THE HOLY BOOK OF UNIVERSAL TRUTHS,
K. U. P.

(Kimball's Unauthorized Perversion)

• Some of My Favorite Proverbs
• More Wit From the Famous
• Mark Twain Quotes
• This is an Old Saying--That I Just Made Up!
• I Don't Know Who Said these, But I Love 'em Anyway!
• Ancient Sumerian Proverbs
• The Ten Greatest Unanswered Questions of Our Time
• Now Here's Some More Questions I Would Like Answers For:
• The Ten Commandments of Electronic Publishing
• Bumper Snickers
• The Top Ten T-Shirt Slogans of the Summer
• Southern Quotes
• Niven's Laws
• Classy Insults
• A Serious and a Funny Quote for the Day

1. "Nothing truly great is achieved through moderation."--M.A.R. Barker (a college professor & fantasy writer)
   [My comment on this: The Pyramids, Great Wall of China, and the Tropicana Stadium (In St. Petersburg, FL) were not built by people with little dreams.]
2. "You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose."--Nostrildamus
3. "We don't do minimums."--Brig Hart
4. "Middle Eastern rhetoric is like Middle Eastern coffee; both can be stronger than necessary."--Paul Harvey
5. "The Stock Market is like a roller coaster; only those who get off get hurt."--Paul Harvey
6. "Never wrestle with a pig. You'll both get very dirty, and the pig enjoys it."--Will Rogers
7. "The Internet is a place you go when you want to turn your brain on, and a television is a place you go when you want to turn your brain off."--Steve Jobs
8. Coincidence is God incognito (a modern Jewish proverb).
9. "It is better to remain silent and be considered a fool than to speak and remove all doubt."--Abraham Lincoln (this is also a paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 10:3)
10. "A man who only lives for himself is not even half alive."--Science fiction writer Poul Anderson
11. "Right thinking governs greater men; laws govern lesser men."--Unknown
12. "You know the world is not right when:
    The best rapper is white,
    The best golfer is black,
    The tallest basketball player is Chinese,
    France is accusing the US of arrogance,
    and Germany doesn't want to go to war!"--Basketball star Charles Barkley
    (And the Stanley Cup [hockey] champions for 2004-05 are from Florida. So far, the twenty-first century is shaping up to be a topsy-turvy time.--CK)

