Quotes about morons

A collection of quotes on the topic of jerk, likeness, doing, people.

Best quotes about morons

“You're a jerk,' repeated the alien, 'a complete asshole.”

Douglas Adams Life, the Universe and Everything

Source: Life, the Universe and Everything

“I'd rather cut my arm off than vote for that jerk.”

Mike Murphy (political consultant) (1962) American political consultant

As quoted in "Debriefing Mike Murphy" https://www.weeklystandard.com/matt-labash/debriefing-mike-murphy (18 March 2016), by Matt Labash, The Weekly Standard 2010s

“Elections are a Western jerk-off.”

John le Carré book The Mission Song

The Mission Song (2006)

“When you jerk off, you’re saying “Hey, I care about me.””

Andrew Dice Clay (1957) American comedian and actor

Dice Rules (1991)

“You are nothing but a crazy ass jerk!”

Wesley Willis (1963–2003) American singer-songwriter

You Fucked That Man's Car Up
Lyrics, Solo

“Average acting is like jerking without an orgasm.”

Giovanni Morassutti (1980) Italian actor, theatre director and cultural entrepreneur.

From the official website

Quotes about morons

“People who go broke in a big way never miss any meals. It is the poor jerk who is shy a half slug who must tighten his belt.”

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love

Source: Time Enough for Love

People, Way

“Listen to the stage manager and get on stage when they tell you to. No one has time for the rock star act. None of the techs backstage care if you're David Bowie or the milkman. When you act like a jerk, they are completely unimpressed with the infantile display that you might think comes with your dubious status. They were there hours before you building the stage, and they will be there hours after you leave tearing it down. They should get your salary, and you should get theirs.”

Henry Rollins book Black Coffee Blues

Black Coffee Blues

Star, Thinking, Tear, Time

“Just because someone's a member of an ethnic minority doesn't mean they're not a nasty small-minded little jerk.”

Terry Pratchett book Feet of Clay

Source: Feet of Clay

“Calvin: In my opinion, we don't devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks.
p58”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

29 Oct 90
Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons

“The last thing I want to turn into is a fat Hollywood jerk. I was brought up without much money and I was happy. I don't think that I will strive for money or success and end up greedy or big-headed. That only leads to unhappiness. I can still be down-to-earth and do this job as long as I enjoy it.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm

Money, Thinking, Success, Happiness

“… facts never prevent the ignorant from jerking their knees into the groin of science.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: UnDivided

Science

“He pointed a shaking finger at her. 'You,' he growled.

She jerked glances over both of her shoulders looking for the unfortunate You he was addressing. Her. Holy shite, this madman had settled on her.”

Kresley Cole book A Hunger Like No Other

Source: A Hunger Like No Other

“The Oracle rose. As one, the three witches bowed.
"See?" Bran jerked his thumb at the three women. "That's how a woman should treat a man. Next time you see me, I want you to do just like them.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

Women, Time

“You want to be a better person? Go listen to someone you disagree with. don't argue with them just. It's remarkable what interesting things people will say if you take the time to not be a jerk.”

Brandon Sanderson book Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia

Source: Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia

People, Time, Personality

“Veins practically popping out of his neck, the jerk leaned out his window and yelled a bunch of swear words, including a new one I tucked away in my brain for future use, if necessary.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Angel Experiment

Future

“He was staring straight ahead, still breathing hard.
“I have something I want to give you.”
“I gathered that.”
At that he jerked his gaze back to hers and almost reluctantly grinned.
“Not that.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

“I gave her a smile that I hoped conveyed something like: Hey, you know I’m on your side. Gods are such jerks! But what can you do?

Probably my expression actually conveyed: It’s not my fault! Please do not kill me!”

Rick Riordan book The Demigod Diaries

Source: The Demigod Diaries

God, Smile, Hope

“I turned to Thalia. ‘I’ll hold the flower while you beat up the thief?’
She sighed. ‘Fine. Let’s go catch this jerk.”

Rick Riordan book The Demigod Files

Source: The Demigod Files

Flowers

“Grief is when you feel so helpless and stupid that you think nothing will ever be right again, and your macaroni and cheese tastes like sawdust, and you can't even jerk off because it seems like too much trouble.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Stupidity, Feeling, Thinking

“It's music rage, which is like road rage, only more righteous. When you get road rage, a tiny part of you knows you're being a jerk, but when you get music rage, you're carrying out the will of God, and God wants these people dead”

Nick Hornby (1957) English novelist

God, People, Music, Rage

“Of course, it had to be just a rebound thing. There was no way I was interested in this arrogant, obnoxious jerk. No matter how hot he might be.”

Jenna Black (1965) American writer

Source: Glimmerglass

Way

“What do you say, Pooh?"
Pooh opened his eyes with a jerk and said, "Extremely."
"Extremely what?" asked Rabbit.
"What you were saying," said Pooh. "Undoubtably.”

A.A. Milne book The House at Pooh Corner

Source: The House at Pooh Corner

“You are avake, yah?" said a voice in a horribly recognizable accent.
"Yah," I muttered, rubbing my head. "And you are still a jerk, yah?”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

“On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are created jerks.”

