Great Minds Speak

"Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life."

Brooke Shields, said to demonstrate why she should become spokesperson for a federal antismoking campaign

"I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body."

Winston Bennett, University of Kentucky basketball forward

"I support efforts to limit the terms of members of Congress, especially members of the House and members of the Senate."

Vice-President Dan Quayle (surprise, surprise)

"Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country."

Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, D.C.

On Pesticides:

"Sure, it's going to kill a lot of people, but they may be dying of something else anyway."

Othal Brand, member of a Texas pesticide review board, on chlordane

The exports include thumbscrews and cattle prods, just routine items for the police."

Commerce Department spokesman on a regulation allowing the export of various products abroad

"Are you any relation to your brother Marv."

Leon Wood, New Jersey Nets guard, to Steve Albert, Nets TV commentator

"If you can't make the putts and can't get the man in from second on the bottom of the ninth, you're not going to win enough football games in this league, and that's the problem we had today."

Sam Rutigliano, Cleveland Browns coach, on why his team lost

On Death, Government Ability to Communicate After:

"Beginning in February 1976 your assistance benefits will be discontinued...Reason: it has been reported to our office that you expired on January 1, 1976."

Illinois Department of Public Aid

On Criticism:

"That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass--and I'm just the one to do it."

a congressional candidate in Texas

"It takes a virile man to make a chicken pregnant."

Perdue chicken ad, as mistranslated abroad

MEMBERS AND NON-MEMBERS ONLY

sign outside Mexico City's Mandinga Disco in the Hotel Emporio

Wish--To end all the killing in the world
Hobbies--Hunting and fishing

from personal statistics of California Angel Bryan Harvey, flashed on the scoreboard at Anaheim Stadium

"He's trying to take the decision out of the hands of twelve honest men and give it to 435 Congressmen."

Representative Charles Vanik of Ohio, when he heard that the indicted Spiro Agnew was asking to have his corruption case tried by the House instead of in a regular court

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

Dan Quayle, then Indiana senator and Republican vice-presidential candidate during a news conference in which he was asked his opinion about the Holocaust

"In the early sixties, we were strong, we were virulent..."

John Connally, Secretary of Treasury under Richard Nixon, in an early seventies speech, as reported in a contemporary "American Schola"

"At the Lincoln Park traps on Sunday...over 80 shooters took part in the program. Rotarians, be patriotic! Learn to shoot yourself."

from Chicago Rotary Club journal,"Gyrato"

"The streets are safe in Philadelphia, it's only the people who make them unsafe."

Frank Rizzo, ex-police chief and mayor of Philadelphia

"I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted."

Lawrence Summers, chief economist of the World Bank, explaining why we should export toxic wastes to Third World countries

On Poultry Inspectors, Little-known Importance of:

"The crime bill passed by the Senate would reinstate the Federal death penalty for certain violent crimes: assassinating the President; hijackiing an airliner; and murdering a government poultry inspector."

Knight Ridder News Service dispatch

"After finding no qualified candidates for the position of principal, the school department is extremely pleased to announce the appointment of David Steele to the post."

Philip Streifer, superintendent of schools, Barrington Rhode Island

The doctors X-rayed my head and found nothing."

baseball great Dizzy Dean explaining how he felt after being hit on the head by a ball in the 1934 World Series

Note: I'm not the author, these tidbits were all forwarded to me via email. Where I know the author, it is given.
The From: header may be the author, or it may just be the person who forwarded it to me.
Feel free to contact me to claim authorship.