Quotes from Dave Barry

Simply by eliminating description, the screenwriter can work his way through the entire plot in a single morning, leaving the afternoon free for screenwriter leisure activities such as drugs.

I was never good at sports. For a while I played Little League baseball, but I had very little interaction with the actual ball. I heard a lot of yelling about the ball, and I occasionally sensed that something--which I assumed was the ball--had just whizzed past me. But I almost never had any direct personal contact with the ball, which turns out to be crucial to succeeding in many athletic endeavors.

Natives of the Florida Keys often refer to themselves as Conchs, and for good reason: They have been drinking.

Yes, but in this case, the fatality was a shark. The tractor-trailer was carrying four sharks from the Florida Keys to an aquarium in Coney Island in New York City and one of the sharks was ejected during the crash. Fortunately, it didn't hit anybody, but the fact remains that there was, briefly, an airborne shark on Interstate 95, and it could have hit a car, which would have been tragic, by which I mean pretty funny.

Sometimes I think the main purpose of professional sports is to give guys something to talk about that does not involve them personally.

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.

Culver is a language magnet school. What it's mainly a magnet for, if you want to know the truth, is nerds.

I really, really like Suzana Delgado, who is the most beautiful girl in the eighth grade and probably the world. She has like 183 million Instagram followers.

If you're a novice in Cyberspace, you may think that buying a computer is a scary and confusing process. But the truth is that if you take a little time to learn a few basic principles and some of the technical lingo, buying the right computer and getting it to work properly is no more complicated than building a nuclear reactor from wristwatch parts in a darkened room using only your teeth. So let's get started!

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.")

So for some reason everybody makes this huge deal about pandas. I don't know why. They never actually do anything except eat and poop. But they're really famous." "Yeah," said Suzana. "They're like the Kardashians of zoo animals.

disappearing faster than weekend houseguests in an Agatha Christie story.

FAR FROM THE WHARF, well across the bay and almost to the open sea, was a tangle of rocks so treacherous that no captain familiar with these waters would sail his ship there.

HAVE YOU EVER REALLY EMBARRASSED YOURSELF? Don't answer that, stupid. It's a rhetorical question. Of course you've embarrassed yourself. Everybody has. I bet the pope has. If you were to say to the pope: "Your Holy Worshipfulness, I bet you've pulled some blockheaded boners in your day, huh?" he'd smile that warm, knowing, fatherly smile he has, and then he'd wave. He can't hear a word you're saying, up on that balcony.

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

You came to a strip club with a woman who is not your fiancée, and a gorilla on your wedding day.

Casket wreath* 13 Diabetes Insulin Leeches* 14 Hatchet embedded in skull Removal of hatchet, treatment of wound Larger

only thing your DNA thinks about is reproducing itself.

sutures, bandages, antibiotics Mop Sucking chest wound Anesthesia, surgery Cork Cancer Chemotherapy, radiation, surgery Casket wreath* 13 Diabetes Insulin Leeches* 14 Hatchet embedded in skull Removal of hatchet, treatment of wound Larger hat Eyes gouged out in hospital by psychopath posing as nurse Prosthetic eyeballs, therapy Six-pack Source:

What happened was, they put me and my co-marshal, author Ridley Pearson, into an antique fire truck along with Daisy Duck and Clarabelle the Cow. I have nothing against either of these veteran Disney characters, but let's be honest, their careers are not currently sizzling, especially in the case of Clarabelle, who hasn't had a hit cartoon since roughly the Civil War.

For all I know, some of my close friends could be dead. The only way to find out would be to call them up and talk to them about what's going on in their lives, and I never do that. I think this is true of many guys, even the ones who are not Humor Personalities: we do not view talking about our personal lives as an acceptable activity.

The truth is that only a small percentage of Miami's population consists of violent criminals, and the bulk of those are elected officials. The rest of us Miamians are regular people, just like the people in your town: We work hard, try to raise our kids right, and are always ready to help out our neighbors by laying down covering fire when they go outside to get their newspapers.

Every single human cell contains DNA, which is a special molecule that your body leaves behind at crime scenes so the police can identify you.

Fort Lauderdale is sometimes called The Venice of America by people who clearly have never been to Venice.