1,000,001 Things I Wish I Had Said First



A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z



TANSTAAFL--There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

          Robert Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress


Take care to get what you like, or you will be forced to like what you get.

          George Bernard Shaw


Take from me the hope that I can change the future and you will send me mad.

          Israel Zangwill


Take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then say it with the utmost levity.

          George Bernard Shaw


Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.

          Andrew Jackson


Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.

          Erica Jong


Talk not of wasted affection; affection never was wasted.

          Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.

          Albert Einstein


Television--a medium. So called because it is neither rare nor well-done.

          Ernie Kovacs


Tell the truth and run.

          Yugoslav proverb


Tenses, Gender, and Number: For the purpose of the rules and regulations contained in this chapter, the present tense includes the past and future tenses, and the future, the present; the masculine gender includes the feminine, and the feminine, the masculine, and the singular includes the plural, and the plural the singular.

          revised (1973) state code for the 
          Department of Consumer Affairs, California


Texas Federal has established a policy to consider a robbery of an ATM to be an authorized transaction.

          Texas Federal Savings bank


That is, because of, because of our, that is, we are attempting, the position is to withhold information and to cover up--that is totally true--you could say it is totally untrue.

          President Richard Nixon, from 1973 White House transcripts,
          discussing whether or not to hide evidence concerning the
          Watergate break-in


That life is worth living is the most necessary of assumptions, and were it not assumed, the most impossible of conclusions.

          George Santayana


That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.

          Henry David Thoreau


That which is not just is not law.

          William Lloyd Garrison


That's twice now he has got between himself and the goal.

          Brian Marwood


The ability to quote is a servicable substitute for wit.

          Maugham


The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.

          Henry Kissinger


The alphabet will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls. They will trust the written characters and not remember themselves.

          Socrates


The art of acting consists of keeping people from coughing.

          Sir Ralph Richardson


The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.

          Voltaire


The ballparks have gotten too crowded. That's why nobody goes to see the game anymore.

          Yogi Berra


The Baltimore Colts are a bright young team. It seems as if they have their future ahead of them.

          Curt Gowdy


The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep.

          attributed to S. I. Hayakawa


The best way out is always through.

          Robert Frost


The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.

          Linus Pauling


The best way to pass a cow on the road when cycling is to keep behind it.

          R.J. Mecredy


The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.

          Robert Frost


The cap, which is patented by the Rubik's Cube company, cannot be removed unless you line an invisible arrow up with an invisible dot while rotating the cap counterclockwise and simultaneously pushing down and pulling up.

          Dave Barry


The church is near, but the way is icy. The tavern is far, but I will walk carefully.

          Ukranian proverb


The coward regards himself as cautious; the miser, as thrifty.

          Publilius Syrus


The cup of our trouble is running over, but, alas, is not yet full.

          Sir Boyle Roche


The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.

          Thomas Jefferson


The [deleted] is a key element of the Worldwide Military Command and Control System (WWMCCS) warning network.... [Deleted] currently consists of [deleted] satellite; two [deleted] satellites; an [deleted] for [deleted] and the [deleted] satellite; and a [deleted] which provides [deleted] for the [deleted].... Using these data, [deleted] can be inferred.

          arms control impact statement from the Pentagon


The despot, be assured, lives night and day like one condemned to death by the whole of mankind for his wickedness.

          Xenophon


The Difficult is that which can be done immediately; the Impossible is that which takes a little longer.

          George Santayana


The doctors X-rayed my head and found nothing.

          Dizzy Dean


The dogs bark, but the caravan passes.

          Near East proverb


The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they're going to be when you kill them.

          William Clayton


The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.

          Albert Einstein


The evening will conclude with a toast to the incoming president in champagne kindly supplied by the outgoing president, drunk as usual at midnight.

          brochure for a club's annual dinner


The fact that my father was President and Chief Justice of the United States was a tremendous help and inspiration in my public career.

          Robert Taft


The female teachers were instructed in cooking. They had, in fact, to go through the process of cooking themselves in turn.

