the dreamy comic book artist, stops the car and professes his love for Joey Lauren Adams, the baby voiced lesbian. And that's also my favorite—these male movies with the lesbians that look like that. Did you go to the Dykes on Bikes parade? I don't think so. Not a lot of Joey Lauren Adams walking around at the Dykes on Bikes. I also went to the Dykes Who Love Their Dogs. And I'm not even gay. Yes I can see how you'd make that mistake. And if I was gay I'd be proud proud proud. You know who my favorite kind of gay is? In the parade? The bantamweight hispanic who is frequently given to flights of fancy and drama. Very wiry. Will wear the lamee' lace-up football pants type shorts and the Doc Martins and he's always dominating the float. 'Ooh! ooh! doo doo de Ooh! Ooh!" I love every time the float stops. "Ooh! ooh! --oh oh oh." And they have to grab the pole and regain their composure. That's my fave. That's my favorite gay. When asked, that's my favorite gay. And then it was so funny 'cause it was gay pride weekend as you know, and I'm on—for those of you who are not familiar with New York out in TV land whatever—Christopher Street is a hotbed of gay activity! It's a wonderful place to be. But I'm walking my dogs. All roads lead to my dogs, don't they? I'm walking my dogs at midnight 'cause they go out for their final midnight walk so that I can sleep until seven. If they don't go out at midnight they get up at five. So I'm walking the dogs and it's like midnight on Gay Pride night and everybody's just proud as punch and there's so much activity and then there's this one guy that drives by in a car going 'We're here! We're queer! Get used to it!' and I was like 'Dude you are so preaching to the converted! Who are you being — Where — Why do you have a chip on your shoulder? You're on Christopher Street!' You know? It was like so weird! 'Get used to it!' And he was really nasty and he's talking to like huge drag queens with feather boas coming out of their asses, you know? So the thing about Chasing Amy was, okay, so Ben — Did I say this already? Or did I digress? When Ben Affleck pulls the car over and talks to Joey, and tells her how he feels about her? I was like going 'That will never happen to me. That will never ever happen to me.' And by the way honesty does not work except for celluloid so don't even try that, but to tell people that you like them will only serve to make them not like you. I mean that's basically that's all that's gonna do. No matter how much you liked them, if they're going to give you a full disclosure, now they're not cool. 'You like me? Oh...' Like that's--? So even if it did happen to me, it can't happen to me, because if the cute comic book guy says 'I love you and I'm better for loving you' or all this stuff then I would have to go like 'Well you're gonna have to take me home because I don't respect you at all anymore. Be a man! God! Be aloof! What's your problem? Don't call- You want me to like you? Don't pick up that damn phone! Don't--' but everybody else seems to find a soulmate, have you noticed that? Everybody else seems to be able to make it happen, and I'm talking about even people-- Okay. I can't make it happen yet somehow Chang and Eng the siamese twins attached to the chest and Stephen Hawking and the Shine guy and that kid who shot his face off are all happily married and breeding and I don't want to sound like a dick about this but come on! I mean, these people have sex! And uhm, not only that but Chang and Eng fathered like nine and ten kids a piece while being attached to the chest so and I know that the ladies as a rule are tolerant. I know this about the female sex if they like the guy they're tolerant but we are really pushing the envelope here with Stephen Hawking and the guy who shot his face off, y'know? And I'm worried because I have matronly upper arms, y'know? I can't get intimate because I have matronly upper arms and there's two kinds of women in the world: those with matronly upper arms and those with visible biceps and never the twain shall meet, because the bicep gals don't get it and the matronly upper arms girls know about life and love and losing and do you know how hot it has to be for Garofalo to go sleeveless and why I'm referring to myself in the third person which I've never ever done before tonight. I've never ever referred to myself as 'Garofalo' ever. I sound like I'm on an intramural flag football team or something. I will wear a sweater or a sweat jacket or a long-sleeve shirt until it's literally a hundred and ten degrees out, but tonight I wore a short sleeve thing because it's really hot up on stage but I'm telling you it has to be extenuating circumstances. I actually went sleeveless three days last week because you know how hot it was, plus I can't turn the air conditioner on in my apartment because Mercer has a chronic respiratory infection and the air conditioner exacerbates that so we sit around and sweat a lot."
 * From the TV comedy special Janeane Garofalo (1997)

