This file contains several hundred lines of quotations, culled mostly from Spring semester 1989. Many more hundreds of lines of quotations, up past the death of our semi-beloved PR1ME computer in June, 1988, and through Fall semester 1988, can be found in [SWIL.OLD_FILES]QUOTATIONS.TXT. ********* "Aravis also had many quarrels ... with Cor, but they always made it up again: so that years later, when they were grown up they were so used to quarrelling and making it up again that they got married so as to go on doing it more conveniently." --_The Horse and His Boy_, by C.S. Lewis "Higher life forms just delegate authority." --Dylan whose name I keep forgetting. "To me, computers are hammers, something you could hit someone with or build a bridge." --Karamazov Brother Randy Nelson "There are never enough men." - Jen Austrian. (being quoted out of context.) "I'm a very dangerous person when I don't know what I'm doing." - Dr. Who. "Oh look; rocks!" - Dr. Who commenting with mock excitement on the local scenery of a new planet. "Unless you're a mathematician, you know the derivative is the slope." - Erik Cheever, dept. of engineering. "Can you make it out to ML tonight? Rick's been shot twice in the back by a sniper." - Bruce Hahne, freaking out everyone in Commons by talking about a Champions campaign without mentioning this fact. "I have problems with any form of sentient life that ceases to be sentient when you chop it into smaller pieces." - Bruce Hahne, not thinking very hard, on sentient seaweed. "You may wonder how this rather high-falutin' talk of vector spaces is related to the simpler language of wave mechanics..." - Polkinghorne, writing a book on quantum mechanics and not enjoying vectors. "Robbery is a linear operator." - Polkinghorne, same book. "It is time to take a second tea-break in our training as apprentice quantum mechanics." - same book again. "Your average quantum mechanic is about as philosophically minded as your average garage mechanic." - still the same book again. "You have to get out of the idea that we're doing this in some logical manner." - Professor Boccio, on our construction of concepts in quantum mechanics seminar. "He has this thing about degeneracy..." - Boccio on Rob Smith. "Don't worry about being a kleptomaniac, you can always take something for it." -unknown net person "The aquarium is infinitely small or infinitely large which is a reasonable answer, but we want our aquarium to hold fish." -Amy Bug about a three variable max-min problemm "Well, stand on a hill." -Rush Holt on the gradient function "The three laws of thermodynamics:" "1. You can't win, you can only break even." "2. You can only break even at absolute zero." "3. You can never achieve absolute zero." - unknown USENET poster. "You know, a lot of Freud's ideas were really Freudian." - unknown psychiatrist being interviewed on NOVA, quoted to me by Joel Offenberg. "First things first, but not necessarily in that order." The Doctor- Doctor Who "I plan to live forever or die trying." Vila in Blake's 7 "...as it is known to us card-carrying algebraists. We may not know much about the ACLU, but we are certainly outside mainstream America." Approximate quote of Prof. Klotz from a Math 16H class. "I hate it when it's tomorrow." Heard around 12:30 one evening/morning. "Many, if not both, of the stories I've seen published elsewhere were published separately." - Ed, after a long sunday "If Larry Niven ever gave two - line plot summaries for his stories, he wouldn't sell anything" "Why not? It works for the TV guide and A-team." - From a series of harsh coments on certain authors "Always remember to pillage BEFORE you burn. Be patient with those that are slower than you, for they make you look better. Bedfellows make strange politicians. Murphy's statement on the power of negative thinking: It is impossible for an optimist to be pleasantly suprised. Don't count your bridges before you burn them. Evan's and Bjorn's law: No matter what goes wrong, there is always someone who knew it would. Experience is directly proportional to the computer time wasted. Experience is the name that everyone gives to their mistakes. First plot the curves, then plot the data. I like work; it fascinates me; I can sit and look at it for hours. "I'm sure that if there were a death penalty, more people would be alive today." --N. Reagan If at first you don't succeed, you're doing about average. Jenkenson's law: It works better if you plug it in." --all from a NASA VAX, via Luke Hankin's high school CS teacher "I am not a sitcom!" - Jen Austrian. "Why is it that every time I try to have a conversation with something, you knock it unconscious?" - Dr. Who to a British detective who enjoyed hitting things. "What the point of being grown up if you can't act childish." The Doctor in Doctor Who in response to "Doctor, you're being childish." "I think about when I was 10 years old. If only I knew now what I knew then." -Geoff Hopcraft (I think that who it was, correct me if I'm wrong.) "Religion is the smile on a dog." New Bohemians "God is Dead" Nietzsche "Nietzsche is dead" God "Bible quotation never works." Siddy V. (The Great Rock 'n' Roll swindle) "Death-the BIG logoff" -source unknown "I want to be buried alive when I die." -Eric Stollnitz, at dinner, 2/9/89 "Can't you think of some other description for women other