Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a

hole in his head.

NANCY!! Why is everything RED?!
If I were a grave-digger or even a hangman, there are some people I could
work for with a great deal of enjoyment.
-- Douglas Jerrold
Snow and adolescence are the only problems that disappear if you ignore
them long enough.
"I think that most debian developers are rather "strong willed" people
with a great degree of understanding and a high level of passion for what
they perceive as important in development of the debian system."
-- Bill Leach
Red Hat has recently released a Security Advisory (RHSA-1999:030-01)
covering a buffer overflow in the vixie cron package. Debian has
discovered this bug two years ago and fixed it. Therefore versions in
both, the stable and the unstable, distributions of Debian are not
vulnerable to this problem..
The world is no nursery.
-- Sigmund Freud
Early: Where'd she go?
Simon: I can't keep track of her when she's not incorporeally possessing a
spaceship; don't look at me.
. . .
Early: I only hurt people 'cause they keep gettin' in the way of me finding you.
[points his gun at Simon] Tell her.
Simon: What am I, your advocate?
Early: You are, starting now.
Simon: [deadpan] He's really very… gentle, and fuzzy. We're becoming fast friends.
[River/Serenity giggles.]
Early: You folks are all insane.
Simon: Well… my sister's a ship. We had a complicated childhood.

-- Firefly (TV series) - None

Disease can be cured; fate is incurable.
-- Chinese proverb
Think of it! With VLSI we can pack 100 ENIACs in 1 sq. cm.!
Historical Slumming:
The act of visiting locations such as diners, smokestack
industrial sites, rural villages -- locations where time appears to
have been frozen many years back -- so as to experience relief when
one returns back to "the present."
-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
Culture"
Plastic... Aluminum... These are the inheritors of the Universe!
Flesh and Blood have had their day... and that day is past!
-- Green Lantern Comics
Historically Tcl has always stored all intermediate results as strings.
(With 8.0 they're rethinking that. Of course, Perl rethought that from
the start.)
-- Larry Wall in <199710071721.KAA19014@wall.org>
Nobody really knows what happiness is, until they're married.
And then it's too late.
When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more easily by
reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?"
Beware of friends who are false and deceitful.
The road to ruin is always in good repair, and the travelers pay the
expense of it.
-- Josh Billings
It is the business of the future to be dangerous.
 -- Hawkwind
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: To see his friend Gregory peck.

Q: Why did the chicken cross the playground?

A: To get to the other slide.
Steele's Law:
There exist tasks which cannot be done by more than ten men
or fewer than one hundred.
I like myself, but I won't say I'm as handsome as the bull that kidnapped
Europa.
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero
Fine's Corollary:
Functionality breeds Contempt.
Mal: Jayne, I told you we were settin' down on the Canton factory settlement on
Higgins' Moon?
Jayne: Yep, that ya did.
Mal: Canton don't allow guns in their town.
Jayne: Yes sir, s'why I ain't strappin' one to my hip.
Mal: No, that's why you ain't strappin' one anywhere.
Jayne: Oh, listen Mal, I was in Canton a few years back. Might've made me a few
enemies thereabouts.
Simon: [sarcastically] Enemies? You? No, how can it be?

