Quotes about parking (346 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”

Anthony Bourdain book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

Source: Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

“You're playing touch-butt with that dork in park, the pony tail.”

Nate Diaz (1985) American mixed martial artist

3 March 2016, UFC 196 pre-fight press conference, source: "UFC 196: Nate Diaz Says Conor McGregor Just Plays Touch Butt" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_O-FgRFlWc&feature=youtu.be&t=1m52s.

“It was cold autumn weather, but in spite of the cold they wandered up and down the roads of the Park for nearly three hours. They agreed to break off their intercourse; every bond, he said, is a bond to sorrow.”

James Joyce book Dubliners

Source: Dubliners

Autumn , Weather

“Remember when you tried to convince me to feed a poultry pie to the mallards in the park to see if you could breed a race of cannibal ducks?"

"They ate it too," Will reminisced. "Bloodthirsty little beasts. Never trust a duck.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

“Welcome… to Jurassic Park!”

Michael Crichton book Jurassic Park

Source: Jurassic Park

“The Girl With Many Eyes
One day in the park
I had quite a surprise.
I met a girl
who had many eyes.

She was really quite pretty
(and also quite shocking!)
and I noticed she had a mouth,
so we ended up talking.

We talked about flowers,
and her poetry classes,
and the problems she'd have
if she ever wore glasses.

It's great to know a girl
who has so many eyes,
but you really get wet
when she breaks down and cries.”

Tim Burton (1958) American filmmaker

Girl , Flowers , Problem

“I love New York. You can pop out of the Underworld in Central Park, hail a taxi, head down Fifth Avenue with a giant hellhound loping behind you, and nobody even looks at you funny.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Love

“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.”

John Muir book Our National Parks

Source: 1900s, Our National Parks (1901), chapter 1: The Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West

Life , People , Home , Mountain

“I sit, I read, I listen to music, I go or a walk, I ride to Prospect Park and sit under the Willow Tree, I remember, I forget, I look at pictures, I do, I do, I do… or I don't, but its peaceful… only me… no worries.”

Hubert Selby Jr. (1928–2004) American writer

Peace , Music , Tree , Reading

“Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone.
They paved paradise,
And put up a parking lot.”

Joni Mitchell (1943) Canadian musician

"Big Yellow Taxi"
Songs

“The idea of 10 dimensions might sound exciting, but they would cause real problems if you forget where you parked your car.”

Stephen Hawking book The Grand Design

Source: The Grand Design

Cars , Idea , Problem , Forgetting

“Every one knows that there are no real forests in England. The deer in the parks of the great are demurely domestic cattle, fat as London alderman.”

Karl Marx book Das Kapital

Vol. I, Ch. 27, pg. 803.
Das Kapital (Buch I) (1867)

“If the auto industry advanced as rapidly as the semiconductor industry, a Rolls Royce would get half a million miles per gallon, and it would be cheaper to throw it away than to park it.”

Gordon Moore (1929) American businessman, co-founder of Intel and author of the eponym law

Moore's Law | ZEISS International http://www.zeiss.com/semiconductor-manufacturing-technology/en_de/products-solutions/lithography-optics/about-optical-lithography/moore_s-law.html (quoting an unidentified statement pertaining to Moore's Law.)

“It's silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

As quoted in The Fresno Bee (10 October 1965)
1960s

Home , Christmas , Country

“Thank you very much. I honor my late husband Raymond Parks, other Freedom Fighters, men of goodwill who could not be here. I'm also honored by young men who respect me and have invited me as an elder. Raymond, or Parks as I called him, was an activist in the Scottsboro Boys case, voter registration, and a role model for youth. As a self-taught businessman, he provided for his family, and he loved and respected me. Parks would have stood proud and tall to see so many of our men uniting for our common man and committing their lives to a better future for themselves, their families, and this country. Although criticism and controversy has been focused on in the media instead of benefits for the one million men assembling peacefully for spiritual food and direction, it is a success. I pray that my multiracial and international friends will view this [some audio unclear] gathering as an opportunity for all men but primarily men of African heritage to make changes in their lives for the better. I am proud of all groups of people who feel connected with me in any way, and I will always work for human rights for all people. However, as an African American woman, I am proud, applaud, and support our men in this assembly. I would a lot like to have male students of the Pathways to Freedom to join me here and wave their hands, but I don't think they're here right now. But thank you all young men of the Pathways to Freedom. Thank you and God bless you all. Thank you.”