          Annual report of the Commissioners of
          National Education in Ireland


The fewer the facts, the stronger the opinion.

          Arnold H. Glascow


The fickleness of the women I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of women who love me.

          George Bernard Shaw


The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.

          Abbie Hoffman


The first food was canned in 1812.
The first can opener was invented in 1885.

          Life Magazine, Fall '97, 100 significant things this 
          millennium, #43.


The fixity of a habit is generally in direct proportion to its absurdity.

          Proust


The flush toilet is the basis of western civilization.

          Alan Coult


The future, according to some scientists, will be exactly like the past, only more expensive.

          John Sladek


The future belongs to those who dare.

          anonymous


The good Lord made us with two ends--one to sit on and one to think with. How well you succeed in life depends on which one you use.

          Isaac Dworetsky


The good Lord set definite limits on man's wisdom, but set no limits on his stupidity--and that's just not fair!

          Konrad Adenauer


The great artist is the simplifier.

          Henri Frédéric Amiel


The great thing about multitasking is that several things can go wrong at once.

          Andrew B. Sweger


The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.

          Epicurus


The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.

          William James


. . . the health of Mr. Parnell has lately taken a very serious turn, and fears of his recovery are entertained by his friends.

          from a Dublin newspaper, 1890


The heart has its prisons that intelligence cannot unlock.

          Marcel Jouhandeau


The highest happiness of man is to have probed what is knowable and quietly to revere what is unknowable.

          unknown


. . . the important thing is: if you fail once, or if your luck is bad this time, the dream is still there. A dream is only over if you give it up--or if it comes true.

          Neil Peart


The infiltration group was composed of 1/3 males, 1/3 females, and 1/3 party officials.

          American military intelligence document


The Internet is a great way to get on the net.

          Bob Dole


The journey of a thousand leagues begins from beneath your feet.

          Lao Tzu


The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg--not by smashing it.

	  Arnold Glaskow


The Kingdom of Heaven is not a place, but a state of mind.

          John Burroughs


The ladder of life is full of splinters, but they always prick hardest when you're sliding down.

          William Brownell


The last thing one discovers in writing a book is what to put first.

          Blaise Pascal


The longing for certainty and repose is in every human mind. But certainty is generally illusion and repose is not the destiny of man.

          Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.


The loss of life will be irreplaceable.

          Dan Quayle


The man who has nothing to boast of but his ancestry is like a potato. The only good belonging to him is underground.

          Sir Thomas Overbury


The meek shall inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights.

          J. Paul Getty


The meek shall inherit the earth . . . the rest of us are going to the stars.

          anonymous


The middle class is always a firm champion of equality when it concerns a class above it; but it is its inveterate foe when it concerns elevating a class below it.

          Orestes A. Brownson


The Minutemen are not tall in terms of height.

          Dan Bonner


The mistake you make is in trying to figure it out.

          Tennessee Williams


The most popular labor-saving device is still money.

          Phillis George


The National Museum of Photography, Film and Television is tremendously important, both in photography, television and film.

          Sir Richard Attenborough


The Net--a pretty okay substitute for a life.

          unknown


The New York Rangers and their snide little coach, Colin Campbell, say they have discovered that Eric Lindros is a mean player. Well, yes, and perhaps any day now they will also discover that water is wet, fire burns, and the sun has a curious habit of rising in the east.

          Bill Lyon, Philadelphia Inquirer


The next time I send a dope, I'll go myself.

          Michael Curtiz


The Observer wishes to apologize for a typesetting error in our Tots and Toddlers advertising feature last week which led to Binswood Nursery School being described as serving "children casserole" instead of chicken casserole.

          the Lexington Spa Observer


The odds that we won't win a game this season are 999 out of a hundred.

          high school football coach


The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.

          H. L. Mencken


The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

          traditional


The only luxury is freedom, freedom of the mind. They can chop off my head and take everything else as long as they leave me that.

          Dieter Meier


The only place you find free cheese is in a mousetrap.

