by Ross Petras
We have only one person to blame, and that’s each other.
Barry Beck, New York Ranger, on who started a brawl during the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup playoffs
On Blockbusters:
It will create an excitement that will sweep the country like wild-flowers.
movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn
On Blockbusters:
This will start with a bang in Hollywood and degenerate throughout the whole world.
movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn
On Bombing:
They [the bombs] are aimed exclusively at military targets…. Unfortunately there are some civilians around these targets.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, former President and general, standing up for the way the United States was handling bombing in North Vietnam
On Bombing:
Everybody should rise up and say, “Thank you, Mr. President, for bombing Haiphong.”
Martha Mitchell, wife of Attorney General John Mitchell, addressing a Republican Women’s Conference
On Bombing, the True Meaning of:
You always write it’s bombing, bombing, bombing. It’s not bombing, it’s air support.
U. S. Air Force Colonel David Opfer, air attaché in Cambodia, complaining to reporters about their coverage of the Vietnam War
On Bonuses, Reason for Giving Over $195 Million in:
If we didn’t have bonuses, we wouldn’t have had anybody working for us.
Drexel Burnham Lambert spokesperson, explaining why the company gave over $195 million in bonuses just before it filed for bankruptcy
On Books:
[Does] the published book contain the unpublished part?
James H. Campbell, King’s Counsel, to a witness in Britain’s Times Book Club case in the early 1900s
On Book Titles, Confidence-Building:
Correctly English in 100 Days
title from an East Asian book for beginning English speakers
On Bosses, Admiration of:
I first saw [President Reagan] as a foot, highly polished brown cordovan wagging merrily on a hassock. I spied it through the door. It was a beautiful foot, sleek. Such casual elegance and clean lines! But not a big foot, not formidable, maybe a little … frail. I imagined cradling it in my arms, protecting it from unsmooth roads.
Peggy Noonan, speechwriter for the Reagan administration and Bush campaign who wrote the famous “slipped the surly bonds of earth” speech on the Challenger disaster and Bush’s famous speech accepting the Republican nomination in her memoirs
On Bottles:
Every pint bottle should contain a quart.
Sir Boyle Roche, eighteenth-century M.P. from Tralee and preeminent word mangier, on government regulation
On Bread and Butter, Where Pound:
If you let that sort of thing go on, your bread and butter will be cut right out from under your feet.
Ernest Bevin, British Foreign Minister from 1945 to 1951
On Bribes, the Right Amount to Pay in:
I didn’t want it to be too big. It would have made it look like we bought the decision.
Jake Jacobsen, former Associated Milk Producers lawyer, testifying to a federal jury on the $10,000 he gave to former Treasury Secretary John Connolly for help on milk prices
On Bribes, What They Really Are:
I would categorize them more as gifts.
aerospace manufacturer Lockheed’s chief operations officer, trying to explain about the over $7 million paid to government officials from Holland and to an influential Japanese right-winger
On Bribes from Foreign Agents, Accepting:
I don’t see anything unusual about it.
Edwin Edwards, Louisiana governor, in 1976, after admitting that his wife accepted $10,000 from a Korean businessman with ties to the South Korean CIA
On Broadcasting:
We are experiencing audio technicalities.
Ralph Kiner, announcer for the New York Mets
On Bureaucracy, Great Moments in:
Due to an administrative error, the original of the attached letter was forwarded to you. A new original has been accomplished and forwarded to AAC/JA (Alaskan Air Command, Judge Advocate office). Please place this carbon copy in your files and destroy the original.
a memo from the Alaska Air Command, February 1973
On Burial:
It is deplorable to think of a parish where there are 30,000 people living without a Christian burial.
clergyman fund-raising for a graveyard, as reported in the London Spectator, mid-1800s
On Business:
I suppose you think that on our board half the directors do the work and the other half do nothing. As a matter of fact, gentlemen, the reverse is the case.
a chairman of the board of a prominent company defending his fellow directors
On Business, Big:
I’ll tell you, it’s Big Business. If there is one word to describe Atlantic City, it’s Big Business. Or two words—Big Business.
Donald Trump, real estate tycoon, looking down on Atlantic City from his helicopter, as quoted in a 1989 Time
C
On Campaign Promises, Strange:
[I want to] make sure everybody who has a job wants a job.
George Bush, during his first campaign for the presidency
On Capability:
Mike Andrews’ limits are limitless.
Danny Ozark, Philadelphia Phillies’ manager, about one of his players
On Capital Punishment:
Capital punishment is our society’s recognition of the sanctity of human life.
