Quotes

We all make that little verbal slip, the twist of phrase that sounds all
right before it slips from your lips. Well TV and Radio folks have their
slips broadcast to millions and recorded for posterity! Here's a few from
the UK!

"Liz Taylor is recovering in hospital after having had a benign tuna
removed from just behind her right ear."
Capital Radio, London

Peter Snow: "In a sense, Deng Xiaoping's death was inevitable, wasn't it ?"
Expert: "Yes."
TV Channel 4 News

"As Phil De Glanville said, each game is unique, and this one is no
different to any other."
John Sleightholme, BBC1

"You weigh up the pros and cons and try to put them in chronological order."
Dave Bassett, BBC Radio 5 Live

"If England are going to win this match, they're going to have to score a
goal."
Jimmy Hill (soccer commentator), BBC TV

Fern Brittain: "So you're a schoolteacher. And what sort of children do
you teach ?"
Contestant: "Schoolchildren."
BBC 2

"You could hear everyone's eyebrows going higher and higher into their
foreheads."
BBC Radio 1

"Beethoven, Kurtag, Charles Ives, Debussy - four very different names."
Presenter, BBC Proms, Radio 3

"It's like learning to play golf. Just when you think you've cracked it,
they move the goal posts."
Adrian Love, Southern Counties Radio

Interviewer: "So did you see which train crashed into which train first ?"
15-year-old: "No, they both ran into each other at the same time."
BBC Radio 4

Presenter [to palaeontologist]: "So what would happen if you mated the
 woolly mammoth with, say, an elephant ?"
Guest: "Well in the same way that a horse and a donkey produce a mule,
 we'd get a sort of half-mammoth."
Presenter: "So it'd be like some sort of hairy gorilla ?"
Guest: "Er, yes, but elephant shaped, and with tusks."
Greater London Radio

(from http://www.makeemlaugh.com)



"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." 
Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949 

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." 
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943 

"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the 
best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't 
last out the year." 
The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957 

"But what ... is it good for ?" 
Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, 
commenting on the microchip. 

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." 
Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977 

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a 
means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." 
Western Union internal memo, 1876. 

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay 
for a message sent to nobody in particular ?" 
David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in 
the radio in the 1920s. 

"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better 
than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible." 
A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper 
proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found 
Federal Express Corp.) 

"Who the h*** wants to hear actors talk ?" 
H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927. 

"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary 
Cooper." 
Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With 
The Wind." 

"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say 
America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make." 
Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies. 

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." 
Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962. 

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." 
Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895. 

"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The 
literature was full of examples that said you can't do this." 
Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M 
"Post-It" Notepads. 

"So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even 
built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us ? Or 
we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come 
work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and 
they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'" 
Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P 
interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer. 

"Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction 
and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. 
He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools." 
1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary 
rocket work. 

"You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of 
your muscles ? It can't be done. It's just a fact of life. You just have to 
accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of 
weight training." 
Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the "unsolvable" problem by 
inventing Nautilus. 

"Drill for oil ? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil ?
You're crazy." 
Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for 
oil in 1859. 

"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." 
Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929. 

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." 
Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre. 

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." 
Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899. 

"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction". 
Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872 

"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the 
intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon". 
Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary 
to Queen Victoria 1873. 

"640K ought to be enough for anybody." 
Bill Gates, 1981



This isn't right. It isn't even wrong.
- Wolfgang Pauli, on a paper submitted by a physicist colleague

I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific.
- Lily Tomlin

"To Do Is To Be" - Socrates
"To Be Is To Do" - Plato
"Do Be Do Be Do" - Sinatra

Ah well, they say its not as bad as they say it is.
- Anonymous 

Smoking kills, and if you're killed you've lost a very important part of
your life.
- Brooke Shields

Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.
- President Dwight Eisenhower

Love is the feeling you feel when you have the feeling that you're going
to feel something you've never felt before.