          Russian proverb


The only things we can't weld are the crack of dawn and a broken heart.

          door of a Navy ship's welding shop


The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.

          Niels Bohr


The other night, I was lying in bed, looking up at the stars, and I wondered, "Where the hell is my roof!"

          anonymous


The people here [in Nicaragua] are amazingly friendly, when you figure we're here to overthrow their government.

          Richard Melton


The Pledge of Allegiance says Liberty and Justice for All. Which part of "All" don't you understand?

          Pat Schroeder


The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

          George Bernard Shaw


The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.

          Theodore Rubin


The pyramids will not last a moment compared with the daisy.

          D. H. Laurence


The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.

          Thomas Paine


The reason people blame things on previous generations is that there is only one other choice.

          Doug Larson


The right honorable gentleman has gone to the top of the tree and caught a very big fish.

          Sir W. Hart Dyke


The road to wisdom?--Well it's plain and simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again
but less
and less
and less.

          Piet Hein, "The Road to Wisdom," Grooks (1966)


The scientist is a lover of truth for the very love of truth itself, wherever it may lead.

          Luther Burbank


The shortest distance between two points is under construction.

          Noelie Altito


The show-off is always shown up in a showdown.

          Fortune cookie


The smallest fact is a window through which the infinite may be seen.

          Aldous Huxley


The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

          Thomas Jefferson


The spontaneous rally will begin at 1:45.

          Mike Murphy


The sun and the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago . . . had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands.

          Havelock Ellis


The surest way to make a monkey out of a man is to quote him.

          Robert Benchly


The system of slavery is like holding a wolf by its ears: you don't like it, but you don't dare let go.

          Thomas Jefferson


The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.

          Lao-Tzu


The telephone company is urging people to please not use the telephone unless it is absolutely necessary in order to keep the lines open for emergency personnel. We'll be right back after this break to give away a pair of Phil Collins concert tickets to caller number ninety-five.

          Los Angeles radio DJ


The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots.

          Thomas Jefferson


The trouble with born-again Christians is that they are an even bigger pain the second time around.

          Herb Caen


The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.

          Paul Valéry


The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.

          Lily Tomlin


The two most important tools an architect has are the eraser in the drawing room and the sledge hammer on the construction site.

          Frank Lloyd Wright


The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

          Martin Luther King, Jr.


The United States has much to offer the third world war.

          Ronald Reagan, who repeated this error nine times


The United States Navy will not be caught napping.

          some admiral


The universe is looking less and less like a great machine and more and more like a great thought.

          Ortega y Gasset


The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

          Charles Darwin


The unnatural, that too is natural.

          Johann von Göthe


[The U.S. Navy urgently] needs modern musicians.

          Michael Dukakis


The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain.

          Ralph Waldo Emerson


The video-game phenomenon called Doom has given us sore wrists, shattered careers, and more hours of video violence than a thousand John Woo films.

          Noah Green, Premier Magazine


[The waiter] brings around these dead animals and shows them to you, which one do you want? And how do you want it further desecrated by fire?

          Andy Jacobs


The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.

          Dolly Parton


The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.

          Albert Einstein, Physics and Reality


The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.

          Bertrand Russell


The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that operates with perfect equality.

          Andrew Jackson


The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotations.

          Disraeli


The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.

          Omar N. Bradley


The world holds two classes of men--intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence.

          Abu'l-Ala-Al-Ma'arri


The world is a very strange place, and the dice are always rolling.

          Can o'Beans


The world stands aside to let anyone pass who knows where he is going.

          David Starr Jordan


Then you add two forkfuls of cooking oil . . .

          directions given on The French Chef


There are also a lot of nice buildings in Haiphong. What their contributions are to the war effort I don't know, but the desire to bomb a virgin building is terrific.

          Commander Henry Urban, Jr.


There are four kinds of homocide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.

          Ambrose Bierce


There are instances where it is in the best interests of the nation not to vote the will of the people.

          Thomas O'Neill, Jr.