H. Allen Smith (1907–1976) American journalist

Men

“Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

Source: The Book of Guys

Communication, Heart

“Like a cartoon world, where the figures are flat and outlined in black, jerking through some kind of goofy story that might be real funny if it weren't for the cartoon figures being real guys…”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

World, Guy

“That's what's so great about the Internet. It allows pompous blow-hards to connect with other pompous blow-hards in a vast circle-jerk of pomposity.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

“Love is bullshit. Emotion is bullshit. I am a rock. A jerk. I'm an uncaring asshole and proud of it.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Choke

Love

“True success is figuring out your life and career so you never have to be around jerks.”

John Waters (1946) American filmmaker, actor, comedian and writer

Source: Role Models

Life, Success

“Because when a guy's a jerk or an asshole, it's easier because you know exactly where you stand.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Guy

“Vivian, I'd like to give you my heart, but since that might be inconvenient I've brought you someone else's."

"Rafe you jerk, this is a sheep's heart.”

Annette Curtis Klause Blood and Chocolate

Variant: I'd like to give you my heart, but since that might be inconvenient, I've brought you someone else's.
Source: Blood and Chocolate

Heart

“Hey, Hot Stuff, Can’t wait till you get over that guy you were with. He sounds like a real jerk. Hope it’s soon. You’re way too tasty to be alone for too long. Come find me. I’m out here waiting. Your Future”

Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian

Hope, Way, Guy, Waiting

“I'd hate to find out that the universe really wasn't conspiring against me. It would jerk the rug out from under my persecution complex.”

Jim Butcher book Grave Peril

Source: Grave Peril

Hate, Universe

“All broken hearts are circumstantial. Every lovelorn jerk is the victim of bad timing, good intentions, and someone else’s poor decision making.”

Joshua Ferris Then We Came to the End

Source: Then We Came to the End

Decision, Time, Heart

“[Roland] jerked back too fast to see, and his fist was suddenly connecting with my chin. I didn't pass out, but my body went limp. Part of me was screaming silently. The other part was saying, 'Oh, what pretty trees.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Blue Moon

Source: Blue Moon

Tree, Parting

“All of my own impulses to balance and move seemed to conflict with those of the guards, and I was jerked and jostled down the portico, just as graceful as a sick cat.”

Megan Whalen Turner The Thief

Source: The Thief

Cats

“I wish I had more friends, but people are such jerks. If you can just get most people to leave you alone, you're doing good. If you can find even one person you really like, you're lucky. And if that person can also stand you, you're really lucky.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

People, Personality

“Fang! Come Back!" I started pulling his hair. Shaking his head and shoulders. Hard. "Wake up! Snap out of it! You stupid jerk! I am going to kill you if you die on me!”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Fang

Stupidity

“Demon?” Gwen gasped out. Her back jerked ramrod-straight, and her face leeched of
color. “Did you just say demon?”

Oh, uh…did I say that?” Strider once again glanced around the plane helplessly. “No, no.
I think I said seaman.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Whisper

Color, Thinking

“Advanced life-forms, my seweet patootie. Jerks. Both of them.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Fang

Life

“Adrian suddenly made an abrupt turn onto a side street we'd nearly driven past. I jerked upright as he clipped the curb.
"What are you doing? Think about your tires!”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

Thinking, Past

“Small jerks began to appear in my legs, my walk became unsteady precisely because I wanted it to be smooth.”

Knut Hamsun book Hunger

Source: Hunger

Appearance

“I had a stupid crush on a guy who barely tolerated me most of the time. Was that the kind of girl I was? Pick the jerk over the nice guy?”

Kelley Armstrong The Reckoning

Source: The Reckoning

Stupidity, Guy, Girl, Time

“She'd cried loudly enough that the man sitting across from her had offered her a tissue, and she'd screamed, what do you think you're looking at jerk? At him, because that was what you did in New York. After that she felt a little better.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Thinking

“Good night, Gabriel.' [Kaitlyn] said
You jerk
[Gabriel] widened his eyes. 'Don't you want to stay? It's a big bed.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: The Strange Power

Night

“Now it was Liddle, jerking into motion as Wertz poised at the plate, and then the motion smoothed out and the ball came sweeping in to Wertz, a shoulder-high pitch, a fast ball that probably would have been a fast curve, except that Wertz was coming around and hitting it, hitting it about as hard as I have ever seen ball hit, on a high line to dead center field. For whatever it is worth, I have seen such hitters as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, Jimmy Foxx, Ralph Kiner, Hack Wilson, Johnny Mize, and lesser-known but equally long hitters as Wally Berger and Bob Seeds send the batted ball tremendous distances. None, that I recall, ever hit a ball any harder than this one by Wertz in my presence.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From A Day in the Bleachers (1955), p. 116; reprinted in The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told: Thirty Unforgettable Tales from the Diamond https://books.google.com/books?id=dj6_F7omJZcC&pg=PA151&dq=%22Now+it+was+Liddle%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBoQ6AEwAWoVChMIwoTj2c7GxwIVRDw-Ch2howea#v=onepage&q=%22Now%20it%20was%20Liddle%22&f=false (2001), edited by Jeff Silverman, p. 151 Sports-related

Dead

“For me the ideal Olympics would be to go in with all that pressure, all that attention and have performances that are literally tear-jerking, that make people put their heads down because they’re embarrassed at how emotional they’re getting, that make people want to try sports, talk to their kids, call their f---ing ex-wives—and come away with no medals. I think that would be epic. That would be the perfect thing.”

