Life

Every normal American, man or woman, understands that these kinds of choices come with a price. This isn't a problem with our system. In a very basic way, it's not even a problem at all. Problems can be fixed. Problems that have no solution aren't problems: They're life. You can say the fact that 2+2 is 4 is a problem because you want 2+2 to equal a badger that craps plutonium pellets ready for a cold-fusion reactor. But that doesn't make it a problem; it makes you a really weird dude, who should probably sit out the next few downs. Choices have consequences. That's why they're called "choices."

-Jonah Goldberg,  The Goldberg File 1/10/2014

Cookies

You feed a lineman a cookie, he's happy, you know?

-USC interim head coach Ed Orgeron on changes he's made after Lane Kiffin was fired

Rolling Ball of Butcher Knives

This guy is a rolling ball of butcher knives.

-Chuck Pagano, referring to newly acquired running back Trent Richardson

Mutants

And again, let me be very clear, I'm writing a story about a variety of mutated superhumans in a fantasy world. The various metaphors that we draw from the mutants are myriad, but to extrapolate from what I am writing and apply it to any one real world group is a mistake. It is not the place I am writing this from. The mutants are metaphor for many things, to many people, each one of us seeing them as something different, through our own spectrum we each see something that represents our beliefs, our clan and our struggles in life.

I am writing about a guy who can drink in cosmic rays and dispel them. A guy who doesn't understand why the world hates and fears him but is okay with Reed Richards or Thor.  That is a very, very different notion then somebody being ashamed or "self-hating" of their ethnicity, orientation or religion. Those are not parallels I am intending in my writing.

-Rick Remender, X-POSITION: Remender Unites "Uncanny Avengers", CBR

Hurried

God is not hurried along in the Time-stream of this universe any more than an author is hurried along in the imaginary time of his his own novel. He has infinite attention for each of us.

-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Kill Switch

There's no kill switch on awesome.

-Dilbert, Dilbert, 2/11/2012

Social Norms

For soft cultures in good times, dispensing with social norms is easy. In hard times, you may have need of them.

-Mark Steyn, "The Sinking of the West ", NRO

Holy crap!

We came out kind of flat, and when we had our backs really up against the wall, you know, middle of the second half, you're kind of saying, 'Holy crap, we gotta get going.'

-Max Bullough, Spartan LB, referencing the 31-24 win over Minnesota on Saturday, via the Detroit News

Aw, shucks.

That said, I can't imagine a stretch more difficult than the one Michigan State is enduring, having beaten five straight opponents that used to horribly torment it — Central Michigan, Ohio State, Michigan, Personal Fouls, Wisconsin.

-Bob Wojnowski, "Aw, shucks: Spartans' next test is the Cornhuskers," Detroit News

A duck farting in thunder.

Now, if I, a former mere bank clerk, know that this is a piece of window-dressing, you can bet Warren and the M and S bloke know it too. Whatever their generous contributions to their nations’ exchequers, in the context of our economy, and the huge American one, the effect will be as a duck farting in thunder.

-Terry Wogan, Paying more tax will get us nowhere very fast, The Telegraph

Duly Harsh

Just to be clear, my views of, and appreciation for, France have improved since the days of my hardcore French-bashing. In the past I may have been unduly harsh. Now I would like to think I am merely duly harsh.

-Jonah Goldberg, The Corner

Best Billy Madison Quote

Mr. Madison, what you've just said . . . is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

-Principal, Billy Madison

Speak softly...

Teddy Roosevelt never said, "Speak softly and carry 'Cat in the Hat.'"

-Greg Gutfeld, Daily Gut

Mass Transit

Everyone wants their neighbors to take mass transit so the roads will be clear when they drive to work.

-Jack Nerad, editorial director of Kelley Blue Book, "Eco-friendly vehicles lack mass appeal"

No Place

No place for women and children!

-Coach O.

Judgement

You know, I rather like it that way: Let Republican candidates be judged on their ideas and character; and let Democratic candidates be judged on their skin color and genital equipment.

-Jay Nordlinger, The Corner

Private Keep

Bradbury learned long ago that amidst the joy, there is also evil in the world and in the hearts of men. In a letter, he once wrote that each one of us has "a private keep somewhere in the upper part of the head where, from time to time, of midnights, the beast can be heard raving. To control that, to the end of life, to stay contemplative, sane, good-humored, is our entire work, in the midst of cities that tempt us to inhumanity, and passions that threaten to drive through the skin with invisible spikes."

-James E. Person Jr., "Ray Bradbury at 90", NRO

Terrifying

In one of those weird ironies of nature, being surrounded by a bunch of soapy-sponge-wielding attractive University of Alabama female zoology students in wet t-shirts is an excellent plot device for a late night cinemax movie when the subject "victim" getting a bath is a sensitive-yet-jocular ski instructor, but it's terrifying if you're a brown pelican.

-Jonah Goldberg, post on The Corner

Progress

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

-Calvin Coolidge, Address at the Celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia, Pa.

Misery Engines

Truth is, these losers offer no solutions – they’re just misery engines bent on destroying the achievements of others.

-Greg Gutfeld, Daily Gut