 * "Hey, who wants to hear the stories about my ruptured ovarian cysts? Do you? It's great. It is a story that has been passed down from generation to generation and we love it. So here's the story. I was looping a film, and I sneezed, and passed out. They thought I had appendicitis so they took me to the hospital, but as it turns out, I had ruptured a series of ovarian cysts that unbeknownst to me were residing in my area, and as you know if you've seen me work before I still have the 'don't ask don't tell' policy with my vagina. I don't bother it. It- She. She minds her own beeswax. I stay up here. She doesn't sass me. You know no back talk. None of that. She's not flippant at all with me. So we had to find out about my cyst by having a very thorough exam by the gynecologist. Again, another cure for hubris if you're suffering from that. Whilst he's down there, he peers up from between my knees and goes 'you know my wife and I... LOVE you on The Larry Sanders Show!' And I was like 'That is so great and now I think you can enjoy it on a whole 'nother level, you and your wife!' And with that I left the office, and the thing is is that I've noticed is that I get recognized rarely but only at inconvenient times when it would be not good to be recognized. There is- uhm.. Whenever I'm coming out of a public restroom. Usually Starbucks, go figure. I don't know why but inevitably someone will be like a fan out of the restroom but let me say this and you know I don't like to work blue and this next theory is not for the squeamish but let me just say this. I'll put it this way. The person who was in the bathroom prior to me? Let's say, compromised the integrity of the room? Shall we say? Kind of had their way with the bowl. And hey man I know the stall she is a harsh mistress sometimes. I know that. I'm no stranger to the fight but, it's not me! You know? And so it's like the person ahead of me who shows no respect and, I'll come out and the person's about to go in and I'm just like 'aw man.' Because you know they're gonna say, 'I saw the girl I don't know what her name is but that girl, she stinks!' "
 * From the TV comedy special Janeane Garofalo (1997)

 * "It sounds like I'm always being facetious. That's why I never get voice over work. 'You sound like you hate the product.' "
 * From the TV comedy special Janeane Garofalo (1997)

Majority Report

 * "You know George W. Bush is a war-time president, he says - proudly. Guess what. War is failure! When you are at war, you have failed! When you have gone to a war of choice and lied about it, you're a double-triple, triple-quadruple failure! Or a warlord. It's called a warlord in other countries. A war time president here. One man's ceiling I guess is another man's floor. George Bush is a warlord. He's a failure!"
 * Majority Report, July 22, 2005 broadcast

 * "Anybody who French bashes just might as well wear a badge that says 'I am a follower! I don't think for myself and I have no idea what I'm talking about.' That would be a French basher."
 * Majority Report, June 3, 2005 broadcast

 * "To a right-winger, unions are awful. Why do right-wingers hate unions? Because collective bargaining is the power that a worker has against the corporation. Right-wingers hate that."
 * Majority Report, June 3, 2005 broadcast

 * "Unbelievable! Unbelieveable! No stem-cell research. Can't have stem-cell research. Can't have reproductive rights. But by God we can bomb the shite out of anybody in the world! And we can have policies that are put forth by the World Trade Organization, and the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank, and CAFTA and NAFTA that will destroy lives. That will destroy the environment. That will harm fetal development. I mean is it not insanity? Is it not so obvious at this point to some people, to most people rather that this Bush administration is now uh- comically! comically uhm --I don't even know what the word is! I can't think of the word! I can't think of words!"
 * Majority Report, June 3, 2005 broadcast

 * "The majority of Americans, there is no doubt about it, they support a woman's right to choose. They support the separation of church and state. They support environmental protections. They support laws that regulate business, because remember deregulation is essentially lawlessness. And the bankruptcy bill and the energy bill that the Bush administration has pushed are gifts to big business and the majority of Americans, if they were to understand that, if their news media did their job, they wouldn't support it. They just wouldn't. And also they are just too busy in the course of a day, living their lives, and putting their kids through school, and putting food on the table, to hate gay people and black people and women enough, and to pray for the end of days enough, as the Bush administration would like them to. As you know there's a number of lawsuits filed against No Child Left Behind because the government has required that schools adhere to No Child Left Behind, yet haven't funded it! Of course they haven't! Of course they haven't, because the Bush regime doesn't believe in funding education because if you fund education you will have a more educated populace. If you have a more educated populace, you will have critical thinking. If you have critical thinking, you cannot push this agenda that they have and you won't have as many people that are so willing to serve in the armed forces for Dick Cheney. Y'know, if you have a more educated, knowledgable, critically-thinking populace, they will be less willing to fight and die for Dick Cheney! You know it really is that simple. And most people join the army, navy, air force, marines, to pay for their education, to better themselves, to see the world. That is fine, but if the young people are joining the armed forces to protect democracy, you gotta stay here! Because we need that here. We are losing democracy all the time under the Bush regime and Theocracy, where it will be fine, but it's just gonna take awhile."
 * Majority Report, April 21, 2005 broadcast