-- Firefly (TV series) - None

Newlan's Truism:
An "acceptable" level of unemployment means that the
government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job.
When in doubt, follow your heart.
Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely.
-- P. J. O'Rourke
It's illegal in Wilbur, Washington, to ride an ugly horse.
I'm having BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS about the INSIPID WIVES of smug and
wealthy CORPORATE LAWYERS ...
If a man had a child who'd gone anti-social, killed perhaps, he'd still
tend to protect that child.
-- McCoy, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3
"They make a desert and call it peace."
-- Tacitus (55?-120?)
Santa Claus is watching!
If you suspect that this message may have been intercepted or amended,
please call the sender.
You have all eternity to be cautious in when you're dead.
-- Lois Platford
I know you're in search of yourself, I just haven't seen you anywhere.
I will make you shorter by the head.
-- Elizabeth I
"Hey, Sam, how about a loan?"
"Whattaya need?"
"Oh, about $500."
"Whattaya got for collateral?"
"Whattaya need?"
"How about an eye?"
-- Sam Giancana
Youth is when you blame all your troubles on your parents; maturity is
when you learn that everything is the fault of the younger generation.
Most people can't understand how others can blow their noses differently
than they do.
-- Turgenev
Password:
Slurm, n.:
The slime that accumulates on the underside of a soap bar when
it sits in the dish too long.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got
it made.
-- Jean Giraudoux
Leave bigotry in your quarters; there's no room for it on the bridge.
-- Kirk, "Balance of Terror", stardate 1709.2
Times approximate.
The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and
enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to
lend money.
-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
Many enraged psychiatrists are inciting a weary butcher. The butcher is
weary and tired because he has cut meat and steak and lamb for hours and
weeks. He does not desire to chant about anything with raving psychiatrists,
but he sings about his gingivectomist, he dreams about a single cosmologist,
he thinks about his dog. The dog is named Herbert.
-- Racter, "The Policeman's Beard is Half-Constructed"
There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make
it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other is to
make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.
-- C. A. R. Hoare
If a person (a) is poorly, (b) receives treatment intended to make him better,
and (c) gets better, then no power of reasoning known to medical science can
convince him that it may not have been the treatment that restored his health.
-- Sir Peter Medawar, "The Art of the Soluble"
If you sell diamonds, you cannot expect to have many customers.
But a diamond is a diamond even if there are no customers.
-- Swami Prabhupada
We have some absolutely irrefutable statistics to show exactly why
you are so tired.
There are not as many people actually working as you may have thought.
The population of this country is 200 million. 84 million are over
60 years of age, which leaves 116 million to do the work. People under 20
years of age total 75 million, which leaves 41 million to do the work.
There are 22 million who are employed by the government, which leaves
19 million to do the work. Four million are in the Armed Services, which
leaves 15 million to do the work. Deduct 14,800,000, the number in the state
and city offices, leaving 200,000 to do the work. There are 188,000 in
hospitals, insane asylums, etc., so that leaves 12,000 to do the work.
Now it may interest you to know that there are 11,998 people in jail,
so that leaves just 2 people to carry the load. That is you and me, and
brother, I'm getting tired of doing everything myself!
[Jayne menacingly approaches Mal with a huge weapon.]
Jayne: Six men came to kill me one time. The best of 'em carried this. It's a
Callahan full-bore auto-lock. Customized trigger. Double cartridge thorough gauge.
It is my very favorite gun.
[He hands it to Mal.]
Mal: Da-shiong bao-jah-shr duh la doo-tze... Are you offering me a trade?
Jayne: A trade? Hell, that's theft! This is the best damn gun made by man. It has
extreme sentimental value. It's miles more worthy'n what you got.
Mal: What I got? She has a name!
Jayne: So does this! [caresses the gun lovingly] I call it Vera.
Mal: Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly comin' to a middle.

-- Firefly (TV series) - None

[After Wash executes a brilliant escape from the Reavers using the "Crazy Ivan",
Zoe turns to Mal.]
Zoe: Sir? I'd like you to take the helm, please. I need this man to tear all my
clothes off.
[She grabs Wash by the jacket and drags him off.]
Wash: Work, work, work...

-- Firefly (TV series) - None

LILO, you've got me on my knees!
(from David Black, dblack@pilot.njin.net, with apologies to Derek and the
Dominos, and Werner Almsberger)
Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.
-- Theophrastus
"Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?"
-Ronald Reagan
Nasrudin walked into a shop one day, and the owner came forward to serve
him. Nasrudin said, "First things first. Did you see me walk into your
shop?"
"Of course."
"Have you ever seen me before?"
"Never."
"Then how do you know it was me?"
Chinese saying: "He who speak with forked tongue, not need chopsticks."
Plagiarize, plagiarize,
Let no man's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
Don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize.
Only be sure to call it research.
-- Tom Lehrer
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: He was giving it last rites.
A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
-- Alan Perlis
Chicken Little was right.
I understand why you're confused. You're thinking too much.
-- Carole Wallach.
A bachelor never quite gets over the idea that he is a thing of beauty
and a boy for ever.
-- Helen Rowland
"A horrible little boy came up to me and said, `You know in your book
The Martian Chronicles?' I said, `Yes?' He said, `You know where you
talk about Deimos rising in the East?' I said, `Yes?' He said `No.'
-- So I hit him."
-- attributed to Ray Bradbury
Our swords shall play the orators for us.
-- Christopher Marlowe
The unfacts, did we have them, are too imprecisely few to warrant our certitude.
Uh... deity is a word, and diety isn't.