than 'short, blond, and pink'?" - Approximate reconstruction of Sally Carter talking to Wayne Finnegar. "WE're in front of the crucifix, there's no doubt about that. But where are we in relation to the crucifix?" --D.M. O'Donoghue from an ArtH1 class "You only live once. You might as well get it over with." - Eric Cheever (from his uncle) "Don't take life so serious, son. It ain't nohow permanent." - Walt Kelly, through his more cynical porte - parole "Life's a die, and then you bitch" - Matt Kat, in a posthumous note on Ruth's role - playing "The biggest problem with dying is then you have to come alive again." - Jessica Hines, on the St. Valentines Day Massacre. "I don't have _time_ to work." --Andy Perry "People born in the Sixties weren't born yesterday." A bit of profound insight in a Volvo radio commercial. "He was a dark and stormy knight..." -Josh Smith "Do you just want to go to bed?" -Deb Holtzman "You want to tape MY show? Wow!" -Bruce Hahne "So, were you set up? Did you get screwed?" "Well, I didn't get set up..." -conversation with Josh at breakfast the morning after Screw Your Roommate "It's very hard to get someone to bite their own finger off." "That's probably a good thing..." -conversation with Deb (the first line is hers) "I think I'm getting somewhere, but I think it's the wrong place." -Eric Stollnitz "I think it's time for a exam. How about tomorrow?" -Professor Skeath, at the very start of class in 18H one day "Well if you study for the exam as if it were Wednesday, then you'll be prepared on Friday." -student pushing to have the exam next Friday instead of next Wednesday "That's logical, but it tends not to work out that way." -Skeath proving that professors are more alert to student's study habits than they normally let on. "That's the way mathematics works. If we can't solve it, we don't talk about it." -Skeath finally arriving at a solution after several minutes of work. "People who design circuits for satellites aren't used to thinking." - Rob Smith on engineers who think there's heat conduction in outer space. "Nature is perverse." - Amy Bug. "Chemical potentials are a pain." "Yeah, I don't like them because they have the word 'chemical' in them." - Two random statistical physics students. "I wish I had a car; it's so hard to ride cupcakes here on a bicycle." - Amy Bug on supplying food for seminar break. "People who study thermodynamics are really into S & M." - approximate quote by Amy Bug. "Despite the toilet paper, my bed is available." -Deb Holtzman (again) "So here's my attracting body..." --anonymous physics prof, doing a gravitation problem, of course. 2/15/89 "There are only two methods for solving differential equations:" "(1) Guessing." "(2) Looking up the answer." "Method 2 is really a variation of Method 1; someone else has done the guessing and published the answers." - Marvin Chester in _Primer of Quantum Mechanics_. "Some sex educators believe that in sexual behavior many people have majors and minors." --"Adolescent sexuality" by Gordon and Gilgun "the boys get their orgasm three days later when they tell the other guys about it" --ibid "I'm _me_, and _me_ isn't "woman", _me_ is _me_." --me (Susan R.) (said very energetically in discussion group for Adolescence) "Help me." - Brigid O'Shaugnnessy "You can always get another son, but there's only one Maltese Falcon." -the Fatman "Interfere? Of course we should interfere. Allways do what you do best, thats what I always say. -Some Dr. who's name eludes me at the moment. "Batman is the hero any of us could be, given determination, exercise, and deep psychological trauma." --Chris Jarocha-Ernst "Are you allowed to have more than one alliance at once?" -Deb "I'm not really clueless" Holtzman, on Diplomacy "What is an anarchist? One who, choosing, accepts the responsibility of choice." --Odo, in "The Day Before the Revolution," by Ursula LeGuin Algebraicists do it in groups in fields. --Marguerite Physicists aren't sure if they do it. --Susan Hey Susan, Do you have any wine coolers? No, she's a physics major. --Phil "Assassins do it from behind. Wizards do it in a flash. Thieves do it in the dark. Dwarves do it underground. Elves do it in trees. Druids do it with animals. Monks do it with their hands. Black belts do it with their feet. -Various sources" --quoted by Josh Smith "Alliance: In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannot separately plunder a third." -Xenix fortune ouput pretty apropo for Diplomacy "The trick is to die without actually doing it." -Me trying to explain the problems encountered in last night's Hamlet rehearsal. "Steal what you need." --- Then phunky Trotter sines again --- "People bring too much sentience into this." - Rob Smith on the general tone of a quantum physics seminar. "The way around the problem is not to do it." - Professor Boccio. Aaron Hill: "Yeah well, for a long time I thought that 'proteineous' was a word." Entire seminar: "Proteineous??" Aaron: "You know; containing lots of protein." "My life needs better writers." -Rob Smith "Men are people, too!" --Sally C. "You can't fool all the people all the time, but if you can do it just once, it lasts four years." --quoted in The Gamers Guide to Diplomacy "There aren't enough FUN courses at this school!" -Deb "A closed mouth gathers no feet." -Jessica but she claims it isn't original "Arms