1. "Most people spend their lives going to bed when they're not sleepy and getting up when they are."--Cindy Adams
2. "I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way."--Franklin P. Adams
3. "A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, and then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized."--Fred Allen
4. "I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me."--Fred Allen
5. "If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank."--Woody Allen
6. "Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue."--Roger C. Anderson
7. "The one who feels no fear is a fool, and the one who lets fear rule him is a coward."--Piers Anthony
8. "The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."--Marcus Aurelius
9. "As lousy as things are now, tomorrow they will be somebody's good old days."--Gerald Barzan
10. "You grow up the day you have the first real laugh -- at yourself."--Ethel Barrymore
11. "Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures."--Henry Ward Beecher
12. "It is not the going out of port, but the coming in, that determines the success of a voyage."--Henry Ward Beecher
13. "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."--Saul Bellow
14. "When a man says he approves of something in principle, it means he hasn't the slightest intention of putting it into practice."--Otto von Bismarck
15. " We have women in the military, but they don't put us in the front lines. They don't know if we can fight, if we can kill. I think we can. All the general has to do is walk over to the women and say, 'You see the enemy over there? They say you look fat in those uniforms.'"--Elayne Boosler
16. "The only limits are, as always, those of vision."--James Broughton
17. "Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its shortness."--Jean de La Bruyère
18. "Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think."--Jean de La Bruyère
19. "It is difficult to say who do you the most mischief: enemies with the worst intentions or friends with the best."--E.R. Bulwer-Lytton
20. "For evil to triumph all that is needed is for good men to do nothing."--Edmund Burke
21. "Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxis and cutting hair."--George Burns
22. "An optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds - the pessimist fears this is true."--James Branch Cabell
23. "Age is a very high price to pay for maturity."--George Carlin
24. "Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain. Most do."--Dale Carnegie
25. "Man cannot remake himself without suffering. For he is both the marble and the sculptor."--Alexis Carrel
26. "If life were fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead."--Johnny Carson
27. "If Noah had been truly wise, he would have swatted those two flies."--Helen Castle
28. "Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie!' till you can find a rock."--Wynn Catlin
29. "Wise men learn more from fools than fools from wise men."--Marcus Porcius Cato
30. "I would rather men should ask why no statue has been erected in my honor, than why one has."--Marcus Porcius Cato
31. "If you listen to doctors, nothing is healthy. If you listen to soldiers, nothing is safe. If you listen to clergymen, nothing is innocent."--Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury and the first British prime minister of the twentieth century
32. "Innocence seldom utters outraged shrieks. Guilt does."--Whittaker Chambers
33. "The people applaud me because everyone understands me, and they applaud you because no one understands you."--Charlie Chaplin, talking to Albert Einstein
34. "Many clever men like you have trusted to civilisation. Many clever Babylonians, many clever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilisation, what there is particularly immortal about yours?"--G.K. Chesterton
35. "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last."--Winston Churchill
36. "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent vice of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."--Winston Churchill
37. "Never give up. Never, never give up."--Winston Churchill
38. "It's hard to detect good luck--it looks so much like something you've earned."--Fred A. Clark
39. "Impatience is a virtue."--Jim Clark, Netscape and Silicon Graphics founder, commenting on what it takes to be an entrepreneur
40. "A politician thinks of the next election -- a statesman, of the next generation."--James Freeman Clarke
41. "The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest amount of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing."--Jean-Baptiste Colbert
42. "Look for the opportunity in every difficulty, rather than the difficulty in every opportunity."--Walter E. Cole
43. "The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum."--Charles Caleb Colton, English sportsman and writer (1780-1832)
44. "Without music, life is a journey through a desert."--Pat Conroy
45. "No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave."--Calvin Coolidge
46. "To get something done a committee should consist of no more than three people, two of whom are absent."--Robert Copeland
47. "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone."--Bill Cosby
48. "If you want to test your memory, try to remember what you were worrying about one year ago today."--E. Joseph Cossman
49. "The best bridge between hope and despair is a good night's sleep."--E. Joseph Cossman
50. "I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart."--e. e. cummings
51. "The dodo never had a chance. He seems to have been invented for the sole purpose of becoming extinct and that was all he was good for."--Will Cuppy
52. "If an animal does something, we call it instinct; if we do the same thing for the same reason, we call it intelligence."--Will Cuppy
53. "The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad."--Salvador Dali
54. "That doctrine of peace at any price has done more mischief than any I can well recall that have been afloat in this country. It has occasioned more wars than any of the most ruthless conquerors. It has disturbed and nearly destroyed that political equilibrium so necessary to the liberties and the welfare of the world."--Benjamin Disraeli
55. "Is man an ape or an angel? I, my lord, I am on the side of the angels."--Benjamin Disraeli
56. "Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honorable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon."--Benjamin Disraeli, commenting on a rival who was proud of his ancestry
57. "History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth."--E. L. Doctorow, U.S. novelist, from the book Writers at Work.
58. "The Net is not a single home. Rather, it's an environment where thousands of small homes and communities can form and define and design themselves."--Esther Dyson
59. "If there's a way to do it better, find it."--Thomas Alva Edison
60. "The absolute fundamental aim is to make money out of satisfying customers."--Sir John Egan
61. "Imagination is more valuable than information."--Albert Einstein
62. "We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is."--Albert Einstein, explaining how he could see God's work in the laws of science
63. "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."--Albert Einstein
64. "Pessimism never won a battle."--Dwight David Eisenhower
65. "Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact."--George Eliot
66. "Only those who will risk going too far can discover how far one can truly go."--T.S. Elliot
67. "The government deficit is the difference between the amount of money the government spends and the amount it has the nerve to collect."--Sam Ewing
68. "Better to be occasionally cheated than perpetually suspicious."--B. C. Forbes
69. "The problem with the designated driver program, it's not a desirable job. But if you ever get sucked into doing it, have fun with it. At the end of the night, drop them off at the wrong house."--Jeff Foxworthy
70. "Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain, and most fools do."--Benjamin Franklin
71. "I don't mind learning from my mistakes, but I wish I hadn't learned so much."--Paul Franson
72. "Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me."--Sigmund Freud
73. "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life. It goes on."--Robert Frost
74. "The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I'm against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise."--Robert Frost
75. "Great and good men and women stirred sugar into their coffee knowing that it had been picked by slaves. Kind, good ancestors of all of us never questioned hangings, burnings, tortures, inequality, suffering and injustice that today revolt us. If we dare to presume to damn them with our fleeting ideas of morality, then we risk damnation from our descendants for whatever it is that we are doing that future history will judge as intolerable and wicked: eating meat, driving cars, appearing on TV, visiting zoos, who knows?"--Stephen Fry, historian
76. "Any fool can criticize, and most of them do."--C. Garbett
77. "'Say Brother Dave, where th' best place to be when they drop the bomb?' "I say, anywhere you can say 'What was THAT?'"--Brother Dave Gardner
78. "Once you get people laughing, they're listening and you can tell them almost anything."--Herb Gardner
79. "The universe is specifically tweaked to enable life on earth--a planet with scores of improbable and interdependent life-supporting conditions that make it a tiny oasis in a vast and hostile universe."--Norman Geisler, Frank Turek and David Limbaugh, authors of I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist.
80. "Don't be afraid to take a big step. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps."--David Lloyd George
81. "A consultant is someone who saves his client almost enough to pay his fee."--Arnold H. Glasgow
82. "A liberal is a man who is willing to spend somebody else's money."--Carter Glass
83. "It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow."--Dr. Robert Goddard
84. "Whatever you can do--or believe you can--begin it. Boldness has genius,magic and power in it. Begin it now."--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
85. "If you see a bandwagon, it's too late."--Sir James Goldsmith
86. "A government that is big enough to give you all you want, is big enough to take it all away."--Barry Goldwater
87. "One of the greatest labor-saving inventions of today is tomorrow."--Vincent T. Goss
88. "Conspiracy theory is the sophistication of the ignorant."--Richard Grenier
89. "Wealth is something you acquire so you can share it, not keep it."--LaDonna Harris
90. "The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one's mind a pleasant place in which to spend one's leisure."--Sydney J. Harris
91. "In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these."--Paul Harvey