Bode Miller (1977) American alpine ski racer

Interview with Newsweek, Nov. 2005, pub. 23 Feb. 2006 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11522274/

People, Thinking, Tear, Sport

“Dutifully I thumbed the rides, hopped the B & Os and the Great Northerns, balled the lithe small-town girls in the band shells of their hometown parks, held the job as field hand and day laborer and soda jerk, saw the crude spectacles of American landscape slide past me as I lay in an open boxcar and drank cheap red wine; and if I didn't, I might as well have.”

Michael Chabon book Wonder Boys

Wonder Boys (1995)

Girl, Wine, Past

“Speaking of the sanctions, they are not just a knee-jerk reaction on behalf of the United States or its allies to our position regarding the events and the coup in Ukraine, or even the so-called Crimean Spring. I’m sure that if these events had never happened – I want to point this out specifically for you as politicians sitting in this auditorium – if none of that had ever happened, they would have come up with some other excuse to try to contain Russia’s growing capabilities, affect our country in some way, or even take advantage of it. 4 December 2014, The Kremlin Moscow, http://eng.news.kremlin.ru/news/23341”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

On Ukraine

Way, Spring, Country

“I felt there’s a wealth in Jewish tradition, a great inheritance. I’d be a jerk not to take advantage of it.”

Herman Wouk (1915–2019) Pulitzer Prize-winning American author whose novels include The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War and War and …

On his return to Orthodox Judaism.
Time Magazine (September 5, 1955).

Wealth

“I get more out of life just being myself, by just being a human being. Not by being a rock star, not by being whatever. Sometimes I act like a jerk, but I think people respect me for being myself. That's the ultimate thing about the Smashing Pumpkins.”

Billy Corgan (1967) American musician, songwriter, producer, and author

Lewman, Mark. Dirt Magazine. 1992.

Life, People, Star, Thinking

“Bill Clinton said in his Portland State University speech that anyone who doesn't want America to become darker is "un-American." Isn't that something? This jerk who used to organize anti-American demonstrations during the Vietnam war and chant, "Ho, Ho, Ho Chih Minh, the Viet Cong's gonna win," is now telling us that we're "un-American"!”

William Luther Pierce (1933–2002) American white nationalist

Thinking About a White Future, 1998
1990s, 1990

War, Universe

“Ted Cruz lies. He's a liar. And that's why nobody likes him, that's why his Senate people won't endorse him. That's why he stands on the middle of the Senate floor and can't make a deal with anybody. He looks like a jerk. He's standing all by himself. And you know, there's something to say about having a little bit of ability to get other people to do things. You can't be a lone wolf and stand there. That's sort of what we have right now as a president.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Morning Joe http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/trump-ted-cruz-lies-he-s-a-liar-608990275597 (26 January 2016) 2010s, 2016, January

People, Wolf

“A male student makes vulgar remarks about your breasts? Don't slink off to whimper with the campus shrinking violets. Deal with it. On the spot. Say, "Shut up, you jerk! And crawl back to the barnyard where you belong!" In general, women who project this take-charge attitude towards life get harassed less often. I see too many dopey, immature, self-pitying young women walking around like melting sticks of butter.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992), Rape and Modern Sex War, p. 53

Life, Women

“Something happened when I got pregnant, and I'm not able to listen to that kind of music as much. I feel like I'm going nuts when I listen to it. I used to listen to Dead Kennedys, Circle Jerks, PiL, Butthole Surfers. But today, I can't. I love Alanis Morissette, Emmylou Harris' latest album, and all sorts of jazz and blues. If I want to hear something heavy duty, I'll put on the Foo Fighters or a good rocking Rolling Stones song. But that's as intense as I've got.”

Gillian Anderson (1968) American-British film, television and theatre actress, activist and writer

David Wild, Rolling Stone "X-Files Undercover" http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/features/x-files-undercover-19960516 (May 16, 1996) 1990s

Love, Music, Feeling, Dead

“Just observe what you are. What you are is the fact: the fact that you are jealous, anxious, envious, brutal, demanding, violent. That is what you are. Look at it, be aware; don’t shape it, don’t guide it, don’t deny it, don’t have opinions about it. By looking at it without condemnation, without judgement, without comparison, you observe; out of that observation, out of that awareness comes affection. Now, go still further. And you can do this in one flash. It can only be done in one flash — not first from the outside and then working further and deeper and deeper and deeper; it does not work that way, it is all done with one sweep, from the outermost to the most inward, to the innermost depth. Out of this, in this, there is attention — attention to the whistle of that train, the noise, the coughing, the way you are jerking your legs about; attention whereby you listen to what is said, you find out what is true and what is false in what is being said, and you do not set up the speaker as an authority. So this attention comes out of this extraordinarily complex existence of contradiction, misery and utter despair. And when the mind is attentive, it can then give focus, which then is quite a different thing; then it can concentrate but that concentration is not the concentration of exclusion. Then the mind can give attention to whatever it is doing, and that attention becomes much more efficient, much more vital, because you are taking everything in.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

Vol. XIV, p. 301
Posthumous publications, The Collected Works

Way, Falseness, Training, Despair

“On November 7, 2006, Cafferty called Donald Rumsfeld "an obnoxious jerk and war criminal."”

