Great Throughts Treasury

"A wedge strategy is where you focus on a highly charged issue at the borders of rationality and emotion. The emotional content of the issue can create a moral conviction that the issue needs to be resolved at any cost. Tactics that would otherwise be called into question can then be employed to resolve the issue. This sets precedent for the future use of those tactics in other arenas."

"Although reclining your seat is technically your right, just like free speech if you exercise it to your limits everyone around you will think you're an asshole. [On airplane etiquette]"

"'Army of one': when the shit hits the fan, you're on your own."

"Aren't memories just dreams we have when we're awake?"

"Are the new viewers gone yet?"

"A surprise party is where your friends and family lie to you to make you feel alone and unloved. Then, when they throw you the party they would have thrown, regardless, you experience a sudden rush of emotion as your depressed self returns back to normal. Some people think that life in general's like that. They keep waiting for the party. I call that: denial."

"Any individual entity that pretends to understand the rules that guide this space is under an illusion."

"Don't swim upstream, baby. The future was right where you were."

"Generalized statements ? which instill nebulous fear without specific information are exactly in line with the goals of terrorism."

"Both hurting and happiness make me feel more alive, but as I get older it seems that hurting's the low hanging fruit. So I pick it."

"I don't think you understand what the word cool means.... Being cool is about not participating in traditionally enjoyable experiences and creating the illusion that happiness can be found in alternative, less enjoyable experiences. The degree to which other people around you try to emulate your alternative lifestyle and fail determines how cool you are. You're only as cool as people wish they were."

"In a perfect world, you and I probably wouldn't exist, so let's not hope for one."

"If you don't know what a cat is, it's sort of like a stuffed animal... but with a working asshole. I'll admit that when I went to the pound, I was actually shopping for a never ending box of shit, um, and the cat just came with it."

"I'm not sure, but I think I might be an adult.... Someone the other day told me I should act more like one, but I don't even know what it is. What's an adult? I blame it on my parents; they caught it before I was even born. When I break things now I have to pay for them. I rarely get cake at parties anymore. When people give me sheets of paper I'm not supposed to draw on 'em. I'm just supposed to put the letters of my name on a line. Where's the fun in that? People get funny when I say the obvious, like "you've got a big nose." All of a sudden I'm supposed to know about the weather. And have plans! I even checked on the internet and no one's working on a cure. I'm not sure I like it."

"It's complimacated. (sounds like compli-ma-kayted, emphasis on first syllable)"

"In our lives, on average, we will be asleep for a total of 8,477 days. If we're lucky, some of that time will be sleeping next to someone we love."

"Just a reminder, what other people think of you is none of your business."

"In the summertime sometimes i sleep "macho": ah, white t-shirt, no underpants. Sleeping macho looks very attractive on a man. I feel like it helps me breathe."

"Isn?t it amazing, amazing, amazing that something so specific can be so resonant? These are the filaments, filaments, filaments from that Walt Whitman poem. It makes me think that the thoughts that I have in my head that make me feel the most lonely because I don?t think anyone else thinks them, are also the thoughts that have the most potential that make me feel connected. I just have to get them out some how gossamer thread."

"Life isn't just a sequence of waiting for things to be done."

"Look! A see-through wall of glass!"

"Look what I found; a litter version of the Internet! This used to be something that could convert carbon dioxide to oxygen using only sunlight, water, and a few nutrients. But now it's way cooler; it has two functions. You can either put little words on it, or crumple it up into a tiny ball and throw it!"

"Let me remember that my courage is a wild dog; it won?t just come when I call it, I have to chase it down and hold on as tight as I can."

"Next time you rake up those leaves realize you're about to jump into a pile of tree shit."

"Pat Buchanan likes to say we're in a culture war. The Civil War was a culture war, and brothers killed brothers. I wonder if they avoided dinner conversation about politics. What if this culture war turned into a real war? I'd look back on that dinner and wish that I'd ordered a side of argument."

"Okay, roll-call, no talking. Benny, Marc; Ethel, Shakina, nice shoes. Bobo twins, anyone seen the Bobo twins? Those Bobo twins."

"Perfectionism may look good in his shiny shoes, but he's a bit of an asshole and no one invites him to their pool parties"

"Say the opposite, say the opposite, say the same thing, say the same thing. (song/refrain on "The Show")."

"Shock 'n' Awe. We bring the BoomWow."

"Terrorists are desperate assholes who see no institutionalized recourse to address their grievances, so they resort to random acts of violence in order to instill fear into the general population."

"The president said some words, like nouns and verbs."

"There's more than one way to skin a cat. But from the cat's perspective, they all suck."

"The word vagina is a beautiful word, like all words that have v's and g's in them, like gavel, or evangelical. I love vaginas, and evangelicals. I fucking hate gavels though."

"This is Harry. As a boy, Harry was very, very shy. Some people may have even said he was painfully shy. As if his shyness caused them pain and not the other way around. There are many things that can cause a person to recede. To look away from other people?s eyes or to choose empty hallways over crowded ones. Some shy people try to reach out and try, and nothing seems to come back and then there just comes a point where they stop trying. In Harry?s case he was slapped in the face and called names designed to isolate him, designed to deliver maximum damage. This because he came from a different country and didn?t know the right words to use or the right way to say them. And so, Harry learned how to be still, to camouflage, to be the least. Some people describe this as receding into a shell, where the stillness hardens and protects. But the eyes, even when they look down and away, are still watching, still looking for some way out or in; painfully shy. Then in middle school, Harry found theater, where he forced himself to speak through other people?s words. And then dance, where he started to speak through the movements of his body. To be so still for so long when you?re young, means a lot of pent up energy and it was released there through work, endless work. If someone carves into a sapling with a knife, the injury is as wide as the entire trunk. Though that mark will never fully heal, you can grow the tree around it, and as you grow, the scar gets smaller in proportion. If you, right now, are in a shell, you should know that you?re are not alone and there are many, many people like you and that there is nothing wrong with you. It might even be necessary right now. It might keep you safe for a time. But once the danger is gone, or after it?s exhausted it?s use, you?ll find a way out. You may need help, you may need to work really hard, you may need to find some ways to laugh at yourself, or find a passion, or a friend, but you will find it. And, when you do, it will be so good to see you. This is Harry. As a boy, Harry was very, very shy.?"

"Trying to defeat an ideology by killing individuals is like trying to save a marriage with a blowjob. It might buy you some time, but in the end it'll just suck."

"This is Ze Frank, thinking so you don't have to. (Standard sign-off for "The Show"; varies at times)."

"This little bathtub smells like ass."

"Words are the instruments you play to the song of? your ideas, you're just playing covers."

"Who likes the little little duckies in the pond? I do, I do, I do, a-chicka quack quack."

"Water boarding: Is that like snowboarding?"

"When I get sick I start scripting the video tape that I'm gonna leave behind when I die. Sometimes imagining that even makes me cry. Both hurting and happiness make me feel more alive, but as I get older it seems that hurting's the low hanging fruit. So I pick it."