"Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind?/ Should auld acquaintance be forgot/And auld lang syne. For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne/We'll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne. We two have run about the braes, And put the gowans fine/But we've wandered many a weary foot, Since auld lang syne.
We two have paddled in the burn/From morning sun till dine/But seas between us braid have roared, Since auld lang syne. And there's a hand, my trusty friend/And gives a hand o thine/And we'll take a right guide-willie waught/For auld lang syne. And surely you'll be your pint-stowp/And surely I'll be mine/And we'll take a cup of kindness yet/For auld lang syne."
-- Robert Burns

"Help me to be aware of the many blessings which are mine. Often we chase what we think we desire and in so doing miss what You are trying to give us."
-- Renaissance Unity, a meditation.

"Just do your job, plus a little bit more"
-- George W. Stockman, on how to succeed with an employer for a long range career without ever elevating their expections by your overachieving.

"The tourists are back... For the last few weeks, they have packed the streets of Midtown Manhattan like a motley invading army, tilting their heads back to gaze at the skyscrapers and filling the air with a broken music of French and Bengali, Slovak and Texan... Official statistics are hard to come by. But for the last week, more than 1,000 tourists a day have been dropping by NYC & Company's Visitor Information Center, a level not reached since before Sept. 11, 2001, a spokeswoman said... 'We have been seeing the numbers we used to see,' she added. 'It's like a new beginning.'
-- Robert F. Worth, The Tourists Are Back in New York, in Case You Haven't Noticed
The New York Times

"Believe it or not, it may be helping us because it's driving people to drink."
-- Matthew Maher, owner of McSorley's Old Ale House, on New York's ban on smoking, as quoted by The New York Times.

"The great lesson from the true mystics is that the sacred is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one's daily life, in one's neighbors, friends, and family, in one's back yard." So said psychologist Abraham Maslow. Of course that's always true, but in 2004 it will be far more true for you than ever before. You won't have to travel to exotic paradises to drum up life-changing epiphanies, Cancerian. You won't have to hunt for miracles in all-night revels at the edge of reality. All the amazement you'll need will glide right up to you while you're washing dishes or taking a walk or buying peanut butter."
-- Rob Brezny, Real Astrology

"Joy comes not through possession or ownership, but through a wise and loving heart... "
-- Buddha

"We have to take pleasure seriously."
-- Charles Eames

"Before the beginning, after the great war between heaven and hell, God created the earth and gave dominion over it to the crafty ape he called man. And to each generation was born a creature of light and a creature of darkness.
And great armies clashed by night in the ancient war between good and evil. There was magic then, nobility, and unimaginable cruelty. And so it was until the day that a false sun exploded over Trinity. And man forever traded away wonder for reason."
-- Michael J. Anderson as Samson in Carnivale.

"He's a good boy... I raised him good, and so I'm not too worried about other things that's happened."
-- Joe Jackson, on his son, Michael Jackson

"New York has the lowest overall crime rate among cities with more than one million people, according to their presentation of the preliminary Uniform Crime Report compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the first half of the year.

Crime dropped 7.4 percent in New York City, the statistics show, compared with 3.1 percent in the nation as a whole, and 4.4 percent in cities with a population greater than a million. The murder rate was up slightly in New York, as it was nationwide, but the city's rate was still far below its peak in 1990.

The city's crime index, a figure adjusted for population, is on par with much smaller cities, like Ann Arbor, Mich., and ranks 194th out of 200 cities with more than 100,000 residents, making it one of the safest."
-- Shaila K. Dewan, The New York Times

"He was just caught like a rat."
-- U.S. Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno on the capture of Saddam Hussein, at a news conference in Tikrit.

"I'd like to thank all of you heteerosexuals... it takes two of you to make one of me."
-- Boy George

"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."
-- Walter Bagehot

"Good to begin well. Better to end well."
-- Fortune Cookie

"Only the shallow know themselves."
-- Oscar Wilde

"What happened is that when I was in Afghanistan and Iraq, speaking with a lot of our soldiers, who I think are doing an extraordinary job under dangerous and difficult circumstances, they asked me on one particular occasion, `Well, you know, what do people think of us and what we're doing back home?'... I'm not going to lie to an American soldier, particularly a soldier in the 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum, New York... And what I said is: `I think you have universal support among the American people. They cannot be prouder of you. And there are questions being raised about the administration's policies.' "
-- Hillary Rodham Clinton

"I thank God I was raised Catholic, so sex will always be dirty."
-- John Waters

"In the most famous picture from his trip to Baghdad, President
Bush had
himself artfully photographed to look like he was serving turkey to the
troops. The image was emblazoned on front pages throughout the country -
and
now appears to be an entirely false depiction.

According to the Washington Post, Bush was actually holding "a
decoration,
not a serving plate." In other words, he was holding a prop, not
real food,
and thus only pretending for the cameras to be serving up the holiday
meal.

The Post notes that "the foray has opened new credibility questions
for a
White House that has dealt with issues" like this in the past. In
fact, the
flap marks the second such distortion in as many days about his trip to
Baghdad. Just yesterday it was revealed that the White House's tall tale
of
Air Force One crossing paths with a British Airways plane was entirely
false.

The deceptive picture also harkens back to the controversy surrounding
the
President's "Mission Accomplished" banner. On May 1, he stood
on the deck of
the U.S.S. Lincoln in front of the giant sign and declared that
"major
combat operations have ended." Since that time, more troops have
been killed
or wounded than before he made that statement, prompting more questions
about his photo-op.

When asked why he chose to stand in front of the "Mission
Accomplished"
banner at a press conference six months later, Bush "disavowed the
background banner," saying the White House staff had nothing to do
with
producing it. But then Navy and administration officials admitted the
President had been dishonest, saying that "the White House actually
made
it." White House spokesman Scott McClellan specifically said,
"We took care
of the production of it. We have people to do those things."

Of course, Bush's penchant for taking misleading and dishonest photos
has
not been confined to Iraq. In July of 2002, the President visited a
low-income housing development in Atlanta to tout his commitment to
funding
it. He then proposed a budget that eliminated its funding. Similarly, the
President visited a Boys and Girls Club in January of 2003 to tout the
organization's efforts. He said the club "has got a grand history of
helping children."
Just four days after his photo-op, he proposed to cut 15% out of funding
for the Boys and Girls Club."

-- The Daily Mislead, online.

"There is nothing wrong with going to bed with someone of your own sex. People should be very free with sex, they should draw the line at goats."
-- Elton John

"A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin."
-- H.L. Mencken

''Eat a lobster, eat a pound of caviar - live! If you are in love with a beautiful blonde with an empty face and no brains at all, don't be afraid. Marry her! Live!''
-- Arthur Rubenstein

"He's a good boy... I raised him good, and so I'm not too worried about other things that's happened."
-- Joe Jackson, father of Michael Jackson.

"I was just looking for a warm meal somewhere."
-- George W. Bush

"I love Thanksgiving turkey...it's the only time in Los Angeles that you see natural breasts."
-- Arnold Schwarzenegger

"Consider the Americans who have rained nothing but glory on our nation. Think about the magnificent works of Walt Whitman, James Baldwin and Hart Crane. They're just a handful of writers who shaped the American vision and yet could not achieve full citizenship because they were homosexual. How many wedding parties have walked down the aisle to the music of Virgil Thompson, Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman or Aaron Copland? Yes, we get to provide the music, but we are not allowed to get married ourselves. The next time you stand, hand on your heart, and sing "America the Beautiful," remind yourself that we owe those towering words to Katharine Lee Bates, a lesbian.

Remind yourself, too, of the Rev. Mychal F. Judge, the fire department chaplain who was killed on September 11. There was hardly a religious leader in our city who did not glorify his name and hold him up as someone to emulate. But remind them that he was a proud and openly gay man and those same moralists will turn their backs in denial.

The unhappy tradition continues today. The Bush administration spends billions spreading freedom abroad while at home it devises legislation to deny equal rights to gays and lesbians. What is it with you people, anyway? Are you so insecure about the way you handle marriage that you're scared gay folk will show you up? Trust me, we will make as much of a mess out of matrimony as you do. Just give us a chance."
-- Harvey Fierstein in The New York Times.