Rosa Parks (1913–2005) African-American civil rights activist

Rosa Park speech to social activists assembled in Washington, D.C. ( 1995) http://www.sweetspeeches.com/s/2316-rosa-parks-speech-at-the-million-man-march)

Love , Men , God , People

“Whenever you meet anyone, no matter how briefly, do you acknowledge their being by giving them your full attention, or are you reducing them to a means to an end, a mere function or role. What is the quality of your relationship with the cashier at the supermarket, the parking attendant, the repair man, the customer?”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Stillness Speaks (2003)

“Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film also knows that, although it can be like trying to write War and Peace in a bumper car in an amusement park, when you finally get it right, there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling.”

Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor

Video acceptance speech of the D.W. Griffiths Lifetime Achievement Award (1999) - video and transcript http://www.indelibleinc.com/kubrick/kubrick-dga.html

Life , War , Peace , Cars

“Suddenly he saw them, the bottles of aguardiente, of anís, of jerez, of Highland Queen, the glasses, a babel of glasses—towering, like the smoke from the train that day—built to the sky, then falling, the glasses toppling and crashing, falling downhill from the Generalife Gardens, the bottles breaking, bottles of Oporto, tinto, blanco, bottles of Pernod, Oxygènée, absinthe, bottles smashing, bottles cast aside, falling with a thud on the ground in parks, under benches, beds, cinema seats, hidden in drawers at Consulates, bottles of Calvados dropped and broken, or bursting into smithereens, tossed into garbage heaps, flung into the sea, the Mediterranean, the Caspian, the Caribbean, bottles floating in the ocean, dead Scotchmen on the Atlantic highlands—and now he saw them, smelt them, all, from the very beginning—bottles, bottles, bottles, and glasses, glasses, glasses, of bitter, of Dubonnet, of Falstaff, Rye, Johnny Walker, Vieux Whiskey blanc Canadien, the apéritifs, the digestifs, the demis, the dobles, the noch ein Herr Obers, the et glas Araks, the tusen taks, the bottles, the bottles, the beautiful bottles of tequila, and the gourds, gourds, gourds, the millions of gourds of beautiful mescal...”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. X (p. 292)

Beauty , Training , Sea , Dead

“Rohit Sharma has a much better technique than Virender Sehwag. Sehwag just had a will and aggressive mindset to hit shots all across the park. He (Rohit Sharma) has got great timing, a variety of shots and elegance. I really thought that he is the Inzamam-ul-Haq of India.”

Rohit Sharma (1987) Indian cricketer

Rohit Sharma has a better technique than Virender Sehwag: Shoaib Akhtar, India Today, 7 October 2019 https://www.indiatoday.in/sports/cricket/story/india-vs-south-africa-test-series-shoaib-akhtar-rohit-sharma-opener-inzamam-ul-haq-virender-sehwag-1606976-2019-10-07,
About him

Time

“One afternoon, which is ever present in my recollection, I was enjoying a walk with my friend in the city park and reciting poetry. At that age I knew entire books by heart, word for word. One of these was Goethe's Faust. The sun was just setting and reminded me of a glorious passage:
Sie rückt und weicht, der Tag ist überlebt,
Dort eilt sie hin und fördert neues Leben.
O! daß kein Flügel mich vom Boden hebt,
Ihr nach und immer nach zu streben!
Ein schöner Traum, indessen sie entweicht.
Ach! zu des Geistes Flügeln wird so leicht
Kein körperlicher Flügel sich gesellen![The glow retreats, done is the day of toil;
It yonder hastes, new fields of life exploring;
Ah, that no wing can lift me from the soil
Upon its track to follow, follow soaring!
A glorious dream! though now the glories fade.
Alas! the wings that lift the mind no aid
Of wings to lift the body can bequeath me.
(tr. Bayard Taylor)
As I uttered these inspiring words the idea came like a flash of lightning and in an instant the truth was revealed. I drew with a stick on the sand the diagram shown six years later in my address before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, and my companion understood them perfectly. The images I saw were wonderfully sharp and clear and had the solidity of metal and stone, so much so that I told him, "See my motor here; watch me reverse it."”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

I cannot begin to describe my emotions. Pygmalion seeing his statue come to life could not have been more deeply moved. A thousand secrets of nature which I might have stumbled upon accidentally, I would have given for that one which I had wrested from her against all odds and at the peril of my existence …

On the Invention of the Induction Motor
My Inventions (1919)

Sun , Dreams , Heart , Truth

“A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

“Clinton lied. A man might forget where he parks or where he lives, but he never forgets oral sex, no matter how bad it is.”

Barbara Bush (1925–2018) former First Lady of the United States

Variant: Clinton lied. A man might forget where he parks or where he lives, but he never forgets oral sex, no matter how bad it is.