Jack Cafferty (1942) American journalist

[Crooks & Liars, Cafferty Shows His Love For Rumsfeld, 7 November 2006, http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/11/07/cafferty-shows-his-love-for-rumsfeld/]
2006

War

“We don't know what the event that has allowed for this massive oil to be released. And until we know that, I hope we don't see a knee-jerk reaction across this country that says we're going to shut down drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, because the cost to this country will be staggering.”

Rick Perry (1950) 14th and current United States Secretary of Energy

2010

Hope, Country

“Last, but not least -- in fact, this is most important -- you need a happy ending. However, if you can create tragic situations and jerk a few tears before the happy ending, it will work much better.”

Satyajit Ray (1921–1992) Indian author, poet, composer, lyricist, filmmaker

Satyajit Ray:Quotes: Quotable Quote, 13 December 2013, Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/625702-last-but-not-least----in-fact-this-is-most,

Tear, Happiness

“It's a tango." Marco maneuvered me out among the dancers. "I love tangos." "I can't dance." "You don't have to dance. I'll do that dancing." Marco hooked an arm around my waist and jerked me up against his dazzling white suit. Then he said, "Pretend you are drowning." I shut my eyes, and the music broke over me like a rainstorm. Marco's leg slid forward against mine and my leg slid back and I seemed to be riveted against him, limb for limb, moving as he moved, without any will or knowledge of my own, and after a while I thought, "It doesn't take two to dance, it only takes one," and I let myself blow and bend like a tree in the wind. "What did I tell you?”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Marco's breath scorched my ear. "You're a perfectly respectable dancer."
Source: The Bell Jar (1963), Ch. 9

Love, Music, Knowledge, Tree

“I was sort of an amoral little jerk when I was young. I was arrogant about being smarter than other people, but unhappy that I wasn't able to spend all my time doing what I wanted. I spent a year in a juvenile home for a first offense after an evaluation by a psychologist went very badly.”

John D. Carmack (1970) American computer programmer, engineer, and businessman

Quoted in "John Carmack Answers" http://slashdot.org/games/99/10/15/1012230.shtml Slashdot (1999-10-15)

People, Home, Time

“The only thing worse than a knee-jerk liberal is a knee-pad conservative.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)

“And the music came back with the carnival, the music you've heard as far back as you can remember, ever since you were little, that's always playing somewhere, in some corner of the city, in little country towns, wherever poor people go and sit at the end of the week to figure out what's become of them, sometimes here, sometimes there, from season to season, it tinkles and grinds out the tunes that rich people danced to the year before. It's the mechanical music that floats down from the wooden horses, from the cars that aren't cars anymore, from the railways that aren't at all scenic, from the platform under the wrestler who hasn't any muscles and doesn't come from Marseille, from the beardless lady, the magician who's a butter-fingered jerk, the organ that's not made of gold, the shooting gallery with the empty eggs. It's the carnival made to delude the weekend crowd. We go in and drink the beer with no head on it. But under the cardboard trees the stink of the waiter's breath is real. And the change he gives you has several peculiar coins in it, so peculiar that you go on examining them for weeks and weeks and finally, with considerable difficulty, palm them off on some beggar. What do you expect at the carnival? Gotta have what fun you can between hunger and jail, and take things as they come. No sense complaining, we're sitting down aren't we? Which ain't to be sneezed at. I saw the same old Gallery of the Nations, the one Lola caught sight of years and years ago on that avenue in the park of Saint-Cloud. You always see things again at carnivals, they revive the joy of past carnivals. Over the years the crowds must have come back time and again to stroll on the main avenue of the park of Saint-Cloud…taking it easy. The war had been over long ago. And say I wonder if that shooting gallery still belonged to the same owner? Had he come back alive from the war? I take an interest in everything. Those are the same targets, but in addition, they're shooting at airplanes now. Novelty. Progress. Fashion. The wedding was still there, the soldier too, and the town hall with its flag. Plus a few more things to shoot at than before.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

27
Journey to the End of the Night (1932)

Hunger, War, People, Music

“Trump (Donald) denied knowing that Serge (Kovaleski) was disabled, and demanded an apology, saying that anyone could see his imitation was of a flustered, frightened reporter, not a disabled person. It’s true that Trump was not mimicking any mannerisms that Serge has. He doesn’t jerk around or flail his arms. He’s not retarded. He sits calmly, but if you look at his wrists, you’ll see they are curved in. That’s not the imitation Trump was doing—he was doing a standard retard, waving his arms and sounding stupid: “’Ahhh, I don’t know what I said—ahhh, I don’t remember!’ He’s going, ‘Ahhh, I don’t remember, maybe that’s what I said!’””

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

2016, In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome! (2016)

Stupidity, Personality

“My quarrel with Chomsky goes back to the Balkan wars of the 1990s, where he more or less openly represented the "Serbian Socialist Party" (actually the national-socialist and expansionist dictatorship of Slobodan Milosevic) as the victim. Many of us are proud of having helped organize to prevent the slaughter and deportation of Europe's oldest and largest and most tolerant Muslim minority, in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Kosovo. But at that time, when they were real, Chomsky wasn't apparently interested in Muslim grievances. He only became a voice for that when the Taliban and Al Qaeda needed to be represented in their turn as the victims of a "silent genocide" in Afghanistan. Let me put it like this, if a supposed scholar takes the Christian-Orthodox side when it is the aggressor, and then switches to taking the "Muslim" side when Muslims commit mass murder, I think that there is something very nasty going on. And yes, I don't think it is exaggerated to describe that nastiness as "anti-American" when the power that stops and punishes both aggressions is the United States … In some awful way, his regard for the underdog has mutated into support for mad dogs. This is not at all like watching the implosion of an obvious huckster and jerk like Michael Moore, who would have made a perfectly good Brownshirt populist. The collapse of Chomsky feels to me more like tragedy.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

