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Proverbs and Sayings
Other-=-
Do not condemn the judgment of another because it differs from your
own. You may both be wrong.
—Dandemis
%
Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak
it to?
—Clarence Darrow
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Someday I hope to write a book where the royalties will pay for the copies
I give away.
—Clarence Darrow
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The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents, and the second half
by our children.
—Clarence Darrow
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There is no such thing as justice—in or out of court.
—Clarence Darrow
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When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm
beginning to believe it.
—Clarence Darrow
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In science, the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to
whom the idea first occurs.
—Sir Francis Darwin
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Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most
intriguing.
—Data, "Haven," "Star Trek: The Next Generation"
%
Felix Catus is your taxonomic nomenclature,
An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature.
Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses
Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses.
I find myself intrigued by your sub-vocal oscillations,
A singular development of cat communications
That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection
For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.
A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents:
You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance;
And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion,
It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.
Oh Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display
Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array.
And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,
I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.
—Data, "An Ode to Spot," "Star Trek: The Next Generation"
%
Sensors show lifeforms aboard, but I am unable to ascertain whether they
are awake or dormant. However, their propulsion system is inactive so I
would hypothesize that the crew is asleep. [The Klingon vessel fires at
the Enterprise.] However, I could be in error.
—Data, "Star Trek: The Next Generation"
%
In the plot, people came to the land; the land loved them; they worked and
struggled and had lots of children. There was a Frenchman who talked funny
and a greenhorn from England who was a fancy-pants but when it came to
the crunch he was all courage. Those novels would make you retch.
—Canadian novelist Robertson Davies, on the generic Canadian
novel
%
The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in
fact, a return to the idealised past.
—Robertson Davies
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She's the original good time that was had by all.
—Bette Davis, about a starlet
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With the newspaper strike on, I wouldn't consider dying.
—Bette Davis, on being told that her death was rumored
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Nice guys finish last, but we get to sleep in.
—Evan Davis
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Someday we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car.
—Evan Davis
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A lady is one who never shows her underwear unintentionally.
—Lillian Day
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De la Lastra's Law:
After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access
cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been
removed.
%
De la Lastra's Corollary:
After an access cover has been secured by 16 hold-down screws, it will be
discovered that the gasket has been omitted.
%
And the silence came surging softly backwards
When the plunging hooves were gone...
—Walter de la Mare
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A long time ago a bunch of people reached a general consensus as to what's
real and what's not and most of us have been going along with it ever
since.
—Charles de Lint, "Where Desert Spirits Crowd the Night"
%
All she knew was that there was more to the world than what could be
perceived with the five senses and that she couldn't accept that Mystery
as having its source in some power-hungry god whose church's creeds were
based on denial of all secular matters, as though the beauty of this
world was not a thing to be cherished for its own sake, but was rather a
testing ground for how one would or would not be rewarded in the
afterlife.
—Charles de Lint, "Spiritwalk"
%
As far as I'm concerned, the only difference between fact and what most
people call fiction is about fifteen pages in the dictionary.
—Charles de Lint, "Dreams Underfoot"
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I think you're all mad. But that's part and parcel of being an artistic
genius, isn't it?
—Charles de Lint, "Memory and Dream"
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I want to touch the heart of the world and make it smile.
—Charles de Lint, "Yarrow"
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I'm not Chinese. I thrive in interesting times.
—Charles de Lint, "Someplace to Be Flying"
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If you're not ready to die, then how can you live?
—Charles de Lint, "Svaha"
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It's good to have mysteries. It reminds us that there's more to the world
than just making do and having a bit of fun.
—Charles de Lint, "Dreams Underfoot"
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Not everything has to mean something. Some things just are.
—Charles de Lint, "Spiritwalk"
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One expected growth, change; without it, the world was less, the well of
inspiration dried up, the muses fled.
—Charles de Lint, "Memory and Dream"
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Remember the quiet wonders. The world has more need of them than it has
for warriors.
—Charles de Lint, "Moonheart"
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Stone walls confine a tinker; cold iron binds a witch; but a musician's
music can never be fettered, for it lives first in her heart and mind.
—Charles de Lint, "Hedgework and Guessery"
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That's the thing with magic. You've got to know it's still here, all
around us, or it just stays invisible for you.
—Charles de Lint, "Dreams Underfoot"
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The best artists know what to leave out.