Sex , Forgetting

“The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

For Team , Business , Graduation , Success

“"A picnic? It's a little late for Central Park, don't you think? It's full of-"
He waved a hand. "Faeries. I know."
"I was going to say muggers," said Clary. "Though I pity the mugger who goes after you."”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Clary and Jace, pg. 307
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

Thinking

“Some national parks have long waiting lists for camping reservations. When you have to wait a year to sleep next to a tree, something is wrong.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Sleep , Tree , Waiting

“That’s your truck parked up by the factory isn’t it?” Magnus pointed. “It’s awfully butch for a bookseller.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Variant: That's your truck parked up by the factory isn't it?" Magnus pointed. "It's awfully butch for a bookseller.
Source: City of Glass

“But I've never despised myself so much as I did that day - she was so small and - so fierce, so, it was like breaking a hawk's wings, stopping up a clear spring with bricks - digging up roses to make space to park your tank. Pointless and ugly.”

Elizabeth Wein book Code Name Verity

Source: Code Name Verity

Spring

“To be denied was like getting shut out of a Public Park.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Mine

“Their love as a dragonfly, skimming over echo park, stoppin to visit the lotus. Eating dreams and drinking blue sky.”

Janet Fitch (1955) American writer

Source: Paint it Black

Love , Dreams , Drink

“I remember discussions withwhich went through many hours till very late at night and ended almost in despair; and when at the end of the discussion I went alone for a walk in the neighbouring park I repeated to myself again and again the question:?”

Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976) German theoretical physicist

Question , Despair , Night

“Lula had Eminem cranked up. He was rapping about trailer park girls and how they go round the outside, and I was wondering what the heck that meant. I'm a white girl from Trenton. I don't know these things. I need a rap
cheat sheet.”

Janet Evanovich book To the Nines

Source: To the Nines

Girl , Cheating

“Every time my brain parks the car neatly in the driveway, my mouth drives through the back of the garage.”

Dave Eggers book The Circle

Source: The Circle

Cars , Time

“Two of my fav pieces of wisdom from Phoebe:

- Men are like parking spots. All the good ones are taken, and those that aren't are inaccessible.

- Remember, it's always better to be the smartass rather than the dumbass.”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: Simply Irresistible

Wisdom , Men

“Who… who are you?' I asked at last. It was true. I had left a body in the park, but seriously, what was I supposed to do? Drag him back to my hotel and tell my bellhop my friend had had too much to drink?”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Drink

“But some characters in books are really real--Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are not giving one thought to the real facts of marriage.”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

Men , Marriage , Books , Waiting

“I look forward to a great future for America, a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose. I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty, which will protect the beauty of our natural environment, which will preserve the great old American houses and squares and parks of our national past, and which will build handsome and balanced cities for our future.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Speech at Amherst College

Wisdom , Beauty , Nature , Past

“He looked like those paintings of baby angels - what do you call them, hubbubs? No cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Age , Angels , Baby , Painting

“Ordinary folk prefer familiar tastes - they'd sooner eat the same things all the time - but a gourmet would sample a fried park bench just to know how it tastes.”

Walter Moers (1957) German comic creator and author

Time

“I would certainly end up forever crying the blues into a
coffee cup in a park for old men playing
chess or silly games of some sort.”

Charles Bukowski book The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Men , Game , Coffee , Cry

“I'll sit in the park and feed the pigeons for a while.'
We don't have pigeons.'
Then I'll feed the pterodactyls.”

Dean Koontz book Forever Odd

Source: Forever Odd

“It’s better to be in the arena, getting stomped by the bull, than to be up in the stands or out in the parking lot.”

Steven Pressfield (1943) United States Marine

Source: The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles

“Looks like a bite mark. What have you been doing all day, anyway?"
"Nothing. I went walking in the park. Tried to clear my head."
"And ran into a vampire?"
"What? No! I fell."
"On your neck?”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Jace and Alec, pg. 73-74
The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

“I parked in front of the Field Museum under a NO PARKING sign. There were a couple of actual spots I could have used, but the drive was even closer. Besides, I found it aesthetically satisfying to defy municipal code.”

Jim Butcher Dead Beat

Source: Dead Beat

“All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.”

Charlie Chaplin book My Autobiography

Source: My Autobiography (1964), Ch. 10

Girl

“I jammed my hand in my jacket pocket, bracing myself for the next hit, and feel something. Something grainy and small, sticking to the tips of my fingers: the sand from Commons Park.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Source: Dreamland (2000)

Feeling

“Most people don't grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Children , People , Age

“Failure is acceptable. but not trying is a whole different ball park.”