Orrin Hatch, Republican senator from Utah, explaining his support of the death penalty
On Cartoon Characters, Little-Known Abilities off:
While you are away, movie stars are taking your women. Robert Redford is dating your girlfriend, Tom Selleck is kissing your lady, Bart Simpson is making love to your wife.
Baghdad Betty, Iraqi radio announcer, to Gulf War troops
On Casting, Classy:
For this part of a lady, somebody that’s couth.
movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn
On Celebrity, Extraterrestrial:
[I introduce to you the Reverend Father McFadden] known all over the world, and other places besides.
introduction in Parliament, nineteenth century
On Censorship:
We do not have censorship. What we have is a limitation on what newspapers can report.
Louis Nel, former Deputy Minister of Information for South Africa
On Censorship:
Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.
General William Westmoreland on why the media should be muzzled in wartime
On Character Judgments, Government Officials and:
Your commitment and compassion, your humanitarian principles and your interest in protecting individual liberty and freedom have made an outstanding contribution to furthering the cause of human dignity.
Joseph Califano, Jr., then Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, in a letter of reference for cult leader and mass murderer Jim Jones
On Chickens, Similarities with Other Things:
Chickens, like two-edged swords, ofttimes come home to roost.
small-town newspaper editor in Wisconsin
On Childhood Innocence:
The boys never meant any harm against the girls. They just meant to rape.
Joyce Kithira, deputy principal of a Kenyan boarding school, commenting on a raid of a girls’ dormitory by a gang of boys who raped 71 girls and killed 19
On China, Great French Observations on:
China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.
Charles De Gaulle, French President
On Chinese Sayings, George Bush and:
Hey, listen. I’m a member of the NRA. You’re hurting my feelings, as they say in China.
President George Bush, explaining why he didn’t come out strongly against
violence against women in an address to the National Rifle Association
On Chivalry:
Chivalry is only reasonably dead.
George Bush, offering a chair to a woman
On Cigars:
The astonished Yahoo, smoking, as well as he could, a cigar, with which he had filled all his pockets.
Samuel Warren, lawyer and author, in his 1841 popular novel, Ten Thousand a Year
On Civil Rights, Great Strides Made in:
We may be finding that in some blacks when [the carotid choke hold] is applied, the veins or arteries do not open up like … in normal people.
Daryl Gates, Los Angeles police chief, discussing a department investigation he said he had instituted in an effort to explain why a high percentage of blacks died as a result of police officers’ using the choke hold on them
On Civil Rights, Great Strides Made in:
I’m not against the blacks and a lot of the good blacks will attest to that.
Evan Mecham, then governor of Arizona
On Civil Rights, Great Strides Made in:
I can’t get over saying “colored.” I said it all my life. All the Negroes seem to resent it and I don’t know why.
Martha Mitchell, wife of Attorney General John Mitchell
On Civil Rights, Great Strides Made in:
I forgot no one was working. Everyone had Buckwheat’s birthday off.
town commissioner of Mardela Springs, Maryland, commenting on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday and the difficulty he had getting in touch with county employees
On Civil Rights, Great Strides Made in:
Booker T. Washington, the great black nigger … uh … educator … uh … excuse me for making that … the great black educator … the Negro educator.
Reagan Brown, Texas agriculture commissioner, addressing agriculture professors and attempting to refer to the accomplishments of Booker T. Washington
On Civil Rights, Great Strides Made in:
This country needs a spear chucker, and I think we’ve got him up on this podium.
Eugene Dorff, mayor of Kenosha, Wisconsin, introducing presidential candidate Jesse Jackson. He said later he had intended to say “straight shooter,” but slipped.
On Clarifications:
[That report was] … a wholly garbled version of what never took place.
Augustine Birrel, Chief Secretary for Ireland from 1907 to 1916, whose inability to stop the plotting that led to the Easter Rebellion forced him to retire
On Clarifications:
This is the operative statement. The others are inoperative.
Ron Ziegler, press secretary to President Richard Nixon
On Clarifications:
I never said I had no idea about most of the things you said I said I had no idea about.
Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State, clarifying himself before a 1987 congressional hearing
On Clarifications:
That was consciously ambiguous in the sense that any terrorist government or terrorist movement that is contemplating such actions I think knows clearly what we are speaking of.
Alexander Haig, then Secretary of State, when asked by a reporter to make a statement clearer
On Clarifications:
I stand by all the misstatements.
Dan Quayle, then vice-presidential candidate, defending himself against criticism for making verbal gaffes
On Clarity:
John Sununu (then governor of New Hampshire):
You’re telling us that the reason things are so bad is that they are so good, and they will get better as soon as they get worse?