"Love, Poverty and War" http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=C78DC231-4599-4745-9CA5-A398398916A0, FrontPageMagazine.com (2004-12-29): On Noam Chomsky 2000s, 2004

War, Dogs, Way, Feeling

“…you could pick any two writers of equal skill, have them read each other's work, and they would both instantly proclaim each other the champion. Unless one of them happens to be Stephen King, because he's a jerk.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

God Ran Out of Faces
Fully Ramblomatic, Reviews

God, Reading

“Jake jerked a thumb at the door. "Al right. Get the hell out of here, and take all your pictures of naked women with you." "Yes, sir." Chuckling, Potter scooped up the folder of reconnaissance photos and started out. He paused with his hand on the doorknob. "Good luck," he said. "You've done everything you could to get us ready, but we'll still need it." "I'll put in a fresh requisition with the Quartermaster Corps," Jake said. Potter nodded and left. Jake shook his head in bemusement. He might have made stupid jokes like that with Ferd Koenig and a couple of other old-time Party buddies, but not with anybody else. So why make them with Potter? But he didn't need long to find the answer. He'd known Potter longer than he'd known Koenig or any of the other Party men. They'd both hung tough when the Army of Northern Virginia was falling to pieces all around them. If the president of the greatest country in North America- no, in the world!”

Harry Turtledove book American Empire: The Victorious Opposition

couldn't joke around with the one man who'd known him when he was just a sergeant, with whom could he joke? Nobody. Nobody at all.
Source: American Empire: The Victorious Opposition (2003), p. 533

Women, Men, Stupidity, World

“Fishing is a jerk at one end of a line waiting for a jerk at the other end of a line.”

Peter Corey (1946) British writer

The A-Z of Absolutely Everything (1990)

Fish, Waiting

“There was only one cadet I ever really hated. Just one name I can think of,' The Boo said. 'That'll make an interesting story for the book, Colonel. Who is the jerk?' I asked. 'It was you, Conroy. Just you. There was something about you that I hated when you first walked into fourth battalion, you worthless bum.”

Pat Conroy (1945–2016) American novelist

Eulogy for "The Boo" (May 3, 2006)

Hate, Books, Thinking

“The best thing fishing taught me, I think was how to be alone. Without this ability no writer can really survive or work, and there is a strong relationship between the activity of the fisherman, letting his line down into unknown depths in the hope of catching an unseen prey (which may be worth keeping, or may not) and that of a writer trolling his memory and reflections for unexpected jags and jerks of association.”

Robert Hughes (1938–2012) Australian critic, historian, writer

Things I Didn't Know (2006)

Hope, Thinking, Fish, Strong

“Counterpart to the knee-jerk liberal is the new knee-pad conservative, always groveling before the rich and powerful.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)

““Kristin, nothing ever does change.” I jerked a thumb back at the crowd outside. “You’ll always have morons like that, swallowing belief patterns whole so they don’t have to think for themselves. You’ll always have people like Kawahara and the Bancrofts to push their buttons and cash in on the program. People like you to make sure the game runs smoothly and the rules don’t get broken too often. And when the Meths want to break the rules themselves, they’ll send people like Trepp and me to do it. That’s the truth, Kristin. It’s been the truth since I was born a hundred and fifty years ago, and from what I read in the history books, it’s never been any different. Better get used to it.””

Richard K. Morgan book Altered Carbon

Epilogue (p. 524)
Altered Carbon (2002)

People, Truth, Books, History

“Men tend to cry, in Landsman's experience, when they have been living for a long time with a sense of rightness and safety, and then they realize that all along just, under their boot, lay the abyss. This is part of the policeman's job, to jerk back the pretty carpet that covers over the deep jagged hole in the floor.”

Michael Chabon (1963) Novelist, short story writer, essayist

Source: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007), Chapter 11

Men, Sense, Time, Parting

“Scholars, journalists, activists, and others have an almost knee-jerk tendency to praise Bangladesh's beginnings as a secular nation and trace its slide into Islamist domination from the 1975 assassination of its founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. That praise is warranted - but only to a limited extent, for secularism and any semblance of democratic ideals were in their death throes long before Sheikh Mujib was.”

Richard Benkin American journalist

Benkin, Richard L. (2012). A quiet case of ethnic cleansing: The murder of Bangladesh's Hindus. New Delhi: Akshaya Prakashan. p.167

Death

“No longer was light analogous to the discharge of a blunderbuss, but rather to the pulsating flight of birds.”

Banesh Hoffmann (1906–1986) American mathematician and physicist

[Banesh Hoffmann, The strange story of the quantum: an account for the general reader of the growth of the ideas underlying our present atomic knowledge, Courier Dover Publications, 1959, 0486205185, 7]

Bird, Light

“I seem to have gathered a reputation for being a jerk in real life, because frankly fans make me uncomfortable. Complete strangers come up and talk to me like they've known me their whole lives, and for that reason I can seem a bit stand-offish… No, the whole "fan" thing confuses me.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/interviews/6457-An-Exclusive-Interview-With-Yahtzee.3
Other Articles

Life

“Where is all the porn coming from?! Why isn't the Christian right talking about porn?! Cause they want us to be jerking off by ourselves! They know they can't get to us; we're lost to them, but at least it'll keep us in our apartments!”