 * "The new Republican party. Accountability last. If ever. That is the Republican party. Now I am confident we progressives, we liberals, can change this, but it's gonna take a lot of work and we can hustle it along faster: you know the universe does tilt towards justice eventually, but we can make it tilt faster if we continue to work together in Democratic circles, liberal circles, progressive circles, libertarian circles, and true conservative circles to try and change the type of people we elect and the type of news media we have and the type of pundits we allow to pollute our airwaves. Myself included. I shouldn't be a pundit. I don't know why I am, but they asked me to, and once your name is in the rolodex, you're in. So sometimes I go on -yeah I stink. I'm a stinky pundit! ...well, compared to the pundits they have I'm fantastic! But in the real world, I stink, and should not be a pundit."
 * Majority Report, April 21, 2005 broadcast

 * "...because we don't have a Fairness Doctrine, and because we have further media consolidation, and because we have a craptastic corporate media, WE DON'T HAVE NEWS! We don't have an informed populous and we don't have a democracy... Everyone in the world knows that America, (in its current state, because of right-wingers) that the right wing arm of this country (that speaks for this country unfortunately) has no credibility when it comes to human rights or independent media."
 * Majority Report, April 21, 2005 broadcast

 * "Now let's talk about Grover Norquist who really sort of embodies everything that is wrong with the type of mindset that dominates today's Republican party. He is a conservative strategist and he is the head of Americans for Tax Reform. He has also now unfortunately launched The Media Freedom Project. Now, as you know, they cleverly name things so they sound really good but what it means is IT WILL KILL YOU, metaphorically speaking. If Grover Norquist has launched The Media Freedom Project, you can bet what it means is this is going to be not unlike a communist politboro. So, for the last 30 years, as many of you may or may not know, the right-wing has tried to restructure society, restructure the economy, and to bring the government to an unresponsive place where it was pre-New Deal, pre-The Great Society, pre-social safety nets, pre-social justice issues, environmental protections, child labor laws, public health and safety, seat belts, birth control, voting rights, desegregation: these are all things that liberals and progressives have brought you, and these are all things that right-wingers and conservatives enjoy and take for granted. Yet they still say bleeding-heart-liberal or liberal, but without liberals we wouldn't have unions. We wouldn't have environmental protections. We wouldn't have seat belts or birth control or the ACLU! Any of these things! This is what liberals and progressives, whether they call themselves that or not, do. They've fought for it. They've died for it. They've gotten their asses kicked for it. So whenever anybody says liberals are wimps, please remind them that liberals and progressives have died and suffered grievous bodily harm to bring you all of the things politicians brag about, domestically and internationally. Grover Norquist wants to bring government back to the time of robber barons and (I don't even know what you call it) and uh, debtor prisons, and Social Darwinism, and before Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle and we had uh, laws that prevented you from having fingers in your chili!"
 * Majority Report, April 21, 2005 broadcast

 * "The reason the corporate media serves the Republican agenda so much is it means they don't have to work hard. They don't have to do anything. They don't have to do investigative journalism. They don't have to get into the dirty waters of speaking truth to power. If the corporate media continues to serve their Republican masters, then their job is easy peasy. It's nuttin'. You go to Matt Drudge. You go get some stuff from Karl Rove. You go to Grover Norquist meetings. You get the talking points. Easy peasy."
 * Majority Report, July 12, 2005 broadcast

 * "There's nothing wrong with the word conspiracy. It just means 'to breathe together'."
 * Majority Report, November 10, 2004 broadcast

 * "It is not crazy to think that powerful people do some pretty horrible things. And maybe they get out of hand. Maybe it just gets away from them. It snowballs."
 * Majority Report, November 10, 2004 broadcast

 * "Peaches!"
 * Majority Report
 * Garofalo's closing sentiment for every broadcast, the origins of which can be traced back to an interview on May 6, 2004 with a Canadian punk rock artist named Peaches.

Attributed

 * Patriot Act is in fact a conspiracy of the 43d Reich.

title: Janeane Garofalo


text:
Philip Johnson

Philip Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect.

