Dave Barry Quotes

He could even think about how fast he was thinking about things.

When to arrive at the airport?: You should be at the airport already.

For me, the worst part of playing golf, by far, has always been hitting the ball.

If you have ever seen the movie Night of the Living Dead, you have a rough idea how modern corporations and organizations operate, with projects and proposals that everybody thought were killed constantly rising from their graves to stagger back into meetings and eat the brains of the living.

Technically, Windows is an "operating system," which means that it supplies your computer with the basic commands that it needs to suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, stop operating.

There is a breed of fashion models who weigh no more than an abridged dictionary.

Every year I write a tax advice column and I used to always make fun of that. One year, one of my favorite IRS commissioners, I think his name was Roscoe somebody, wrote that one of the most often-asked questions by taxpayers was, "How can I contribute more?" Well, I tell ya, ol' Roscoe's really been doing situps under parked cars again. I've heard a lot of people ask a lot of questions about taxes, but I never heard anybody say, "How can I, the ordinary person, send more money for no reason?"

I am not the only person who uses his computer mainly for the purpose of diddling with his computer.

Like all writers, my greatest inspiration, my ultimate muse, is a deadline.

We are talking about mutated women, the result of cruel genetic experiments performed by fashion designers so lacking in any sense of human decency that they think nothing of putting their initials on your eyeglass lenses. The leading cause of death among fashion models is falling through street grates. If a normal woman puts on clothing designed for these unfortunate people, she is quite naturally going to look like Revenge of the Pork Person.

Camping is nature's way of promoting the motel business.

The books all say that barracuda rarely eat people, but very few barracuda can read.

I’ve noticed that one thing about parents is that no matter what stage your child is in, the parents who have older children always tell you the next stage is worse.

Why don’t you lift the end?” said Alf. “It’s me back, Alf,” complained Mack. “You know how it troubles me.” “No more than mine troubles me,” said Alf. “But I said it first,” said Mack.

Scientists tell us that the fastest animal in the world, with a speed of 120 mph, is a cow dropped out of a helicopter.

The Democrats seem to be basically nicer people, but they have demonstrated time and again that they have the management skills of celery. They're the kind of people who'd stop to help you change a flat, but would somehow manage to set your car on fire. I would be reluctant to entrust them with a Cuisinart, let alone the economy. The Republicans, on the other hand, would know how to fix your tire, but they wouldn't bother to stop because they'd want to be on time for Ugly Pants Night at the country club

What I think is that the F-word is basically just a convenient nasty-sounding word that we tend to use when we would really like to come up with a terrific-ally witty insult, the kind Winston Churchill always came up with when enormous women asked him stupid questions at parties.

Today's beauty ideal, strictly enforced by the media, is a person with the same level of body fat as a paper clip.

It is a well-documented fact that guys will not ask for directions. This is a biological thing. This is why it takes several million sperm cells... to locate a female egg, despite the fact that the egg is, relative to them, the size of Wisconsin.

Turbulence.” This is what pilots announce that you have encountered when your plane strikes an object in midair. You'll be flying along, and there will be an enormous, shuddering WHUMP, and clearly the plane has rammed into an airborne object at least the size of a water buffalo, and the pilot will say, “Folks, we're encountering a little turbulence.” Meanwhile they are up there in the cockpit trying desperately to clean water-buffalo organs off the windshield.

You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.

We have been flooded with postal cards from all over the United States and several parallel universes. Just a quick glance though these cards is enough to remind you why this great nation, despite all the talk of decline, still leads the world in tranquilizer consumption.

I would not know how I am supposed to feel about many stories if not for the fact that the TV news personalities make sad faces for sad stories and happy faces for happy stories.

Unless you live in Indonesia, there should be several malls within five miles of your home. It makes no difference whatsoever which one you go to: Under federal law, all malls in the United States must have the same 42 chain stores.

The thing I have learned, especially in the Internet age, probably the easiest thing in the world is to declare that something is not funny. I mean it's not actually humor to say something is not funny, but it is viewed by a lot of people - and by that I mean mainly snarky young Internet men - as a kind of humor in and of itself is putting down other people's efforts at humor. And I don't care that much anymore about that because I know how easy that is to do.

Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer.

Without good grammar, the United States would have lost World War II.

When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that individual is crazy.

The major parties could conduct live human sacrifices on their podiums during prime time, and I doubt that anybody would notice.

I say we scrap the current system and replace it with a system wherein you add your name to the bottom of a list, and then you send some money to the person at the top of the list, and then you... Oh, wait, that is our current system.

Take out the fortune before you eat the cookie.

Never try to put all the chemicals in the entire world in your body at the same time.

She goes to Frederick's of Hollywood at the mall and purchases an explicit lingerie outfit so sheer that you could read an appliance warranty through it in an unlit closet.

I played lead guitar in a band called The Federal Duck, which is the kind of name that was popular in the '60s as a result of controlled substances being in widespread use. Back then, there were no restrictions, in terms of talent, on who could make an album, so we made one, and it sounds like a group of people who have been given powerful but unfamiliar instruments as a therapy for a degenerative nerve disease.

Don't emphasise money if you don't have much; be happy

The beer sold here in the United States is sweet and watery and lacking in taste and overcarbonated and just generally the lamest, wimpiest beer in the entire known world. All the other nations are drinking Ray Charles beer, and we are drinking Barry Manilow.

Epcot Center also features pavilions built by various foreign nations, where you can experience an extremely realistic simulation of what life in these nations would be like if they consisted almost entirely of restaurants and souvenir stores.

I have read that, on the average, the Japanese are getting taller, but at the moment they seem to be about the same height as American junior-high-school students, only with fewer guns.

Before going on a diet you should consult your doctor, or at least send him some money.

A hundred years ago, it could take you the better part of a year to get from New York to California; whereas today, because of equipment problems at O'Hare, you can't get there at all.

Line printer paper is strongest at the perforations.

And what is the Scientific Community doing about these problems, young people? THEY'RE CLONING SHEEP. Great! Just what we need! Sheep that look MORE ALIKE than they already do! Thanks a lot, Scientific Community!

The United States tried, by depressing the clutch of diplomacy and downshifting the gearshift lever of rhetoric, to remain neutral, but it became increasingly obvious that the nation was going to get into a war, especially since it was almost 1812.

The term SAT is a set of initials, or autonym, standing for Scholastic Attitude Treaty Organization.

In South Florida, we have industrial cockroaches that have to be equipped with loud warning beepers so you can get out of their way when they back up.

For 41 years I have gone with a very natural hair "look" that was originally popularized by coconuts.

The Internet is a giant international network of intelligent, informed computer enthusiasts, by which I mean, "people without lives." We don't care. We have each other.

I've been to Washington many times over the years for stories, and it always seems remarkably the same. More the same than the rest of the country. It's almost like they dress the same as they did 20 years ago. The same old guys are sitting outside the same dirty, dingy secret offices in the Capitol that you're not allowed to go in.