“I’ll bet she’ll be speechless.”
Dave Barry Dave Barry’s Bad Habits (re his decision to get his wife a practical rather than decorative or sentimental gift, specifically a case of paper towels).
“These phrases [shouted in English while traveling] will take care of your basic needs abroad, and the fact that you have taken the time to learn to pronounce them loudly and clearly will leave a lasting impression on your foreign hosts.”
Dave Barry Dave Barry’s Bad Habits
“’This thank you note is gonna be a challenge’ ‘Words don’t do it justice’”
Jon and Garfield contemplating a gift of a hideous clock in "Garfield" in Ottawa Citizen December 27, 2008
“Cheer up, the worst is yet to come.”
Philander Johnson, quoted by David Gratzer in National Post Oct. 28, 2002
“Oratory that would make Churchill blush”
A "he's an extraordinary man" insult invented by me May 18, 2005, on watching then Independent, formerly Labour MP George Galloway’s appearance before a U.S. Senate committee
“Brian Mulroney: ‘There is no one quite like him.’”
Charles Gordon in Ottawa Citizen Sept. 17, 2005 suggesting how the former PM should have described himself in a taped interview with Peter C. Newman
Re kids’ preference for bland junk food “It is a situation which I classify (along with most other aspects of domestic life) as desperate but not serious.”
Robert Capon The Supper of the Lamb
“H.L. Mencken’s definition of the pessimist as a man who, if he smells a rose, looks around for a coffin.”
Matthew Scully in National Review October 27, 1997