A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me, I'm afraid of widths. 
- Steven Wright

"Did you sleep well ?" "No, I made a couple of mistakes." - Steven Wright

Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics. 
- Fletcher Knebel

The streets are safe in Philadelphia. It's only the people who make them
unsafe.
- Frank Rizzo, ex-police chief and mayor of Philadelphia



"Its a great advantage to be able to hurdle with both legs"
(David Coleman)

After playing Cameroon in the 1990 world cup finals:
"We didn't underestimate them. They were just a lot better than we thought."
(Bobby Robson)

"There is Brendan Foster, by himself, with 20,000 people."
(David Coleman)

"I owe a lot to my parents, especially my mother and father."
(Greg Norman)

"A brain Scan revealed that Andrew Caddick is not suffering from stress
fracture of the shin."
(Jo Sheldon)

"If history repeats itself, I should think we can expect the same thing again."
(Terry Venables)

Pat Williams,Orlando Magic G.M. on his teams 7-27 record: "We can't win at
home, we can't win on the road. As general manager, I just can't figure out
where else to play."

"Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman
Einstein." - football commentator and former player Joe Theismann, 1996

Chuck Nevitt, North Carolina State basketball coach to Coach Jim Valvano
about why he appeared nervous at practice: "My sister's expecting a baby
and I don't know if I'm going to be an aunt or an uncle."

1966 Tom Nissalke, New coach of the NBA's Houston Rockets, when asked,
during a question-and-answer session with a group of fans, how he
pronounced his name: "Tom."

"I don't make predictions. I never have, and I never will."



Al Gore quotes (or Dan Quayle ? Not sure)

"I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I
have was that I didn't study Latin harder in school so I could
converse with those people." - Al Gore

"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure." - Al Gore

"Welcome to President Clinton, Mrs. Clinton, and my fellow
astronauts." - Vice President Al Gore

"Mars is essentially in the same orbit... Mars is somewhat the same
distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen
pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is
water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can
breathe." - Vice President Al Gore, 8/11/94

"What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is
being very wasteful. How true that is." - Vice President Al Gore

"The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. I mean
in this century's history. But we all lived in this century. I
didn't live in this century." - Vice President Al Gore, 9/15/95

"I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and
democracy - but that could change." - Vice President Al Gore, 5/22/98

"One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice president,
and that one word is 'to be prepared.'" - Vice President Al Gore,
12/6/93

"Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things." - Vice President
Al Gore, 11/30/96

"I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments
in the future." - Vice President Al Gore

"The future will be better tomorrow." - Vice President Al Gore

"We're going to have the best-educated American people in the world."
- Vice President Al Gore, 9/21/97

"People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions
and have a tremendous impact on history." - Vice President Al Gore
(talking about Clinton maybe ? :-)

"I stand by all the misstatements that I've made." - Vice President
Al Gore to Sam Donaldson, 8/17/93

"We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a *part* of NATO. We have
a firm commitment to Europe. We are a *part* of Europe." - Vice
President Al Gore

"Public speaking is very easy." - Vice President Al Gore to
reporters in 10/95

"I am not part of the problem. I am a Democrat." - Vice President Al Gore

"A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the
polls." - Vice President Al Gore

"When I have been asked who caused the riots and the killing in L.A.,
my answer has been direct and simple: Who is to blame for the riots ?
The rioters are to blame. Who is to blame for the killings ? The killers
are to blame." - Al Gore

"We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur"
- Vice President Al Gore, 9/22/97

"For NASA, space is still a high priority." - Vice President Al
Gore, 9/5/93

"Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our
children." - Vice President Al Gore, 9/18/95

"The American people would not want to know of any misquotes that Al
Gore may or may not make." - Vice President Al Gore

"We're all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on
the mistakes we may or may not have made." - Vice President Al Gore

"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the
impurities in our air and water that are doing it." - Vice President Al Gore

"[It's] time for the human race to enter the solar system." - Vice
President Al Gore