“If 10 percent of men are gay, then it’s a reasonable assumption that 10 percent of priests and 10 percent of bishops are gay, but it is what you do about it. If they are living a celibate life, then God bless the men.”
-- Cardinal Keith O’Brien, archbishop of Glasgow, Scotland, on homosexuality in the Times of London, Oct. 1)

"As Matt Dillon's underwear."
-- Boy George, when asked by US Weekly what he would like to become if he were reincarnated.

''Lies run sprints, but the truth runs marathons."
-- Michael Jackson

"Of all the post-Sept. 11 denials of civil liberties, the enemy combatant doctrine is among the worst. It gives the president untrammeled authority to lock up Americans merely by asserting that they are part of a terrorist plot. In its argument to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit this week, the government insisted that military-style rules like the enemy combatant doctrine now apply to American citizens, even on American soil, because Al Qaeda has "made the battlefield the United States."

Governments are always tempted to detain perceived enemies without charges, hold them incommunicado and deny them counsel. But the framers of the Constitution knew that if the government was allowed to act on those impulses, the result would be tyranny. That is why they built into this nation's founding document the very rights the Bush administration is intent on taking away."
-- Editorial, 'Enemy Combatant' Sham, The New York Times

"My only hope is that we never lose sight
of one thing, that it was all started by a mouse."
-- Walt Disney, (Today is Mickey's 75th Birthday)

"I belong in the theater... I have to work off the instant reactions of the audience."
-- Dorothy Loudon, 1933-2003, as quoted in The New York Times.

"I'm proud and grateful I was Blondie... She was dumb and shrewish sometimes. But she was real and sympathetic and warm, a real woman, a human being. And that's how I tried to play her."
-- Penny Singleton, 1908-2003, quoted in a 1973 book titled Saturday Afternoon at the Bijou, and quoted by the Associated Press in their obituary for her.

"I may not be better than other people, but at least I'm different."
-- Jean Jacques Rousseau

"You Simonize your car, so why not your face?"
-- Joan Rivers as quoted by the New York Post

"Hello, Ralpie Boy!!!"
-- Art Carney, 1918-2003.

"President Bush often emphasizes his commitment to veterans, saying in 2001, "My administration understands America's obligations not only go to those who wear the uniform today, but to those who wore the uniform in the past: to our veterans.

But the 200,000 veterans waiting six months or more for their first appointment at a VA facility would be denied access to VA health care under Bush's plan. Others would be charged $250 annual enrollment fees, doubled prescription costs and increased co-payments."
-- The Daily Mislead, MoveOn.org

''They have taken us much farther down the road toward an intrusive, 'big brother'-style government - toward the dangers prophesied by George Orwell in his book '1984' - than anyone ever thought would be possible in the United States of America.''
-- Al Gore, in a speech for Moveon.org

"The Bush crowd hurtled into Baghdad on the law of Disney: Wishing can make it so. Now they're ensnared in the law of the jungle: the rules of engagement don't apply with this scary cocktail of Saddam loyalists, foreign fighters and terrorists, who hold nothing sacrosanct, not human rights organizations, humanitarian groups or Iraqi civilians.

The gangsters are getting ever bolder about picking off our soldiers on land and out of the sky. With three Army helicopters hit in the last two weeks, killing 22 Americans, soldiers are reduced to flying low and fast, as they scan for the glint of sunlight coming off the rockets of the invisible guerrillas. It's an eerie flashback to the 10-year war of attrition Afghans waged against the mighty Soviets, when worn-down Soviet soldiers complained that the Afghan fighters were "ghosts" who would shoot down their helicopters with American Stinger surface-to-air missiles and fade back into the mountains."
-- Maureen Dowd, The Chicago Way, The New York Times.

"The lingering question, as it is so often with Mr. Bush, is how quickly and fully the rhetoric will translate into action. The president's "Marshall Plan" for Afghanistan never materialized; his ambitious "road map" for an Israeli-Palestinian peace didn't get past the first stop sign. A policy to promote democracy in the Middle East, even if defined as the work of decades, will require not just soaring speeches but far-reaching changes in U.S. practices and substantial costs. Though the administration has already been talking about the new strategy for many months, there has been no substantial follow-up so far -- other than a start on a new democratic political system for Iraq."
-- Editorial, The Wasington Post

"Those deaths brought to 382 the number of American soldiers who have died in Iraq or Kuwait since the United States invaded Iraq on March 19."
-- The New York Times, today.

"If he gets more explicit, or allows the flag-draped coffins of fallen heroes to be photographed coming home, it will just remind people that the administration said this would be easy, and it's teeth-grindingly hard. And that the administration vowed to get Osama and Saddam and W.M.D., and hasn't. And that the Bush team that hyped the presence of Al Qaeda in Iraq has now created an Al Qaeda presence in Iraq. And that there was no decent plan for the occupation or for financing one, no plan for rotating or supporting troops stretched too thin to guard ammunition caches or police a fractious society, and no plan for getting out."
-- Maureen Dowd, The New York Times

"It's clearly a tragic day for America. In a long, hard war, we're going to have tragic days. But they're necessary. They're part of a war that's difficult and complicated."
-- Donald H. Rumsfeld, the US secretary of defense, after guerrillas shot down an American helicopter in Iraq, killing 16 soldiers in The New York Times yesterday.

“If 10 percent of men are gay, then it’s a reasonable assumption that 10 percent of priests and 10 percent of bishops are gay, but it is what you do about it. If they are living a celibate life, then God bless the men.”
-- Cardinal Keith O’Brien, archbishop of Glasgow, Scotland, on homosexuality as reported by the Times of London, Oct. 1 and quoted by the New York Blade.

“Jeers to Barbara Walters. Interviewing Macaulay Culkin, who plays a gay, drug-abusing murderer and mutilator in his latest movie [‘Party Monster’], Walters asked, ‘Are you concerned that people may think you’re gay?’ No word on whether Mac is worried about the murder and mutilation part.”
-- Cheers and Jeers, column in TV Guide, Oct. 4, as quoted by the New York Blade.

"Work hard. Play hard. Stay hard."
-- Unknown

"She hasn't an extra $10 million to throw around, a fact he certainly already knows. The taxpayers don't have any extra money to throw around, a fact this entire city already knows. If the judge sitting on the case had b - - - s, he'd dismiss the case without it costing Joe Schmo as well as Liza Minnelli a fortune.

"Today, 50 percent of marriages end in divorce. Enough there are fights over maintenance and child support. Now, suddenly, the law will allow you to file a suit and say you were battered physically or emotionally? Now, suddenly, we'll have to litigate two cases? A divorce and a civil case? We mustn't let our justice system be abused by this. Such nonsense has to be dismissed before we're burdened with court costs of stenographers, bailiffs and the cast of thousands.

"Our courts are overburdened. Judges have legitimate cases backed up. Cases that have merit can't get on the docket because of nonsense like this. Somebody should tell that judge to use the b - - - s he was born with and dismiss it."

-- Judge Judy Sheindlin as quoted by Cindy Adams in the New York Post

"There is no conceivable amount of money worth telling the world that you were beaten up by Liza Minnelli."
-- Jon Stewart, The Kicker

"The plight of battered husbands is, of course, a serious issue, especially given the gender bias of modern society. But one can't help feeling Liza's ex is unlikely to be a useful role model in this regard. By his own description, his wife is an 'overweight, raging alcoholic'. An overweight, raging alcoholic with two artificial hips who's almost a decade his senior and barely over 5 ft tall. Couldn't he have run for his life? Or, come to that, strolled for his life?"
-- Mark Steyn, The Kicker

"I never hurt him! The only thing I ever did was strap a dildo on and fuck him up the ass. He squealed a little, but it was consensual!"
-- Mario Cantone, on David Gest in Michael Musto's column in the Village Voice.

"Liza never beat me."
-- Billy Stritch, at the 14th Annual Cabaret Convention at The Town Hall tonight.

"When in Rome, do the Romans."
-- Varla Jean Merman, on That's Kentertainment.

"Unless someone like you cares a whole lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."
-- Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

"Hey! Hey! Hey!"
-- Fred "Rerun" Berry, 1951-2003

"I've gotten really high in my life, but I've never gotten so high that I had sex with a guy."
-- Ozzy Osbourne, on the Howard Stern Show as quoted by the New York Blade.

