Dave Barry Quotes

#1. Europeans, like some Americans, drive on the right side of the road, except in England, where they drive on both sides of the road; Italy, where they drive on the sidewalk; and France, where if necessary they will follow you right into the hotel lobby.

Dave Barry

#2. I've never been struck by lightning as far as I know, so the Higher Power is treating me as well as even those people who love him very much.

Dave Barry

#3. Congress, after years of stalling, finally got around to clearing the way for informal discussions that might lead to possible formal talks that could potentially produce some kind of tenative agreements ...

Dave Barry

#4. Back then, the entire Internet consisted of two slow, boxcar-sized UNIVAC computers about 50 feet apart, connected by a wire. It would take one of these computers an entire day to send an email to the other one, which would immediately delete it, because it was a Viagra ad.

Dave Barry

#5. Motto of the U.S. airline industry - "We're Hoping to Have a Motto Announcement in About an Hour."

Dave Barry

#6. The greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison Edison's first major invention, in 1877, was the phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of American homes, where it basically sat until 1923, when the record was invented.

Dave Barry

#7. AARP is a large and powerful organization, similar to the Mafia but more concerned about dietary fiber.

Dave Barry

#8. There's an old saying among scientific guys: "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs, ideally by dropping a cement truck on them from a crane."

Dave Barry

#9. I live in Miami, which can be a dangerous place, with a segment of the population capable of horrific acts of violence. And those are the police. The criminals are even worse.

Dave Barry

#10. I don't know what you can possibly do for less than $50 to have somebody come in your house.

Dave Barry

#11. Hobbies of any kind are boring except to people who have the same hobby. This is also true of religion, although you will not find me saying so in print.

Dave Barry

#12. I chose the members very carefully, based on their ability to correctly answer the following question: "Do you want to go to Orlando at your own expense and perform before Tupperware distributors?" (The correct answer was: "Yes.")

Dave Barry

#13. How can you be afraid of women?" "Those ain't normal women.

Dave Barry

#14. Hell, which as every frequent traveler knows, is in Concourse D of O'Hare Airport.

Dave Barry

#15. What I need is a search engine that, no matter what I type in, comes back with GO BACK TO WORK.

Dave Barry

#16. When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that individual is crazy.

Dave Barry

#17. We decide to start with the best-known sight of all, the one that, more than any other, exemplifies what the Big Apple is all about: the Islip Garbage Barge.

Dave Barry

#18. They have a lot of trouble with pronunciation, because they can't move their jaw muscles, because of malnutrition caused by wisely refusing to eat English food, much of which was designed and manufactured in medieval times during the reign of King Walter the Mildly Disturbed.

Dave Barry

#19. Your job is to give people a reason to keep reading.

Dave Barry

#20. To better understand why you need a personal computer, let's take a look at the pathetic mess you call your life.

Dave Barry

#21. Instead of a permit system or regulations, the Forest Service needs to reduce worldwide population growth to limit the number of visitors to wilderness.

Dave Barry

#22. The Republicans have a high Beady-Eyed Self-Righteous Scary Borderline Loon Quotient, as evidenced by Phyllis Schlafly, Pat Robertson, the entire state of Utah, etc.

Dave Barry

#23. I was clinging to this tree so passionately that I might very well have committed an act of photosynthesis with it.

Dave Barry

#24. The Ford Falcon holds the proud title of Slowest Car Ever Built. In certain areas of the country you can go to a stoplight and find Falcon drivers who pressed down on their accelerators in 1963 and are still waiting for their cars to move.

Dave Barry

#25. Classical music gradually lost popularity because it is too complicated: you need twenty-five or thirty skilled musicians just to hum it properly. So people began to develop regular music.

Dave Barry

#26. The major parties could conduct live human sacrifices on their podiums during prime time, and I doubt that anybody would notice.

Dave Barry

#27. If you asked me to name the three scariest threats facing the human race, I would give the same answer that most people would: nuclear war, global warming and Windows.

Dave Barry

#28. If you want to give a man something practical, consider tires. More than once, I would have gladly traded all the gifts I got for a new set of tires.

Dave Barry

#29. The information encoded in your DNA determines your unique biological characteristics, such as sex, eye color, age and Social Security number.

Dave Barry

#30. I will vote for the first candidate who promises to use nuclear missiles against LinkedIn.

Dave Barry

#31. As a child, I was more afraid of tetanus shots than, for example, Dracula.

Dave Barry

#32. I learned this from a show called Captain Video, featuring a man named, oddly, Captain Video,

Dave Barry

#33. Avoid the traffic by using one of the park's shuttle buses and view the elk rut with a park ranger.