1930s

 * At the basis of the Hiterlism mystique is the notion of "race." ... If ... we overlook the terminology that Hitler inherits from Gobineau and Houston Stewart Chamberlain—and that has become so repugnant to Americans because it has been made to appear primarily anti-Semitic—we shall find a different picture from what we had been led to expect by reading excerpts from the more lurid German "anthropologists." Reduced to plain terms, Hitler's "racism" is a perfectly simple though far-reaching idea. It is the myth of "we the best," which we find, more or less fully developed, in all vigorous cultures.
 * The Examiner (1939), as cited in Martin Filler "Prince of the City", The New York Review of Books (December 22, 1994)

 * Lack of leadership and direction in the state has let the one group get control who always gain power in a nation's time of weakness—the Jews.
 * Social Justice (late 1930s), as cited in Nikil Saval "Philip Johnson, the Man Who Made Architecture Amoral", The New Yorker (December 12, 2018)

 * [T]he German green uniforms made the place look gay and happy. There were not many Jews to be seen. We saw Warsaw burn and Modlin being bombed. It was a stirring spectacle.
 * From a letter to an American woman (1939) later convicted of being a German agent, as cited in Martin Filler "Prince of the City", The New York Review of Books (December 22, 1994)

1960s–1990s

 * The painters have every advantage over us today...Besides being able to tear up their failures—we never can seem to grow ivy fast enough—their materials cost them nothing. They have no committees of laymen telling them what to do. They have no deadlines, no budgets. We are all sickeningly familiar with the final cuts to our plans at the last moment. Why not take out the landscaping, the retaining walls, the colonnades? The building would be just as useful and much cheaper. True, an architect leads a hard life—for an artist.
 * Cited in Paul Heyer (ed., 1966). Architects on Architecture: New Directions in America, p. 279. New York: Walker and Company.

 * I like Houston. It's the last great 19th-century city. Houston has a spirit about it that is truly American, an optimism. People there aren't afraid to try something new.
 * Financial Times (June 3, 1989)

 * [It] was the stupidest thing I ever did. I never forgave myself and I never can atone for it. There's nothing you can do.
 * [T]he anti-Semitism, I was in on, and that's the part I'm really ashamed of.
 * The Charlie Rose Show (June 25, 1993), as cited in Martin Filler "Prince of the City", The New York Review of Books (December 22, 1994)

Undated

 * [He's] the greatest architect of the nineteenth century.
 * Talking about Frank Lloyd Wright, as cited in Martin Filler "Prince of the City", The New York Review of Books (December 22, 1994)

About Johnson

 * [A]n American fascist who says he represents Father Coughlin's [weekly paper] Social Justice. None of us can stand the fellow and suspect he is spying on us for the Nazis.
 * William L. Shirer Berline Diary (1941), as cited in Martin Filler "Prince of the City", The New York Review of Books (December 22, 1994)

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

title: Philip Johnson


text:
Juvenal

 * Not to be confused with Bertrand de Jouvenel, the political philosopher.

Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis (c. 55 – c. 140), anglicized as Juvenal, was a Roman satiric poet.

 * Satires I · II · III · IV · VI · VIII · IX · X · XIV · XV · External links

Satire I

 * Difficile est saturam non scribere.
 * It is difficult not to write satire.
 * I, line 30.

 * Probitas laudatur et alget
 * Honesty is praised and starves.
 * I, line 74.
 * Variant translation: Honesty is praised and is left out in the cold.

 * Poena tamen praesens, cum tu deponis amictus turgidus et crudum pavonem in balnea portas. hinc subitae mortes atque intestata senectus; it nova nec tristis per cunctas fabula cenas: ducitur iratis plaudendum funus amicis.
 * But you will soon pay for it, my friend, when you take off your clothes, and with distended stomach carry your peacock into the bath undigested! Hence a sudden death, and an intestate old age; the new and merry tale runs the round of every dinner-table, and the corpse is carried forth to burial amid the cheers of enraged friends!
 * I, line 142.

Satire II

 * Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas.
 * Censure pardons the raven, but is visited upon the dove.
 * II, line 63.

 * Nemo repente fuit turpissimus.
 * No man ever became extremely wicked all at once.
 * II, line 83.
 * Compare: "There is a method in man’s wickedness, — It grows up by degrees
 * Beaumont and Fletcher, A King and No King, Act v, scene 4.

Satire III

 * me nemo ministro fur erit, atque ideo nulli comes exeo
 * No man will get my help in robbery, and therefore no governor will take me on his staff
 * III, line 46.

 * What's Rome to me, what business have I there?
 * I who can neither lie, nor falsely swear?
 * Nor praise my patron's undeserving rhymes,
 * Nor yet comply with him, nor with his times?
 * III, lines 75-78, John Dryden, trans.

 * Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se, quam quod ridiculos homines facit.
 * Bitter poverty has no harder pang than that it makes men ridiculous.
 * III, line 152-3.
 * Variant translations:
 * Of all the Griefs that harrass the Distrest, Sure the most bitter is a scornful Jest.
 * As translated by Samuel Johnson
 * The hardest thing to bear in poverty is the fact that it makes men ridiculous.
 * Wretched poverty offers nothing harsher than this: it makes men ridiculous.