"O proud left foot, that ventures quick within
Then soon upon a backward journey lithe.
Anon, once more the gesture, then begin:
Command sinistral pedestal to writhe.
Commence thou then the fervid Hokey-Poke,
A mad gyration, hips in wanton swirl.
To spin! A wilde release from Heavens yoke
Blessed dervish! Surely canst go, girl.
The Hoke, the poke -- banish now thy doubt
Verily, I say, 'tis what it's all about."
-- Unknown, The Hokey Pokey, as if written by William Shakespeare.

"Gay liberation should not be a license to be a perpetual adolescent. If you deny yourself commitment, then what can you do with your life?"
-- Harvey Fierstein as quoted on Famous Figures Talk Gay

"The most gentle people in the world are macho males, people who are confident in their masculinity and have a feeling of well-being in themselves. They don't have to kick in doors, mistreat women, or make fun of gays."
-- Clint Eastwood as quoted on Famous Figures Talk Gay

"Fear grows in darkness; if you think there's a bogeyman around, turn on the light."
-- Dorothy Thompson

"The beams are coming directly at you, and the side of the boat is disappearing. They're ripping up steel, glass, chairs. People were falling. At one point I was in a pile, and I just got up and kept running. It kept coming and coming. If you didn't keep running, you were dead."
-- Robert Carroll, a passenger on the Staten Island ferry yesterday, in The New York Times.

"It's like putting your dick on a chopping block with the knowledge that no one is going to chop it off... The less people expect of you as a personality, the more convincing you can be at whatever you're trying to put across. Simple, really."
-- Mel Gibson, on acting.

"To me that's the great secret of anything, whether it's performing or talking or making love: sincerity. Somehow that quality conveys to an audience and wins them over."
-- Dai Vernon, Magician in the Granddaddy of Illusion by Jerry Camarillo Dunn, Jr.

"Never face the facts!"
-- Ruth Gordon

"This prize gives me energy to pursue my combat for a better future."
-- Shirin Ebadi, after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded for her human
rights work in Iran.

"If people are violating the law by doing drugs: they ought to be accused, and they ought to be convicted, and they ought to be sent up."
-- Rush Limbaugh, as quoted in 1995.

"People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. When you
figure out which it is, you know exactly what to do.
When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you
have expressed outwardly or inwardly.
They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance
and support, to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually. They may seem
like a godsend, and they are. They are there for the reason you need them to
be.
Then, without any wrong doing on your part or an inconvenient time, this person
will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end.
Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they act up or out and
force you to take a stand.
What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their
work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and it is now time to
move on.
When people come into your life for a SEASON, it is because your turn has come
to share, grow, or learn. They may bring you an experience of peace or make you
laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you
an unbelievable amount of joy.
Believe it! It is real! But...only for a season.
LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons; those things you must build
upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the
lesson, love the person/people (anyway); and put what you have learned to use
in all other relationships and areas of your life.
It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant."
-- Brian A. Chalker

"All of us in the Siegfried & Roy family are deeply saddened by Roy's injury at last Friday's performance. Roy remains in stable but critical condition at University Medical Center in Las Vegas... For more than four decades, I have had the great privilege of standing at the side of this remarkable man, and I will continue to do so during this very challenging time. We are grateful and overwhelmed with the tremendous support we have received from around the world, and ask for your continued prayers and reflections."
-- Siegfried Fischenbacher, on the Siegfried and Roy website.

"I am their stepfather, their guru. I am their guide through the world."
-- Roy Horn, discussing his white tigers in a 1999 Vanity Fair article.

"I have doubts. The blood evidence is the biggest thorn in my side; that causes me the greatest problems. So I struggle with the blood evidence."
-- Robert Kardashian, 1944- 2003, interview with ABC news in 1996 regarding his doubts about the innocence of O.J. Simpson.

"An amazing thing happens when we slow down. We start to get flashes of
inspiration. We reach a new level of understanding and even wisdom. In a
quiet moment we can get an intuitive insight that can change our entire
life and the lives of the people around us in incredibly positive ways.
And those changes can last a lifetime.
Living more simply will make it possible to create those quiet moments.
Out of those quiet moments miracles happen. Be open to them.
-- Elaine St. James

"It's a point of pride with me. You'll always see my own butt."
-- Ben Affleck, eonline.

"I admired Hitler, for instance, because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education, up to power. I admire him for being such a good public speaker and for what he did with it... [I wish I could have an experience] like Hitler at Nuremberg stadium. And have all those people scream at you and just being total agreement whatever you say."
-- Arnold Schwartzenegger, 1975 interview with Pumping Iron director George Butler.

"We don't allow our dancers to use self-tanner... That stuff can rub off on you. You don't want any kind of self-tanner or glitter on your suit when you go home to your wife or girlfriend."
-- Lonnie Hanover, spokeswoman for Scores West, the soon-to-open topless establishment on 28th Street and 10th Avenue, explaining to Page Six the reason why there is a tanning booth backstage.

"It almost became a joke... Oh, Stan Burns — still working on that book?"
-- Todd Stockman, in Puppet in Lap, and Audience in His Palm by Dan Barry in today's The New York Times.

"Clutter is one of the tell tale signs that somebody is not in control of their life."
-- Kyan Douglas, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy

"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!"
-- Gordon Jump, 1932-2002 as Mr. Carlson on WKRP in Cincinatti as recalled by Guylaine Cadorette of Hollywood.com.

"I really want to thank the Academy for its courage and generosity... [And now] I'm just going to slip away."
-- Elia Kazan, 1909-2003, on accepting his Special Oscar in 1999, as recollected by e-online.

"I'm no longer a superstar... Now I'm working on being a quasar, because stars wear out. Quasars go on forever."
-- Donald O'Connor, 1925-2003, as quoted in 1994, by The New York Times.

"Stedman and I have a great relationship that allows me to be me in the fullest sense, with no expectations of wifedom and all that would mean... People look at me and think, 'She must be unhappy, something must be missing,' but that's because they're looking at my life from their perspective."
-- Oprah Winfrey, TV Guide

"When our memories outweigh our dreams, we have grown old."
-- William Jefferson Clinton

"I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me."
-- John Lennon

"Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events."
-- Sir Winston Churchill

"It beats watching `Friends' or reruns on TV."
-- William Jefferson Clinton, on the California governor's recall election in The New York Times.

"I do think that this administration did a miserable job of planning in a post-Saddam Iraq."
-- Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican from Nebraska in the Seattle Times, September 6, 2003.

"I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance."
-- William Faulkner

"The advantage is that you get a nice table [at a restaurant]. But the disadvantage is that it's like being out in the sun. It feels warm and you get a nice tan--but if you're out there too long, it can kill you. The real joy is in the work, the trap is in the celebrity."
-- John Ritter, 1948-2003

"I am not obsessed with death — I'm obsessed with living. The battle against the dark one and the clinging to the right one is what my life is about."
-- Johnny Cash, 1932-2003.

"It seemed as if two great tides emanated in response to the tragedy of that Tuesday. One was a sense of generosity, a deep compassion that expressed itself in immediate acts of cooperation and support. The other was a sense of patriotism, a strong consciousness of our American identity. When those two tides overlapped, as they often did in the months after 9/11, the result was impressive and profoundly moving. But we have also seen, in the past two years, a regrettable narrowing of our idea of patriotism. It has become, for some people in some ways, a more brittle expression of national sentiment — a blind statement of faith that does more to divide Americans from one another than to join them together."
-- Editorial, The New York Times

"Two, four, six, eight. Sodomy is super great."
-- Demonstrators outside the Harvey Milk School for Gay and Lesbian Youth in New York City, on opening day, yesterday.

"In 'Grease' I weighed 165. Today, 211. That's like having a baby."
-- John Travolta, as quoted by Cindy Adams in today's Post.

"How much wood can a woodchuck chuck...?"
-- Unknown

"The life of a heterosexual is a sick and boring life."
-- Edith Massey in John Waters' Female Trouble

"They're obsessed about maintaining control and not internationalizing it because they don't want to share any kind of command... They're losing control trying to hang on to total control... They have a view and a vision about controlling and taking over the Middle East, democratizing Iraq, doing things that many people with a lot more experience and a whole lot more humility have said, 'We need to be cautious and be careful'... This is a prime example of an administration that has really become so arrogant that they will not hear competing points of view. They will not listen."
-- Hillary Rodham Clinton, during a speech to the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, September 2, 2003.