—Charles de Lint, "The Ivory and the Horn"
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The fey wonders of the world only exist while there are those with the
sight to see them.
—Charles de Lint, "Into the Green"
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The thing with pretending you're in a good mood is that sometimes you can
actually trick yourself into feeling better.
—Charles de Lint, "Memory and Dream"
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There are few joys to compare with the telling of a well-told tale.
—Charles de Lint, "Yarrow"
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When all's said and done, all roads lead to the same end. So it's not so
much which road you take, as how you take it.
—Charles de Lint, "Greenmantle"
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Why did men worship in churches, locking themselves away in the dark, when
the world lay beyond its doors in all its real glory?
—Charles de Lint
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Witchery is merely a word for what we are all capable of.
—Charles de Lint, "Into the Green"
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Without mysteries, life would be very dull indeed. What would be left to
strive for if everything were known?
—Charles de Lint, "Where Desert Spirits Crowd the Night
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Wondering's healthy. Broadens the mind. Opens you up to all sorts of stray
thoughts and possibilities.
—Charles de Lint, "Someplace to Be Flying"
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It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order
to save us.
—Peter de Vries
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Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
—Peter de Vries
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You have to stay in shape. My grandmother, she started walking five miles
a day when she was 60. She's 97 today and we don't know where the hell she
is.
—Ellen DeGeneres
%
When God saw how faulty was man He tried again and made woman. As to why
he then stopped there are two opinions. One of them is woman's.
—DeGourmont
%
When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before the
white men came, an Indian said simply "Ours."
—Vine Deloria, Jr.
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People are always talking about tradition, but they forget we have a
tradition of a few hundred years of nonsense and stupidity, that there is
a tradition of idiocy, incompetence and crudity.
—Hugo Demartini
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Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane
every night of our lives.
—William Dement
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I don't want to start any blasphemous rumours,
but I think that God has a sick sense of humor
and when I die I expect to find Him laughing.
—Depeche Mode
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But it's real. And if it's real it can be affected...we may not be able to
break it, but, I'll bet you credits to Navy Beans we can put a dent in
it.
—deSalle, "Catspaw," "Star Trek"
%
Common sense is the most evenly distributed quantity in the
world. Everyone thinks he has enough.
—Rene Descartes
%
It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it
well.
—Rene Descartes
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The algorithm to do that is extremely nasty. You might want to mug someone
with it.
—M. Devine, Computer Science 340
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Dancing is the vertical expression of a horizontal desire.
—Eric Devres
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The road to success is filled with women pushing their husbands along.
—Thomas R. Dewar
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There are two kinds of pedestrians...the quick and the dead.
—Thomas R. Dewar
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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by
stupidity.
—Nick Diamos
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Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
—Philip K. Dick
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They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as
somewhat of a recluse.
—Emily Dickinson
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To whom the mornings are like nights,
What must the midnights be!
—Emily Dickinson
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Some people like my advice so much that they frame it upon the wall
instead of using it.
—Gordon R. Dickson
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Love your enemies in case your friends turn out to be a bunch of
bastards.
—R. A. Dickson
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There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about
it.
—Denis Diderot
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If there is a Supreme Being, he's crazy.
—Marlene Dietrich
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In America, sex is an obsession; in other parts of the world it's a
fact.
—Marlene Dietrich
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Most women set out to try to change a man, and when they have changed him
they don't like him.
—Marlene Dietrich
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Once a woman has forgiven a man, she must not reheat his sins for
breakfast.
—Marlene Dietrich
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Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling
the walk before it stops snowing.
—Phyllis Diller
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We spend the first twelve months of our children's lives teaching them to
walk and talk and the next twelve telling them to sit down and shut
up.
—Phyllis Diller
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They're giving bank robbing a bad name.
—John Dillinger, on Bonnie and Clyde
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In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by
everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the
exact opposite.
—Paul Dirac
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I have a rock garden. Last week three of them died.
—Richard Diran
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If you can dream it, you can do it.
—Walt Disney
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It's kind of fun to do the impossible.
—Walt Disney
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I never deny, I never contradict. I sometimes forget.
—Benjamin Disraeli
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It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.
—Benjamin Disraeli
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My idea of an agreeable person, is a person who agrees with me.
—Benjamin Disraeli
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Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.
—Benjamin Disraeli
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The fool wonders, the wise man asks.