Dave Barry

#34. If you have a big enough dictionary, just about everything is a word.

Dave Barry

#35. By the 1800s, animal sacrifice had been largely discredited as a medical procedure; today it is rarely used outside of Miami.

Dave Barry

#36. That is the Wasp, yes. But it was captured by Black Stache, and he's coming for this ship now."
"And how do you know that?" asked Slank. "Did a seagull tell you?" This brought chuckles from the crew.
Something like that, thought Peter.

Dave Barry

#37. Smee! Raise the Ladies!

Dave Barry

#38. What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth ? Judging from realistic simulations involving a sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we can assume it will be pretty bad.

Dave Barry

#39. Software is usually accompanied by documentation in the form of big fat scary manuals that nobody ever reads. In fact, for the past five years most of the manuals shipped with software products have actually been copies of Stephen King's The Stand with new covers pasted on.

Dave Barry

#40. I never stop running. I'm not one of the weenies who drop out just because the electoral college votes. I'm still in the race. I'm an extremely corrupt candidate and I stress that in case anybody in our reading audience is interested in sending me money.

Dave Barry

#41. I liked making people laugh, and I decided I was an atheist early on. My Dad was all right with that. We argued about it all the time, but it was good-natured. He was the most open-minded human being I've ever known.

Dave Barry

#42. Seriously? You won't help me?" "Help yourself get killed? No, I won't.

Dave Barry

#43. Life is anything that dies when you stomp on it.

Dave Barry

#44. I report as a machine; I write as a person. That clear dichotomy softens the transition.

Dave Barry

#45. The problem with writing about religion is that you run the risk of offending sincerely religious people, and then they come after you with machetes.

Dave Barry

#46. The method preferred by most balding men for making themselves look silly is called the comb over.

Dave Barry

#47. Those who can't laugh at themselves leave the job to others.

Dave Barry

#48. The metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count the increasing popularity of the nine-millimeter bullet.

Dave Barry

#49. My therapist told me the way to achieve true inner peace is to finish what I start. So far today, I have finished 2 bags of M&M's and a chocolate cake. I feel better already.

Dave Barry

#50. What may seem depressing or even tragic to one person may seem like an absolute scream to another person, especially if he has had between four and seven beers.

Dave Barry

#51. San Francisco leads the world in the category of Most People On The Sidewalk Holding Conversations With Purely Imaginary Companions.

Dave Barry

#52. As a professional journalist, I am always looking for new ways to get paid for being motionless.

Dave Barry

#53. The Hawaiian Islands were discovered by hardy Polynesian sailors, who crossed thousands of miles of open ocean in primitive canoes, braving violent storm-tossed seas for months at a time. My family and I arrived by modern commercial aviation, which was infinitely worse.

Dave Barry

#54. This ball was so crowded that it took me - a trained professional journalist with vast experience in this area - forty five minutes to get a beer.

Dave Barry

#55. And to you taxpayers out there, let me say this: Make sure you file your tax return on time! And remember that, even though income taxes can be a 'pain in the neck,' the folks at the IRS are regular people just like you, except that they can destroy your life

Dave Barry

#56. My son, Rob ... said the only time he ever wraps a gift is, quote, "if it's such a poor gift that I don't want to be there when the person opens it."

Dave Barry

#57. As a taxpayer, you are required to be fully in compliance with the United States Tax Code, which is currently the size and weight of the Budweiser Clydesdales.

Dave Barry

#58. Database: the information you lose when your memory crashes.

Dave Barry

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

Dave Barry

#60. Spiders so large they appear to be wearing the pelts of small mammals.

Dave Barry

#61. Each year, millions of skiers come to Colorado to experience its superb emergency medical facilities.

Dave Barry

#62. If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base.

Dave Barry

#63. I have seen women walk right past a TV set with a football game on and - this always amazes me - not stop to watch, even if the TV is showing replays of what we call a "good hit," which is a tackle that causes at least one major internal organ to actually fly out of a player's body.

Dave Barry

#64. Never try to put all the chemicals in the entire world in your body at the same time.

Dave Barry

#65. The most valuable function performed by the federal government is entertainment.

Dave Barry

#66. I'm afraid that, in this chapter we must talk about sex in a very explicit manner, because we want to expand the Frontiers of Human Understanding and also we want to sell as many books as possible to adolescent boys.

Dave Barry

#67. But when you take over a ship with a bomb threat, you really go first-class.

Dave Barry

#68. My point here, young couples, is that baby-having is extremely serious business, and you probably don't have the vaguest idea what you're doing, as is evidenced by the fact that you're reading a very sloppy and poorly researched book.

