"’What about a train ride?’ I’d asked the [Intourist] clerk. ‘Is the Trans-Siberian Railroad any fun?’ She stared at me. ‘It will be long remembered,’ she said." P.J. O’Rourke Eat the Rich

"I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it." Widely attributed to Groucho Marx but in 1962 he denied saying it in real life on leaving a party; he may have used it in a comedy routine but it almost certainly did not originate with him

"That’s the key to comedy; allowing yourself to look stupid." Megan Mullally in Ladies’ Home Journal

"I believe in an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out." Arthur Hays Sulzberger

"poor as Job’s turkey" A writer whose name I failed to record in Chronicles magazine May 1994

In my latest National Post column I satirize people's ongoing faith in government's compassionate efficiency despite all their experience with its actual performance.

"The quarterback threw the football like a greasy pork chop past a hungry wolf." An unnamed football announcer quoted by my father December 30, 1994

"Run like you stole something." PGA pro Dicky Pride to his golf ball after a drive, July 30, 1994