Or is it supposed to be one of those recursive acronyms? Diety Is

Excellent To You. Deity Eats Icecream That's Yellow. Diety Is
Eloping To Yokohama. I'll stop now.
-- Guy Maor
Old Japanese proverb:
There are two kinds of fools -- those who never climb Mt. Fuji,
and those who climb it twice.
What, after all, is a halo? It's only one more thing to keep clean.
-- Christopher Fry
When smashing monuments, save the pedstals -- they always come in handy.
-- Stanislaw Jerzy Lec, "Unkempt Thoughts"
Beauty and harmony are as necessary to you as the very breath of life.
"A car is just a big purse on wheels."
-- Johanna Reynolds
Humorists always sit at the children's table.
-- Woody Allen
Mal: And I never back down from a fight.
Inara: Yes, you do! You do all the time!
Mal: Well... yeah, but I'm not backing down from this one!

-- Firefly (TV series) - None

Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.
-- Fletcher Knebel
Comparing information and knowledge is like asking whether the fatness
of a pig is more or less green than the designated hitter rule.
-- David Guaspari
I'm having fun HITCHHIKING to CINCINNATI or FAR ROCKAWAY!!
I got this powdered water -- now I don't know what to add.
-- Steven Wright
The meek shall inherit the earth, but *not* its mineral rights.
-- J. P. Getty
You know you've been sitting in front of your Lisp machine too long
when you go out to the junk food machine and start wondering how to
make it give you the CADR of Item H so you can get that yummie
chocolate cupcake that's stuck behind the disgusting vanilla one.
The Ranger isn't gonna like it, Yogi.
"But what we need to know is, do people want nasally-insertable computers?"
The trouble with a lot of self-made men is that they worship their creator.
You'll wish that you had done some of the hard things when they were easier
to do.
If we were meant to get up early, God would have created us with alarm clocks.
Enjoy your life; be pleasant and gay, like the birds in May.
Bilbo's First Law:
You cannot count friends that are all packed up in barrels.
It's a lot of fun being alive ... I wonder if my bed is made?!?
Hlade's Law:
If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person --
they will find an easier way to do it.
They are fools that think that wealth or women or strong drink or even
drugs can buy the most in effort out of the soul of a man. These things offer
pale pleasures compared to that which is greatest of them all, that task which
demands from him more than his utmost strength, that absorbs him, bone and
sinew and brain and hope and fear and dreams -- and still calls for more.
They are fools that think otherwise. No great effort was ever bought.
No painting, no music, no poem, no cathedral in stone, no church, no state was
ever raised into being for payment of any kind. No parthenon, no Thermopylae
was ever built or fought for pay or glory; no Bukhara sacked, or China ground
beneath Mongol heel, for loot or power alone. The payment for doing these
things was itself the doing of them.
To wield oneself -- to use oneself as a tool in one's own hand -- and
so to make or break that which no one else can build or ruin -- THAT is the
greatest pleasure known to man! To one who has felt the chisel in his hand
and set free the angel prisoned in the marble block, or to one who has felt
sword in hand and set homeless the soul that a moment before lived in the body
of his mortal enemy -- to those both come alike the taste of that rare food
spread only for demons or for gods."
-- Gordon R. Dickson, "Soldier Ask Not"
bit, n:
 A unit of measure applied to color. Twenty-four-bit color
refers to expensive $3 color as opposed to the cheaper 25
cent, or two-bit, color that use to be available a few years ago.
Some bachelors want a meaningful overnight relationship.
But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the
system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed,
analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses.
-- Bruce Leverett, "Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers"
I always wake up at the crack of ice.
-- Joe E. Lewis
There be sober men a'plenty, and drunkards barely twenty; there are men
of over ninety who have never yet kissed a girl. But give me the rambling
rover, from Orkney down to Dover, we will roam the whole world over, and
together we'll face the world.
-- Andy Stewart, "After the Hush"
Knowledge without common sense is folly.
Man is the measure of all things.
-- Protagoras
Either I'm dead or my watch has stopped.
-- Groucho Marx's last words
There is only one way to be happy by means of the heart -- to have none.
-- Paul Bourget
If you didn't have most of your friends, you wouldn't have most of
your problems.
Peace be to this house, and all that dwell in it.