92. "No matter what side of an argument you're on, you always find some people on your side that you wish were on the other side."--Jascha Heifetz
93. "When one burns books, one in the end will burn people."--Heinrich Heine
94. "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity."--Robert A. Heinlein
95. "Does history record any case in which the majority was right?"--Robert A. Heinlein
96. "Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea."--Robert A. Heinlein
97. "Being intelligent is not a felony, but most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor."--Robert A. Heinlein, through his character Lazarus Long
98. "This sad little lizard told me that he was a brontosaurus on his mother’s side.
    I did not laugh; people who boast of ancestry often have little else to sustain them.
    Humoring them costs nothing and adds to happiness in a world in which happiness is always in short supply."--Robert A. Heinlein, through his character Lazarus Long
99. "With Hollywood you drive out to a wide empty field and wait for the producers to arrive. They throw you the money; you throw them the novel; you both drive away and don't look back."--Ernest Hemingway, explaining why movies are so different from the novels they're based on.
100. "Racism is man's greatest threat to man -- the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason."--Abraham Joshua Heschel
101. "He who cannot dance blames the floor."--Hindu proverb
102. "Man is the only animal that contemplates death, and also the only animal that shows any sign of doubt of its finality."--William Ernest Hocking
103. "Fear of becoming a has-been keeps some people from becoming anything."--Eric Hoffer
104. "I never learn anything talking. I only learn things when I ask questions."--Lou Holtz
105. "Some people can stay longer in an hour than others can in a week."--William Dean Howells
106. "Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go straight upwards."--Sir Fred Hoyle
107. "To escape criticism--do nothing, say nothing, be nothing."--Elbert Hubbard
108. "An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come."--Victor Hugo
109. "I learned more about economics from one South Dakota dust storm than I did in all my years at college."--Hubert H. Humphrey
110. "It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion."--Dean William Inge
111. "The harder you work, the luckier you get."--Barney Israel (Shel's father)
112. "I've always liked politicians and lawyers. They keep the PR professional's status at least two from the bottom of the ethical food chain."--Shel Israel
113. "The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds can change the outer aspects of their lives."--William James
114. "I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it."--Thomas Jefferson
115. "Some things must be believed to be seen."--Guy Kawasaki
116. "Yesterday is History, Tomorrow is Mystery, Today is a gift, That's why we call it the Present."--Bill Keane (cartoonist for The Family Circus)
117. "Natives who beat drums to drive off evil spirits are objects of scorn to smart Americans who blow horns to break up traffic jams."--Mary Ellen Kelly
118. "A problem well stated is a problem half solved."--Charles F. Kettering
119. "No one will ever win the battle of the sexes; there's too much fraternizing with the enemy."--Henry Kissinger
120. "Nature gave man two ends - one to sit on and one to think with. Ever since then man's success or failure has been dependent on the one he used most."--George R. Kirkpatrick
121. "The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards."--Arthur Koestler
122. "If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there."--Koran
123. "History is not just cruel. It is witty."--Charles Krauthammer
124. "When a person with experience meets a person with money, the person with experience will get the money. And the person with the money will get some experience."--Leonard Lauder
125. "A fashion ten years before its time is indecent. Ten years after its time it is hideous. After a century, it becomes romantic."--James Laver
126. "There is a time in the life of every problem when it is big enough to see, yet small enough to solve."--Mike Leavitt
127. "A pun is the lowest form of humor -- when you don't think of it first."--Oscar Levant
128. "He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I ever met."--Abraham Lincoln
129. "There is only one thing that can keep growing without nourishment: the human ego."--Marshall Lumsden
130. "Opportunities are seldom labeled."--Claude MacDonald
131. "I don't want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member."--Groucho Marx
132. "If you can't laugh at yourself, somebody else will."--Mark Maxwell, Homestead.com
133. "A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin."--H.L. Mencken
134. "Ever wonder if illiterate people get the full effect of alphabet soup?"--John Mendoza
135. "Actresses will happen in the best regulated families."--Addison Mizner and Oliver Herford, The Entirely New Cynic's Calendar, 1905
136. "Why does Sea World have a seafood restaurant? I'm halfway through my fishburger and I realize, Oh my Gosh....I could be eating a slow learner."--Lynda Montgomery
137. "The markets will fluctuate."--J. P. Morgan, when asked to predict whether the stock market would go up or down
138. "Some businesses offer such a lousy customer experience that they are prime candidates for competition from Internet-based stores."--Walter S. Mossberg, Wall Street Journal
139. "God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish one from the other."--Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr
140. "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."--James D. Nicoll
141. "In the end, it is attention to detail that makes all the difference. It's the center fielder's extra two steps to the left, the salesman's memory for names, the lover's phone call, the soldier's clean weapon. It is the thing that separates the winners from the losers, the men from the boys and very often, the living from the dead."--David Noonan
142. "Biotechnologists could still come up with something awful by accident, not to mention on purpose. Nature does it all the time. Nature is forever inventing things like the bubonic plague, though whether intentionally or not is a question too deep for this state college graduate. But, in the meantime, we've got a four-billion-dollar biotech industry that produces cheap insulin, accurate medical tests for everything from pregnancy to colon cancer, new vaccines, the diagnostic process that keeps the nation's blood supply free of AIDS and hepatitis, and hundreds of other products, with thousands more on the horizon -- a small price to pay for an occasional giant sheep."--P.J. O'Rourke
143. "Highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me."--George Orwell, during the bombing of London, winter 1940
144. "Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom."--General George Patton
145. "Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I'll give you a man who will make history. Give me a man with no goals and I'll give you a stock clerk."--J.C. Penney
146. "Heredity is what sets the parents of a teenager wondering about each other."--Dr. Laurence J. Peter
147. "The person who makes no mistake usually makes nothing at all."--Edward John Phelps, early American Diplomat
148. "To be defeated and not to yield is victory. To win and rest on laurels is defeat."--Joseph Pilsudski
149. "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up which is familiar with it."--Max Planck
150. "Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book."--Ronald Reagan
151. "I knew I was an unwanted baby when I saw my bath toys were a toaster and a radio."--Joan Rivers
152. "The minute you read something you can't understand, you can almost be sure it was drawn up by a lawyer."--Will Rogers
153. "You may be on the right track, but if you don't keep moving, you're gonna get run over by a train."--Will Rogers
154. "Everyone is a self-made man. Only the successful admit it."--Will Rogers
155. "There is a terrible lot of us who don't think that we come from a monkey, but if there are some people who think that they do, why, it's not our business to rob them of what little pleasure they might get out of imagining it."--Will Rogers
156. "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."--Theodore Roosevelt
157. "It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark."--Howard Ruff
158. "There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse, and sell a little cheaper."--John Ruskin
159. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."--Carl Sagan
160. "There are books in which the footnotes or comments scrawled by some reader's hand in the margin are more interesting than the text. The world is one of these books."--George Santayana
161. "A country without a memory is a country of madmen."--George Santayana
162. "People are like nations--if you help them a lot, they hate you."--Dr. Laura Schlessinger
163. "Martyrdom has always been a proof of the intensity, never of the correctness of a belief."--Arthur Schnitzler
164. "Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once."--William Shakespeare (Julius Caesar)
165. "A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."--George Bernard Shaw
166. "If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion."--George Bernard Shaw
167. "Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not."--George Bernard Shaw
168. "An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support."--Fulton J. Sheen
169. "A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage."--Sydney Smith
170. "In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give your style."--Sydney Smith
171. "The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase; if you pursue happiness you'll never find it."--C.P. Snow
172. "We have to condemn publicly the very idea that some people have the right to repress others... When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers ... we are ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations."--Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn
173. "You can't steal second base with your foot on first."--Casey Stengal
174. "Keep your fears to yourself but share your inspiration with others."--Robert Louis Stevenson
175. "My new motto is: When you're through changing, you're through."--Martha Stewart
176. "Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake."--Chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower (1887-1956)
177. "I have learned this at least by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."--Henry David Thoreau
178. "Thank you for your letter ... I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware no one of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject - which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.