James A. Baker (then Secretary of the Treasury):
You got it.
On Clarity, Communistic:
The Gang of Four (and Lin Piao) were using an ultra-Left stance as a cover for a factional attempt to seize power. If the Gang of Four are incorrectly labeled leftists or ultra-“leftists,” this broadens the attack to include anyone who made honest “Left” errors. This would play into the hands of the Right in a situation where an evaluation of the positive and negative results of the Cultural Revolution could present an opportunity for rightist attacks on the real positive breakthroughs that have occurred. This is the significance of the correct evaluation of the Gang of Four that has been made—that they were, in essence, ultra-rightists and not leftists.
Pat and Roger Howard, from the Institute of Foreign Languages, Canton, China, in a 1977 issue of the Maoist newspaper, the Guardian
On Clear Thinking, Governmental:
An agency subject to the provisions of the Federal Reports Act may enter into an arrangement with an organization not subject to the Act whereby the organization not subject to the Act collects information on behalf of the agency subject to the Act. The reverse also occurs.
a memo from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
On Clear Thinking, Vice-Presidential:
We offer the party as a big tent. How we do that within the platform, the preamble to the platform, or whatnot, that remains to be seen. But that message will have to be articulated with great clarity.
Vice-President Dan Quayle. (This comment was awarded the British Golden Bull award.)
On Coercion:
I will not be cohorsed.
Danny Ozark, responding to rumors that he would be forced to quit due to reports that he was close to losing his job as manager of the Philadelphia Phillies
On Comebacks, Clever and Otherwise:
We on this side of the House are not such fools as we look.
House member overheard retorting to taunts
On Comedy:
Our comedies are not to be laughed at.
movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn
On Commies, Pesky Peace-Loving:
[The Soviet Union is using] every device of propaganda in an effort to hinder the rebuilding of America’s defenses and force a hasty resumption of arms negotiations.
Eugene Rostow, director of the U. S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, in the Philadelphia Inquirer
On Communications, Better:
The communication and exchange of ideas on administrative policy matters is encouraged and maintained to optimize the use, mix and cost and administrative inputs in program results.
Treasury Board of Canada memo
On Communism, Little-Known Facts About:
Where fraternities are not allowed, Communism flourishes.
Barry Goldwater, senator from Arizona, speaking before the National In-terfraternity Conference
On Communism, Little-Known Facts About:
In every country the Communists have taken over, the first thing they do is outlaw cockfighting.
John Monks, Oklahoma state representative, arguing against a bill that would make cockfighting illegal in the state
On Communism, Little-Known Facts About Video Viewing Habits and:
I did not want to tire the population, because otherwise it would have stayed up too late.
Nicolae Ceausescu, Romanian dictator, explaining why television viewing was restricted to only two hours a night. He neglected to add that electricity was usually cut off during night hours due to his own economic mismanagement.
On Communists, Those Found in Congress:
Gerald Ford was a Communist.
Ronald Reagan in a speech. He later indicated he meant to say “Congressman.”
On Compliments:
Elderly woman (on a hot day in St. Petersburg, Florida):
Good afternoon, Mr. Berra. My, you look mighty cool today.
Yogi Berra:
Thank you, ma’am. You don’t look so hot yourself.
On Comprehensive Critical Studies, U.S. Lack of:
In The Ironic German, Thomas Mann is the subject of the first comprehensive critical study to be published in this country.
a book review in a 1959 Nashville Tennessean
On Conclusions, Why to Avoid:
We don’t plan to conclude anything terribly sp
ecific in 1982 because of the program’s abstract nature.
a National Institute for Education contract officer, commenting in The Washington Monthly on a program commissioned by HEW
On Congress:
[I support efforts] to limit the terms of members of Congress, especially members of the House and members of the Senate.
Vice-President Dan Quayle
On Congressional Hiring Criteria, Great Moments in:
… only a white girl, prefer Floridians.
Rep. James A. Haley (D-Fla.)
… white Republican.
Rep. Vernon Thompson (R-Wis.)
… white—no pantsuits.
Rep. James J. Delaney (D-N. Y.)
… attractive, smart, young, and no Catholics and water signs.
Rep. Bob Eckhardt (D-Texas)
from the files of the Office of Placement and Office Management, 1974; as compiled in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 1974
On Congressional Wisdom:
Let me tell you that tolerance is one thing, intolerance another. To be a person intolerant of another person’s right to have different views is my idea of tolerance, that is, until that person endeavors to make a public issue of his views.