 * Haut facile emergunt quorum virtutibus opstat res angusta domi.
 * It is not easy for men to rise whose qualities are thwarted by poverty.
 * III, line 164.
 * Variant translation: Slow rises Worth, by Poverty deprest.
 * As translated by Samuel Johnson

 * ''Hic vivimus ambitiosa paupertate omnes.
 * We all live in a state of ambitious poverty.
 * III, line 182.

 * The question is not put how far extends
 * His piety, but what he yearly spends;
 * Quick, to the business; how he lives and eats;
 * How largely gives; how splendidly he treats;
 * How many thousand acres feed his sheep;
 * What are his rents; what servants does he keep?
 * The account is soon cast up; the judges rate
 * Our credit in the court by our estate.
 * III, lines 234-242, John Dryden, trans.

Satire IV

 * Vitam impendere vero.
 * Dedicate one’s life to truth.
 * IV, line 91.

Satire VI

 * Nunc patimur longae pacis mala, saevior armis luxuria incubuit victumque ulciscitur orbem.
 * We are now suffering the evils of a long peace. Luxury, more deadly than war, broods over the city, and avenges a conquered world.
 * VI, line 292.

 * Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
 * But who will guard the guardians themselves?
 * VI, line 347
 * Variant translations:
 * But who is to guard the guards themselves?
 * Translated by Lewis Evans, in The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius (1861), p. 51
 * Who watches the watchmen?
 * Famous variant used in the graphic novel, Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.
 * The original context is that a husband might lock his wife in the house to prevent her adulteries, but she is cunning and will start with the guards; hence, who guards the guards? The phrase has come to be applied broadly to people or organisations acting against dishonesty or corruption, esp. in public life. See Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? at Wikipedia.

 * Nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus.
 * Virtue is the one and only nobility.
 * VIII, line 20.
 * Variant: Nobility is the one only virtue.
 * Compare : We'll shine in more substantial honours, And to be noble we'll be good.
 * Thomas Percy, Winifreda (1720).

Satire VIII

 * Summum crede nefas animam praeferre pudori et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.
 * Count it the greatest sin to prefer life to honor, and for the sake of living to lose what makes life worth living.
 * VIII, line 83.

Satire IX

 * Nam si tibi sidera cessant, nil faciet longi mensura incognita nervi, quamvis te nudum spumanti Virro labello viderit et blandae adsidue densaeque tabellae sollicitent, autos gar ephelketai andra kinaidos.
 * If your stars go against you, the fantastic size of your cock will get you precisely nowhere, however much Virro may have drooled at the spectacle of your naked charms, though love-letters come in by the dozen, imploring your favors.
 * IX, line 33.

Satire X

 * ''Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator.
 * The traveller with empty pockets will sing in the thief's face.
 * X, line 22.

 * Nam qui dabat olim imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, panem et circenses.
 * The people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions, and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for just two things — bread and circuses!
 * X, line 78; see bread and circuses.

 * Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano.
 * You should pray for a sound mind in a sound body.
 * X, line 356; see mens sana in corpore sano.
 * Variant translation: One should pray to have a sound mind in a sound body.

Satire XIV

 * Maxima debetur puero reverentia.
 * The greatest reverence is due the young.
 * XIV, line 47
 * Variant translations:
 * The most profound respect is due to children.
 * The greatest reverence is due to a child.

Satire XV

 * Indica tigris agit rabida cum tigride pacem perpetuam, saevis inter se convenit ursis.
 * The Indian tiger lives in perfect peace with the fierce Tigress, and savage bears live together in harmony.
 * XV, lines 163-164; translation by A.S. Kilne

Satire XVI

 * Fati valet hora benigni
 * One moment of benignant fate
 * XVI, line 4
 * Cf. Samuel Bishop, Epigram XL.

title: Juvenal


text:
Nicholas Negroponte

Nicholas Negroponte (born 1 December 1943) is a Greek-American computer scientist best known as founder and director of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab.

Quotes

 * Scale will get you strategy.
 * The Hundred Dollar Laptop-Computing for Developing Nations.

 * Think of it: the lowest common denominator in being digital is not your operating system, modem, or model of computer. It's a tiny piece of plastic, designed decades ago by Bell Labs' Charles Krumreich, Edwin Hardesty, and company, who thought they were making an inconspicuous plug for a few telephone handsets. Not in their wildest dreams was Registered Jack 11 — a modular connector more commonly known as the RJ-11 — meant to be plugged and unplugged so many times, by so many people, for so many reasons, all over the world.
 * RJ-11.