     "Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.

     "I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and remain yours faithfully."

     J.R.R. Tolkien (his response to a publisher from Nazi Germany, asking whether Tolkien's ancestry was arisch or "Aryan," before it produced a German translation of The Hobbit)

179. "Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then we elected them."--Lily Tomlin
180. "I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific."--Lily Tomlin
181. "If it weren't for the last minute, a lot of things wouldn't get done."--Michael S. Traylor
182. "I studied the lives of great men and famous women, and I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand, with everything they had of energy and enthusiasm and hard work."--Harry Truman
183. "If you don't have your own goals, you'll be doomed to work toward someone else's."--Harry Truman
184. "For all predictions do to this belong: That either they are right, or they are wrong."--John Tulley's Almanac for 1688
185. "If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done."--Peter Ustinov
186. "We hope that, when the insects take over the world, they will remember with gratitude how we took them along on all our picnics."--Bill Vaughan
187. "No one is more liable to make mistakes than the man who acts only on reflection."--Marquis de Vauvenargues
188. "I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it."--Voltaire
189. "One owes respect to the living, to the dead one owes only truth."--Voltaire
190. "History is the sound of silken slippers coming downstairs and hobnailed boots going upstairs."--Voltaire
191. "Success is more a function of consistent common sense than it is of genius."--An Wang, founder of Wang Laboratories
192. "I am saddest when I sing. So are those who hear me; they are sadder even than I am."--Artemus Ward
193. "Perception precedes reality."--Andy Warhol
194. "Life is tough. Life is tougher if you're stupid."--John Wayne
195. "One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him."--Booker T. Washington
196. "To those who believe, no explanation is necessary. To those who do not believe, no explanation is possible."--Franz Werfel, from "The Song of Bernadette"
197. "If you cannot prove a man wrong, don't panic. You can always call him names."-- Oscar Wilde
198. "A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American."--Woodrow Wilson
199. "Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you do."--John Wooden, basketball coach
200. "Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today."--Herman Wouk
201. "The Greeks will give their allegiance to the man whose reason, not his blood, proves his fitness to lead."--Xenophon
202. "Stupidity, like hydrogen, is one of the basic building blocks of the Universe."--Frank Zappa

1. "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."
2. "If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man."
3. "If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything."
4. "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry."
5. "Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are economical in its use."
6. "Thrusting my nose firmly between his teeth, I threw him heavily to the ground on top of me."
7. "When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But, when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years."
8. "The jury system puts a ban upon intelligence and honesty and a premium upon ignorance, stupidity and perjury." (from Roughing It)
9. "A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain."
10. "Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."
11. "In the real world, the right thing never happens in the right place and the right time. It is the job of journalists and historians to make it appear that it has."
12. "History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme a lot."
13. "The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice."
14. "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."
15. "Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to."
16. "The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them."
17. "There has been only one Christian. They caught and crucified him--early."
18. "Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul."
19. "It is chloroform in print." (Mark Twain describing a really boring book)
20. "The Jews constitute but one percent of the human race . . . Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people . . . He has made a marvelous flight in this world, in all the ages; and he has done it with his hands tied behind him . . . The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dreamstuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was . . . All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?" (from The Complete Essays of Mark Twain, Charles Neider, editor, New York, Doubleday, 1963, pg. 249, quoted by Benjamin Netanyahu in A Place Among the Nations, New York, Bantam, 1993, pg. 400)
21. "The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin."
22. "I am an old man and have known a great many troubles -- but most of them never happened."
23. "She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot."
24. "Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in."