—Benjamin Disraeli
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There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
—Benjamin Disraeli
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Without publicity there can be no public support, and without public
support every nation must decay.
—Benjamin Disraeli
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Without tact you can learn nothing.
—Benjamin Disraeli
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Youth is a blunder, manhood a struggle, old age a regret.
—Benjamin Disraeli
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If two people were exactly alike, one of them would be unnecessary.
—Larry Dixon
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All of us have violent instincts. We have evolved from predators...
well, not me, of course, I've just been programmed by you predators.
—the Doctor, "Star Trek: Voyager"
%
He looks a lot like me. In fact, he looks exactly like me. Computer, is
this me?
—the Doctor, looking at a picture of his creator, Dr. Zimmerman,
"Star Trek: Voyager"
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I don't have a life. I have a program.
—the Doctor, "Star Trek: Voyager"
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A lot of fellows nowadays have a B.A., M.D., or Ph.D. Unfortunately, they
don't have a J.O.B.
—Fats Domino
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Writing is turning one's worst moments into money.
—J. P. Donleavy
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Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And
therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for
thee.
—John Donne
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Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines, and silver hooks.
—John Donne
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Love built on beauty, soon as beauty dies.
—John Donne
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No man is an island, entire of itself.
—John Donne
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Where would Christianity be if Jesus got eight to fifteen years, with time
off for good behavior?
—New York Senator James H. Donovan, commenting on capital
punishment
%
It pays in England to be a revolutionary and a bible-smacker most of one's
life and then come round.
—Lord Alfred Douglas
%
Life is like a B-picture script! It is that corny. If I had my life story
offered to me to film, I'd turn it down.
—Kirk Douglas
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You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements.
—Norman Douglas
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Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work...I did not, when
a slave, understand the deep meanings of those rude, and apparently
incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle, so that I neither saw
nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a tale which was
then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension: they were tones, loud,
long and deep, breathing the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over
with the bitterest anguish. Every tone was a testimony against slavery,
and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains.
—Frederick Douglass
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Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men
who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without
the roar of its many waters.
—Frederick Douglass
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Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly
recognizes genius.
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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Travel, instead of broadening the mind, often merely lengthens the
conversation.
—Elizabeth Drew
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The computer is a moron.
—Peter Drucker
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The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said.
—Peter Drucker
%
There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be
done at all.
—Peter Drucker
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And love's the noblest frailty of the mind.
—John Dryden
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Shame on the body for breaking down while the spirit perseveres.
—John Dryden
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That fairy kind of writing which depends only upon the force of
imagination.
—John Dryden, King Arthur, dedication
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A man does not look behind the door unless he has stood there himself.
—Du Bois
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Everything that can be invented has been invented.
—Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Patent Office, 1899
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I have too much respect for the idea of God to make it responsible for
such an absurd world.
—Georges Duhamel
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Ah, Garak cowering behind a desk. It makes the whole trip worthwhile.
—Gul Dukat, "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine"
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All generalizations are dangerous, even this one.
—Alexandre Dumas
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I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
—Alexandre Dumas, fils
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The chain of wedlock is so heavy that it takes two to carry
it—sometimes three.
—Alexandre Dumas
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Efficiency is intelligent laziness.
—David Dunham
%
And that's the world in a nutshell, an appropriate receptacle.
—Stan Dunn
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Trust everybody, but cut the cards.
—Finley Peter Dunne
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A man is a very small thing, and the night is very large and full of
wonders.
—Lord Dunsany, "The Laughter of the Gods"
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Logic, like whiskey, loses its beneficial effect when taken in too large
quantities.
—Lord Dunsany
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...a law of Henry VIII (1531) punished poisoners by boiling them alive, as
we gentler souls do with shellfish.
—Will Durant, "The Reformation"
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Drunkenness was in good repute in England till "Bloody Mary" frowned upon
it; it remained popular in Germany. The French drank more stably, not
being quite so cold.
—Will Durant, "The Reformation"
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Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
—Will Durant
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One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do
and always a clever thing to say.
—Will Durant
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How did sex come to be thought of as dirty in the first place? God must
have been a Republican.
—Will Durst
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I hate the outdoors. To me the outdoors is where the car is.
—Will Durst
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Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.
—Dykstra
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A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night,
and in between he does what he wants to do.
—Bob Dylan
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Money doesn't talk, it swears.
—Bob Dylan