Marc Maron (1963) Comedian

Tickets Still Available (2006)

““The whole of modern so-called civilised existence is an attempt to deny reality insofar as it exists. When did Don last look at the stars, when did Norman last get soaked in a rainstorm? The stars as far as these people are concerned are the Manhattan-pattern!” He jerked his thumb at a window beyond which the city’s treasure-house of coloured light glimmered gaudily.”

John Brunner book Stand on Zanzibar

continuity (13) “Multiply by a Million”
Stand on Zanzibar (1968)

People, Star, Reality, Light

“the roads lay under us in white quilts
the telegraph-wires jerked tight and wrote
mantras on the sky”

Lajos Kassák The Horse Dies the Birds Fly Away

"A ló meghal a madarak kirepülnek" ("The Horse Dies the Birds Fly Away"), 1922, translated by Edwin Morgan

“Dissent is morally neutral. You can correctly call yourself a dissident because you like to kick puppies, but at the end of the day, you're just a jerk who likes to kick puppies.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

2000s, 2001, Cynthia McKinney's Last Stand (2001)

“Did you see that wee church in Salamanca where the Virgin's statue had eyes that moved? Your priest there said it was a miracle, but you could see the string the fellow jerked to make the wooden eyeballs twitch! But why go to the trouble of having a string? I asked myself. Because the people want a miracle, that's why. And just because some people invent a miracle doesn't mean there aren't real ones, does it? It means the opposite, so it does, for why would you imitate something that doesn't exist?”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Sergeant Patrick Harper, p. 186
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Rifles (1988)

People

“I've seen the future and it will be
I've seen the future and it works
If there's life after, we will see
So I can't go like a jerk
Systematic overthrow of the underclass
Hollywood conjures images of the past
New world needs spirituality that will last
I've seen the future and it will be.”

Prince (1958–2016) American pop, songwriter, musician and actor

The Future
Song lyrics, Batman (1989)

Life, World, Past, Future

“A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained weddingveil and some in headgear of cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a spanish conquistador, the breastplate and pauldrons deeply dented with old blows of mace or saber done in another country by men whose very bones were dust and many with their braids spliced up with the hair of other beasts until they trailed upon the ground and their horses’ ears and tails worked with bits of brightly colored cloth and one whose horse’s whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen’s faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of Christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools.”

Cormac McCarthy book Blood Meridian

Source: Blood Meridian (1985), Chapter IV

Death, Men, Dreams, Color

“The moneylender and his wife," he said indifferently, jerking his head over his shoulder. "It is always the same in any revolution. The moneylenders are always the first to go.”

Christopher Wood (writer) (1935–2015) English writer

Wood, Christopher. "Terrible Hard", Says Alice. London: Constable. 1970. (chapter 6)

Indifference

“Then she tried to show me how to hold the gun. I jerked it away from her, flung the barrel recklessly in all directions.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

“I was TORTURED by teachers! You hear me, TORTURED!” I yelled, jerking the whole podium off the floor. “Hell, I flunked the third grade twice because—BECAUSE—” I was crying so hard that I had to wipe the tears out of my eyes with the back of my hand, but this wasn’t going to stop me. I was all guts up front now. I was in that smooth-feeling, all-true place that I got into when I’d go to my room and start writing each morning before daybreak…with all my heart and soul.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

Feeling, Soul, Hell, Tear

“And he (Andy Van Dam) put his arm around my shoulders and we went for a little walk and he said, Randy, it's such a shame that people perceive you as so arrogant. Because it's going to limit what you're going to be able to accomplish in life. What a hell of a way to word "you're being a jerk." [laughter] Right? He doesn't say you're a jerk. He says people are perceiving you this way and he says the downside is it's going to limit what you're going to be able to accomplish.”

Randy Pausch book The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture (2008)
Variant: And he put his arm around my shoulders and we went for a little walk and he said, Randy, it’s such a shame that people perceive you as so arrogant. Because it’s going to limit what you’re going to be able to accomplish in life. What a hell of a way to word “you’re being a jerk.” [laughter] Right? He doesn’t say you’re a jerk. He says people are perceiving you this way and he says the downside is it’s going to limit what you’re going to be able to accomplish.

Life, People, Way, Hell

“In a sense, sexual harassment lawsuits are just the latest version of the female selection process—allowing her to select for men who care enough for her to put their career at risk; who have enough finesse to initiate without becoming a jerk and enough guts to initiate despite a potential lawsuit… In the past, though, the process of his overcoming her barriers was called ‘courtship.’ Now it is called either ‘courtship’ or ‘sexual harassment’.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 291.

Men, Sense, Past

“My demons talk to me in profanity. They think I'm a jerk. A bum. And an asshole. I just say they're a jerk, they're a bum, they're an asshole. They're no good. They better leave me alone and get off my case.”