1. If it's popular all of a sudden, watch out! Fads can go out of style as fast as they come into style. Does anybody remember streaking?
2. A rising tide lifts all ships, but when the tide goes out, you can see who's been swimming naked.
3. Choose your enemies with care, for if you fight them long enough, you will come to resemble them.
4. The Chinese guy who said "A picture is worth a thousand words" should have worked with computer graphics!
5. Government assistance is like a blood transfusion performed by a clumsy doctor. He takes blood out of one arm, spills some of it, puts the rest in the other arm--and charges for it!
6. If men are from Mars, and women are from Venus, then children are from Mercury. ("Hey! Which way did that kid go?")
7. The pre-convention phase of a US presidential election is like the little car that drives around in the middle of the circus. You wonder how they got so many clowns in there!
8. The loudness of a TV/radio commercial is inversely proportional to how intelligent the advertiser thinks you are. Ever notice how they scream on used car commercials, while nobody raises his/her voice on ads for investment firms or technical schools? Never buy anything from a company that uses explosions to get your attention.
9. If I were the devil and plotting world domination, my primary human agents would not be a group of old men who meet privately in a well-marked building, wear funny hats and act goofy. (Compare this with what Dave Barry said about God in Chapter 4.)
10. Never give money to a televangelist whose studio looks like a whorehouse. Recently my pastor called folks like that "Prophets for Profit."
11. If you leave home, and find yourself ready to go sooner than you expected, you probably forgot something.

1. "Eat a bullfrog first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you for the rest of the day!"
2. "You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar, but a good, fresh roadkill will beat both hands down!" (saw this on a greeting card)
3. "Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things."
4. "There are some status-seekers who would fight for a first-class cabin on the Titanic."
5. "An army of sheep led by a lion will defeat an army of lions led by a sheep."
6. "I wash everything on the gentle cycle. It's much more humane."
7. "A closed mouth gathers no flies."--French Proverb
8. "The best memory is that which forgets nothing but injuries. Write kindness in marble and write injuries in the dust."--Persian proverb
9. "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."--French Proverb
10. "The Ark was built by men of faith. The Titanic was built by professionals."
11. "History repeats itself because nobody listens."
12. "Learn a new language and get a new soul."--Czech proverb
13. "Man is the only creature clever enough to build skyscrapers and foolish enough to jump from them."
14. "Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings. They did it by killing all those who opposed them."
15. Knowledge - Application = Deception
16. "When the mouse laughs at the cat, there's a hole nearby."--Nigerian Proverb
17. "Don't give up. Moses was once a basket case!"
18. "Do you know why they call it 'PMS'? Because 'Mad Cow Disease' was taken." (the author is presumed dead)
19. "The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it."

In a city that has no watch dogs,
the fox is the overseer.

Who possesses much silver may be happy;
who possesses much barley may be glad;
but he who has nothing at all may sleep.

Flatter a young man, he give you anything;
Throw a scrap to a dog, he'll wag his tail.

The poor men are the silent men in Sumer.

Writing is the mother of eloquence and the father of artists.

Pay heed to the word of your mother as though it were the word of a god.

A sweet word is everybody's friend.

Friendship lasts a day, kinship forever.

For a man's pleasure there is marriage;
on thinking it over, there is divorce.

Conceiving is nice; pregnancy is irksome.

The wife is a man's future;
the son is a man's refuge;
the daughter is a man's salvation;
the daughter-in-law is a man's devil.

If you take the field of an enemy,
the enemy will come and take your field.

Who builds like a lord, lives like a slave.
Who builds like a slave, lives like a lord.

Be gentle to your enemy as to an old oven.

Do not return evil to your adversary; maintain justice for your enemy, do good things, be kind all your days. What you say in haste you may regret later.

Making loans is as [easy] as making love, but repaying them is as hard as bearing a child.

Go up to the ancient ruin heaps and walk around; look at the skulls of the lowly and the great. Which belongs to someone who did evil and which to someone who did good?

A thing which has not occured since time immemorial: a young woman broke wind in her husband's embrace.

Who has not supported a wife or child, his nose has not borne a leash.

Eat no fat and you will not have blood in your excrement.

Commit no crime, and fear [of your god] will not consume you.

Has she become pregnant without intercourse? Has she become fat without eating?

Bride, [as] you treat your mother-in-law, so will women [later] treat you.

If the beer mash is sour, how can the beer be sweet?

He who changes, neglects, transgresses, erases the words of this tablet, may the great gods of heaven and earth, who inhabit the world, all those that are named in this tablet, strike you down, look with disfavor upon you, may they chase you away from both shade and sunlight so that you cannot take refuge in a hidden corner, may food and drink forsake you, and hunger, want, famine and pestilence never leave you, may the bellies of dogs and pigs be your burial place, let tar and pitch be your food, donkey urine your drink, naphtha your ointment, river rushes your covers, and evil spirits, demons, and lurkers select your houses (as their abode).

The gods alone live forever under the divine sun; but as for mankind, their days are numbered, all their activities will be nothing but wind.

You can have a lord, you can have a king, but the man to fear is the tax collector!

1. What's another name for Thesaurus?
2. Why is abbreviation such a long word?
3. How do they get deer to cross at the yellow sign?
4. How do you know when bagpipes are in tune?
5. If you shoot a mime, should you use a silencer?
6. Why is there an expiration date on sour cream?
7. What do they use to ship styrofoam?
8. Why do they say a "TV set" when you only get one?
9. What was the best thing before sliced bread?
10. When a cow laughs hard, does milk come out its nose?

