Quotations

“Britain is not an island… Well, yes it is, but…”
— Unidentified MP, on BBC Radio 4

[from Mark Saxby (Reading, England)]

“The President continues to surprise people, so I am not surprised to be surprised.”
— US Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney

[from Mark Wiersbeck (Minneapolis, MN, USA)]

“President Bush is due to address the nation in approximately 20 minutes precisely.”
— Peter Jennings, ABC News

[from Roger Allen (Nashua, NH, USA)]

“Mobile launchers are more difficult to detect because they move around, unlike fixed launchers.”
— Katie Coucik, NBC News

[from Lowell McCulley (Nashua, NH, USA)]

“Continuous coverage of the war in the Persian Gulf will resume in a moment.”
— Tom Brokaw, NBC News

[from Jeff E. Nelson (Nashua, NH, USA)]

“We have good reason to believe he was stabbed. There was a sharp object sticking out of his chest.”
— Lt. R. Travis, Newburgh, NY, Police Dept, cited in National Lampoon calendar

[from Jim Reisert (Hudson, MA, USA)]

“The City of Rochester (Michigan) is considering a ban on smoking at the park because people are leaving their butts on the beach.”
— Announcer, WJR Radio, Detroit, MI

[from Jim Cotton (Novi, MI, USA)]

“Men between the ages of 18 and 25 must register for the draft on their 18th birthday.”
— Sign in a US Post Office

[from Bruce Stadler (Dallas, TX, USA)]

“This door must not be opened under any circumstances.”
— Sign outside a fire exit in a hotel

[from C. N. Kumar (Karnataka, India)]

“We have to expect it, otherwise we would be surprised.”
— Unidentified general officer, re: Gulf war

[from Thierry Ciot (Valbonne, France)]

“Yo-Yo Ma and Bobby McFerrin together again for the first time.”
— Ellen Kushner on "Caravan", WGBH radio, Boston

[from Roger Goun (Nashua, NH, USA)]

“It is mandatory that tenderers provide proof that the specified performance requirements are likely to be achieved by the proposed system.”
— Request for Quotation from unidentified prospective client

[from Kass Antanaitis (Canberra, Australia)]

“President Union will address the nation on the state of the Bush.”
— Hampton Pearson, news reporter, WBZ TV

[from Paul Poznick (Andover, MA, USA)]

“Although some functional managers had heard of RISC, virtually none had heard of RISC”
— Digital Marketing Study

[from Ken Berkun (Hong Kong)]

“Sir James Spicer… has officially opened a lavatory at the Piddle Valley First School near Dorchester.”
— VNS #2244 Main News, 23 Jan 90

[from Dick Binder (Nashua, NH, USA)]

“Tensions in Latvia… are tense…”
— WBZ Radio, Boston, 21 Jan 91, news

[from Gunar Zagars (Andover, MA, USA)]

Question:  If you could live forever, would you and why?
Answer:  “I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever.”
— Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss USA contest

“Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff.”
— Mariah Carey

“Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life.”
— Brooke Shields, during an interview to become Spokesperson for federal anti-smoking campaign

“I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body.”
— Winston Bennett, University of Kentucky basketball forward

“Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.”
— Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, DC

“I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president.”
— Hillary Clinton commenting on the release of subpoenaed documents

“That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I'm just the one to do it.”
— A congressional candidate in Texas

“I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.”
— John Wayne

“Half this game is ninety percent mental.”
— Philadelphia Phillies manager, Danny Ozark

“It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.”
— Unknown. This has been attributed to Vice President Al Gore, Vice President Dan Quayle, and Texas Governor George W. Bush.

“I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix.”
— Dan Quayle

“It's no exaggeration to say that the undecideds could go one way or another.”
— George Bush, US President

“We've got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?”
— Lee Iacocca

“I was provided with additional input that was radically different from the truth. I assisted in furthering that version.”
— Colonel Oliver North, from his Iran-Contra testimony

“The word 'genius' isn't applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.”
— Joe Theisman, NFL football quarterback & sports analyst

“We don't necessarily discriminate. We simply exclude certain types of people.”
— Colonel Gerald Wellman, ROTC Instructor

“If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.”
— Unknown. This has been attributed to Al Gore, Bill Clinton, George Bush (Sr. and Jr.), and Dan Quayle.

“We are ready for an unforeseen event that may or may not occur.”
— Al Gore, VP

“Traditionally, most of Australia's imports come from overseas.”
— Keppel Enderbery

“Your food stamps will be stopped effective March 1992 because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances.”
— Department of Social Services, Greenville, South Carolina

“If somebody has a bad heart, they can plug this jack in at night as they go to bed and it will monitor their heart throughout the night. And the next morning, when they wake up dead, there'll be a record.”
— Mark S. Fowler, FCC Chairman

Original version