Dave Barry: Trending quotes (page 6)

Dave Barry trending quotes. Read the latest quotes in collection
Dave Barry: 242   quotes 6   likes

“In 1948 the Democrats had little choice but to nominate President Truman, under the banner HE'S GOING TO LOSE. Everybody felt this way: the politicians, the press, the pollsters, the piccolo players, Peter Piper, everybody. The Republicans were so confident that they nominated an individual named Thomas Dewey, whose lone accomplishment was inventing the decimal system. Truman campaigned doggedly around the nation, but his cause appeared to be hopeless. A Dewey victory seemed so inevitable that on election night, the Chicago Tribune printed the famous front-page headline DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN. This was because Dewey had defeated Truman, who immediately threatened to drop an atomic bomb on Chicago, so everybody went ha-ha-ha-ha, just kidding, and wisely elected to have the feisty ex-haberdasher have another term.”

Dave Barry

Source: Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States (1989), p. 131

Way , Confidence , Appearance , Victory

“Ha ha! We are just poking a little friendly fun at Germany, which is famous for enjoying a good joke, or as the Germans say, "Sprechnehaltenzoltenfussenmachschnitzerkalbenrollen." Here is just one hilarious example of what we are talking about:
First German: How many Polish people does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Second German: I don't know! How many?
First German: Let's invade Poland and find out!
Millions of Other Germans: Okay!”

Dave Barry

Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need (1991)

People , Light

“But this should serve as a reminder to brides of the importance of discouraging reception guests from discharging their firearms unless they have a good reason, such as the band vocalist attempting to perform "I Will Always Love You" in the official Whitney Houston Diarrhea of the Vowels version ("And IIIIIIeeeeeIIIIIIIII, will alwaaaaays love yoooooeeeeeeeooooooouuuuueeeeeeeeeoooooo" BANG)”

Dave Barry

The Miami Herald, 2 April 2004
Columns and articles

Love

“[Gary] Hart was clearly the most attractive candidate, the only one with even a remote chance of beating Ronald Reagan, so naturally the Democrats selected: Walter Mondale. When Mondale accepted the nomination, he wooed the voter by informing them…that if they elected him as president, his first move would be to jack up their income taxes. Walter you sweet talker!”

Dave Barry

Nonfiction, Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway (2001)

Nature , Chance

“A sense of humor is a measurement of the extent to which we realize that we are trapped in a world almost totally devoid of reason. Laughter is how we express the anxiety we feel at this knowledge.”

Dave Barry

Originally published in "Encyclopedia Tropicana: A Reference Book for the Modern World, Volume 1" by Joel Achenbach, The Miami Herald, May 4, 1986; quoted by Bryan Curtis, " Dave Barry: Elegy for the humorist http://slate.msn.com/id/2112218," Slate, January 12, 2005
Columns and articles

World , Feeling , Knowledge , Sense

“Buying the right computer and getting it to work properly is no more complicated than building a nuclear reactor from wristwatch parts in a darkened room using only your teeth.”

Dave Barry

Dave Barry in Cyberspace (1996)

Parting

“Once, when the bar was slow, he told her about things he’d found in his clients’ pools. Alligators, for example; he’d encountered at least a dozen. Also the occasional snake. Hundreds of frogs. These were to be expected in South Florida, which as far as the native wildlife was concerned was still a swamp, no matter how many houses got built on it.”

Dave Barry

Source: Novels, Tricky Business (2002), Chapter 7

Housing

“The remote control had 48 buttons. No resident of the Old Farts Senile Dying Center knew how to operate it. They were the Greatest Generation, men and women who had survived the Depression, defeated the Nazis, built America into the greatest nation the world had ever seen. But this damned gizmo had beaten them.”

