Dave Barry Quotes & Sayings

You can use the Internet to find out, from anywhere on the planet: exactly how much coffee is in a certain coffee machine at Cambridge University in England; exactly how many sodas are available in certain vending machines at certain major universities; and much, much more. — Dave Barry

All the shopping malls and restaurants and airports are riddled with low-fidelity loudspeakers, which apparently have developed the ability to reproduce by themselves; these are all connected to a special programming service called Music That Nobody Really Likes, and you cannot get away from it. — Dave Barry

Thanks to modern medical advances such as antibiotics, nasal spray, and Diet Coke, it has become routine for people in the civilized world to pass the age of 40, sometimes more than once. — Dave Barry

Dinner Special - Turkey $2.35; Chicken or Beef $2.25; Children $2.00 — Dave Barry

If you look at any list of great modern writers such as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, you'll notice two things about them: 1. They all had editors. 2. They are all dead. Thus we can draw the scientific conclusion that editors are fatal. — Dave Barry

Some archeologists believe that Stonehenge - the mysterious arrangement of enormous elongated stones in England - is actually a crude effort by the Druids to build a computing device. — Dave Barry

I realize that there are certain hardships that only females must endure, such as childbirth, waiting in lines for public-restroom stalls, and a crippling, psychotic obsession with shoe color. Also, females tend to reach emotional maturity very quickly, so that by age 7 they are no longer capable of seeing the humor in loud inadvertent public blasts of flatulence, whereas males can continue to derive vast enjoyment from this well into their 80s. — Dave Barry

There are two kinds of solar-heat systems: passive systems collect the sunlight that hits your home, and active systems collect the sunlight that hits your neighbors' homes, too. — Dave Barry

And you definitely shouldn't attempt to drive yourself in Miami, because odds are you'd make some foolish tourist mistake such as stop for a red light, which means you'd be rear-ended by a vehicle going upwards of eighty miles per hour driven by a motorist with no insurance but a minimum of two firearms. — Dave Barry

I was a young person once, shortly after the polar ice caps retreated, and I distinctly recall believing that virtually all adults were clueless goobers. — Dave Barry

At the height of rush hour, people on the London underground actually say "excuse me." Imagine what would happen if you tried an insane stunt like that on the New York City subway. The other passengers would take it as a sign of weakness, and there'd be a fight over who got to keep your ears as a trophy. — Dave Barry

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

As a professional journalist, I have always been fascinated by people who appear to have even more spare time than I do. — Dave Barry

The United States tried, by depressing the clutch of diplomacy and downshifting the gearshift lever of rhetoric, to remain neutral, but it became increasingly obvious that the nation was going to get into a war, especially since it was almost 1812. — Dave Barry

I've never actually given birth to a child, but I suspect that going to a Justin Bieber concert with a child is close. — Dave Barry

Trails need to be reconstructed. Please avoid building trails that go uphill. — Dave Barry

But if I hadn't shoved you off the boat back there,you'd be lost at sea now,wouldn't you? We'd all be lost! So thanks to me you're all standing on land.
(Pirates, its a good thing they're idiots) — Dave Barry

After the war, Prohibition was passed, and with liquor no longer legally available the nation plunged headlong into the Great Depression. — Dave Barry

The Democrats seem to be basically nicer people, but they have demonstrated time and again that they have the management skills of celery. They're the kind of people who'd stop to help you change a flat, but would somehow manage to set your car on fire. I would be reluctant to entrust them with a Cuisinart, let alone the economy. The Republicans, on the other hand, would know how to fix your tire, but they wouldn't bother to stop because they'd want to be on time for Ugly Pants Night at the country club — Dave Barry

Mousse was a Labrador retriever, which is a large enthusiastic bulletproof species of dog made entirely from synthetic materials. This is the kind of dog that, if it takes an interest in your personal regions (which of course it does) you cannot fend it off with a blowtorch. — Dave Barry

RAM: This gives guys a way of deciding whose computer has the biggest, studliest memory. That's important, because the more memory a computer has, the faster it can produce error messages. — Dave Barry