control is not a disembodied program." --Senator John Tower "Debaters do it orally--eight minutes at a time, standing up, in front of a judge." --Ed Bernstein. Work and play both have their unpleasant effects. The difference is that the effects of play can be cured by work, but the effects of work last a lifetime... -me (jacob mattison) at 1:20 AM after two papers... "I'm not going to hurt you; I'm just going to beat your brains in." -Jack Torrence (Jack Nicholson) "There are three kinds of intelligence in the world: Human Intelligence Animal Intelligence, and Military Intelligence." - Leo Solard(?), AT&T Presents (You know it's gotta be good) "Day One: Hiroshima Before and After" "Even dead babies are cute when they're all bundled up." -Jen Boobar in late-night discussion of cuteness Only At Swarthmore: (overheard utterly out of context from the next room (in ML) in a loud voice full of emotion): "the BRONTE sisters!!!!!" "Thus if you choose the right measurements, there is no uncertainty about the result. Pigheaded insistence upon measuring other observables causes the uncertainty." - Marvin Chester telling us what REALLY causes uncertainty, writing in _Primer of Quantum Mechanics._ "Uncertainty is not entirely due to pigheadedness; it's also due to impotence." - Chester, two pages later. "I found I can scratch myself with my spoon! It's great!" --Jeff Petersen, in rehearsal for _The Diviners_ Thor, God of Thunder, God of Fire, God of Storms, God of Power, and a lot of other things I can't remember: "If there's one thing I do know, I will get revenge on you for gluing me to the floor." Toe Rag, Odin's personal goblin valet, replies: "I suppose that if you learn something else you'll be twice as clever." --from _The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul_ Overheard in the dining hall- "Going to see Dr. Strangelove tonight?" "Nope, tonight I'm just feeling too damned sane." -- jake "I wonder if I should lick his glass for him." -Deb "Put that down before I rip your nose off." -Josh "But it was so good!" -Deb "I ache for the touch of your lips dear, But much more for the touch of your whips dear." -Tom Lehrer "Well, let's just get a ruler and measure it." -Deb, way, way out of context "Now I know as human beings you must have strong emotional feelings about nuclear combat. I would be worried if you didn't" "Gentlemen! You can't fight here, this is the War Room!" "Sir, the self-destruct switch blew itself up." --rough quotes from _Dr. Strangelove_ "When you look at this, it looks like a tangle of spaghetti, but it's actually three equations." --Peter Scott, Chaoticist at UCSanta Cruz "Constrained randomness is the secret of healthy nerve action." "Nerves firing remind Garfinkel of a pan of hot, bubbling cheese sauce." --both from the narration to the Chaos episode of _Nova_. "It's such a drag being lucid in the morning." --Roger Smith, at breakfast "That's why I like Forth -- Forth looks like e e cummings snuck up and used your computer while you were gone." --Bill Pinder "Mars is basically in the same orbit [as the Earth]. Mars is roughly the same distance from the sun, and we have pictures where we see, we think, canals. That means that there is water, and if there is water, there is oxygen. If there is oxygen, that means we can breathe." --Dan Quayle When will this winter thing come? --Amy Garlin (yes, from Califoria) "The U.S. Government has only four branches: Executive, Legislative, Judicial, and Postmaster-General." --Elizabeth L., at a weird Pitt study break. On a 60-second "Tonight at 11" news flash, (paraphrased due to lack of pen and paper at the time): "New York mayor's race heats up, and fur flies as armed thieves rob a downtown fur trader." "Garth Snyder...He's another one of those Chris Cobbs" --anonymous, overheard a few days ago by me (Fran P.) And now, an overview in quotations from Craig Williamson's Survey of English Literature I class: "You could see Nungu becoming more and more link a frog, which he had a great capacity to do." --Craig Williamson, 9/6/89 "Maybe it makes gardening more interesting. Maybe it brings vegetables into the bedroom." --C. Williamson, 9/6/89, on a medieval riddle-poem "We know stones don't move. But maybe for a stone, for which time is slowed down, moving a little bit when someone kicks you, every five years or so, is enough. Maybe stones do a lot of dreaming." --CW, 9/8/89 "Everyone celebrates the shape of the cup; but nobody celebrates the hollow space inside." --Zen proverb, as quoted by CW, 9/11/89 "Grendel is like the Grinch who stole Christmas." --anon. English student "From the human's eyes, everything is glorious. From Grendel's eyes, everything is tasty." --CW, 9/13 "What [Grendel] does is to kill people and eat them raw, and we don't do that any more." --CW, 9/15 ". . . worms eat everything mulchable . . ." --CW, 9/15 "Grendel's problem is that he doesn't have a girlfriend." --CW, 9/18 "He probably needs something to [survive] in this garden. . . . I'll give him a rifle. No, I'll give him Eve." --CW, as God in _The Merchant's Tale_, 9/25 "Chaucer was sort of like a cross between Faulkner and Kissinger." --CW, 10/7 "My cat likes to snuggle with me, and I like to snuggle with my cat. I like to snuggle with my wife more than I like to snuggle with my cat, but, basically, we're both snuggling creatures." --CW