Dave Barry Quotes

Even veteran air travelers find Miami International Airport disorienting. It's often crowded, and it seems to have been designed so that every passenger, no matter where he or she is coming from or going to has to jostle past every other passenger. The main concourse looks like a combination international bazaar and refugee camp. There are big clots of people everywhere: tour groups, school trips, salsa bands, soccer teams, vast extended families, all waiting for planes that will not leave for hours, maybe days. There aren't enough places to sit, so the clots plop down and sprawl on the mungy carpet, surrounded by Appalachian Foothill-sized mounds of luggage, including gigantic suitcases stuffed to bursting, as well as a vast array of consumer goods purchased in South Florida for transport back to Latin America, including TVs, stereos, toys, major appliances and complete sets of tires. Many of these items have been wrapped in thick cocoons of greenish stretch plastic to deter baggage theft, which is an important airport industry. Another one being the constant "improvements" to the airport, which seem to consist mainly of the installation of permanent-looking signs asking the public to excuse the inconvenience while the airport is being improved. The airport air smells of musty tropical rot, and it's filled with the sounds of various languages - Spanish predominantly, but also English, Creole, German, French, Italian, and perhaps most distinct of all, Cruise Ship Passenger. (Chapter 11)

Clearly, nobody was going to stand in the way of this amazing new technology. But because of the extremely high cost and phenomenal inaccuracy of early computers, the only customer for them was the federal government. In 1890, for the first time, the government used computing machines to conduct the census; it was completed in a record two months, and it yielded much valuable information, including the startling fact that the United States had only twelve residents, all of them named "Earl A. Snepp." As you would expect, when the federal income tax was enacted in 1913, the Internal Revenue Service quickly embraced the computer. The model used by the IRS was a simple yet effective device that employed a bank of electrically charged nails and a series of cardboard cards with various patterns of holes punched in them; when the nails were pressed down onto a card, they passed through the holes and formed a complete electrical circuit by piercing the naked bodies of taxpayers who had been summoned for audits.

Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles called electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you have been drinking.

But I do think we need to explore the commitment problem, which has caused many women to mistakenly conclude that men, as a group, have the emotional maturity of hamsters. This is not the case. A hamster is MUCH more capable of making a lasting commitment to a woman, especially if she gives it those little food pellets. Whereas a guy, in a relationship, will consume the pellets of companionship, and he will run on the exercise wheel of lust; but as soon as he senses that the door of commitment is about to close and trap him in the wire cage of true intimacy, he'll squirm out, scamper across the kitchen floor of uncertainty and hide under the refrigerator of Non-Readiness.

Very Important: During this sensitive postpartum time, you must be very careful not to say anything negative about your wife’s appearance. On the other hand, you must not say anything positive about your wife’s appearance, because she’ll know you’re lying. And whatever you do, do NOT give her the impression that you’re deliberately avoiding talking about her appearance. This might be a good time to enlist in the navy.

If, when you talk to people, they keep backing away from you, it's because you're TOO CLOSE, alright? SO DON'T KEEP ADVANCING ON THEM LIKE A HUMAN GLACIER.

I think everybody should go to Bimini from time to time. I think President Bush and whoever is governing the Soviet Union this afternoon should meet there. They would definitely have a more relaxed kind of summit. ALICE TOWN, BAHAMAS- In a surprise development, the leaders of the two superpowers announced today that they have learned all the words, in English AND Russian, to "Conch Ain't Got No Bone." Maybe you should go to Bimini, too. Maybe I'll even see you there, and we can wave to each other, if we're not feeling too lethargic. Please address me as "Bonefish Dave."

Violence and smut are of course everywhere on the airwaves. You cannot turn on your television without seeing them, although sometimes you have to hunt around.

Our original idea was to write a book titled Fifty Shades of the Hunger Games, by J.K. Rowling with Stephen King: A John Grisham Novel.

Winter's here, and you feel lousy: You're coughing and sneezing; your muscles ache; your nose is an active mucus volcano. These symptoms -- so familiar at this time of year -- can mean only one thing: Tiny fanged snails are eating your brain.

I would not know how I am supposed to feel about many stories if not for the fact that the TV news personalities make sad faces for sad stories and happy faces for happy stories.

I say we scrap the current [Social Security] system and replace it with a system wherein you add your name to the bottom of a list, and the you send some money to the person at the top of the list, and then you . . . Oh, wait that IS our current system.

Leonard Aster thanked Fighting Prawn and the Mollusk tribe for their hospitality.
“You mean,” said Fighting Prawn, “for not killing you?”
“Yes,” said Leonard. “It was very gracious of you.”
“Do you,” said Leonard, “I mean, does you tribe, shake hands?”
“No,” said Fighting Prawn. “We kiss on the lips.”
“Oh,” said Leonard, looking very alarmed.

Some years ago I proposed a new tourism-promotion slogan for Miami. I even had a bumper sticker made. It said: 'Come back to Miami! We Weren't Shooting at YOU'.

There was a time when the human race did not have technology. This time was called "the 1950s." I was a child then, and it was horrible. There were only three TV channels, and at any given moment at least two of them were showing men playing the accordion in black and white. There was no remote control, so if you wanted to change the channel, you had to yell at your little brother, "Phil! Change the channel!" (In those days people named their children "Phil.") Your household had one telephone, which weighed eleven pounds and could be used as a murder weapon. It was permanently tethered to the living-room wall, and you had to dial it by manually turning a little wheel, and if you got a long-distance call, you'd yell, "It's long distance!" in the same urgent tone you would use to yell "Fire!" Everybody would come sprinting into the living room, because in the 1950s long distance was more exciting than sex. In fact there was no sex in the 1950s, that I know of.