Wood heat is not new. It dates back to a day millions of years ago, when a group of cavemen were sitting around, watching dinosaurs rot. Suddenly, lightning struck a nearby log and set it on fire. One of the cavemen stared at the fire for a few minutes, then said: Hey! Wood heat! The other cavemen, who did not understand English, immediately beat him to death with stones. But the key discovery had been made, and from that day forward, the cavemen had all the heat they needed, although their insurance rates went way up. — Dave Barry

England is a very popular foreign country to visit because the people there speak some English. — Dave Barry

Shawn's (Shawn Weatherly - former beauty queen) acting ability is such that she could not convey the concept of falling if your pushed her off a cliff. — Dave Barry

In the old pre-technology days, it would have been almost impossible to replicate Facebook or Twitter. The closest you could get would be to mail dozens of postcards a day to everybody you know, each with a brief message about yourself like: "Finally got that haircut I've been putting off." Or: "Just had a caramel frappuccino. Yum!" The people receiving these postcards would have naturally assumed you were a moron with a narcissism disorder. But today, thanks to Facebook and Twitter, you are seen as a person engaging in 'social networking'. — Dave Barry

Can we move this conversation along, I'm getting frightfully tired of 'hoa'. — Dave Barry

It's income tax time again, Americans: time to gather up those receipts, get out those tax forms, sharpen up that pencil, and stab yourself in the aorta — Dave Barry

I wrote about why I didn't think libertarians are really doing this kind of thing so that they can have sex with dogs. I discussed some of the reasons that a person might want to live out of the control of our federal, state, local, and every other form of government. Actually, I don't think I even called myself a libertarian . I think Tom Shroder identified me as one. — Dave Barry

I always assumed that at some point I would have to quit making jokes, get a real job and do something meaningful and productive that would actually benefit society. Fortunately this never happened. — Dave Barry

Under Florida's "stand your ground" law, it is legal to shoot anybody for any reason as long as you are standing on the ground. — Dave Barry

Thus the white men and Native Americans were able, through the spirit of goodwill and compromise, to reach the first in what would become a long series of mutually beneficial, breached agreements that enabled the two cultures to coexist peacefully for stretches of twenty and sometimes even thirty days, after which it was usually necessary to negotiate new agreements that would be even more mutual and beneficial, until eventually the Native Americans were able to perceive the vast mutual benefits of living in rock-strewn sectors of South Dakota. — Dave Barry

I feel that nasal spray is a wondrous medical achievement, because it is supposed to relieve nasal congestion, and by gadfrey, it relieves nasal congestion. What I'm saying is that it actually works, which is something you can say about very few other aspects of the medical establishment. — Dave Barry

Funny, isn't it? The airlines go to all that trouble to keep you from taking a gun on board, then they just hand you a dinner roll you could kill a musk ox with. — Dave Barry

You've read newspaper stories about elderly widows who die and leave their entire estates to their pet cats, right? Well, your cat reads those stories too, and has spent most of its skulking, devious little life dreaming about inheriting all your money. — Dave Barry

Your job is to give people a reason to keep reading. — Dave Barry

My name - or the English version of my name - is Fighting Prawn."
"Fighting Prawn?" said Alf.
"Does my name amuse you, Englishman?" said Fighting Prawn.
"No," said Alf, his grin evaporating.
"If I may ask," said Fighting Prawn, "what is your name?"
"Alf," said Alf.
"Alf," repeated Fighting Prawn. He said something to the other Mollusk's, which included "Alf." They roared with laughter. Fighting Prawn turned back to Alf.
"In our language," he said, "Alf means squid poop. — Dave Barry

Japan has a low crime rate, unless you count the fact that approximately every fifteen minutes the entire Cabinet gets indicted for taking bribes. — Dave Barry

Horkman made a sound like a bullfrog trying to give a blow job to a buffalo. — Dave Barry

There are two distinctive classes of people today, those who have personal computers, and those who have several thousand extra dollars apiece. — Dave Barry

All the big corporations depreciate their possessions, and you can, too, provided you use them for business purposes. For example, if you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, a business-related newspaper, you can deduct the cost of your house, because, in the words of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger in a landmark 1979 tax decision: Where else are you going to read the paper? Outside? What if it rains? — Dave Barry