Wesley Willis (1963–2003) American singer-songwriter

Interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2uRv8ZE_Tc&feature=related,

Thinking

“The main difficulty in using either lazo or bolas, is to ride so well, as to be able at full speed, and while suddenly turning about, to whirl them so steadily round the head, as to take aim: on foot any person would soon learn the art. One day, as I was amusing myself by galloping and whirling the balls round my head, by accident the free one struck a bush; and its revolving motion being thus destroyed, it immediately fell to the ground, and like magic caught one hind leg of my horse; the other ball was then jerked out of my hand, and the horse fairly secured. Luckily he was an old practised animal, and knew what it meant; otherwise he would probably have kicked till he had thrown himself down. The Gauchos roared with laughter; they cried they had seen every sort of animal caught, but had never before seen a man caught by himself.”

Charles Darwin book The Voyage of the Beagle

Source: The Voyage of the Beagle (1839), chapter III: "Montevideo — Maldonado, etc.", page 51 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=70&itemID=F11&viewtype=image

Art, Laughter, Learning, Animals

“Look at the movie 'Wag the Dog, I think this has all the elements of that movie. Our reaction to the embassy bombings should be based on sound, credible evidence, not a knee-jerk reaction to try to direct public attention away from his personal problems.”

Jim Gibbons (1944) American attorney, aviator, geologist, hydrologist and politician

On the Monica Lewinsky Scandal; Tokoma Tribune, 1998. http://web.archive.org/20050311213729/votegibbonsout.blogs.com/votegibbonsout/2004/03/did_gibbons_aid.html; Gibbons thought Clinton was too aggressive in taking on the terrorist threat posed by Al Qaida.

Dogs, Problem, Thinking, Personality

““Squatting on old bones and excrement and rusty iron, in a white blaze of heat, a panorama of naked idiots stretches to the horizon. Complete silence - their speech centres are destroyed - except for the crackle of sparks and the popping of singed flesh as they apply electrodes up and down the spine. White smoke of burning flesh hangs in the motionless air. A group of children have tied an idiot to a post with barbed wire and built a fire between his legs and stand watching with bestial curiosity as the flames lick his thighs. His flesh jerks in the fire with insect agony.”

William S. Burroughs book Naked Lunch

Benway
Naked Lunch (1959)

Children, Silence, Singing

“I hate whales. I hate them. I can’t stand those stupid, blubbery, floating around, self-indulgent smug-faced krill-eating fat jerks with all their sycophantic hippie save-the- planet peacenik eco-terrorist generation X-er groupies. Greenpeace? Get a job!”

Arthur M. Jolly (1969) American writer

Ishmael
Moby (No Last Name Given) (2014)

Hate, Stupidity

“Basic Instinct 2 is not good in any rational or defensible way, but not bad in irrational and indefensible ways. I savored the icy abstraction of the modern architecture, which made the people look like they came with the building. I grinned at that absurd phallic skyscraper that really does exist in London. I liked the recklessness of the sex-and-speed sequence that opens the movie (and, curiously, looks to have been shot in Chicago). I could appreciate the plot once I accepted that it was simply jerking my chain. You can wallow in it … Footnote No. 2: My 1-1/2-star rating is like a cold shower, designed to take my mind away from giving it four stars.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/basic-instinct-2-2006 of Basic Instinct 2 (31 March 2006) Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews

People, Sex, Way, Star

“(17.2. 1914) Beyond some bars, out of arm's reach, lies an objective [a banana]; on this side, in the background of the experiment room, is placed a sawn-off castor-oil bush, whose branches can be easily broken off. It is impossible to squeeze the tree through the railings, on account of its awkward shape; besides, only one of the bigger apes could drag it as far as the bars. Sultan is let in, does not immediately see the objective, and, looking about him indifferently, sucks one of the branches of the tree. But, his attention having been drawn to the objective, he approaches the bars, glances outside, the next moment turns round, goes straight to the tree, seizes a thin slender branch, breaks it off with a sharp jerk, runs back to the bars, and attains the objective. From the turning round upon the tree up to the grasping of the fruit with the broken-off branch, is one single quick chain of action, without the least 'hiatus', and without the slightest movement that does not, objectively considered, fit into the solution described.”

Wolfgang Köhler book The Mentality of Apes

Source: The Mentality of Apes, 1925, p. 94; As cited in: Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation, 1964, p. 103

Tree, Indifference

“I was thinking too damn much to be careful. When I stabbed my key in the lock and turned it there was a momentary catch in the tumblers before it went all the way around and I swore out loud as I rammed the door with my shoulder and hit the floor. Something swished through the air over my head and I caught an arm and pulled a squirming, fighting bundle of muscle down on top of me.
If I could have reached my rod I would have blown his guts out. His breath was in my face and I brought my knee up, but he jerked out of the way bringing his hand down again and my shoulder went numb after a split second of blinding pain. He tried again with one hand going for my throat, but I got one foot loose and kicked out and up and felt my toe smash onto his groin. The cramp of the pain doubled him over on top of me, his breath sucking in like a leaky tire.
Then I got cocky. I thought I had him. I went to get up and he moved. Just once. That thing in his hand smashed against the side of my head and I started to crumple up piece by piece until there wasn't anything left except the sense to see and hear enough to know that he had crawled out of the room and was falling down the stairs outside. Then I thought about the lock on my door and how I had a guy fix it so that I could tell if it had been jimmied open so I wouldn't step into any blind alleys without a gun in my hand, but because of a dame who lay naked and smiling on a bed I wouldn't share, I had forgotten all about it.”