1. Where do forest rangers go to get away from it all?
2. If psychics know all the winning lotto numbers, why aren't they rich?
3. What do you do if you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant?
4. Why do they have Braille on drive-thru ATM machines?
5. Is it true that cannibals won't eat clowns because they taste funny?
6. How can noses run and feet smell?
7. Why do pianos have black keys and white keys, but they never have Hispanic keys?
8. Can one be a closet claustrophobe?
9. Why don't we ever hear of gruntled employees?
10. Is it okay for a vegetarian to eat animal crackers?
11. How can someone drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?
12. Why does Hawaii have an interstate highway?
13. If December is tourist season, why can't we shoot them?
14. If a dog chased a car and caught it, what would he do with it next?
15. If man evolved from apes why do we still have apes?
16. Should crematoriums give discounts for burn victims?
17. If a mute kid swears does his mother wash his hands with soap?
18. Whose cruel idea was it to put an "S" in the word "lisp"?
19. If a man stands in the middle of the forest speaking and there is no woman.....is he still wrong?
20. If someone with multiple personalities threatens suicide....is it considered a hostage situation?
21. Is there another word for synonym?
22. Isn't it scary that doctors call what they do "practice"?
23. If a parsley farmer is sued do they garnish his wages?
24. Why do they lock gas station bathrooms? Are they worried someone will clean them?
25. Is a shelless turtle homeless or just naked?
26. If a mime is arrested do they tell him he has the right to talk?
27. Do they use sterilized needles for lethal injections?
28. Why did kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
29. What were Humpty Dumpty's parents thinking when they named him?
30. Do pediatricians play miniature golf on Wednesdays?
31. How could a cute kid like Beaver Cleaver grow up to be Jerry Mathers?

1. I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
2. Borrow money from pessimists -- they don't expect it back.
3. Half the people you know are below average.
4. 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
5. 82.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
6. A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.
7. A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
8. If you want the rainbow, you've got to put up with the rain.
9. All those who believe in telekinesis, raise my hand.
10. The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
11. I almost had a psychic girlfriend, but she left me before we met.
12. OK, so what's the speed of dark?
13. How can you tell when you're out of invisible ink?
14. If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
15. Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
16. When everything seems to be coming your way, maybe you're in the wrong lane.
17. Ambition is a poor excuse for not being smart enough to be lazy.
18. Hard work pays off in the future, laziness pays off now.
19. I intend to live forever... so far, so good.
20. If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
21. Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
22. What happens if you get scared half to death...twice?
23. My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder."
24. Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?
25. If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
26. A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
27. Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
28. The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.
29. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.
30. The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.
31. Everyone has a photographic memory; some just don't have film.
32. If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work?

1. Thou shalt honor communication above all, and put nothing else before it--neither bright colors,
   nor fancy layouts, nor lovely images.
2. Thou shalt love thy readers as thyself,
   doing unto them as thou wouldst have them do unto you, seeking clarity and truth always.
3. Thou shalt not worship fonts for their own sake,
   nor shalt thou use four or more on a page without reason.
4. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's better computer,
   or thy neighbor's two page color monitor,
   or thy neighbor's updated software,
   or thy neighbor's faster modem,
   or thy neighbor's high-resolution laser printer,
   or anything else that is thy neighbor's.
5. Thou shalt not steal software, but shall rather purchase a legal copy for each of thy platforms.
6. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy service bureau's output when thine input is to blame.
7. Thou shalt not pretend to be a designer when thou art a writer, or vice-versa, for this is an abomination in the sight of all.
8. Thou shalt take thy vendor's name in vain,
   for verily, it shall not hurt his bottomline,
   and thou shalt feel better for it.
9. Thou shalt not do anything electronically that thou mayest more easily and economically do by the old ways.
10. Thou shalt back up everything, for thou knowest not when the Apocalypse may come upon thee.

1. "Government philosophy: If it ain't broke, fix it until it is broke."
2. "Be nice to your kids. They'll choose your nursing home."
3. "Cyberspace is so scary I downloaded in my pants."
4. "When you do a good deed, get a receipt, in case heaven is like the IRS."
5. "Sometimes I wake up Grumpy. Sometimes I let him sleep." (seen near Walt Disney World)
6. "As long as there are tests, there WILL be prayer in public schools."
7. "Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine."
8. "He's dead, Jim. You grab his tricorder, I'll go for his wallet."
9. "Very funny, Scotty. Now beam down my clothes."
10. "We are Microsoft. Resistance Is Futile. You Will Be Assimilated."
11. "Jack Kevorkian for White House Physician."
12. "He who laughs last thinks slowest."
13. "My wife said she'd leave me if I didn't stop fishing and boy am I going to miss her."
14. "I still miss my ex. But my aim is getting better!"
15. "Eschew obfuscation." (seen on an English teacher's car)
16. "Earth First! We'll mine the other planets later."
17. "I don't have a license to kill. I have a learner's permit."
18. "Taxation WITH representation isn't so hot, either!"
19. "Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change."
20. "If you can read this, I can hit my brakes and sue you!"
21. "My wife keeps complaining I never listen to her . . . or something like that."
22. "Sure you can trust the government! Just ask an Indian!"
23. "Alcohol and calculus don't mix. Never drink and derive."
24. "If we are what we eat; I'm cheap, fast, and easy."
25. "Stop repeat offenders. Don't re-elect them!"
26. "Reality is a crutch for people who can't handle drugs."
27. "I said 'no' to drugs, but they just wouldn't listen."
28. "Hang up and drive."
29. "Ask me about microwaving cats for fun and profit."
30. "If we aren't supposed to eat animals, why are they made of meat?"
31. "Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math."
32. "Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies."
33. "Five days a week my body is a temple. The other two, it's an amusement park."
34. "Some people are only alive because it's illegal to shoot them."
35. "I used to have a handle on life, but it broke."
36. "Wanted: Meaningful overnight relationship."
37. "You're just jealous because the voices only talk to ME."
38. "BEER: It's not just for breakfast anymore."
39. "I need someone real bad ... Are you real bad?"
40. "Out of my mind ... Back in five minutes."
41. "God must love stupid people ... He made SO many of them."
42. "Where there's a will ... I want to be in it."
43. "It's lonely at the top, but you eat better."
44. "Don't drink and drive, you might hit a bump and spill your drink."
45. "Consciousness: that annoying time between naps."
46. "It is caffeine alone which sets my mind in motion
    It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed
    The hands begin to shake, the shakes become a warning.
    It is caffeine alone which sets my mind in motion . . ."

