776 Stupidest Things Ever Said Read Free Page A

estate tycoon, looking down on Atlantic City from his helicopter, as quoted in a 1989
Time

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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