 * Young people, I happen to believe, are the world's most precious natural resource.
 * Pricing the Future.

 * You can see the future best through peripheral vision.
 * Foreword of Unleashing the Killer App: Digital Strategies for Market Dominance (Harvard Business School Press, Revised edition March 2000) ISBN 1578512611.

 * Think about it. Turning pages. How ridiculous that is. It's just unbelievably dumb. … [Apple's] building peripherals for iTunes … We can't turn these kids into couch potatoes.
 * Mobilize 2010: Negroponte Sees Tablets as Creative Tool in Gigaom (30 September 2010).

Being Nicholas, The Wired Interview by Thomas A. Bass

 * MIT is governed by a second, even higher rule: the inalienable right of academic freedom.

 * The Internet for us was like air. It was there all the time — you wouldn't notice it existed unless it was missing.

 * I've spent my whole life worrying about the human-computer interface, so I don't want to suggest that what we have today is even close to acceptable.

 * I think the Net is scaling very well. Because of the way it was designed, I don't think it will come to its knees and crash. I see it as very organic in the way it's capable of living and reproducing itself.

 * Cyberlaw is global law.

 * Unlike television — at least as it currently exists — the Internet is a medium of choice.

 * If you think about it, being digital is Italian. It's underground, provocative, interactive. It has humor, discourse, and debate. It has a kind of liveliness to it.

Being Digital (1995)
ISBN 0679762906

 * The change from atoms to bits is irrevocable and unstoppable. Why now? Because the change is also exponential — small differences of yesterday can have suddenly shocking consequences tomorrow.

 * True personalization is now upon us. It's not just a matter of selecting relish over mustard once. The post-information age is about acquaintance over time: machines' understanding individuals with the same degree of subtlety (or more than) we can expect from other human beings, including idiosyncrasies (like always wearing a blue-striped shirt) and totally random events, good and bad, in the unfolding narrative of our lives.

 * Personal computers will make our future adult population simultaneously more mathematically able and more visually literate. Ten years from now, teenagers are likely to enjoy a much richer panorama of options because the pursuit of intellectual achievement will not be tilted so much in favor of the bookworm, but instead cater to a wider range of cognitive styles, learning patterns, and expressive behaviors.

A 30-year history of the future, TED Talk (2014)

 * When you write a computer program you've got to not just list things out and sort of take an algorithm and translate it into a set of instructions. But when there's a bug — and all programs have bugs — you've got to debug it. You've got to go in, change it, and then re-execute … and you iterate. And that iteration is really a very, very good approximation of learning.
 * Nicholas Negroponte: A 30-year history of the future, July 2014, TED Talks (about 13:40 into 19:43 video).

Attributed

 * Isn't it odd how parents grieve if their child spends six hours a day on the 'Net, but are delighted if those same hours are spent reading books?

title: Nicholas Negroponte


text:
Leonard Eugene Dickson

Leonard Eugene Dickson (22 January 1874 – 17 January 1954), often called "L. E. Dickson", was an American mathematician.

Quotes

 * It is a lucky thing that newspaper reporters do not attend these meetings. If they did, they would see how little our activities are related to the real needs of society.
 * L. E. Dickson, during a discussion period that followed the presentation of a paper at a meeting of the American Mathematical Society, where he criticized the choice of the paper’s topic. Fifteen minutes later he presented a paper of his own outlining a proof that every sufficiently large integer can be written as a sum of, not 1140 tenth powers (the best previous result), but 1046 tenth powers.
 * Source: Howard Eves in Return to Mathematical Circles

title: Leonard Eugene Dickson


text:
Talk:Bill Hicks

Legendary Status
Does anybody else think that this legend is possibly the greatest person to have ever been on this Earth?

suggestions for improving the article
Bill Hicks was not a comedian he was a genius. <-- this comment is dumb because the two are far from mutually exclusive.

I was interested in the posters' opinion that Hicks wasn't funny. This is missing the point of Hicks altogether. I have discussed this with others and I still say the beauty of his art was that people didn't get it. Even the condensed version of a truth was so far from their belief that it became too abstract for many. For someone who has been told their whole life by authority figures that drugs are bad as are people who curse to be confronted by Hicks could really be a shock and when some of the things he said made a lot of sense that created the paradox to force new thought. Once people realize some of their truths are wrong that opens the can of worms and that is what Hicks was really after. The Message - Here is the truth... the truth will set you free.... freedom and truth can change the world.