"Push aside those that whisper, 'Never'."
-- Boy George

"But years back the pains of existence made me realize happiness is a battle. You have to fight for happiness. You just plain simply absolutely have to get up each morning and be grateful."
-- Cindy Adams

"Well done is better than well said."
-- Ben Franklin

"What transpired in the White House? I know a little bit about how White Houses work. I know somebody picked up a phone, somebody got on a computer, somebody got an e-mail, somebody called for a meeting. Somebody in that White House, probably under instructions from somebody further up the chain, told the EPA: 'Don't tell the people of New York the truth.' And I want to know who that is..."
-- Hillary Rodham Clinton, as quoted by Voice of America news, on the topic of air quality reports near Ground Zero after the 9/11 attack.

"I never lived my life to be the governor of California."
-- Arnold Schwartzenegger, to KFBK's Mark Williams, regarding a Oui Magazine Interview published in August 1977 and quoted in the Sacramento Bee.

"I get laid on purpose. I can't sleep before a competition and I'm up all night, anyway, so instead of staring at the ceiling I figure I might as well find somebody and fuck." [In fact, at the 1972 Mr. Olympia contest], "we had girls backstage giving head, then all of us went out and I won. It didn't bother me at all; in fact, I went out there feeling like King Kong."
-- Arnold Schwartzenegger, (see below).

"Men shouldn't feel like fags just because they want to have nice-looking bodies...Gay people are fighting the same kind of stereotyping that bodybuilders are: People have certain misconceptions about them just as they do about us. Well, I have absolutely no hang-ups about the fag business..."
-- Arnold Schwartzenegger, (see credit below).

"Well, that depends on what you mean by disproportionate. The [penis] isn't a muscle, so it doesn't grow in relation to the shoulders, say, or the pectorals. You can't make it bigger through exercise, that's for sure... women have told me they're curious about its size--you know, outgoing chicks who're just trying to be outrageous or horny. I hear all kind of lines, including 'Oh, you're hurting me; you're so big.' But it means nothing. Bodybuilders' cocks are the same size as everyone else's."
-- Arnold Schwartzenegger, in Oui Magazine in 1977, to interviewer Peter Manso, when asked if his penis was disproportionate to the rest of his body. From TheSmokingGun.com

"And I Quote" will be offline for about a week.

As soon as you feel too old to do a thing, do it.
-- Fortune Cookie

"Any man can have the body of a 21-year-old...as long as he buys him a
few drinks first."
-- Unknown

"Morning came startlingly. Many New Yorkers woke to the happy hum of electrical appliances returning to life. Avenues were deserted and sun-baked, like boulevards in a medium-sized Southwestern city. But as the day wore on, normal life resumed, like the power. The city jerked back into the rhythms of a late-summer Friday. The weekend loomed, this time on too little sleep."
-- Janny Scott, The New York Times

"Drink em while they're still cold!"
-- Mark Potter, Bartender, at the Electric Banana Bar during the Blackout of 2003, as quoted on 1010WINS.

"Many of today's problems in Iraq can be traced to the Bush administration's tendency to credit what it wants to believe rather than more realistic accounts. It exaggerated the evidence on Iraqi unconventional weapons and links with Al Qaeda, underestimated the potential for chaos in a country that had endured years of war, sanctions and dictatorship, and misjudged the patience of the Iraqi people for putting up with postwar disruptions and an occupying army. All those delusions find uncanny echoes in the 100-day report... Future White House reports should describe that world, not wishful fantasies."
-- Editorial, White House Fantasies on Iraq, The New York Times.

"The most telling sign that the Internet is no longer the cool American frontier? Blogs, which sprang up to sass the establishment, have been overrun by the establishment... In a lame attempt to be hip, pols are posting soggy, foggy, bloggy musings on the Internet. Inspired by Howard Dean's success in fund-raising and mobilizing on the Web, candidates are crowding into the blogosphere — spewing out canned meanderings in a genre invented by unstructured exhibitionists."
-- Maureen Dowd, The New York Times

"I mentioned the feeling many have that something basic has gone
wrong. Whatever it is, I think it has a lot to do with the way we seek
the truth and try in good faith to use facts as the basis for debates
about our future -- allowing for the unavoidable tendency we all have
to get swept up in our enthusiasms.

That last point is worth highlighting. Robust debate in a democracy
will almost always involve occasional rhetorical excesses and leaps of
faith, and we're all used to that. I've even been guilty of it myself
on occasion. But there is a big difference between that and a
systematic effort to manipulate facts in service to a totalistic
ideology that is felt to be more important than the mandates of basic
honesty.

Unfortunately, I think it is no longer possible to avoid the
conclusion that what the country is dealing with in the Bush
Presidency is the latter. That is really the nub of the problem --
the common source for most of the false impressions that have been
frustrating the normal and healthy workings of our democracy."

-- Al Gore, in a speech for MoveOn.org

"I never wanted to be a star, I just wanted to get work."
-- Gregory Hines, 1946 - 2003.

"Gays are the only people left who want to get married."
-- Bill Maher

"My dentist made all the difference in my confidence. At the age where everything is falling or fading, I know that my teeth are just dazzling."
-- Kathie Lee Gifford

"Smile when you are ready."
-- Fortune Cookie

"The rat infestation is very significant, and Mayor Bloomberg is not taking it as serious as he should be."
-- Christine Quinn, Councilwoman

"Facing it, always facing it, that's the way to get through. Face it."
-- Joseph Conrad

"Please! Don't make me think!"
-- Carolyn Collins Stoddard, as played by Nancy Barrett, on Dark Shadows.

"Revenge is a killer. Depression, unhappiness, resentment, anger, they're robbers. We have to bar the door of our thought against them. These are evils. They will rob you of joy. Joy is aliveness. It's vitality, vigor, it's a tonic. It's a life force. It's healing. Tell yourself that this day is a gift."
-- Cindy Adams

"Boxers are hot, and by boxers I mean guys who box, not the underwear. So get rid of em!"
-- Carson Kressley, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, on Bravo.

'What nature requires is obtainable, and within easy reach. It's for the superfluous we sweat."
-- Seneca, Roman Playwrite

"I am calling for us to take back our lives and culture and to stop spreading the virus. I am calling for us to resist the normalization of disease and once again embrace health. I'm calling for an end to the false advertising for drugs and for us to stop minimizing the infection with cute little names like 'the gift' or 'the bug.' I want to see an ad campaign showing a sexy man saying: I don't have H.I.V. I don't want to waste my life and resources on drugs. I am taking charge of my body, my health and my destiny. I am a negative gay role model."
-- Harvey Fierstein, op-ed piece titled The Culture of Disease , in The New York Times

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Audiences are my best friends. You never tire of talking with your best friends."
-- Bob Hope, 1903-2003

"We teach people how to treat us."
-- Dr. Phil McGraw

"Three U.S. soldiers were killed Saturday while guarding a Baquouba children’s hospital northeast of Baghad bringing the number of U.S. troops killed in combat to 161 — 14 more than the 1991 Gulf War total."
-- News Report, Fox News

"Looking at the proliferation of personal web pages on the net, it looks like very soon everyone on earth will have 15 Megabytes of fame."
-- M.G. Siriam, from QuoteGarden

"You can't change what you don't acknowledge."
-- Dr. Phil McGraw, Life Strategies

"So far, more than 40 U.S. troops have been killed in hostile fire since May 1, when President Bush declared major combat operations in Iraq to be over."
-- Voice of America News

"Issues of principle aside, the invasion of a country that hadn't attacked us and didn't pose an imminent threat has seriously weakened our military position. Of the Army's 33 combat brigades, 16 are in Iraq; this leaves us ill prepared to cope with genuine threats. Moreover, military experts say that with almost two-thirds of its brigades deployed overseas, mainly in Iraq, the Army's readiness is eroding: normal doctrine calls for only one brigade in three to be deployed abroad, while the other two retrain and refit... To top it all off, our insistence on launching a war without U.N. approval has deprived us of useful allies. George Bush claims to have a "huge coalition," but only 7 percent of the coalition soldiers in Iraq are non-American — and administration pleas for more help are sounding increasingly plaintive."
-- Paul Krugman, The New York Times

"Listen to the song of life."
-- Charles Dudley Warner

"There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America."
-- William Jefferson Clinton

"Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, to the next county, to a
foreign country, but NOT to where the guilt is."
-- George Carlin

"The healing part of show business, I've learned, is that it teaches you the show must go on."
-- Karen Finley in New York Magazine.