Michael Jordan (1963) American retired professional basketball player and businessman

Source: For the Love of the Game: My Story

Failure

“If it's us", she whispered, "how come you get to decide?"

When he didn't answer - couldn't answer - she turned and stared out the front window. As it turned out, they were still in the parking lot.

They hadn't gotten anywhere at all.”

Jodi Picoult book The Tenth Circle

Source: The Tenth Circle

“He scarcely saw his parents. When Christopher was small, he was terrified that he would meet Papa out walking in the Park one day and not recognize him.”

Diana Wynne Jones book The Lives of Christopher Chant

Source: The Lives of Christopher Chant

Parent

“What would killing the Elders result in?"
"Panic? Fear? Three empty parking spaces in the Sanctuary?”

Derek Landy Skulduggery Pleasant

Source: Skulduggery Pleasant

Fear

“Then I lost him for a brief period of time, and by the time I caught up with him, he had wandered into Hyde Park, waded into the Serpetine, spread his arms wide, and was shouting, 'Ducks, embrace me as your king!”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Midnight Heir

Time

“Why do we park on driveways and drive on parkways? Just to be silly!”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

“On my life, Magnus, I swear this is the truth: your father is a Norse god. Now, hurry. We're in a twenty- minute parking spot.”

Rick Riordan book The Sword of Summer

Source: The Sword of Summer

Life , God , Truth

“The park grass looked greener, the park benches looked better and the flowers were trying harder.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

Flowers , Grass

“I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn’t park anywhere near the place.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

“Now I wish she'd never broken any of her rules. I understood why she held to them so hard. Once you broke the first one, they all broke, one by one, like firecrackers exploding in your face in a parking lot on the Fourth of July.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

“Did I hurt you in the parking lot?"
"No, m'lady. I fell, so I could put a tracker on your car."
Great.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Fate's Edge

Cars , Hurt

“I know what a park bench is and the landlord's knock. There are only two things wrong with money: too much or too little.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship

Money

“For it is my opinion that we enclose and celebrate the freaks of our nation and our civilization. Yellowstone National Park is no more representative of America than is Disneyland.”

John Steinbeck book Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Source: Travels with Charley: In Search of America

“Meyer, Stephenie. (2006). New Moon. Park Avenue, New York: Little, Brown and Company, 563..”

Stephenie Meyer (1973) American author

References
Variant: Meyer, Stephenie. (2005). Twilight. Park Avenue, New York: Little, Brown and Company, 498..

“When I won the Booker Prize, I said that it was nice to see a work of art winning this prize and I've never been forgiven for that. When you get a prize, you're suppose to be humble. Somebody was interviewing me and said, 'This is a great day for Ireland'. I said, 'Why? Ireland didn't do it, I did it.' I wasn't forgiven for that either. I don't wear the green jersey and I don't hobnob with Michael D in the Park, although I quite like Michael D.”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

John Banville: Who cares whodunnit? (2013)

Art

“Obliged to find an apartment of their own, my parents searched the neighbourhood and chose one within walking distance of the park. Showing them out after they had viewed it, the landlady said: "And you'll be glad to know I don't take Jews." Her mistake made clear to her, the antisemitic landlady was renounced, and another apartment found. But her blunder left its mark. Back on the street my mother made a vow. Her unborn baby would have a label proclaiming his race to the world. He would be called "The Jew"”

Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999) American violinist and conductor

Yehudi
Source: Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999), Issue 372 http://newint.org/features/2004/10/01/yehudi-menuhin/, New Internationalist Magazine

World , Search , Parent , Baby

“One, a poet, went babbling like a fountain
Through parks. All were jokes to children.
All had the pale unshaven stare of shuttered plants
Exposed to a too violent sun.”

Stephen Spender (1909–1995) English poet and man of letters

"Exiles From Their Land, History Their Domicile"
The Still Centre (1939)

Children , Sun

“It was sweaty Whitney (Houston) in Central Park. She knew that park pretty well. Every bush!”

Kathy Griffin (1960) American actress and comedian

Balls of Steel (2009)

“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)

Jerk , Girl , Wine , Past

“I'd like to dedicate this song real quick, and I'm not going to say anything offensive so that we can make it on TV. This song isn't dedicated to drinking or drug addiction […]. It's basically about a walk in the park. This is something called 'Nightrain.”

Slash (musician) (1965) British-American musician and songwriter

During a show at the Ritz, NY in 1988. Guns N' Roses - "Nightrain" - Live at the Ritz http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gu3gDhESRY 2 February 1988

Drink

“If I get a parking ticket, there is always a parallel universe where I didn't. On the other hand, there is yet another universe where my car was stolen.”