His friends all say he could be hilarious when he wanted to. His work and these quotes need this point explained to allow for a better understanding. Hicks work was using controversial topics and language to prove that learned beliefs and sacred cows can be wrong and should be challenged in a cathartic way to provoke free thought and perhaps arrive at a better truth. He did use enough humor to keep the performance light but not so much that his serious discussion become a circus. Every topic is condensed in his method. Smash a perceived truth, present an alternative. Every quote here uses this formula I believe. Pot is better than alcohol and I'll prove it. Pornography is in your head not in the magazine. He said that his definition of porn was money spent on weapons and keeping the masses poor and uneducated. The government uses lies and propaganda with symbols to create a false truth hence the Iraq sketch. To cite Hicks being hysterically funny when he wanted the bit about Hussein being a Hitler was mostly cut from Shock and Awe but included fully on the Oxford release. He mimics Bush talking to a hillbilly about the government having intelligence reports that prove Hussein was like Hitler because he liked to boil and eat puppies. When the hillbilly says he's not sure yet Bush says " you like kittens? " yeah. Well we also have intelligence reports that say he pulls the spines out of kittens to use as toothpicks. To this the hillbilly says- Let's go kill this guy, I had no idea he was that much of a maniac. That's the kill humor he had but seldom used.

My fave Hicks quote is not included here: "If anyone here has a problem with my smoking I suggest you take a look around at the world in which we live....... and shuttin your fuckin mouth. " And another " I'm like Chomsky with dick jokes"   I know nothing about wikiquote so use this information as you can. I've studied Hicks for sometime so I doubt you'll find any errors. Just be true to Bill and "the message". Thanks, T

I have not watched the show "Sane Man" recorded in Austin, TX (1989), but... in the show: "Revelations" recorded in London (1992 or 1993) he says exactly the sam words. Odd? I suggest moving first two quotes down to quotes from Revelations. (Unless he really says the same words in 1989), but its not my article, so...

his best quote is missed: the one about the toyota truck, the floating iron fortresses in teh see and cowardice - intentional?

 * Perhaps the link should be to wikiquote:stand up ?

Might be worth splitting this page into separate albums/shows/themes?

Perhaps someone should edit this for formatting. Also, nearly all of the quotes listed under "attributed", I can pretty much confirm were said by him. At the least, they were released on CDs bearing his name. Perhaps I'm missing something, though. --24.95.234.22 22:18, 1 October 2005 (UTC) I agree with the above user. The article really needs to be cleaned up. I.. don't really want to do it, though. Not at the moment, anyway. If the article is still in this state of disorganization next time I find myself looking at it (rather often, actually) and I have time (not very often), I'll start looking at editing it for formatting. (I DID just edit the talk page a bit to make it a bit friendlier to new comments; if this is frowned upon, I apologize and someone can certainly revert the changes.) --Jacques 23:26, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Wow, this article teaches me nothing at all about the man's life. Talk about needing serious work!

^^ Well, it's just a collection of quotes, you're not supposed to know anything from that. Go use Wikipedia for a biography. And one of the things I found was the incorrect placement of quotes. Quotes from one album are under the heading for a different album. This should be fixed.

Random comments on Bill Hicks
Bill Hicks was thought-provoking and funny. I haven't seen another comedian that could evoke the cerebral laughter that he could. Except for Maynard James Keenan.

Bill Hicks was as much a philosopher as a comedian. He should go down as one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th Century. The greatest geniuses are the ones that challenge our view of the world and look at it differently. He's a great, great man.

Bill Hicks is the psychedelic jesus, he had the balls to tell the truth and spite all that 'war on drugs' propaganda.

Im downloading all this guy's stuff right now.... cant wait to listen.

What a fucking genius.

Hicks was a vile man?
I'd just like to start by saying Bill Hicks was an incredibly intelligent man with opinions that only offended the socialogically conditioned, unfree thinkers whose views have been shackled and contorted by the various governments of the world. Open your mind to some of the brilliant philosophical statements he puts forward in several of his shows and then maybe you will understand just what a fantastically bright, logical, realistically thinking man he really was. If you consider him so vile then i wonder why you are taking the time to see if his 'life is as vain as his jokes'. Surely you have better things to do than investigate the life of somebody you apparently hate so much. I don't know, you may not. I will be quite pleased if you don't reply to this comment, as a lack of response on your behalf carries with it the chance that you may have found something better to do with your life than go to sites about people you do not like and openly disbarage them on the message board. However if you do choose to reply i will be equally happy to discover whether your opinions have changed by reading up on this mans life or if you are still adamant that he was a 'vile' man.

Funny thing is Hicks and Jesus were kind of similar (spelling) hated and despised by the masses for his ideas. His ideas were different, and humans dont like what is different.

