[Rumor]

Add any if you have them.

Question: If you could live forever, would you and why?

Answer: "I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever,"

--Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss USA contest. (She won)


"Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff."
--Mariah Carey


"Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very
important part of your life,"
--Brooke Shields, during an interview to become spokesperson for federal anti-smoking campaign.


"I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body,"
--Winston Bennett,
University of Kentucky basketball forward.



"Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the
lowest crime rates in the country,"
--Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, DC.


"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president."
--Hillary Clinton commenting on the release of subpoenaed documents.


"That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I'm just the one to do it,"
--A congressional candidate in Texas.


"Half this game is ninety percent mental."
--Philadelphia Phillies manager, Danny Ozark


"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."
--Al Gore, Vice President


"I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix."
--Dan Quayle


"We've got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?"
--Lee Iacocca


"The word "genius" isn't applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein."
--Joe Theisman, NFL football quarterback & sports analyst.



"We don't necessarily discriminate. We simply exclude certain types of people."
--Colonel Gerald Wellman, ROTC Instrutor.


"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
--Bill Clinton, President


"We are ready for an unforeseen event that may or may not occur."
--Al Gore, VP


"Traditionally, most of Australia's imports come from overseas."
--Keppel Enderbery

"If somebody has a bad heart, they can plug this jack in at night as they go to bed and it will monitor their heart throughout the night. And the next morning, when they wake up dead, there'll be a record."
--Mark S. Fowler, FCC Chairman

"Your food stamps will be stopped effective
March 1992 because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances."
--Department of Social Services, Greenville, South Carolina

[voodoo]

All by Donnie Rumsfeld (a pure genious)

"I would not say that the future is necessarily less predictable than the past. I think the past was not predictable when it started."

"We do know of certain knowledge that he [Osama Bin Laden] is either in Afghanistan, or in some other country, or dead."

"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." –on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction

"Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war."

"Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things." –on looting in Iraq after the U.S. invasion, adding "stuff happens"

"As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time."

"I am not going to give you a number for it because it's not my business to do intelligent work." -asked to estimate the number of Iraqi insurgents while testifying before Congress

"I believe what I said yesterday. I don't know what I said, but I know what I think, and, well, I assume it's what I said."

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

"If I said yes, that would then suggest that that might be the only place where it might be done which would not be accurate, necessarily accurate. It might also not be inaccurate, but I'm disinclined to mislead anyone."

"There's another way to phrase that and that is that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. It is basically saying the same thing in a different way. Simply because you do not have evidence that something does exist does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn't exist." -on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction

"Well, um, you know, something's neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so, I suppose, as Shakespeare said."

"Secretary Powell and I agree on every single issue that has ever been before this administration except for those instances where Colin's still learning."

"Learn to say 'I don't know.' If used when appropriate, it will be often."

"I don't know what the facts are but somebody's certainly going to sit down with him and find out what he knows that they may not know, and make sure he knows what they know that he may not know."

"I'm not into this detail stuff. I'm more concepty."

"I don't do quagmires."

"I don't do diplomacy."

"I don't do foreign policy."

"I don't do predictions."

"I don't do numbers."

"I don't do book reviews."

"Now, settle down, settle down. Hell, I'm an old man, it's early in the morning and I'm gathering my thoughts here."

"If I know the answer I'll tell you the answer, and if I don't, I'll just respond, cleverly."

V

[Ozmodiar]

"Too often than not, our children is exposed to violence in the movies. Every two child did. I will."
- George W. Bush

[dav]

"An atheist may be simply one whose faith and love are concentrated on the impersonal aspects of God."
- Simone Weil

[ironknee]

the king of comedy, Dan Quayle

I am not part of the problem. I am a Republican.

I have made good judgements in the Past. I have made good judgements in the Future.

I love California, I practically grew up in Phoenix.

People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history.

Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child.

The American people would not want to know of any misquotes that Dan Quayle may or may not make.

The future will be better tomorrow.

We don't want to go back to tomorrow, we want to go forward.

We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a *part* of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a *part* of Europe.

We're all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made.

Welcome to President Bush, Mrs. Bush, and my fellow astronauts.

What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.

When I have been asked during these last weeks who caused the riots and the killing in L.A., my answer has been direct and simple: Who is to blame for the riots? The rioters are to blame. Who is to blame for the killings? The killers are to blame.

[It's] time for the human race to enter the solar system.

Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.

One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice president, and that one word is 'to be prepared'.

Illegitimacy is something we should talk about in terms of not having it.

I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy - but that could change.

Mars is essentially in the same orbit... Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.

Murphy Brown is doing better than I am. At least she knows she still has a job next year.

The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. I mean in this century's history. But we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century.

Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children.

We're going to have the best-educated American people in the world.

We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur.

For NASA, space is still a high priority.

Public speaking is very easy.

I stand by all the misstatements that I've made.

[mo]

Originally Posted by Rumor

"Half this game is ninety percent mental."
--Philadelphia Phillies manager, Danny Ozark


"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."
--Al Gore, Vice President


"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
--Bill Clinton, President


"We are ready for an unforeseen event that may or may not occur."
--Al Gore, VP

Hey! The quote attributed to Danny Ozark is a classic Yogi Berra-ism. The first quote attributed to Gore and the quote attributed to Clinton were written by comedy writers and are usually attributed to Dan Quayle, even though he didn't say them, either. The second Gore quote above, as far as anyone can tell, was actually uttered by Quayle. Somehow, a whole bunch of Quayle-isms -- real and perceived -- started getting circulated during the 2000 and 2004 elections via e-mail chains, and attributed to either Gore, Bush, or Kerry, in some cases, more than one of them.

(See Snopes on the political quotes.)

My favorite is the "known unknowns" quote from Rumsfeld. Also, I submit the all-time winner in understatement:

"The war did not turn in Japan's favor, and trends of the world are not advantageous to us."
- Japan's Emperor Hirohito, announcing his country's surrender after the Nagasaki atomic bombing

[KeyLimePi]

A LOT of these quotes were never said by the people to whom they are attributed. Still, they're pretty funny in that whole Michael Moore/fiction-is-more-convenient-than-truth kinda way.

[Ozmodiar]

Here's one I read while doing research for a paper on J. Edgar Hoover. Upon hearing of Hoover's death, Nixon exclaimed: "Jesus Christ! That old c*cksucker? I thought he'd live forever!"

[brassplayersrock²]

"to produce confident sounding music, you must first be confident in yourself"