Max Tegmark (1967) Swedish-American cosmologist

BBC Horizons - What is Reality? (January 17, 2011)

Cars , Universe

“We walk to the ward from the badly parked car
with your grandma taking four short steps to our two.
We have brought her here to die and we know it.”

Simon Armitage (1963) Poet, playwright, novelist

'November', from Zoom.

Cars , Grandma

“"There's nothing to beat these old English country houses." said Charlie, becoming lyrical. "All those parks and gardens and terraces and stuff. Makes you think of bygone ages and knights in armour and all like that. I saw one of these joints in a movie in Cicero once with Fred Astaire in it, and I remember thinking those guys have it pretty soft."”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

From P.G. Wodehouse's Do Butlers Burgle Banks? (1968).

Age , Guy , Thinking , Housing

“Papuans bored, but
Cottage second-class
Ticket. Park. Arch.”

Kazimir Malevich (1879–1935) Russian and Soviet artist of polish descent

Quote of Kazimir Malevich, Jan. 1916, from his letter to Mikhail Matiushin; private archive, Frankfurt (transl. Todd Bludeau); as quoted by Vasilii Rakitin, in The great Utopia - The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde, 1915-1932; Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1992, p. 26
Malevich' example of the new poetic structures (the 3 lines loosely match his painting 'Stantsiia bez ostanovki Kuntsevo' (Through Station: Kuntsevo), 1913)
1910 - 1920

“Television was supposed to be a national park. (Instead) it has become a money machine… It’s a commodity now, just like pork bellies.”

Fred W. Friendly (1915–1998) President of CBS News

Quoted by Rushworth M Kidder “Videoculture” Christian Science Monitor 10 Jun 85

Money

“But it is unnecessary for me to do more than mention a few of the representative forms of recreation. We all know that their name is legion, and that different tastes require different activities. I am not trying to recommend one above another, but I am trying to point out the national value which would accrue if there were an organized, instructed, and persistent effort to bring these benefits to the people at large. It can not be that our country is making a great outlay for playgrounds in our schools, for athletic fields in our colleges, for baseball fields in our cities, for recreation parks in our metropolitan districts, for State and national forest reservations, unless these all represent an opportunity for a real betterment of the life of the people. These are typically American in all their aspects. They minister directly to the welfare of all our inhabitants.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Democracy of Sports (1924)

Life , People , School , Effort

“Novelist Michael Crichton wrote Jurassic Park as a screenplay option for the Steven Spielberg flick. I am ambiguous about Crichton’s body of work, as it includes dubious anti-scientific elements. But I can’t be too upset about a fellow who includes me in the acknowledgements of his bestselling novel. I ended up doing some preliminary studies of Tyrannosaurus and Deinonychus for the movie(s). These were significantly altered by Spielberg and Stan Winston and his effects team for copyright purposes. In the film, some of my skeletals show up posted on Sam Neill's (ak. a. Dr. Grant's) trailer wall. I was accidentally responsible for the avian term 'raptor' being improperly applied to dromaeosaurs. In another Hunteria paper and PDW, I synonymized Deinonychus with Velociraptor, which Crichton picked up on and shortened into the convenient handle 'raptor'. The movie was okay, but I will never forgive them for presenting Brachiosaurus as such a heavy limbed clunker. I had nothing to do with that. I thought it was too bad the potentially omnivorous brachiosaurs – which were unlikely to have been as placid as cattle – missed the opportunity to snarf up the bratty kids when they were up in the tree.”

Gregory Scott Paul (1954) U.S. researcher, author, paleontologist, and illustrator

Autobiography, part IV http://gspauldino.com/part4.html, gspauldino.com

Forgiveness , Tree , Study

“I didn't care as an ex-ballet dancer wrote and told me she had seen the production and fallen in love with my legs. She said that in other circumstances she could have lived happily with my legs but that she only had a small flat in Holland Park.”

Tom Baker (1934) English actor

Love

“The death of John Pennington had left his widow in circumstances which were more straitened than ever, and the Park had receded even from her notepaper, where it had long been retained as a courtesy title on the principle that addresses are given to us to conceal our whereabouts.”

Saki (1870–1916) British writer

"Cross Currents"
Reginald in Russia (1910)

Death

“The tradition of "turkey pardoning" in the US is a wonderful allegory for new racism. Every year, the National Turkey Federation presents the US president with a turkey for Thanksgiving. Every year, in a show of ceremonial magnanimity, the president spares that particular bird (and eats another one). After receiving the presidential pardon, the Chosen One is sent to Frying Pan Park in Virginia to live out its natural life. The rest of the 50 million turkeys raised for Thanksgiving are slaughtered and eaten on Thanksgiving Day. ConAgra Foods, the company that has won the Presidential Turkey contract, says it trains the lucky birds to be sociable, to interact with dignitaries, school children and the press.