Yeah Hicks is a vile man. And it's funny. So what if he's vile? If vile's out there, why not see it? You're here, so you're interested, so it's interesting. Maybe it could be good--wait a second--HE'S FUNNY. AND INTERESTING. AND-OH MY GOD-YOU MAY LEARN SOMETHING! The man has a lot to say, and if you disagree with it, argue against it. Don't wince and hate-that's emotion. Reason is stronger. If you argue against it at least you can formulate a rational opinion of it. Then once you practice practice practice, you'll form enough strength of reason, agree with him and have a ball. Haha. No seriously though, argue against it, it'll do you good.

Repeat jokes
Could someone clean up the repeated jokes. Some are just short versions of a longer joke.

Somebody Knight That Man
Bill Hicks was one of the greatest comedians in history: Fact. The fact that his ideas and opinions caused so much controversy was his entire point: People dont think, if they dont hear what they want the dismiss it and come up with reasons why it cannot be right, or its "vile". However, you have absolutely backed up what Bill Hicks was talking about in every hilarious and mind expanding show he did, so from his point of veiw: Thank You.

From my point of veiw: Shut the fuck up and think about things more you dumb shit.

The point, if you missed it.
Towards the end of his life, Hicks admitted on stage that he had finally quit smoking after years of vehemently supporting it. Some members of the audience heckled him or booed. He had to point out to them that it had never been about smoking or not smoking, it was about freedom of choice.

Because Hicks used things like smoking, drugs, pornography, anti-government sentiment or questioning religion, a hell of a lot of people thought he was cool cos he was a rebel or they thought he was blasphemous and immoral or they thought he was simply trying to shock. They missed the point.

The reason Bill Hicks used those subjects to get his message accross was becuse they were subjects in which he could go against the accepted norm and try and challenge people to think for themselves. And also because they made a lot of people laugh. He was a comedian. There was a big slice of philosopher in him but the Jesus comments are a bit much.

For those that think he was vile, you're entitled to. But take a look at his life if you're so interested, his biography is out there and it's interesting to say the least.

I personally think the reason so many people get so vicously opposed to what he says is because his arguments are articulate and well thought-through. But then again they're his arguments, he's not just unquestioningly following accepted beliefs.

I also think he'd be very pissed off if he thought people were unquestioningly following the things he said.

Wow, this article teaches me nothing at all about the man's life. Talk about needing serious work!

It's not supposed to, this is just for his Quotes, the proper one is on the real wikipedia 124.157.91.91 22:31, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Umm not sure how to do this.... don't want to step on anyone's toes here... I just want to comment on the comment that the Jesus comments are a bit much. Perhaps so. But then, maybe comparing Jesus with God might be a bit much too. Or even thinking there might be a God in the first place?

I think talking to Bill; listening to Bill; might have illuminated some folks' lives in much the same way that exposure to Jesus was said to have done. And, at least in Bill's case--because I can speak about that from experience--it wasn't that he (I'm talking about Hicks here) was some God it was just that he had some sort of sympathetic vibration with truth--that he was maybe some touchstone to a better vantage point, and that that had a profound effect on many folks. It certainly did with me. I have more thoughts on this, but I don't know the Wiki Way very well so I will stop now. Peace

RIP, Hicks
His humour sucked, but freedom of choice is a good thing to point out, and I'm especially interested in how he's understood the use of media to control the people. Here's to hoping many more in the future can learn from you, Hicks.207.210.29.71 03:27, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

His humor rocked. There is no other comedian to use that format- razor sharp beratement of accepted ideas. It would be one thing if he just poked fun at, and destroyed each subject; but he stays on subjects for up to 25 minutes, covering so many witty and sarcastic angles. He was on stage 250+ days a year. The man did not use comedy as a stepping stone to fame, but reveled in it.

Dates?
Hicks died in 1994. He hasn't produced any material since then. Why are there quotes dated 1997, 2005?
 * Those dates are when the newspapers/sources containing those quotes were released I believe. — RyanCross (talk ) 06:08, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, they are posthumously published recordings. ~ Ningauble 15:25, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * It really took 11 years for a recording of Salvation to be released, then? Somehow I don't buy it. In any case, would it not be more accurate to note the date of recording in cases such as that? You wouldn't attribute something e.g. to Hitler as "2011" upon the discovery of his real diaries or whatever... 77.102.101.220 02:06, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Date of publication is best for clear, verifiable citations to the published source. I have added annotations to help clarify the posthumously published works. ~ Ningauble 15:25, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

title: Talk:Bill Hicks