Dave Barry Quotes

Many people have trouble sticking to their resolutions, and there is a simple scientific explanation for this. In 1987, a team of psychologists conducted a study in which they monitored the New Year's resolutions of 275 people. After one week the psychologists found that 92 percent of the people were keeping their resolutions; after two weeks we have no idea what happened because the psychologists had quit monitoring.

All the shopping malls and restaurants and airports are riddled with low-fidelity loudspeakers, which apparently have developed the ability to reproduce by themselves; these are all connected to a special programming service called Music That Nobody Really Likes, and you cannot get away from it.

My therapist told me the way to achieve true inner peace is to finish what I start. So far today, I have finished 2 bags of M&M's and a chocolate cake. I feel better already.

You know how on the evening news they always tell you that the stock market is up in active trading, or off in moderate trading, or trading in mixed activity, or whatever. Well, who gives a

The information encoded in your DNA determines your unique biological characteristics, such as sex, eye color, age and Social Security number.

In more than 20 years of opening beers with guys, I have NEVER seen the Swedish Bikini Team show up. Almost always, the teams that show up in beer drinking situations consist of guys who have been playing league softball and smell like bus seats.

I don't think the press has done a very good job dealing with government spending.The Defense Department with the $9,500 toilet seat, that's not the problem anymore. Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security are the problem. That's us. That's our generation. There the press never says a word.

When I say "dogs", I'm talking about dogs, which are large, bounding, salivating animals, usually with bad breath. I am not talking about those little squeaky things you can hold on your lap and carry around. Zoologically speaking, these are not dogs at all; they are members of the pillow family.

Today, you're 50. Now we can round your age up to 100! Happy 50th birthday!

Land!” shouted Thomas. “Is there food?” asked Tubby Ted.

The bad news was that the yard contained a dog. A very, very large dog, wide and hairy, like a cross between a rottweiler and a Goodyear blimp.

Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.

They have a lot of trouble with pronunciation, because they can't move their jaw muscles, because of malnutrition caused by wisely refusing to eat English food, much of which was designed and manufactured in medieval times during the reign of King Walter the Mildly Disturbed.

The French are not rude. They just happen to hate you. But that is no reason to bypass this beautiful country, whose master chefs have a well-deserved worldwide reputation for trying to trick people into eating snails. Nobody is sure how this got started. Probably a couple of French master chefs were standing around one day, and they found a snail, and one of them said: 'I bet that if we called this something like `escargot,' tourists would eat it.' Then they had hearty laugh, because 'escargot' is the French word for 'fat crawling bag of phlegm.'

I tried sniffing Coke once, but the ice cubes got stuck in my nose.

Avoid the traffic by using one of the park's shuttle buses and view the elk rut with a park ranger.

Infiniti ads are part of an exciting new trend called "Advertising Whose Sole Purpose Is to Irritate You."

I hate to speak for the whole society, but I will. I'm a journalist, it's my job. There's been something of a reaction against political correctness. Needless to say, the government hasn't caught up yet.

I find myself having these conversations where I go...You know, the guy, in that place. The guy in the place with the thing, you know. And it becomes this game of charades. And then finally, we realize that I mean the Pope.

Nature is located mainly in national parks, which are vast tracts of wilderness that have been set aside by the United States government so citizens will always have someplace to go where they can be attacked by bears. And we're not talking about ordinary civilian bears, either: We're talking about federal bears, which can behave however they want to because they are protected by the same union as postal clerks.

But from the perspective of the aging parent, there is no major difference between four and fifteen, except that when your child is four, his motoring privileges are restricted to little toy Fisher-Price vehicles which are unlikely (although I would not totally rule it out in America) to sue you.

With a novel, you have to have a story. It's much more important to have it matter to the reader what happens to people, and it has to make sense and end in a way that is satisfying. So I spend a lot more time thinking about that. Then the writing itself usually is easier for me, because I know where it's going.

I believe many Harley guys spend more time revving their engines than actually driving anywhere; I sometimes wonder why they bother to have wheels on their motorcycles.

Most recently I read Michael Lewis "Boomerang." The other guy I love is Bill Bryson.

What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth ? Judging from realistic simulations involving a sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we can assume it will be pretty bad.

My problem with chess was that all my pieces wanted to end the game as soon as possible.

Print neatly. That's the kind of advice that the IRS considers a "dynamite" tax tip. If you ask them a real tax question, such as how you can cheat, they're useless.

The leading cause of death among fashion models is falling through street grates.

Too many rocks in the mountains.

I don't know what you can possibly do for less than $50 to have somebody come in your house.

Remember: What dad really wants is a nap. Really.

I'm one of those people who tells my wife, "No coaching from the sidelines."

European toilet paper is made from the same material that Americans use for roofing, which is why Europeans tend to remain standing throughout soccer matches.

Teenagers are bored. By everything. Show a teenager an actual volcanic eruption, in progress, featuring giant billowing clouds of smoke, hot rocks raining from the sky, lava floes destroying entire villages, etc., and the teenager, eyebrows arched with sarcasm, will look at you and say, "Gee, this is swell," then return to the rental car, turn on his portable CD player, and listen to a band called Stomach Contents.

Like many members of the uncultured, Cheez-It consuming public, I am not good at grasping modern art.

Alan Zweibel is the funniest writer in the world. He might be even funnier when he's naked, but I'm afraid to find out.

I guess libertarianism is always considered so weird and fringe that people assume that you're in the closet if you don't go around talking about it.

A gene can be either dominant or recessive, depending on which type of gene it is.

I don't like anything unsigned in a newspaper that purports to be the opinion of some group if we don't know who the group is. It's laughable to say that The Miami Herald's editorials or any newspaper's editorials represent any views other than those of the people writing them, so why don't we tell everybody who they are?

Several months ago, out of the blue, a company named "Cingular" started sending me bills. I had never heard of Cingular, and I honestly did not know what these bills were for, so I put them in the pile where I keep documents that I intend to scrutinize more carefully later on, after my death. Then I started seeing TV commercials for Cingular, but of course they did not make it clear what Cingular is, because the First Rule of Modern Advertising is: "Never reveal what you are advertising."

Magnetism is one of the Six Fundamental Forces of the Universe, with the other five being Gravity, Duct Tape, Whining, Remote Control, and The Force That Pulls Dogs Toward The Groins Of Strangers.

The voice belonged to Mr. Pzyrbovich, an algebra teacher who was always called Mr. P, for obvious reasons. He has a heavy accent, which a lot of kids said made him hard to understand, although to be fair some of these kids would have never understood algebra anyway.

You should not confuse your career with your life.

We operate under a jury system in this country, and as much as we complain about it, we have to admit that we know of no better system, except possibly flipping a coin.

Beneath their surface differences, there are a lot of deep, underlying differences.

Long, long ago, before eruptions were invented, the molten lava had to be carried down the mountainside, bucket by bucket, and poured over the sleeping villagers. This took time.

You can't have a bad time at Disney World. It's not allowed. They have hidden electronic surveillance cameras everywhere, and if they catch you failing to laugh with childlike wonder, they lock you inside a costume representing a beloved Disney character such as Goofy and make you walk about in the Florida heat getting grabbed and leaped on by violently excited children until you have learned your lesson.

I got a lot of mail from organizations concerned with bike safety. Then I got a couple from people who wanted my support for mandatory helmet laws. I can't support that. If you pass a law like that you'll do more harm than good, because you'll make people think they've done something about the problem when they haven't.