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

Everybody in New York, including police horses, dresses fashionably, and whenever I'm there, even in my sharpest funeral-quality suit with no visible ketchup stains, I feel as though I'm wearing a Hefty trash bag. And it's last year's Hefty trash bag. — Dave Barry

The way this country deals with drugs is just not funny. What a waste of everyone's time and effort. What a waste of a lot of people's lives. — Dave Barry

You can put suspenders on a salamander, but it still won't make waffles. See what I mean? That sentence makes absolutely no sense, but I got paid to write it. It's printed right here in a published book! — Dave Barry

Bill Gates is a very rich man today ... and do you want to know why? The answer is one word: versions. — Dave Barry

Derangement is the only possible explanation for owning a cat, an animal whose preferred mode of communication is to sink its claws three-quarters of an inch into your flesh. — Dave Barry

The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status, or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we all believe that we are above-average drivers. — Dave Barry

A perfect parent is a person with excellent child-rearing theories and no actual children. — Dave Barry

This is true; virtually all edible substances, and many automotive products, are now marketed as being low-fat or fat-free. Americans are obsessed with fat content. — Dave Barry

I can snap your spine like a toothpick. — Dave Barry

The easiest way to make a fruitcake is to buy a darkish cake, then pound some old, hard fruit into it with a mallet. Be sure to wear safety glasses. — Dave Barry

Life is anything that dies when you stomp on it. — Dave Barry

You and Teacher," said Molly.
"Yes," said Peter. "She's very clever. You'll like her."
"I'm sure," said Molly. — Dave Barry

Been in a lot of time zones. Been on a lot of planes. Had a lot of complimentary honey-roasted peanuts whapped onto my tray table by hostile flight attendants. "Would you care for some peanuts, sir?" WHAP. Like that. The flight attendants hate us passengers, because we're surly to them because our flight is delayed. Our flight is always delayed. The Russians will never be able to get their missiles through the dense protective layer of delayed flights circling over the United States in complex, puke-inducing holding patterns. — Dave Barry

The best baby-sitters, of course, are the baby's grandparents. You feel completely comfortable entrusting your baby to them for long periods, which is why most grandparents flee to Florida. — Dave Barry

Happens if a big asteroid hits Earth? Judging from realistic simulations ... — Dave Barry

At a national political convention, you have hundreds of people who consider themselves at least as important as the Secretary of Commerce. If it's a Democratic convention, you also have dozens of A-list Hollywood and music celebrities. (If it's a Republican convention, you have Bo Derek.) Also you have swarms of lower-ranking Washington minions with titles like Deputy Assistant to the Associate Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff who are trying to move up the ladder to Deputy Associate to the Assistant Acting Deputy Assistant Understudy. — Dave Barry

At certain times each year, we journalists do almost nothing except apply for the Pulitzers and several dozen other major prizes. During these times you could walk right into most newsrooms and commit a multiple axe murder naked, and it wouldn't get reported in the paper because the reporters and editors would all be too busy filling out prize applications. — Dave Barry

WARNING: ANY MONEY YOU SAVE BY DOING HOMEOWNER PROJECTS YOURSELF WILL BE OFFSET BY THE COST OF HIRING COMPETENT PROFESSIONALS TO COME AND REMOVE THEM SO YOU CAN SELL YOUR HOUSE, NOT TO MENTION THE EMOTIONAL TRAUMA ASSOCIATED WITH LISTENING TO THESE PROFESSIONALS, AS THEY RIP OUT LARGE CHUNKS OF A PROJECT, LAUGH, AND YELL REMARKS SUCH AS: HEY! GET A LOAD OF THIS. — Dave Barry

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

The Japanese, implementing a complex, long-term, and ultimately successful strategy to dominate the U S consumer-electronics market, attacked Pearl Harbor. — Dave Barry