That's how new racism in the corporate era works. A few carefully bred turkeys - the local elites of various countries, a community of wealthy immigrants, investment bankers, the occasional Colin Powell, or Condoleezza Rice, some singers, some writers (like myself) - are given absolution and a pass to Frying Pan Park.
The remaining millions lose their jobs, are evicted from their homes, have their water and electricity connections cut, and die of AIDS. Basically, they're for the pot. But the fortunate fowls in Frying Pan Park are doing fine. Some of them even work for the IMF and the World Trade Organisation - so who can accuse those organisations of being anti-turkey? Some serve as board members on the Turkey Choosing Committee - so who can say that turkeys are against Thanksgiving? They participate in it! Who can say the poor are anti-corporate globalisation? There's a stampede to get into Frying Pan Park. So what if most perish on the way?”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

From a speech http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/569/569p12.htm given at the World Social Forum in Mumbai, 16 January 2004
Speeches

Life , Children , World , School

“There is one hit of mine which will not stay in the official records, but which I believe to be the longest clout ever made off a major league pitcher. At least some of the veteran sport writers told me they never saw such a wallop. The Yanks were playing an exhibition game with the Brooklyn Nationals at Jacksonville, Fla., in April, 1920. Al Mamaux was pitching for Brooklyn. In the first inning, the first ball he sent me was a nice, fast one, a little lower than my waist, straight across the heart of the plate. It was the kind I murder, and I swung to kill it. The last time we saw the ball it was swinging its way over the 10-foot outfield fence of Southside Park and going like a shot. The ball cleared the fence by at least 75 feet. Let's say the total distance traveled was 500 feet: the fence was 423 feet from the plate. If such a hit had been made at the Polo Grounds, I guess the ball would have come pretty close to the top of the screen in the centerfield bleachers.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

In "Wherein Babe Tells of Some Longish Swats" http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1920/08/15/page/18/article/wherein-babe-tells-of-some-longish-swats by Ruth (as told to Pegler), in The Chicago Tribune (August 15, 1920); reprinted as "The Longest Hit in Baseball" https://books.google.com/books?id=SAAlxi-0EZYC&pg=PA39&dq=%22There+is+one+hit+of+mine%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjngMzRjbnQAhXDYyYKHe-JCCMQ6AEIFDAA#v=onepage&q=%22There%20is%20one%20hit%20of%20mine%22&f=false2 in Playing the Game: My Early Years in Baseball, p. 39

Way , Travel , Game , Sport

“When you’ve parked the second car in the garage, and installed the hot tub, and skied in Colorado, and wind-surfed in the Caribbean, when you’ve had your first love affair and your second and your third, the question will remain, where does the dream end for me?”

Mario Cuomo (1932–2015) American politician, Governor of New York

Commencement address at Syracuse University, quoted in New York Times (12 May 1986)

Love , Dreams , Cars , Question

“The pleasure of being with you is in the clash of personality, the intellectual battle, the war of ideas. To survive you one must have a strong brain, an assertive ego, a dynamic character. In your luncheon-parties, in old days, the remains of the guests were taken away with the débris of the feast. I have often lunched with you in Park Lane and found myself the only survivor.”

Frank Harris (1856–1931) Irish journalist and rogue

Oscar Wilde, letter to Frank Harris, June 13, 1897, in The Letters of Oscar Wilde (1962) p. 608.
Criticism

War , Pleasure , Idea , Strong

“Thud. My eyes are open. It is four-thirty in the morning, one morning, and my dry eyes click in their sockets, awake before the birds. There is no light. The eye strains for logic, some play of form. I have been dreaming of wind. The tree outside my window stands silent. I listen to the breathing of the man lying beside me. I know where I am. I am awake. I am alive. Am I tethered to earth only by this fragile breath? A strawful of breath at best. Yet this is the breath that patients beg, their hands gripping the edges of mattresses; this is the breath that wrestles trees, that brings down all the leaves in the Third Act. We know where the car is parked. We know, word-for-word, the texts of plays. We have spoken, in proximity to one another, over years, sentences, hundreds of thousands of sentences—bright, grave, fallible, comic, perishable—perhaps eternal? I don’t know. Where does the wind go? When will the light come? We will have hotcakes for breakfast. How can I protect this...? My church teaches me I cannot. And I believe it. I turn the pillow to its cool side. Then rage fills me, against the cubist necessity of having to arrange myself comically against orthodoxy, against having to wonder if I will offend, against theology that devises that my feeling for him, more than for myself, is a vanity. My brown paradox: The church that taught me to understand love, the church that taught me well to believe love breathes—also tells me it is not love I feel, at four in the morning, in the dark, even before the birds cry. Of every hue and caste am I.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Brown : The Last Discovery of America (2003)