Mickey Spillane book The Big Kill

The Big Kill (1951)

Pain, Smile, Way, Guy

“Dear Joe The letter said The windows rattle without you, you bastard. The trees are the cause, rattling in the wind, you jerk, the wild scraping those leaves and twigs against my window. They'll keep on doing this, you terrible husband, and slowly wear away our entire apartment.”

Daniel Handler book Adverbs

Adverbs (2006), Naturally

Tree

“They found me in the gutter. The night was the only thing I had left and not much of it at that. I heard the car stop, the doors open and shut and two voices talking. A pair of arms jerked me to my feet and held me there.
"Drunk," the cop said.
The other one turned me around into the light. "He don't smell bad. That cut on his head didn't come from a fall either."
"Mugged?"
"Maybe."
I didn't give a damn which way they called it. They were both wrong anyhow. Two hours ago I was drunk. Not now. Two hours ago I was a roaring lion. Then the bottle sailed across the room. No lion left now.
Now was a time when I wasn't anything. Nothing was left inside except the feeling a ship must have when it's torpedoed, sinks and hits bottom.”

Mickey Spillane book The Girl Hunters

The Girl Hunters (1962)

Cars, Way, Feeling, Light

“"You asking me the way?" "Yes," I said, "since I can't find it myself." "Give it up! Give it up!" said he, and turned with a sudden jerk, like someone who wants to be alone with his laughter.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Variant translation: The Policeman said to me, "You want to know the way? Give up! Just give up!" And he turned away like a man that wants to be alone with his laughter.
The Complete Stories (1971)

Way, Laughter

“The American family will fear less, our national security will be more assured, and we won‘t let the Venezuelas or Nigerias or the Saudi Arabias or the Irans jerk us around by the gas nozzle the way they are doing it now.”

Larry Craig (1945) American politician

July 18, 2008 YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vqANJCATrE

Fear, Family, Way

“"What are you trying to do, Kerouac?" I'd ask myself in my sleepingbag at night, "trying to deny reality with all this Buddha stuff, ya jerk?" … "Poor detailed immaculate incarnate fool, and you call yourself Self … Take off your coat and crash wits." And I realized that all this Buddhism was a STRAIN at telling the untellable emptiness yet that nothing was truer, a perfect paradox.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Meditation in the Woods (1958)

Fools, Reality, Perfection, Night

“I think I could have been appointed as the aide-de camp in the White House, it wouldn't make any difference — it's Bambi that's so dear to people. But I love it now — when people realize, 'This old jerk, he's still alive and was Bambi.' And I wouldn't take anything for it, not a darn thing for it.”

Donnie Dunagan (1934) actor and United States Marine

Maj. Bambi: Meet The Marine Who Was Disney's Famous Fawn http://www.npr.org/2015/07/31/427821763/major-bambi-meet-the-marine-who-was-disney-s-famous-fawn (July 31, 2015)

Love, People, Thinking, Housing

“The real struggle is not between the right and the left — that's where most people assume — but it's between the party of the thoughtful and the party of the jerks. And no side of the political spectrum has a monopoly on either of those qualities.”

Jimmy Wales (1966) Wikipedia co-founder and American Internet entrepreneur

"How a ragtag band created Wikipedia" http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/37 - TED Talk (July 2005); this has sometimes appeared paraphrased as "The real struggle is not between the right and the left but between the party of the thoughtful and the party of the jerks." Context: Most people understand the need for neutrality. The real struggle is not between the right and the left — that's where most people assume — but it's between the party of the thoughtful and the party of the jerks. And no side of the political spectrum has a monopoly on either of those qualities.

People

“Well it wasn't a formal hanging. It was kind of subtle. I had covered him … his first press conference. He dropped down into the press room and started taking questions and everyone asked about the tax cut and I sort of — Ari Fleischer later told me I blindsided him because I said to him, "Mister President, why don't you respect the wall of separation between church and state?" Well, there's a video of him that is so funny. He jerked back as if he had been hit! I mean both barrels! And he said, "I do respect—" I said, "Well if you did, why would you have a religious office in the White House?" (I'm exaggerating, but anyway) and "you're a secular official." And he said "I am secular." Well, anyway, I got a call from Ari after that. After that there was a formal news conference and I did ask him a Middle East question and it wasn't the question per se. They just don't like my boorishness.”

Helen Thomas (1920–2013) American author and journalist

Phone interview on The Majority Report, 2004-04-02

Question, Housing

“So look: I really don’t want to shame men for feeling anxious about dating trans women, because I mean I was anxious, too, in the other direction. But I do want to shame men for treating trans women like their dirty little secrets. And I do want to shame men for dehumanizing us and voting away our rights by day, while jerking off to shemale porn by night. I do want to shame men for refusing to date us because they’re not fucking strong enough to shoulder one hundredth of the burden of stigma that every trans women carries every moment of every day. I do want to shame men for attacking their trans girlfriends because they couldn’t stand being treated like a gay man for five minutes. That is pathetic. If you’re so worried about proving you’re a man, why don’t you start by standing up for the women you love, you chickenshit cowards.”

Natalie Wynn ContraPoints

ContraPoints, Feminism Did Not Destroy Atheism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klfH9QaEcqY (2016), "Are Traps Gay?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbBzhqJK3bg (2019)

Night, Strong, Secret, Love