I played lead guitar in a band called The Federal Duck, which is the kind of name that was popular in the '60s as a result of controlled substances being in widespread use. Back then, there were no restrictions, in terms of talent, on who could make an album, so we made one, and it sounds like a group of people who have been given powerful but unfamiliar instruments as a therapy for a degenerative nerve disease. — Dave Barry

Puns are little plays on words that a certain breed of person loves to spring on you and then look at you in a certain self-satisfied way to indicate that he thinks that you must think that he is by far the cleverest person on Earth now that Benjamin Franklin is dead, when in fact what you are thinking is that if this person ever ends up in a lifeboat, the other passengers will hurl him overboard by the end of the first day even if they have plenty of food and water. — Dave Barry

Sometimes you panic and find yourself emitting remarks so profoundly inane that you would be embarrassed to say them to your dog. Your dog would look at you and think to itself, 'I may lick myself in public, but I'd never say anything as stupid as that.' — Dave Barry

The Spanish government, having run completely out of money, secretly sold the Pyrenees to China, and is now separated from France only by traffic cones. — Dave Barry

There is a breed of fashion models who weigh no more than an abridged dictionary. — Dave Barry

I really try to think cinematically, because that's how people read. They create a theater in their minds. — Dave Barry

Many people have trouble sticking to their resolutions, and there is a simple scientific explanation for this. In 1987, a team of psychologists conducted a study in which they monitored the New Year's resolutions of 275 people. After one week the psychologists found that 92 percent of the people were keeping their resolutions; after two weeks we have no idea what happened because the psychologists had quit monitoring. — Dave Barry

If God had wanted us to spend all our time fretting about the problems of home ownership, He would never have created beer. This is not to say that I am recommending that you totally ignore your responsibilities as a homeowner and just sit around all day with a can of beer in your hand. No indeed, I have long been a believer in purchasing bottled beer, and pouring it into a chilled glass. — Dave Barry

Fortunately the bad guys had the tactical intelligence of a waffle iron, so the hero was able to outsmart them by ducking behind some rocks, then putting his hat on a stick and holding it — Dave Barry

If he (The New York Taxi Driver) talked to me, he might lose his concentration, which would be very bad because the taxi has some kind of problem with the steering, probably dead pedestrians lodged in the mechanism, the result being that there is a delay of 8 to 10 seconds between the time the driver turns the wheel and the time the taxi actually changes direction, a handicap that the driver is compensating for by going 175 miles per hour, at which velocity we are able to remain airborne almost to the far rim of some of the smaller potholes. — Dave Barry

It was Public Art, defined as art that is purchased by experts who are not spending their own personal money. — Dave Barry

Men have no cause to criticize women about the way they are about weddings. Because men are like that about sports, but it never ends. At least women, after the wedding, say it wasn't that big a deal and they're never going to look at the DVD again. Men never stop being crazy about sports. — Dave Barry

The major advantage of domestic travel is that, with a few exceptions such as Miami, most domestic locations are conveniently situated right here in the United States. — Dave Barry

One day soon the Gillette company will announce the development of a razor that, thanks to a computer microchip, can actually travel ahead in time and shave beard hairs that don't even exist yet — Dave Barry

When I write my annual tax column, some ex-IRS agent will complain, "There you go IRS bashing again." They're always saying that they're just doing their job. Someone I know once said, "You could get another job." — Dave Barry

Of course God enjoys a good prank as much as the next infallible deity. — Dave Barry

I bought Windows 2.0, Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1415926, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows RSVP, The Best of Windows, Windows Strikes Back, Windows Does Dallas, and Windows Let's All Buy Bill Gates a House the Size of Vermont. — Dave Barry

You can't have a bad time at Disney World. It's not allowed. They have hidden electronic surveillance cameras everywhere, and if they catch you failing to laugh with childlike wonder, they lock you inside a costume representing a beloved Disney character such as Goofy and make you walk about in the Florida heat getting grabbed and leaped on by violently excited children until you have learned your lesson. — Dave Barry

Auto racing is boring except when a car is going at least 172 miles per hour upside down. — Dave Barry

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

By today's beauty standards, of course, Marilyn Monroe was an oil tanker. — Dave Barry