Love , Dreams , Cars , Feeling

“As told in the final section of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour Christmas CD:
Jeff Foxworthy: Tell 'em the one you did.
Engvall: Aw, why'd you have to bring that up?
Foxworthy: Come on, share that one with the group.
Engvall: Alright. Well, nobody's immune from this, not even me.
Foxworthy: Not even Brainiac here.
Engvall: I'm in the car park at the mall, and there's this guy with a coat hanger inside his window… and I could not stop myself. I said, "You lock your keys in your car?"”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

Driver: No, just washed it, gonna hang it up to dry (dumbass). Here's your sign.
Here's Your Sign, "Here's <i>MY</i> Sign..."

Cars , Guy , Christmas

“This was the angerless philosophy of Owen, which inspired him with a forbearance that never failed him, and gave him that regnant manner which charmed all who met him. We shall see what his doctrine of environment has done for society, if we notice what it began to do in his day, and what it has done since.
Men perished by battle, by tempest, by pestilence, Faith might comfort, but it did not save them. In every town, nests of pestilence co-existed with the churches, who were concerned alone with worship. Disease was unchecked by devotion. Then Owen asked, "Might not safety come by improved material condition?" As the prayer of hope brought no reply, as the scream of agony, if heard, was unanswered, as the priest, with the holiest intent, brought no deliverance, it seemed prudent to try the philosopher and the physician.
Then Corn Laws were repealed, because prayers fed nobody. Then parks were multiplied because fresh air was found to be a condition of health. Alleys and courts, were begun to be abolished-since deadly diseases were bred there. Streets were widened, that towns might be ventilated. Hours of labour were shortened, since exhaustion means liability to epidemic contagion. Recreation was encouraged, as change and rest mean life and strength. Temperance — thought of as self-denial — was found to be a necessity, as excess of any kind in diet, or labour, or pleasure means premature death. Those who took dwellings began to look, not only to drainage and ventilation, but to the ways of their near neighbours, as the most pious family may poison the air you breathe unless they have sanitary habits.”

George Holyoake (1817–1906) British secularist, co-operator, and newspaper editor

Memorial dedication (1902)

Life , Death , Men , Health

“Engvall is in the park flying a kite with his son.
Passerby: Y'all flyin' a kite?
Engvall: Nope, fishin' for birds! Here's your sign.”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

Here's Your Sign Reloaded (2003)
Here's Your Sign

Bird , Flying

“Come, spur away,
I have no patience for a longer stay,
But must go down
And leave the chargeable noise of this great town.
I will the country see,
Where old simplicity,
Though hid in grey,
Doth look more gay
Than foppery in plush and scarlet clad:
Farewell, you city wits, that are
Almost at civil war;
'Tis time that I grow wise, when all the world grows mad.
More of my days
I will not spend to gain an idiot's praise;
Or to make sport
For some slight puny of the inns of court.
Then, worthy Stafford, say,
How shall we spend the day?
With what delights
Shorten the nights?
When from this tumult we are got secure,
Where mirth with all her freedom goes,
Yet shall no finger lose;
Where every word is thought, and every thought is pure.
There from the tree
We'll cherries pluck and pick the strawberry,
And every day
Go see the wholesome country girls make hay,
Whose brown hath lovelier grace
Than any painted face
That I do know
Hyde Park can show.”

Thomas Randolph (poet) (1605–1635) English poet and dramatist

"An Ode to Master Anthony Stafford, to hasten him into the Country"
Poems (pub. 1638)

War , World , Girl , Sport

“She sparked a prairie fire that continues to blaze brightly in the hearts of freedom-loving people in all nations; and the non-violent revolution she set in motion continues to reverberate in nation after nation as an inspiration to human liberation movements everywhere. Rosa Parks provided us with a beautiful example of the power of one. How one courageous person can make a great difference in advancing human freedom. She showed us the power of humility and disciplined nonviolence in winning hearts and minds to support our freedom struggle; and she set for the entire world a vibrant example of African American womanhood fully engaged in the work of building a more just and decent society.”

Bernice King (1963) American minister, daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Remarks at the funeral of Rosa Parks (2 November 2005) http://www.democracynow.org/2005/11/3/bernice_king_delivers_remarks_at_rosa
Against New Hampshire not formally naming Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (25 January 1994) http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1994-01-25/news/9401250477_1_new-hampshire-bernice-king-holiday

Love , People , World , Beauty

“It was the sort of day when people walk in the park and solve problems. "We'll simply call the taxi company, David, and request a large one, like one of those vans." Is the sort of thing you would overhear if you were overhearing in the park.”