"To hear the casual patter of White House aides about the deficit, one would think it was pocket change. In fact, the shortfall has ballooned 50 percent in just five months, to $455 billion and counting. This historic high shows no sign of cresting, certainly not while the president's detaxation mania rolls forward. The White House firmly insists that the growing wad of government costs and debt being rolled across the years toward tomorrow's taxpayers is eminently "manageable." Actually, what was manageable was the $127 billion surplus the fledgling administration enjoyed just two years ago."
-- Editorial, The Deficit Floats Up and Away, The New York Times

Republicans want to lay a cornerstone at ground zero during their national convention? Only Democrats, apparently, are barred from exploiting 9/11... You might think that someone would step in and say, just for the record, what an unimaginably offensive idea this is."
-- Michael Tomasky, City Politic: Anything Goes, in New York Magazine.

More than half of the U.S. Army's combat strength is now bogged down in Iraq, which didn't have significant weapons of mass destruction and wasn't supporting Al Qaeda. We have lost all credibility with allies who might have provided meaningful support; Tony Blair is still with us, but has lost the trust of his public. All this puts us in a very weak position for dealing with real threats. Did I mention that North Korea has been extracting fissionable material from its fuel rods?... How did we get into this mess? The case of the bogus uranium purchases wasn't an isolated instance. It was part of a broad pattern of politicized, corrupted intelligence.
-- Paul Krugman, Pattern of Corruption, The New York Times

"We do not deal much in facts when we are contemplating ourselves."
-- Mark Twain

"You can't be a rationalist in an irrational world; it isn't rational."
-- Joe Orton

"It's beginning to sound a little like Watergate. They start throwing people over the side. The deeper you go, the more interesting it will be. It's very clear that it may be George Tenet's responsibility, but that information also existed in the State Department and it also existed in the vice president's office, so they will not get away with simply throwing George Tenet over the side."
-- Howard Dean, CNN

"You know my father was a urologist, and he said you should always go to the bathroom whenever you have to ... and you see, you had to. So how do you do? I'm Katharine Hepburn."
-- Katharine Hepburn, in Kate Remembered by A. Scott Berg

"Satisfy people's need for the ridiculous
and they will accept your vision of the sublime"
-- Maurice Wilson Disher

"Would you tell me,please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where --" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"--so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
-- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

'snafu (sna-FOO, SNA-foo) noun... A bad situation, especially one resulting from incompetence... adjective... Marked by confusion; chaotic... verb tr.... To throw into disorder or confusion... [US military acronym from Situation Normal, All F**ked Up, also euphemistically, Situation Normal, All Fouled Up. Note: We've asterisked the F word here to make sure this newsletter doesn't get held by the nanny software.]... "But the Burger King snafu is potentially damaging, Cohen said."... Scott Leith; Coke on Thin Ice With Burger King; The Monterey Herald (California); Jun 19, 2003... "In a conference call, chief executive Steve Snyder said the snafu was `literally a cut-and-paste error in an Excel spreadsheet that we did not detect ...'" Drew Cullen; Excel Snafu Costs Firm $24m; The Register (UK), Jun 19, 2003.
This week's theme: abbreviations and acronyms.'
-- A.Word.A.Day, Wordsmith.org

"There are a lot of mes."
-- Buddy Ebsen, dancer, actor, author, novelist, painter, 1908-2003.

"One should always be a little improbable."
-- Oscar Wilde

"To divide one's life by years is of course to tumble into a trap set by our own arithmetic. The calendar consents to carry on its dull wall-existence by the arbitrary timetables we have drawn up in consultation with those permanent commuters, Earth and Sun. But we, unlike trees, need grow no annual rings."
-- Cliff Fadiman

"Freedom is not enough".
-- Lyndon B. Johnson

"My database does not encompass the dynamics of human pair-bonding."
-- Arnold Schwarzenegger, as the Terminator in Teminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

"Don't carry a grudge. While you're carrying the grudge the other guy's out dancing."
-- Buddy Hackett, 1924-2003

When was the last time you embraced a situation that you didn't like? Did you complain through the entire experience or did you run away from the situation altogether? If you did either, you missed a wonderful opportunity to be something that you've never been before. And who knows? It just might have been that one thing that you had been wishing for."
-- Les Brown, Up Thoughts For Down Times

"I have no fear of death... Must be wonderful, like a long sleep. But let's face it: it's how you live that really counts.''
-- Katharine Hepburn, 1907-2003

"If I can operate Google, I can find anything. And with wireless, it means I will be able to find anything, anywhere, anytime. Which is why I say that Google, combined with Wi-Fi, is a little bit like God. God is wireless, God is everywhere and God sees and knows everything. Throughout history, people connected to God without wires. Now, for many questions in the world, you ask Google, and increasingly, you can do it without wires, too."
-- Alan Cohen, a V.P. of Airespace, a new Wi-Fi provider, in Is Google God? by Thomas L. Friedman in the The New York Times.

"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."
-- George W. Bush, United Nations address, September 12, 2002


"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons... We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."
-- George W. Bush, Radio address, October 5, 2002


"The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons... We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas.... We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States... The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his 'nuclear mujahideen' -- his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons."
-- George W. Bush, Cincinnati, Ohio speech, October 7, 2002


"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."
-- George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003


"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
-- George W. Bush, Address to the nation, March 17, 2003

All of the above quotes were re-published by CNN.

"Life is managed; it is not cured"
-- Dr. Phil McGraw, Life Strategies

"After all, suppose that a politician — or a journalist — admits to himself that Mr. Bush bamboozled the nation into war. Well, launching a war on false pretenses is, to say the least, a breach of trust. So if you admit to yourself that such a thing happened, you have a moral obligation to demand accountability — and to do so in the face not only of a powerful, ruthless political machine but in the face of a country not yet ready to believe that its leaders have exploited 9/11 for political gain. It's a scary prospect... Yet if we can't find people willing to take the risk — to face the truth and act on it — what will happen to our democracy?"
-- Paul Krugman, Denial and Deception, The New York Times

"It's not whether you get knocked down; it's whether you get up."
-- Vince Lombardi

"In order to cultivate a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry, it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity."
-- Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

"You keep your homophobia out of this chamber, and you keep it out of this building, and you keep it out of the government. We are here. We are your brothers and sisters. We deserve respect, and we demand respect, and we're going to get it."
-- Daniel O'Donnell, New York Assemblyman, on the floor of the NY State Legislature, as quoted in the New York Blade.

"There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
-- William Shakespeare

"I think there's sort of been a dance going on for the last 60 years between SAG and AFTRA... Now I think the time is right. I don't think the climate was ever right before."
-- Melissa Gilbert, SAG's national president, on the proposed merger of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists with the Screen Actor's Guild.

'I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I've ever known"
-- Walt Disney

"What is technique? The actor's technique is that personal and very private means by which you get the best out of yourself. Every actor does it differently. There's never been an artist alive who didn't have to deal with form and content. Those who deal only with content are the ones who act with their guts, but who's interested in their guts? We're interested in Hamlet's guts, or Richard III's guts, and you have to be heard in the back row. Of course you must have content, but you've got to have form. The thing is to marry the two so the form isn't noticed. Form without content, forget it."
-- Hume Cronyn, 1911-2003.

"I always wanted to play opposite Claudette Colbert. But I was told I was too young. Now I'm too old."
-- Gregory Peck, 1916-2003.

''I always believe you have to judge people on their whole work, and if you get judged based on your whole work, you come out way ahead.''
-- David Brinkley, 1920-2003

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Go ahead and cross the line. Its there for a reason."
-- Unknown

"Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life. "
-- Herbert Henry Asquith

Cherish all your happy moments: they make a fine cushion for old age.
-- Christopher Morley

"I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues."
Duke Ellington, Musician, 1899 - 1974

"My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income."
-- Errol Flynn, Actor, 1909 - 1959

"Why he felt he had to deceive me and others is his own story, and he needs to tell it in his own way."
-- Hillary Rodham Clinton, Living History.

"Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation."
-- Oscar Wilde

"If she is brought down, the story will be one with Shakespearean overtones — a woman who was so detail oriented that, even with a net worth of hundreds of millions, she could not resist an illegal stock trade that netted her $45,000."
-- Editorial, The New York Times, on the topic of Martha Stewart.