There are no rules for great souls: rules are only for people who have merely the talent that can be acquired.

          Delacroix


There are things known and things unknown, and between those are the doors.

          Aldous Huxley


There are thirty-thousand words in the English language. We can beat around the bush all day.

          Steve Sorkin


There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

          Henry David Thoreau


There are trivial truths and the great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true.

          Niels Bohr


There are two dilemmas that rattle the human skull: How do you hang on to someone who won't stay? And how do you get ride of someone who won't go?

          Danny DeVito, The War of the Roses


There are two major products to come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence.

          Anonymous


There are two types of people--those who come into a room and say, "Well, here I am!" and those who come in and say, "Ah, there you are."

          Frederick L. Collins


There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking.

          Alfred Korzybski


There has been no exclusion. We have simply excluded all the women.

          Nicolas Romanoff


There have been a plethora of guys to hit it up there, but that was the plethorest.

          Chuck Pool


There is a First Amendment right to speak in an encrypted way . . . The right to speak P.G.P. is like the right to speak Navajo. The Government has no particular right to prevent you from speaking in a technical manner even if it is inconvenient for them to understand.

          Eben Moglen


There is no difference between someone who eats too little and sees Heaven and someone who drinks too much and sees snakes.

          Bertrand Russell


There is no great genius without some touch of madness.

          Seneca


There is no substitute for hard work.

          Thomas Alva Edison, Life


There is nothing scarier than a mediocre man with a mission.

          Joel Achenbach, The Post


There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.

          Red Smith


There is one word in America that says it all, and that one word is "You never know."

          Joaquin Andujar


There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad.

          Salvador Dali


There was never a good war or a bad peace.

          Benjamin Franklin


There will be a procession next Sunday afternoon in the grounds of the Monastery; but if it rains in the afternoon, the procession will take place in the morning.

          statement read to a church congregation


There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.

          Louis L'Amour


There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.

          Oscar Levant


There's nothing to match curling up with a good book when there's a repair job to be done around the house.

          Joe Ryan


There's plenty more fish in the sea. There's also markedly more sea than fish.

          unknown


These are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others.

          Groucho Marx


These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves.

          Gilbert Highet


They all looked back on their grammar-school days with as much disdain as university students on their high school days.

          Herman Hesse


They always bite the hand that lays the golden egg.

          Samuel Goldwyn


They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.

          Andy Warhol


They brought me up to the Brooklyn Dodgers, which at that time was in Brooklyn.

          Casey Stengel


They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist--

          John Sedgwick


They do not normally make coffee from this [radioactive] water, but yesterday one of the employees felt perhaps demineralized water makes better coffee than tap water. That's how it got utilized.

          Donald C. Cook


They drink with impunity, or anyone who invites them.

          Artemus Ward


They were singing without accompaniment. You know--acapulco.

          Gregory Ratoff


They've managed to keep their unemployment low although their overall unemployment is high.

          Bill Clinton


Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.

          Dwight Eisenhower


Things happen more frequently in the future than they do in the past.

          Booth Gardner


Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London's society is full of women who have of their free choice remained thirty-five for years.

          Oscar Wilde


This ain't no party. This ain't no disco. This ain't no foolin' around.

          David Byrne


This document did not concern you. Please erase your initials and initial your erasure.

          U.S. Army personnel department, Fort Baker


This document has a colored background . . .

          Paycheck, Norrell Services Inc.


This evening is a very different evening from the morning we had this morning.

          David Coleman


This extraordinary man left no children behind him, except his brother, who was killed at the same time.

          Biography of Robespierre


This guy is really superstitious. He doesn't even like to light cigars when he's close to a gas station.

          Radar, Brazilian soccer star


This is a delightful surprise to the extent that it is a surprise and it is only a surprise to the extent that we anticipated.

          James Baker


This is a perfect scenario. It is the first time in my life that I've seen a perfect scenario. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. I want you to have a hundred copies made so I can distribute them to all the other writers so that everybody should see a really perfect script. And hurry, before I start rewriting it.