1. I Fought the Lawn and the Lawn Won.
2. I Suffer Occasional Delusions of Adequacy.
3. God Made Us Sisters, Prozac Made Us Friends.
4. If They Don't Have Chocolate in Heaven, I Ain't Going.
5. Veni, Vidi, Visa: I Came. I Saw. I Shopped.
6. Princess, Having Had Sufficient Experience With Princes, Seeks Frog.
7. What If The Hokey Pokey Really Is What It's All About?
8. Liberal Arts Major . . . Will Think For Money.
9. Gravity . . . it's Not Just a Good Idea. It's the Law.
10. If You Want Breakfast in Bed, Sleep in the Kitchen.

Of course, if you want to get technical about it and define a person by his birthplace, I'm neither a Yankee or a Southerner. I was born on the Pacific coast, in an area Ernest Callenbach and Joel Garreau named "Ecotopia." However, I've spent most of my life south of the Mason & Dixon Line, so I think I've got as good a chance of understanding the South as anybody. Maybe these quotes will help you understand the South, too.

1. "Memphis Martini: Gin with a wad of cotton in it."--Fred Allen
2. "The summer picnic gave the ladies a chance to show off their baking hands. On the barbeque pit, chickens and spareribs sputtered in their own fat and a sauce whose recipe was guarded in the family like a scandalous affair."--Maya Angelou
3. "I just got wonderful news from my real estate agent in Florida. They found land on my property."--Milton Berle
4. "True grits, more grits, fish, grits, and collards. Life is good where grits are swallered."--Roy Blount, Jr.
5. "I don't think of myself as a Negro. I'm a Southerner. I just like the Southern way of life."--Julian Bond
6. "Everyone from the South knows who Jefferson Davis was, and this is one thing that distinguishes the South from other parts of the country."--William F. Buckley
7. "When the smoke and fire was over, the Negroes had nothing gained, the whites had nothing left, while the jackals have all the booty."--R. H. Cain
8. "The tragedy of the redneck is that he chose the wrong enemy."--Will D. Campbell
9. "The friend asked why the Rebel Army had continued to fight when defeat was certain. They were simply afraid to go home and face their women."--Gordon Cotton
10. "Yes, charisma is the middle name of scads of Southern cads."--Rosemary Daniel
11. "I'm Southern and I know neurotic behavior."--Faye Dunaway
12. "Because I was born in the South, I'm a Southerner. If I had been born in the North, the West or the Central Plains, I would be just a human being."--Clyde Edgerton
13. "Anyone with a lick of sense knows that you can't make good barbeque and comply with the health code."--John Edgerton
14. "The past is not dead. It isn't even past."--William Faulkner
15. "As long as the Negroes are held down by deprivation and lack of opportunity, the other poor people will be held down alongside them."--Governor Big Jim Folsom
16. "The Southerner always tended to believe with his blood rather than his intellect."--Marshall Frady
17. "I love everything about the South; I even love hate."--Brother Dave Gardner
18. "The South may not always be right, but by God it's never wrong!"--Brother Dave Gardner
19. "Young feller, you will never appreciate the potentialities of the English language until you have heard a Southern mule driver search the soul of a mule."--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
20. "I suggest that the true Southland is that territory within which, when asked by an outsider whether he is a Southerner, the reply almost invariably is "Hell yes!" This "Hell yes" line has the advantage of eliminating the ambivalent wishy washy fringes, and leaving the unquestionably defiant, hard-core Southland."--Hamilton C. Horton, Jr.
21. "We went across the South on Super Tuesday without a single catcall or boo, without a single ugly sign. Not until we got to New York and the North did the litmus test of race and religion spout from the mouths of public officials."--Jesse Jackson
22. "Southerners have a genius for psychological alchemy. If something intolerable simply cannot be changed, driven away or shot they will not only tolerate it but take pride in it as well."--Florence King
23. "I've always said that next to Imperial China, the South is the best place in the world to be an old lady."--Florence King
24. "What you need for breakfast, they say in East Tennessee, is a jug of good corn liquor, a thick steak and a hound dog. Then you feed the steak to the dog."--Charles Kuralt
25. "I like the South because it is so much warmer on the sidelines than it is up North."--Coach Tom Landry
26. "Southern women see no contradiction in mixing strength with gentleness."--Sharon McKern
27. "I didn't make Arkansas the butt of ridicule. God did."--H. L. Mencken
28. "Southerners can never resist a losing cause."--Margaret Mitchell
29. "Next to fried food, the South has suffered most from oratory."--Walter Hines Page
30. "I know why we lost the Civil War. We must have had the same officials."--Coach Bum Phillips, on losing the Senior Bowl
31. "When the taste changes with every bite and the last bite tastes as good as the first, that's Cajun."--Paul Prudhomme
32. "Southern barbeque is the closet thing we have in the U.S. to Europe's wines and cheeses; drive a hundred miles and the barbeque changes."--John Shelton Reed
33. "Every time I look at Atlanta I see what a quarter of a million Confederate soldiers died to prevent."--John Shelton Reed
34. "The young bloods of the South; sons of planters, lawyers about towns, good billiard players and sportsmen, men who never did any work and never will. War suits them.. They are splendid riders, first rate shots and utterly reckless. These men must all be killed or employed by us before we can hope for peace."--General William T. Sherman
35. "In the South the war is what A.D. is elsewhere; they date from it."--Mark Twain
36. "Southerners make such good novelists; they have so many good stories because they have so much family."--Gore Vidal
37. "Storytelling and copulation are the two chief forms of amusement in the South. They are inexpensive and easy to procure."--Robert Penn Warren
38. "The remark has been made that in the Civil War the North reaped the victory and the South the glory."--Richard Weaver
39. "The South is a region that history has happened to."--Richard Weaver
40. "O magnet-South! O glistening perfumed South! My South! O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse and love! Good and evil! O all dear to me!"--Walt Whitman
41. "I like the South because of the people. They are loyal. Once they love a team, they're fans forever."--Dominique Wilkins
42. "The only place in the world that nothing has to be explained to me is the South."--Woodrow Wilson

