Dave Barry Quotes

During the warm season (August 8 and 9), Maine is a true vacation paradise, offering visitors a chance to jump into crystal-clear mountain lakes and see if they can get back out again before their bodily tissue is frozen as solid as a supermarket turkey.

Sign at a Tennessee highway: When this sign is under water, this road is impassable.

Never under any circumstances take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

Dogs love to go for rides. A dog will happily get into any vehicle going anywhere.

I argue very well. Just ask any of my remaining friends.

I really need to know where I'm going with fiction to write it in a way that at least I'm happy with. And I really think that a lot of fiction books end badly because terrific writers said, "I'll just figure it out" and plunge in, but have created so many problems that they are kind of impossible to solve. I mean, I'm talking really good writers do this and you can tell when they got to the end they either had to do something preposterous or they just don't really resolve things. So for fiction I spend a lot more time outlining and for humor I really don't do much of it.

Always remember that if editors were so damned smart, they would know how to dress.

I think I became funny because I grew up in the Bronx. I was small and weak and Jewish instead of large and fierce and Puerto Rican. You need something.

Although it was constructed in 1536, the New York subway system boasts an annual maintenance budget of nearly $8, currently stolen, and it does a remarkable job of getting New Yorkers from Point A to an indeterminate location somewhere in the tunnel leading to point B.

And so by the fifteenth century, on October 8, the Europeans were looking for a new place to try to get to, and they came up with a new concept: the West.

Editorials are written by people who have agreed to have several strong opinions a day and to write them down, provided they do not have to sign their names.

If you asked me to name the three scariest threats facing the human race, I would give the same answer that most people would: nuclear war, global warming and Windows.

I was reading this James Bond book, and right away I realized that, like most books, it had too many words.

Black Stache had no love for the Queen, no love for women of any sort, except for his ma. He had a real soft spot for his ma, and was truly sorry for the time he’d marooned her.

Have you noticed that whatever sport you're trying to learn, some earnest person is always telling you to keep your knees bent?

Albert Einstein, who discovered that a tiny amount of mass is equal to a huge amount of energy, which explains why, as Einstein himself so eloquently put it in a famous 1939 speech to the Physics Department at Princeton, 'You have to exercise for a week to work off the thigh fat from a single Snickers.'

As a professional journalist, I am always looking for new ways to get paid for being motionless.

I never stop running. I'm not one of the weenies who drop out just because the electoral college votes. I'm still in the race. I'm an extremely corrupt candidate and I stress that in case anybody in our reading audience is interested in sending me money.

There are no bad haircuts in cyberspace.

Your digestive system is your body's Fun House, whereby food goes on a long, dark, scary ride, taking all kinds of unexpected twists and turns, being attacked by vicious secretions along the way, and not knowing until the last minute whether it will be turned into a useful body part or ejected into the Dark Hole by Mister Sphincter.

Your hand and your mouth agreed many years ago that, as far as chocolate is concerned, there is no need to involve your brain.

The average tax payer is not a big voluntary supporter of the arts. The only art that the average taxpayer buys voluntarily either has a picture of Bart Simpson on it or little suction cups on its feet so you can stick it onto a car window.

Thus the metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count the increasing popularity of the nine-millimeter bullet.

The issue we are reluctant to talk about is even more sensitive than condoms. The issue - and I will try to be tasteful here - is that sometimes it seems like maybe the president of the United States is kind of dumb. If you get what I mean. What I mean is, I am not totally confident that the president would get what I mean, unless several aides explained it to him. And even then, he might forget.

Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take their shirts off during games in Chicago in January, only more intelligent.

...Terry Jackson, who is the Miami Herald's automotive writer and TV critic. That's correct: This man gets paid to drive new cars AND watch television. If he ever dies and goes to heaven, it's going to be a big let down.

I believe that we parents must encourage our children to become educated, so they can get into a good college that we cannot afford.

I have always dressed according to certain Basic Guy Fashion Rules,including: Both of your socks should always be the same color, Or they should at least both be fairly dark.

But if I hadn't shoved you off the boat back there,you'd be lost at sea now,wouldn't you? We'd all be lost! So thanks to me you're all standing on land." (Pirates, its a good thing they're idiots)

Mousse was a Labrador retriever, which is a large enthusiastic bulletproof species of dog made entirely from synthetic materials. This is the kind of dog that, if it takes an interest in your personal regions (which of course it does) you cannot fend it off with a blowtorch.

Men have no cause to criticize women about the way they are about weddings. Because men are like that about sports, but it never ends. At least women, after the wedding, say it wasn't that big a deal and they're never going to look at the DVD again. Men never stop being crazy about sports.

Because of some defect in my motor skill, I can never COMPLETELY wrap [gifts]....If I had been an ancient Egyptian in the field of mummies, the lower half of the Pharaoh's body would be covered only by scotch tape.

Mother Nature clearly intended for us to get our food from the "patty" group, which includes hamburgers, fish sticks, and McNuggets- foods that have had all of their organs safely removed.

Think, for a moment, of the countless happy childhood hours you spent with this amazing device: Drawing perfect horizontals, drawing perfect verticals, drawing really spastic diagonals, trying to scrape away the silver powder from the window so you could look inside.

The Japanese tend to communicate via nuance and euphemism, often leaving important things unsaid; whereas Americans tend to think they're being subtle when they refrain from grabbing the listener by the shirt.

I'm a big believer in anesthesia. I think it should be used for every medical procedure, indlucing routine physicals.

I walked out of the movie "Lincoln" and bought the book [of Doris Kearns Goodwin] at the bookstore next door.

It's income tax time again, Americans: time to gather up those receipts, get out those tax forms, sharpen up that pencil, and stab yourself in the aorta

Eating rice cakes is like chewing on a foam coffee cup, only less filling.

There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age 11.

Most American homes have alternating current, which means that the electricty goes in one direction for a while, then goes in the other direction. This prevents harmful electron buildup in the wires.

In 1765, Parliament passed the Stamp Act, which, as any American high school student can tell you, was an act that apparently had something to do with stamps.

Dear Hotel People: We don't need a cheeseball clock-radio. WE NEED PLACES TO PLUG STUFF IN. Thank you.

I read the whole Jack Reacher series by Lee Child. They don't take long.

The Republicans have a high Beady-Eyed Self-Righteous Scary Borderline Loon Quotient, as evidenced by Phyllis Schlafly, Pat Robertson, the entire state of Utah, etc.

France: As a professional journalist, I like the idea of a society where it is considered an acceptable occupation to basically sit around and drink.

The question is, why are politicians so eager to be president? What is it about the job that makes it worth revealing, on national television, that you have the ethical standards of a slime-coated piece of industrial waste?

I think Twitter is kind of fun, it's not deep and it never will be, but it's a great way to communicate one-liners and to sort of see what people are laughing about. It's a terrific source of misinformation.