"For the first time in history, America is searching for the reason we went to war after the war is over."
-- Maureen Dowd, The New York Times

"God gave every man two heads...but only enough blood to operate one at a time."
-- Unknown

"You're protected by the enormity of your stupidity, for a time."
-- Leopoldine Konstantin as Madame Sebastian in Notorious, by Alfred Hitchcock.

"There is no more beautiful musical instrument than the voice of Nancy LaMott."
-- Bob Harrington, circa 1991.

"I never talk about my personal life. I don't even discuss it with the person I'm dating."
-- Maureen Dowd, as quoted by Liz Smith in the New York Post.

"Never argue with people who buy ink by the gallon."
-- Tommy Lasorda

"I really don't want to eat fish anymore."
-- Ellen DeGeneres, in today's New York Post.

"But the people now running America aren't conservatives: they're radicals who want to do away with the social and economic system we have, and the fiscal crisis they are concocting may give them the excuse they need... when will the public wake up?"
-- Paul Krugman, Op-Ed piece, The New York Times

"A mouse trap placed on top on of your alarm clock will prevent you from
rolling over and going back to sleep."
-- Unknown

"God is a comedian who is playing to an audience that is afraid to laugh."
-- Voltaire

“Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare”.
-- Japanese Proverb

"Was I too young for a snake pit like that? Maybe... I certainly have health problems, which probably led to me having to kill Jayson Blair, the journalist."
-- Jayson Blair, as quoted in the New York Post.

"Sailors still join the navy to see the world, and the world starts at New York City.”
-- Navy Captain Jim Ratte, who organized Fleet Week.

"You knew what an awful girl I was when you married me!"
-- Elizabeth Taylor, in Giant, 1956.

"I'd like ta kiss ya, but I just washed my hair."
-- Bette Davis, as Madge in Cabin in the Cotton, 1932.

"The tax-cutting frenzy inspired by President Bush earlier this year has produced a predictable result: two misguided, poorly timed tax bills from the House and Senate that will not provide the short-term stimulus the country needs but will almost surely cause economic problems in the future."
-- The New York Times, Sleight of Hand on Capital Hill, Editorial

"To the queen who was upset about me being in an open relationship: Sometimes that is the only way to make things work, especially when there is a generation gap. I remember how I was when I was his age, and trust me, I was not ready to settle down either."
-- Anonymous, in Bitch Session in the NY Blade

"He who works with his hands is a laborer
He who works with his hands and his head
is a craftsman
He who works with his hands, his head and
his heart is an artist"
-- Francis of Assisi

"They think they can get the teachers without the union," she said. "But the teachers are the union; the union is the teachers. There's not a difference these days, and anybody who doesn't understand that, doesn't understand our members."
-- Randi Weingarten, President of the United Federation of Teachers, as quoted in the New York Times.

"I'm not trying to hurt anybody's opportunity to smoke. If you want to, you can do it. You just don't have the right to kill somebody else. That's what secondhand smoking does... We would never tolerate in any working place asbestos or any other thing in the air that hurt people. This hurts people."
-- Michael Bloomberg, as quoted in the New York Post

"This is the best time in my life, the first 80 years are definitely the hardest."
-- Carol Channing, on the occasion of her marriage to Harry Kullijian at age 82 last weekend.

"I do think that young children can spot a phony a mile away."
-- Fred Rogers

"I'd always fantasized about being a mother. Why, I am not certain. Maybe it was because I admired the job my mother was doing. Or maybe it was because I longed for the power only a mother can wield over her offspring. Or maybe it was because somewhere, in the adventure of discovering my sexual identity, I was seeking the height of female experience. There is no argument against motherhood being the definitive female experience, is there?"
-- Harvey Fierstein, in an Op-Ed piece titled All My Children in The New York Times today.

"You can pull all the stops out
Till they call the cops out
Grind your behind till you're bend.
But you gotta get a gimmick
If you wanna get a hand.
You can sacrifice your sacharo
Working in the back row.
Bump in a dump till you're dead.
Kid you gotta have a gimmick
If you wanna get ahead."
-- Mazeppa, as played by Kate Buddeke in Gypsy on Broadway. Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

"Someone told me that you have to regularly massage your scalp [to keep from going bald], so I do that all the time. You look like a jerk but it's got to be worth a shot, right?"
-- Jon Bon Jovi

"Our mission is to get the average penis out to the people. We wanted to show that the penis exists in all variations..."
-- Genevieve Hardeberg, of the world's first Penis Museum in Norway, as quoted in the New York Post.

"The past is the present, isn't it?... It's the future, too. We all try to lie out of that, but life won't let us."
-- Mary Tyrone as played by Vanessa Redgrave in Broadway's Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill.

"The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast."
-- Bill Maher, on Broadway in Victory Begins at Home

"Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
a tale of a fateful trip.
That started from this tropic port,
aboard this tiny ship.
The mate was a mighty sailin' man,
the skipper brave and sure.
Five passengers set sail that day,
for a three hour tour, a three hour tour………
The weather started getting rough,
the tiny ship was tossed.
If not for the courage of the fearless crew,
the Minnow would be lost; the Minnow would be lost.
The ship took ground on the shore of this uncharted desert isle,
with Gilligan, the Skipper too,
the Millionaire, and his Wife,
the Movie Star, the Professor and Mary Ann,
here on Gilligan's Isle."
-- George Wyle, Co-writer of The Ballad of Gilligan's Island, who died last Friday at age 87.

"If you wanna make it,
Twinkle while you shake it."
-- Electra, as played by Julie Halston, in current revival if Gypsy on Broadway. Words by Stephen Sondheim.

"I'm a guy's guy. I don't comb my hair unless I have to."
-- Ashton Kutcher, actor, 50 Most Beautiful People 2003, in People magazine.

"I did give the cast a speech: `There's been a lot written about this. Please don't read things and if you do, keep them to yourself and don't get knocked off course."
-- Sam Mendes, director of the revival of Gypsy which opened last night on Broadway

"Let me see if I've got this right. You want me to go into that room with all those kids, and fill their every waking moment with a love for learning. And I'm supposed to instill a sense of pride in their ethnicity, modify their disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse and even censor their T-shirt messages and dress habits. You want me to wage a war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, check their backpacks for weapons of mass destruction, and raise their self esteem. You want me to teach them patriotism, good citizenship, sportsmanship, fair play, how to register to vote, how to balance a checkbook, and how to apply for a job. I am to check their heads for lice, maintain a safe environment, recognize signs of antisocial behavior, offer advice, write letters of recommendation for student employment and scholarships, encourage respect for the cultural diversity of others, and oh, make sure that I give the girls in my class fifty percent of my attention. My contract requires me to work on my own time after school, evenings and weekends grading papers. Also, I must spend my summer vacation at my own expense working toward advance certification and a Masters degree. And on my own time you want me to attend committee and faculty meetings, PTA meetings, and participate in staff development training. I am to be a paragon of virtue, larger than life, such that my very presence will awe my students into being obedient and respectful of authority. And I am to pledge allegiance to family values and this current administration. You want me to incorporate technology into the learning experience, monitor web sites, and relate personally with each student. That includes deciding who might be potentially dangerous and/or liable to commit a crime in school. I am to make sure all students pass the mandatory state exams, even those who don't come to school regularly or complete any of their assignments. Plus, I am to make sure that all of the students with handicaps get an equal education regardless of the extent of their mental or physical handicap. And I am to communicate regularly with the parents by letter, telephone, newsletter and report card. All of this I am to do with just a piece of chalk, a computer, a few books,a bulletin board, a big smile AND on a starting salary that qualifies my family for food stamps! You want me to do all of this and yet you expect me NOT TO PRAY?"
-- Unknown

"The first act is always too long. Usually about 20 minutes. Actually, if you think about it, all of show business is about 20 minutes too long."
-- Peter Stone, three-time Tony award winning book writer, who died last Saturday, as quoted by Michael Riedel in the New York Post.

"When ranking bad American governors, it’s wise to set aside literal corruption: So many of them have been thieves that it’s useless to single out any particular governor for stealing money... The better and more compelling standards are irresponsibility and incompetence. It’s here that George Pataki is distinguishing himself. Pataki’s behavior in the current state-budget impasse is a unique political lab experiment: Can a man be reelected governor and then simply refuse to do his job without suffering any real consequences?"
-- Chris Smith,Voodoo Economics, in New York Magazine

"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything."
-- Senator Rick Santorum, Republican, from the state of Pennsylvania, the 3rd Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate.