1. Never throw sh*t at an armed man.
2. Corollary to #1: Never stand next to someone throwing sh*t at an armed man. (Niven learned #1 & #2 from the 1968 Democratic National Convention)
3. Never fire a laser at a mirror.
4. Mother Nature doesn't care if you're having fun.
5. Giving up freedom for security is beginning to look naive. (Note: this originally read "F × S = k", meaning that the product of freedom and security is a constant.)
6. Psi and/or magical powers, if real, are nearly useless.
7. It is easier to destroy than to create.
8. Any damn fool can predict the past.
9. History never repeats itself.
10. Ethics change with technology.
11. Anarchy is the least stable of political structures.
12. There is a time and a place for tact.
13. The ways of being human are bounded but infinite.
14. When your life starts to look like a soap opera, it's time to change the channel.
15. The only universal message in science fiction: There exist minds that think as well as you do, but differently.
16. Corollary to #15: The gene-tampered turkey you're talking to isn't necessarily one of them.
17. Never waste calories.
18. There is no cause so right that one cannot find a fool following it.
19. No technique works if it isn't used.
20. Not responsible for advice not taken.
21. Think before you make the coward's choice. Old age is not for sissies.
22. Never let a waiter escape.

1. Writers who write for other writers should write letters.
2. Never be embarrassed or ashamed about anything you choose to write. (Think of this before you send it to a market.)
3. Stories to end all stories on a given topic, don't.
4. It is a sin to waste the reader's time.
5. If you've nothing to say, say it any way you like. Stylistic innovations, contorted story lines or none, exotic or genderless pronouns, internal inconsistencies, the recipe for preparing your lover as a cannibal banquet: feel free. If what you have to say is important and/or difficult to follow, use the simplest language possible. If the reader doesn't get it then, let it not be your fault.
6. Everybody talks first draft.

1. "I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here."--Stephen Bishop (I believe this became the title for a country song later on)
2. "He is a self-made man and worships his creator."--John Bright
3. Lady Astor: "If you were my husband I'd give you poison."
    Winston Churchill: "If I was your husband I'd drink it."
4. Lady Astor: "Mr. Churchill, you're drunk!"
    Winston Churchill: "And you are ugly. But I shall be sober tomorrow."
5. Clement Attlee (in a restroom, as Churchill comes in and goes to the urinal farthest away from the one he's standing at): "Feeling standoffish today, Winston?"
    Winston Churchill: "Every time you see something big, you nationalize it."
6. "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."--Winston Churchill
7. George Bernard Shaw: "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend . . . if you have one."
    Winston Churchill's response: "Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second . . . if there is one."
8. "I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."--Irvin S. Cobb
9. "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."--Clarence Darrow
10. A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease."
     Benjamin Disraeli: "That depends, Sir, on whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."
11. "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."--William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).
12. "Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it."--Moses Hadas
13. "He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."--Paul Keating
14. "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts . . . for support rather than illumination."--Andrew Lang
15. "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."--Groucho Marx
16. "He is a man of splendid abilities, but utterly corrupt. He shines and stinks like a rotten mackerel by moonlight."--Senator John Randolph of Virginia, commenting on fellow lawmaker Edward Livingston
17. Tristam Burges, rejoicing that John Randolph is sterile: "But I rejoice that the Father of Lies can never become the Father of Liars. One adversary of God and man is enough for one universe."
     John Randolph: "You pride yourself on an animal faculty, in respect to which the slave is your equal and the jackass infinitely your superior!"
18. John Randolph, blocking Henry Clay's path on a sidewalk: "I never turn out for scoundrels!"
     Henry Clay: "I always do." (then he stepped around Randolph in mock politeness)
19. "In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily."--Charles, Count Talleyrand
20. "He loves nature in spite of what it did to him."--Forrest Tucker
21. "Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?"--Mark Twain
22. "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."--Mark Twain
23. "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."--Mae West
24. "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends..."--Oscar Wilde
25. "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."--Oscar Wilde
26. "He has Van Gogh's ear for music."--Billy Wilder