Common criticism of the Internet is that it is dominated by the crude, the uninformed, the immature, the smug, the untalented, the repetitious, the pathetic, the hostile, the deluded, the sefl-righteous, and the shrill. This criticism overlooks the fact that the Internet also offers - for the savvy individual who knows where to look - the tasteless and borderline insane. — Dave Barry

The bad news was that the yard contained a dog. A very, very large dog, wide and hairy, like a cross between a rottweiler and a Goodyear blimp. — Dave Barry

If Peter was nine, and a new boy came to St. Norbert's Home for Wayward Boys who said he was ten, why, then, Peter would declare himself eleven. Also, he could spit the farthest. That made him the undisputed leader. — Dave Barry

During bomb drills, we students were told to crouch under our desks. Apparently the desks used in classrooms in the fifties were made of an exceptionally missile-resistant variety of wood. During the Cold War years I often wondered why it never occurred to our defense planners to protect the entire nation from nuclear attack by simply covering it, from sea to shining sea, with a huge Strategic Classroom Desk. — Dave Barry

The Japanese eat, sleep, and breathe golf; the only thing they don't do is actually play it, because to get on a course, you have to make a reservation roughly 137 years in advance, which means that by the time you actually get to the first tee you are deceased. Of course, in golf this is not really a handicap. — Dave Barry

I was a middle-of-the-road Democrat more than anything else. I know I voted for Carter. Watergate taught me how bad the Republicans were. — Dave Barry

When my generation was your age, we took crazy risks. The wildest thing was - prepare to be shocked - we deliberately ingested carbohydrates! — Dave Barry

Several years ago we had an intern who was none too swift. One day he was typing and turned to a secretary and said, "I'm almost out of typing paper. What do I do?" "Just use copier machine paper," she told him. With that, the intern took his last remaining blank piece of paper, put it on the photocopier and proceeded to make five blank copies. — Dave Barry

When a man purchases a necessary appliance such as a TV with a flat screen the size of a squash court, he cannot afford to fritter away valuable minutes reading the owner's manual, especially when the first seventeen pages consist of statements like: WARNING: Do not test the electrical socket by sticking your tongue into it. A man does not need instructions written by and for idiots. A man already knows, based on extensive experience in the field of being male, that the way to handle an appliance is to plug all the plugs into the holes that look to be about the right size or color, then turn everything on and see what happens. This is the system I use, and it has proved to be 100 percent effective roughly 65 percent of the time. — Dave Barry

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

I did all this stuff that was illegal when I was a kid. I drank beer when I was 15. I smoked cigarettes when I was 13. I drove to New York City when I was 14 - don't tell my son. Those things were against the law, but I did them anyway. I didn't become a heroin addict, although I probably could have gotten heroin somehow. I don't think my son would buy heroin at any price. He knows what it is, and he knows how stupid it is. — Dave Barry

I bet that if you actually read the entire vastness of the U.S. Tax Code, you'd find at least one sex scene ... — Dave Barry

Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals like Hydrogen and Oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer. — Dave Barry

Perhaps you are thinking: 'But a tank costs several million dollars, not including floor mats. I don't have that kind of money.'
Don't be silly. You're a consumer, right? You have credit cards, right?
Perhaps you are thinking: 'Yes, but how am I going to pay the credit-card company?'
Don't be silly. You have a tank, right? — Dave Barry

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

All these people helped make this book possible. But let me make one thing clear: If there are any errors or omissions in this book, these people are not responsible. In the end, there is only one person responsible for what I write, and that person, of course, is: Donald Trump. — Dave Barry

If Congress were to pass a 'flat' tax, you'd simply pay a fixed percentage of your income, and you wouldn't have to fill out any complicated forms, and there would be no loopholes for politically connected groups, and normal people would actually understand the tax laws, and giant talking broccoli stalks would come around and mow your lawn for free, because Congress is NOT going to pass a flat tax, you pathetic fool. — Dave Barry

You should definitely have a travel agent. Why go through all the hassle of dealing with airlines, hotels, and rental-car agencies yourself, only to see the arrangements get all screwed up, when with just a single phone call you can have a trained professional screw them up for you? — Dave Barry