Dave Barry

#69. I actually kind of like Janet Reno. She seems like a nice enough lady. But when you're basically going through the entire phone book trying to find women lawyers who don't have maids to pick the attorney general of the United States, how well can you do?

Dave Barry

#70. We kids feared many things in those days - werewolves, dentists, North Koreans, Sunday School - but they all paled in comparison with Brussels sprouts.

Dave Barry

#71. The coyotes made too much noise last night and kept me awake. Please eradicate these annoying animals.

Dave Barry

#72. Palestinian and Israeli leaders finally recover the Road Map to Peace, only to discover that, while they were looking for it, the Lug Nuts of Mutual Interest came off the Front Left Wheel of Accommodation, causing the Sport Utility Vehicle of Progress to crash into the Ditch of Despair.

Dave Barry

#73. When I say 'serve you better,' I mean 'increase our profits.' We newspapers are very big on profits these days.

Dave Barry

#74. Never assume that the guy understands that you and he have a relationship.

Dave Barry

#75. Like many members of the uncultured, Cheez-It consuming public, I am not good at grasping modern art.

Dave Barry

#76. The best time to go to Disney World, if you want to avoid huge crowds, is 1962.

Dave Barry

#77. The other major kind of computer is the "Apple," which I do not recommend, because it is a wuss-o-rama New-Age computer you basically just plug in and use.

Dave Barry

#78. A perfect parent is a person with excellent child-rearing theories and no actual children.

Dave Barry

#79. She goes to Frederick's of Hollywood at the mall and purchases an explicit lingerie outfit so sheer that you could read an appliance warranty through it in an unlit closet.

Dave Barry

#80. Alan Zweibel is the funniest writer in the world. He might be even funnier when he's naked, but I'm afraid to find out.

Dave Barry

#81. The reason it's called "Grape Nuts" is that it contains "dextrose," which is also sometimes called "grape sugar," and also because "Grape Nuts" is catchier, in terms of marketing, than "A Cross Between Gerbil Food and Gravel," which is what it tastes like.

Dave Barry

#82. What women want: To be loved, to be listened to, to be desired, to be respected, to be needed, to be trusted, and sometimes, just to be held. What men want: Tickets to the World Series.

Dave Barry

#83. Denmark (also called Norway) is best known as the original home of the prune Danish as well as the Vikings, who wore hats with horns sticking out of them, and for a very good reason: they were insane.

Dave Barry

#84. Trails need to be wider so people can walk while holding hands.

Dave Barry

#85. [There is] a breed of fashion models

Dave Barry

#86. We operate under a jury system in this country, and as much as we complain about it, we have to admit that we know of no better system, except possibly flipping a coin.

Dave Barry

#87. The first animals to be successfully domesticated were dogs, which were a big help because they would bark all night and fetch thrown sticks, thereby freeing humans from having to perform these tedious yet vital tasks.

Dave Barry

#88. I would rather undergo a vasectomy via Weed Whacker than attend an opera.

Dave Barry

#89. The only really good place to buy lumber is at a store where the lumber has already been cut and attached together in the form of furniture finished and put inside boxes.

Dave Barry

#90. The Japanese tend to communicate via nuance and euphemism, often leaving important things unsaid; whereas Americans tend to think they're being subtle when they refrain from grabbing the listener by the shirt.

Dave Barry

#91. Talking about golf is always boring. Playing golf can be interesting, but not the part where you try to hit the little ball; only the part where you drive the cart.

Dave Barry

#92. It would be hard to conceive of any activity more useless than stamp collecting.

Dave Barry

#93. In South Florida, we have industrial cockroaches that have to be equipped with loud warning beepers so you can get out of their way when they back up.

Dave Barry

#94. Dogs need to sniff the ground; it's how they keep abreast of current events. The ground is a giant dog newspaper, containing all kinds of late-breaking dog news items, which, if they are especially urgent, are often continued in the next yard.

Dave Barry

#95. Meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other large organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot actually masturbate.

Dave Barry

#96. I become faint and nauseous during even very minor medical procedures, such as making an appointment by phone.

Dave Barry

#97. Skiing combines outdoor fun with knocking down trees with your face.

Dave Barry

#98. As you know, birds do not have sexual organs because they would interfere with flight.

Dave Barry

#99. If the groom-to-be's views were actually considered, the wedding would be a far more relaxed affair, possibly involving go-carts.

Dave Barry

#100. Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take their shirts off during games in Chicago in January, only more intelligent.

Dave Barry