"For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin--real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life."
-- Alfred D'Souza

"I think there's going to be skepticism until people find out there was, in fact, a weapons of mass destruction program..."
-- George W. Bush

"Attitudes are the forerunners of conditions."
-- Eric Butterworth

"My age is none of my business."
-- Eric Butterworth, who died last Thursday at age 86.

"It's time for Mr. Pataki to stop acting like a politician running for office. He won already. Now he needs to buckle down and start helping a very troubled state and a very needy city. Hard times have landed on his watch, and he will be remembered by how he copes with them... This budget year is as crucial to Mr. Pataki's reputation as it is to the communities and city that depend on him. This is his moment, for better or for worse. He will be remembered either as the man who led the state through one of its toughest times or as the blank slate who preferred his photo ops while New York crumbled."
-- Editorial, New York's Lost Leader, in The New York Times.

"Mr. Bush's willingness to take big gambles, to push for what he wants no matter the consequences, are likely to leave an imprint on America far beyond his tenure in office. We hope that he's successful in the fight against terrorism, and that he brings about a more stable Mideast and a democratic Iraq. But on the domestic front, almost every success cripples the nation's ability to move toward a happy, prosperous future. This is one war we hope he loses."
-- Editorial titled The War at Home in The New York Times.

"Violence towards women is unapproachable... It is the most disgusting act, to me."
-- Scott Peterson, recently arrested for the murder of his wife and their unborn child.

"War on Iraq was optional for George W. Bush... He could have easily chosen not to have it, in which case it wouldn't have happened, but when he decided to have it, that was it: we had it. The President's ability to decide when and where to use America's military power is now absolute. Congress cannot stop him. That's not what the Constitution says, and it's not what the War Powers Act says, but that's how it works in practice. The U.N. cannot stop him. That's not what the U.N. Charter says, but who cares? And who cares what America's allies think either?... Even more amazing than the President's pragmatic power over military resources is his apparent spiritual power over so many minds. Bush is not the only one who decided rather suddenly that disempowering Saddam had to be the world's top priority. When Bush decided this, so did almost every congressional Republican, conservative TV pundit and British Prime Minister. In polls, a large majority of Americans agreed with Bush that Saddam was a terrible threat and had to go, even though there had been no popular passion for this idea before Bush brought it up. You could call this many things, but one of them is leadership. If real leadership means leading people where they don't want to go, George W. Bush has shown himself to be a real leader. And he now owns a bit of history to prove it."
-- Michael Kinsley, in The Power of One in Time, this week.

"New York City is the glittering jewel of American municipalities. It was attacked by a foreign enemy on Sept. 11, 2001, and it has suffered since then, as have other cities and states, from the effects of a bad economy and dreadful fiscal policies in Washington.

Eventually some help will come from Albany, but it won't be nearly enough and the deterioration of this splendid city will continue. Mr. Pataki's intransigence in the face of a genuine crisis is symptomatic of the reluctance of conservative officeholders to invest in the crucial services that help individuals, and thus a nation, to thrive.

Next year the Republican Party will hold its national convention in New York City, and it will go out of its way to exploit the powerful emotions evoked by ground zero and the memories of Sept. 11. The mayor of New York City, the governor of New York State and the president of the United States are all Republicans.

With that lineup you'd think this city, after all it's been through, could get a break."

-- Bob Herbert, in A City on the Ropes in The New York Times today.

"The best time I ever had with Joan Crawford was when I pushed her down the stairs in 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?'"
-- Bette Davis

"The situation of Iraqis is as if one eye is crying and one eye is laughing."
-- Sayid Hashem al-Shamaa, a Shiite leader, at the Kadhimiya shrine in Baghdad; as quoted by The New York Times.

"You've got to give credit to the humanity of those Iraqi soldiers for returning the P.O.W.'s... Given all the atrocities we've seen, we feared the worst. Our hearts were lifted today."
-- Capt. Neil. S. Murphy Jr., a Marine spokesman, as quoted in The New York Times.

"A country's identity, its value and civilization resides in its history...If a country's civilization is looted, as ours has been here, its history ends. Please tell this to President Bush. Please remind him that he promised to liberate the Iraqi people, but that this is not a liberation, this is a humiliation."
-- Raid Abdul Ridhar Muhammad, an Iraqi Archeologist on the looting of The National Museum of Iraq, as quoted in The New York Times.

"It's untidy. And freedom's untidy. And free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things."
-- Donald H. Rumsfeld, US Secretary of Defense, on lawlessness and rampant looting in Iraq, as quoted in The New York Times.

"There is no question the regime has lost control, and that represents a great turning point for the people of Iraq as the regime is gone..."
-- Ari Fleischer, White House Press Secretary

"The game is over."
-- Mohammed Aldouri, Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, in The New York Times.

"It's hard to smile when there's no water. It's hard to applaud when you're frightened. It's hard to say, "Thank you for liberating me," when liberation has meant that looters have ransacked everything from the grain silos to the local school, where they even took away the blackboard."
-- Thomas L. Friedman, in an editorial titled Hold Your Applause in The New York Times.

"I don't know if he survived... The only thing I know is he's losing power."
-- George W. Bush, in reference to dropping four "Bunker-Buster" bombs on a restaurant in Bagdad where Saddam and his two sons were reported to be in attendance. As quoted on Today.

"President Bush flew into Belfast tonight for a war council with his principal ally, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, as allied advances on the ground in Iraq underlined the urgency of settling trans-Atlantic differences over the conflict's aftermath."
-- Warren Hoge, reporting for The New York Times.

"The message... is to in a way put a bit of an exclamation point on the fact that coalition troops are in the vicinity of Baghdad... and demonstrate to the Iraqi leadership that they do not have control... It was very clear to the people of Baghdad that coalition forces were in the city. That image is important."
-- US Major-General Victor Renuart, as quoted by the BBC.

"The problem with the urban fight is not the good guy or the bad guy, it is the noncombatant... If all the noncombatants are out of the city, it is just a fight. With noncombatants inside, it can be an absolute mess."
-- Retired US Army Col. Johnny Brooks, an expert in infantry tactics, as quoted in The Washington Post.

"Having traveled hundreds of miles, we will now go the last 200 yards."
-- George W. Bush

"We are just real proud that they risked their lives to go in and save our daughter and we hope all the rest of the troops come home safely too."
-- Greg Lynch, father of Rescued POW Jessica Lynch in an interview with ABC's Good Morning America.

‘‘In 11 days, coalition forces have taken control of most of western and southern Iraq... In 11 days, we’ve seized key bridges, opened a northern front, achieved — nearly achieved complete air superiority and are delivering tons of humanitarian aid... Many dangers lie ahead. But day by day, we are moving closer to Baghdad. Day by day, we are moving closer to victory.’’
-- George W. Bush
.

"We'll be patient. We'll just continue to draw the noose tighter and tighter."
-- General Richard Myers, head of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, as quoted in The Washington Post.

"To me, this is not an act of war. It is terrorism: a man in a civilian vehicle killing himself at a checkpoint."
-- Capt. Andrew J. Valles, on the suicide bombing yesterday that killed four American soldiers, as quoted in The New York Times.

"One measure of the importance of those American PoW pictures and the images of the dead British soldiers is surely the sustained 'shock-and-awe' hacking campaign directed at aljazeera.net since the start of the war... As I write, the Al-Jazeera Web site has been down for three days and few here doubt that the provenance of the attack is the Pentagon."
-- Faisal Bodi, a senior editor for aljazeera.net, wrote in The Guardian.

"The enemy we're fighting is different from the one we'd war-gamed against."
-- Lieutenant General William Wallace, commander of the Army's 5th Corps, told The Washington Post.

"The closer we get to Baghdad, the crazier it gets."
-- Sgt. Robert Gardner, a marine at a base 110 miles south of Baghdad, as quoted by The New York Times.

"Now that the war is on, New Yorkers are also more scared than anyone else. With random checkpoints at 96th Street and soldiers in the subway, there's a sense that the period of false alerts, of which there have been so may since 9/11, is over..."
-- Carl Swanson, Island Nation, in New York Magazine.

"Hold against them. Hit them hard."
-- Saddam Hussein

"A war is a war... It's a brutal thing."
-- Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, on Meet the Press.

