Quotes from Dave Barry

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

What I look forward to is continued immaturity followed by death.

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.

If, when you talk to people, they keep backing away from you, it's because you're TOO CLOSE, alright? SO DON'T KEEP ADVANCING ON THEM LIKE A HUMAN GLACIER.

Panicky despair is an underrated element of writing.

normal person's weekly chore list: 1. clean kitchen. 2. clean bathroom. 3. clean entire rest of domicile. cleaning impaired person's weekly chore list: 1. don't get peanut butter on sheets.

Violence and smut are of course everywhere on the airwaves. You cannot turn on your television without seeing them, although sometimes you have to hunt around.

Directors are always changing things at the last minute. Actors will do a scene, and the director will say, 'Okay, that was perfect, but this time, Bob, instead of saying "What's for dinner?" you say, "Wait a minute! Benzene is actually a hydrocarbon!" And say it with a Norwegian accent. Also, we think maybe your character should have no arms.

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.

Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.

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

Scientists tell us that the fastest animal in the world, with a speed of 120 mph, is a cow dropped out of a helicopter.

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.

All of us are born with a set of instinctive fears - of falling, of the dark, of lobsters, of falling on lobsters in the dark, of speaking before a Rotary Club, and of the words Some Assembly Required.

It is a scientific fact that your body will not absorb cholesterol if you take it from someone else's plate.

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.

Guys care about sports teams. I'm not talking about simply rooting; I'm talking about a relationship that guys develop, a commitment to a sport team that guys take way more seriously than, for example, wedding vows.

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

Black Stache had no love for the Queen, no love for women of any sort, except for his ma. He had a real soft spot for his ma, and was truly sorry for the time he'd marooned her.

In the words of a very famous dead person, 'A nation that does not know its history is doomed to do poorly on the Scholastic Aptitude Test.

Nobody understands how hard it is, being a captain.

If Black Stache laughed, you laughed. If he snarled, you snarled. If he breathed in your direction, you ran for cover.

He felt a momentary pang of regret that he had not spent more time with his beloved wife. But it passed when he remembered that the reason he'd gone to sea in the first place was that he had never really liked his beloved wife.

when the armed robber of unhappiness knocks over the Keebler cookie display of our complacency, and bangs the samurai sword of negativity on the checkout counter of our dreams, we must not be afraid to hurl the fruit cocktail can of hope.