Daniel Handler book Adverbs

Adverbs (2006), Naturally

People , Problem

“For decades the basic message has been, "Dump the leadership, because it lives high on the hog while you toil and starve." That’s the sort of sloganeering that might help undermine a communist state. It won’t work in a far-right, ultra-nationalist state. The pomp that surrounds Kim Jong Un is the whole nation’s pomp, as it were. I have urged American officials who ask me about propaganda to encourage a nationalist approach to it, stressing the North’s disgraceful dependence on China, contrasting the North with an internationally respected South that has really put Korea on the map.I’m not sure this will be enough though. The crucial issue, from a nationalist North Korean’s perspective, is likely to be: Which of the two states is more intent on righting the wrongs foreigners have done to us? Which state wants to unify the peninsula, the nation? And the South all too obviously allows the North to play the heroic role of the sole unifying force. Park Geun-hye made efforts to rectify that neglect but it was too little, too late. And now a very different president is in power.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Interview with Joshua Stanton (August 2017)

Effort , Help , Dependency

“One day the king was going to hunt the animals in the parks in which the barbarians keep lions and bears and leopards, and he asked Apollonius to accompany him on the chase, but the latter replied: "You have forgotten, O king, that I never attend you, even when you are sacrificing. And moreover, it is no pleasure to me to attack animals that have been ill-treated and enslaved in violation of their nature."”

Philostratus book Life of Apollonius of Tyana

Book 1, § 37.
Life of Apollonius of Tyana

Pleasure , Nature , Animals

“During the summer of 2012, one Ferguson police officer detained a 32-year-old African American man who had just finished playing basketball at a park. The officer approached while the man was sitting in his car and resting. The car’s windows appeared to be more heavily tinted than Ferguson’s code allowed, so the officer did have legitimate grounds to question him. But, with no apparent justification, the officer proceeded to accuse the man of being a pedophile. He prohibited the man from using his cell phone and ordered him out of his car for a pat-down search, even though he had no reason to suspect that the man was armed. And when the man objected – citing his constitutional rights – the police officer drew his service weapon, pointed it at the man’s head, and arrested him on eight different counts. The arrest caused the man to lose his job.”

Eric Holder (1951) 82nd Attorney General of the United States

2010s, Update on Investigations in Ferguson (2015)

Cars , Search , Question , Appearance

“I think it's something that people don't think about. It's hot outside—your car is like a fishbowl. So the light comes in, and it gets trapped, and it gets really hot in there really quickly. If you see a dog in a hot car, and you think that he's in danger or that he's been there for a while, it's good to speak up… go into whatever businesses it's parked outside of, and just raise awareness about it.”

Krysten Ritter (1981) American actress

Interview with PETA; as quoted in "See Krysten Ritter's Hot New PETA Ad!", E! Online (27 August 2013) https://www.eonline.com/news/452566/see-krysten-ritter-s-hot-new-peta-ad.

People , Dogs , Cars , Business

“I can see it must seem strange, but to me it was normality. Really, my memory of my childhood is that the sun always shone and I spent all my time playing in the park. Since then I've discovered that some of the great musicians I admire - Charles Ives, John Cage, even Bob Dylan - had quite unconventional childhoods.”

Joanna MacGregor (1959) British musician

Evening Standard - 04/07/2002
Childhood

Memory , Time , Sun , Childhood

“I am not willing that the vitality of our people be further sapped by the giving of cash, of market baskets, of a few hours of weekly work cutting grass, raking leaves or picking up papers in the public parks. We must preserve not only the bodies of the unemployed from destitution but also their self-respect, their self-reliance and courage and determination. This decision brings me to the problem of what the Government should do with approximately five million unemployed now on the relief rolls.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1930s, State of the Union address (1935)

People , Courage , Problem , Decision

“Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park. It is like a temple for the mind. It is a place we can all go to think, to learn, to share our knowledge with others. When I founded Wikipedia, I could have made it into a for-profit company with advertising banners, but I decided to do something different. We’ve worked hard over the years to keep it lean and tight. We fulfill our mission efficiently.”

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

Wikimedia donation page https://donate.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:LandingPage&country=US&uselang=en&utm_medium=spontaneous&utm_source=fr-redir&utm_campaign=spontaneous&rdfrom=%2F%2Fwikimediafoundation.org%2Fw%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DFundraising%26redirect%3Dno.

Knowledge , Thinking , Learning