“They were like cockroaches. It wasn’t what they ate or carried off, it was what they fell into and ruined.”
Bob Uecker and Mickey Herskowitz Catcher in the Wry (re losing to the hapless New York Mets in 1964)
“Rome is burning, Mr. Minister. Could we at least hear a sympathetic tune on the fiddle?”
A Financial Post editorial involving a forgotten B.C. minister and a forgotten issue, quoted in British Columbia Report November 10, 1997
In my latest Nstional Post column I say the meaning of life is not to be found in the latest gadget even if it is a watch that can tell you your blood oxygen level every three seconds.
“The headwaiter of an elegant restaurant recoiled in disgust as a man in boots, torn jeans and a leather jacket approached him. ‘Hey, man,’ he said, ‘where’s the bathroom?’ ‘Go down the hall and turn left,’ replied the headwaiter. ‘When you see the sign marked “Gentlemen,” pay no attention to it and go right on in.’”
From the Jokesmith, cited in Reader’s Digest, April 1997, quoted in “Quotes, Notes and Anecdotes (The Write File Quarterly)” Spring 1997
“In opposition to his enervated gang of outcast wrecks you are able to marshal the flower and strength of all Italy.”
Cicero Selected Political Speeches [referring on the one hand to Catalina and on the other to the people of Rome]
“King of Swamp Castle: When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built one all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that’s what you’re going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England.”
Monty Python and the Holy Grail quoted on www.imdb.com
“I have only one fault, namely, that I am evil.”
Another “Needhamism” from the then-just-deceased columnist Richard J. Needham, quoted by Malcolm MacLeod of St. John’s in letter to the Globe & Mail July 30, 1996
“That fellow was bred by a buzzard and hatched by the sun.”
Whit Boykin quoted by Reid Buckley in National Review April 21, 1997