Dave Barry

Source: Novels, Tricky Business (2002), Chapter 4

World , Women , Men

“Despite countless hours of practice, dozens of auditions, many artistic disputes, seven demo CDs, and two radical changes in hairstyle, Arrival never arrived. It wasn’t that they were bad; it was just that, as they reluctantly came to understand, they really weren’t anything special. They were competent. The problem was, there were competent bands everywhere. Competence wasn’t the key to stardom; you needed something else. Whatever it was, Arrival didn’t have it.”

Dave Barry

Source: Novels, Tricky Business (2002), Chapter 3

Problem , Bad luck , Understanding , Change

“In the case of the Extravaganza of the Seas, the owner of record was a man named Bobby Kemp, who was usually described in the newspaper as a millionaire entrepreneur. Kemp liked the look of that, entrepreneur, although he personally could not pronounce it.”

Dave Barry

Source: Novels, Tricky Business (2002), Chapter 2

Personality , Sea

“It was the standard airport-security operation, which meant it appeared to have been designed to hassle law-abiding passengers just enough to reassure them, while at the same time providing virtually no protection against criminals with an IQ higher than celery.”

Dave Barry

Source: Novels, Big Trouble (1999), Chapter 11

Appearance , Law , Time

“Monica was glad Walter was married, so she didn’t have to go into any of the other reasons she didn’t want to get involved with him, such as the fact that he had the intellectual depth of mayonnaise.”

Dave Barry

Source: Novels, Big Trouble (1999), Chapter 7

“Arthur, compelled by masculine instinct, leaned over and frowned at the contents of the case, exactly the way countless males have frowned at household appliances, plumbing, car engines, and all manner of other mechanical objects that they did not begin to understand.”

Dave Barry

Source: Novels, Big Trouble (1999), Chapter 5

Way , Cars , Understanding

“Inside the family room, Arthur Herk was methodically, relentlessly changing channels. He was doing this partly because the instinct to change channels is embedded deep in the male genetic code, and partly because he knew his wife and stepdaughter hated it.”

Dave Barry

Source: Novels, Big Trouble (1999), Chapter 2

Family , Hate , Change

“As it happens, the Herk household did have a dog, named Roger. Roger was the random result of generations of hasty, unplanned dog sex: Among other characteristics, he had the low-slung body of a beagle, the pointy ears of a German shepherd, the enthusiasm of a Labrador retriever, the stubby tail of a boxer, and the intelligence of celery.”

Dave Barry

Source: Novels, Big Trouble (1999), Chapter 2

Sex , Dogs , Intelligence

“Gamblers need action, even when the odds suck. And so they return to the ships, night after night—the slot-machine ladies, clutching their plastic cups of quarters; the shouting, hard-drinking craps-table crowd; the roulette addicts, who truly believe, all evidence to the contrary, that there is something lucky about their birthdates; the blackjack loners, with their foolproof systems that don’t work—all of them eager to resume the inexorable process of transferring their cash to whoever owns the ship.”

Dave Barry

Source: Novels, Tricky Business (2002), Chapter 2

Drink , Night , Relation ships

“Sharks are hardy creatures, but they do not thrive on public transportation.”

Dave Barry

Source: Nonfiction, I'll Mature When I'm Dead (2010), p. 83

“The waterbed trend was similar to the fulfillment movement, in the sense that you paid for something that was supposed to bring you happiness, but you wound up with something less fulfilling, in this case motion sickness and water damage.”

Dave Barry

Source: Nonfiction, Dave Barry Turns 50 (1998), p. 142

Sense , Water , Happiness

“Do you remember that little vent that cars used to have on the front windows, so on coolish days you could let a little fresh air in without causing a big draft? WHO THE HELL TOOK THAT LITTLE VENT AWAY?”

Dave Barry

Source: Nonfiction, Dave Barry Turns 50 (1998), p. 88

Hell , Cars

“Americans loved Disneyland, because it gave them something good, something decent, something that epitomized a quality that vacationing American families value above all else: clean toilets.”

Dave Barry

Source: Nonfiction, Dave Barry Turns 50 (1998), p. 71

Family , Love , Making love