Quotes by Dave Barry

• The four building blocks of the universe are fire, water, gravel and vinyl.
• The problem with winter sports is that - follow me closely here - they generally take place in winter.
• The only kind of seafood I trust is the fish stick, a totally featureless fish that doesn't have eyeballs or fins.
• The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion or ethnic background, is that we all believe we are above-average drivers.
• The nuclear generator of brain sludge is television.
• The leading cause of death among fashion models is falling through street grates.
• The Internet: transforming society and shaping the future through chat.
• The Internet is the most important single development in the history of human communication since the invention of call waiting.
• 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.
• People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
• Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his choice.
• The Democrats seem to be basically nicer people, but they have demonstrated time and again that they have the management skills of celery.
• Snowboarding is an activity that is very popular with people who do not feel that regular skiing is lethal enough.
• Skiing combines outdoor fun with knocking down trees with your face.
• Skiers view snowboarders as a menace; snowboarders view skiers as Elmer Fudd.
• Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take their shirts off during games in Chicago in January, only more intelligent.
• We believe that electricity exists, because the electric company keeps sending us bills for it, but we cannot figure out how it travels inside wires.
• The information encoded in your DNA determines your unique biological characteristics, such as sex, eye color, age and Social Security number.
• Violence and smut are of course everywhere on the airwaves. You cannot turn on your television without seeing them, although sometimes you have to hunt around.
• Eating rice cakes is like chewing on a foam coffee cup, only less filling.
• Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.
• Your modern teenager is not about to listen to advice from an old person, defined as a person who remembers when there was no Velcro.
• You can only be young once. But you can always be immature.
• What may seem depressing or even tragic to one person may seem like an absolute scream to another person, especially if he has had between four and seven beers.
• What I look forward to is continued immaturity followed by death.
• We'll try to cooperate fully with the IRS, because, as citizens, we feel a strong patriotic duty not to go to jail.
• 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.
• We idolized the Beatles, except for those of us who idolized the Rolling Stones, who in those days still had many of their original teeth.
• The real threat to whales is whaling, which has endangered many whale species.
• To an adolescent, there is nothing in the world more embarrassing than a parent.
• Thus the metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count the increasing popularity of the nine-millimeter bullet.
• The world is full of strange phenomena that cannot be explained by the laws of logic or science. Dennis Rodman is only one example.
• The word user is the word used by the computer professional when they mean idiot.
• The ultimate camping trip was the Lewis and Clark expedition.
• The Sixties are now considered a historical period, just like the Roman Empire.
• We journalists make it a point to know very little about an extremely wide variety of topics; this is how we stay objective.
• Dogs feel very strongly that they should always go with you in the car, in case the need should arise for them to bark violently at nothing right in your ear.
• Hobbies of any kind are boring except to people who have the same hobby. This is also true of religion, although you will not find me saying so in print.
• Gravity is a contributing factor in nearly 73 percent of all accidents involving falling objects.
• 'Escargot' is French for 'fat crawling bag of phlegm'.
• For me, the worst part of playing golf, by far, has always been hitting the ball.
• Newspaper readership is declining like crazy. In fact, there's a good chance that nobody is reading my column.
• I am not the only person who uses his computer mainly for the purpose of diddling with his computer.
• Don't you wish you had a job like mine? All you have to do is think up a certain number of words! Plus, you can repeat words! And they don't even have to be true!
• Geographically, Ireland is a medium-sized rural island that is slowly but steadily being consumed by sheep.
• Camping is nature's way of promoting the motel business.
• Bill Gates is a very rich man today... and do you want to know why? The answer is one word: versions.
• Big business never pays a nickel in taxes, according to Ralph Nader, who represents a big consumer organization that never pays a nickel in taxes.
• Auto racing is boring except when a car is going at least 172 miles per hour upside down.
• As a child, I was more afraid of tetanus shots than, for example, Dracula.
• 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.
• American consumers have no problem with carcinogens, but they will not purchase any product, including floor wax, that has fat in it.
• Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing.
• Eugene is located in western Oregon, approximately 278 billion miles from anything.
• It was Public Art, defined as art that is purchased by experts who are not spending their own personal money.
• Never under any circumstances take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
• Never assume that the guy understands that you and he have a relationship.
• My problem with chess was that all my pieces wanted to end the game as soon as possible.
• Fishing is boring, unless you catch an actual fish, and then it is disgusting.
• Life is anything that dies when you stomp on it.
• I believe that we parents must encourage our children to become educated, so they can get into a good college that we cannot afford.
• 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.
• It is a scientific fact that your body will not absorb cholesterol if you take it from another person's plate.
• It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent.
• In fact, when you get right down to it, almost every explanation Man came up with for anything until about 1926 was stupid.
• I have been a gigantic Rolling Stones fan since approximately the Spanish-American War.
• If you were to open up a baby's head - and I am not for a moment suggesting that you should - you would find nothing but an enormous drool gland.
• Magnetism, as you recall from physics class, is a powerful force that causes certain items to be attracted to refrigerators.
• If you have a big enough dictionary, just about everything is a word.
• If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be 'meetings.'
• If God had wanted us to be concerned for the plight of the toads, he would have made them cute and furry.
• 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.
• I realize that I'm generalizing here, but as is often the case when I generalize, I don't care.
• 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.
• Life is like a sandwich—regardless of how you make it, the bread comes first.
• Yesterday, I gave up booze for a month. Best month of my life. It was August!
• Life's like a taxi. The meter just keeps running whether you're on the road or parked in a traffic jam.
• Sleep is like a time machine to breakfast.
• Success is like a fart; it only बढ़ matters if you clear the air first!
• Success is like deodorant; those who need it most never apply it.
• Success is like a fart; it only matters to you, and everyone else has their own smells to deal with.