"We are not cowards, but what is the point? I've got a rifle from World War II. What can I do against American airplanes?"
-- Ahmed Ghobashi, an Iraqi colonel, after surrendering to a platoon of marines. As quoted by The New York Times.

"This was not your son or daughter. That chair he sat in at Thanksgving will be empty forever."
-- Michael Waters-Bey, father, on what he would tell President Bush about the current war, after the death of his only son, 29-year-old Staff Sgt. Kendall Damon Waters-Bey. As quoted by WJZ.

"What will follow will not be a repeat of any other conflict. It will be of a force and scope and scale that has been beyond what has been seen before."
-- Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense

''We will prevail.''
-- George W. Bush, President, on the start of the Iraqi war.

"Remember that the most difficult tasks are consummated, not by a single explosive burst of energy or effort, but by the constant daily application of the best you have within you."
-- Og Mandino, The Greatest Miracle In the World

"May your day be touched by a bit of Irish luck, brightened by a song in your heart, and warmed by the smiles of the people you love."
-- Anonymous, Irish prayer

"You just wait, I'll sin till I blow up!"
-- Dylan Thomas

"When you're curious, you find lots of interesting things to do."
-- Walt Disney

"Darling, the legs aren't so beautiful, I just know what to do with them."
-- Marlene Dietrich

"Dear Mr. Secretary:

I am writing you to submit my resignation from the Foreign Service of the United States and from my position as Political Counselor in U.S. Embassy Athens, effective March 7. I do so with a heavy heart. The baggage of my upbringing included a felt obligation to give something back to my country. Service as a U.S. diplomat was a dream job. I was paid to understand foreign languages and cultures, to seek out diplomats, politicians, scholars and journalists, and to persuade them that U.S. interests and theirs fundamentally coincided. My faith in my country and its values was the most powerful weapon in my diplomatic arsenal.

It is inevitable that during twenty years with the State Department I would become more sophisticated and cynical about the narrow and selfish bureaucratic motives that sometimes shaped our policies. Human nature is what it is, and I was rewarded and promoted for understanding human nature. But until this Administration it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president I was also upholding the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer.

The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests. Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America's most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security.

The sacrifice of global interests to domestic politics and to bureaucratic self-interest is nothing new, and it is certainly not a uniquely American problem. Still, we have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American opinion, since the war in Vietnam. The September 11 tragedy left us stronger than before, rallying around us a vast international coalition to cooperate for the first time in a systematic way against the threat of terrorism. But rather than take credit for those successes and build on them, this Administration has chosen to make terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting a scattered and largely defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally. We spread disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily linking the unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq. The result, and perhaps the motive, is to justify a vast misallocation of shrinking public wealth to the military and to weaken the safeguards that protect American citizens from the heavy hand of government. September 11 did not do as much damage to the fabric of American society as we seem determined to so to ourselves. Is the Russia of the late Romanovs really our model, a selfish, superstitious empire thrashing toward self-destruction in the name of a doomed status quo?

We should ask ourselves why we have failed to persuade more of the world that a war with Iraq is necessary. We have over the past two years done too much to assert to our world partners that narrow and mercenary U.S. interests override the cherished values of our partners. Even where our aims were not in question, our consistency is at issue.

The model of Afghanistan is little comfort to allies wondering on what basis we plan to rebuild the Middle East, and in whose image and interests. Have we indeed become blind, as Russia is blind in Chechnya, as Israel is blind in the Occupied Territories, to our own advice, that overwhelming military power is not the answer to terrorism? After the shambles of post-war Iraq joins the shambles in Grozny and Ramallah, it will be a brave foreigner who forms ranks with Micronesia to follow where we lead.

We have a coalition still, a good one. The loyalty of many of our friends is impressive, a tribute to American moral capital built up over a century. But our closest allies are persuaded less that war is justified than that it would be perilous to allow the U.S. to drift into complete solipsism. Loyalty should be reciprocal. Why does our President condone the swaggering and contemptuous approach to our friends and allies this Administration is fostering, including among its most senior officials. Has oderint dum metuant really become our motto?

I urge you to listen to America's friends around the world. Even here in Greece, purported hotbed of European anti-Americanism, we have more and closer friends than the American newspaper reader can possibly imagine. Even when they complain about American arrogance, Greeks know that the world is a difficult and dangerous place, and they want a strong international system, with the U.S. and EU in close partnership. When our friends are afraid of us rather than for us, it is time to worry. And now they are afraid. Who will tell them convincingly that the United States is as it was, a beacon of liberty, security, and justice for the planet?

Mr. Secretary, I have enormous respect for your character and ability. You have preserved more international credibility for us than our policy deserves, and salvaged something positive from the excesses of an ideological and self-serving Administration. But your loyalty to the President goes too far. We are straining beyond its limits an international system we built with such toil and treasure, a web of laws, treaties, organizations, and shared values that sets limits on our foes far more effectively than it ever constrained America's ability to defend its interests.

I am resigning because I have tried and failed to reconcile my conscience with my ability to represent the current U.S. Administration. I have confidence that our democratic process is ultimately self-correcting, and hope that in a small way I can contribute from outside to shaping policies that better serve the security and prosperity of the American people and the world we share."

-- John Brady Kiesling, in a letter to the United States' Secretary of State, February 24, 2003.

"If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism."
-- Oscar Wilde

"Walk in peace. Be undisturbed and unperturbed: all is in God's plan. Never doubt this. Bring God into your life, and you will see miracles."
-- White Eagle, The Quiet Mind

"If you spend a lot of time thinking about your problems, they'll grow bigger and stronger. Is that what you want? Of course not! Instead, focus on your goals. Start your day with them at the front of your mind, and use notes to recall them strategically throughout your day."
-- Les Brown, Up Thoughts for Down Times

"I feel the greatest gift we can give to anybody is the gift of our honest self."
-- Fred Rogers

"Our members made it clear that they do not wish to perform to virtual orchestras...Our members also believe that live music is essential on Broadway and that minimums are appropriate and necessary."
-- Patrick Quinn, president of Actor's Equity union

"I've always liked men better than women."
-- Bette Davis

"There are those who are trying to set fire to the world
We are in danger.
There is time only to work slowly.
There is no time not to love."
-- Deena Metzger, Song

"Life's like a movie, write your own ending."
-- Kermit the Frog

"We're all busy little bees, full of stings, making honey day and night, aren't we honey?"
-- Bette Davis

"All things are difficult before they are easy."
-- Thomas Fuller

"It's important to live life with the experience, and therefore the knowledge, of its mystery and of your own mystery. This gives life a new radiance, a new harmony, a new splendor. Thinking in mythological terms helps to put you in accord with the inevitables of this vale of tears. You learn to recognize the positive values in what appear to be the negative moments and aspects of your life. The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure."
-- Joseph Campbell, The Power Of Myth

"If only you could sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person."
-- Fred Rogers, creator Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, who died this morning at age 74.

"We have ancient habits to deal with, vast structures of power, indescribably complicated problems to solve. But unless we abdicate our humanity altogether and succumb to fear and impotence in the presence of the weapons we have ourselves created, it is as possible and as urgent to put an end to war and violence between nations as it is to put an end to poverty and racial injustice."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?

"Love makes the world go 'round,
Love makes the world go 'round,
Somebody soon will love you,
If no one loves you now,
High in some silent sky,
Love sings a silver song,
Making the earth whirl softly,
Love makes the world go 'round"
-- Bob Merrill, Broadway composer/lyricist,Carnival, 1961.

"Why is it so hard for people to believe that white people are poor?! I wouldn't say I lived in a ghetto, I'd say I lived in the 'hood. The same friends I had back then are the same people on tour with me now ."
-- Eminem

"Rain is grace; rain is the sky condescending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life."
-- John Updike

"'You been screwin' the milkman,'
he says. He was crazy
and he kept screamin',
'you been screwin the milkman.'"
-- Fred Ebb, Lyricist, Chicago

"Walk in peace. Be undisturbed and unperturbed: all is in God's plan. Never doubt this. Bring God into your life, and you will see miracles."
-- White Eagle, The Quiet Mind

"Stash away the duct tape. Don't use it. Stash it away,"
-- Tom Ridge, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security

"I drink too much. Last time I gave a urine sample there was an olive in it."
-- Rodney Dangerfield