          Samuel Goldwyn


This is no time to pull the rug out in the middle of the stream.

          Silvio Conte


This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

          Winston Churchill


This is the best biography by me I have ever read.

          Lawrence Welk


This is the greatest country in America.

          Bill Peterson


This is the true nature of home--it is the place of Peace; the shelter, not only from injury, but from all terror, doubt and division.

          John Ruskin


This is the worst disaster in California since I was elected.

          Pat Brown


This is unparalyzed in the state's history.

          Gib Lewis


This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men . . . re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem.

          Walt Whitman


This strategy represents our policy for all time. Until it's changed.

          Marlin Fitzwater


. . . this thing that we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down.

          Mary Pickford


This time next year we'll be tanned muscle-bound aikido-master genius stud philosophers.

          A.M. Heublein


This unit had an estimated strength of about 2,000 men, of which 300 were women.

          Vietnam War military intelligence document


This world is comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.

          Horace Walpole


Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.

          Edgar Allan Poe


Those who voluntarily put power into the hands of a tyrant or an enemy, must not wonder if it be at last turned against themselves.

          Aesop


Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

          Benjamin Franklin


Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.

          William Wordsworth


Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

          Benjamin Franklin


Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do.

          Thomas Aquinas


Throw a lucky man in the sea, and he will come up with a fish in his mouth.

          Arab proverb


Throwing down your sword is also an art of war. If you have attained mastery of swordlessness, you will never be without a sword. The opponent's sword is your sword.

          Yagyu Munenori, Family Traditions on the Art of War


Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.

          Groucho Marx


Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.

          Hector Berlioz


Time is money--steal some today!

          Levine & Young, Unix For Dummies


Time is what we want most, but alas, what we use worst.

          William Penn


Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.

          Frank Lloyd Wright


To be seen is the ambition of ghosts, and to be remembered is the ambition of the dead.

          Norman O. Brown


To be yourself, in a world that tries, night and day, to make you just like everybody else--is to fight the greatest battle there ever is to fight, and never stop fighting.

          e.e. cummings


To define a thing is to substitute the definition for the thing itself.

          Georges Braque


To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.

          anonymous


To gain that worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else.

          Bernadette Devlin


To generalize is to be an idiot.

          William Blake


To hell with the public! I'm here to represent the people!

          New Jersey state senator


To most Americans, the bicycle is no more than a toy. But as our city streets clog with traffic, it is worth noting that this affordable machine is still the prime source of transportation for the majority of the world's people and remains the most efficient means of self-propulsion ever invented.

          David Lamb, The Post


To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false; while to say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is true.

          Aristotle, Metaphysics

To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards out of men.

          Abraham Lincoln


To speak to a guest in another room: Please follow these instructions: 1st Floor--add 250 to the room number and dial, on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Floors--dial the number required. 5th Floor--subtract 250 from the room number and dial, e.g. to contact Room 510 dial 260 EXCEPT for Room 542 whose number is 294.

          Telephone instructions posted in the Zimbabwe Sun Hotel


Today is Father's Day, so everyone out there: Happy birthday!

          Ralph Kiner


Toes with butter and jam

          Balinese restaurant menu item


Too far East is West.

          English proverb


Too many textbooks and discussions leave students free to make up their minds about things.

          Mel Gabler


Too much of a good thing is wonderful.

          Mae West


Trapped, like a trap in a trap.

          Dorothy Parker


Tread softly, for this is holy ground. It may be, could we look with knowing eyes, this spot we stand on is Paradise.

          Christina Rossetti


Truth above all, even when it upsets and overwhelms us.

          Henri Frédéric Amiel


Truth has a way of shifting under pressure.

          Curtis Bok


Try not to become a man of success, but rather, try to become a man of value.

          Albert Einstein


Twelve for 23 . . . It doesn't take a genius to see that's under 50 percent.

          Dick Vitale


Two and two continue to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the cry of the critic for five.

          Jame McNeil Whistler