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Mike Starr's collection of quotes

Over the years, I've accumulated this collection of quotes and I thought they might give you a little insight into what makes me tick (caution: occasional four-letter epithets ahead).

"There is not a shred of evidence to prove that life is serious." -- unknown

"It's a great life if you don't weaken." -- my ex-mother-in-law

"Intuitive: a word invented by software suppliers to prevent the need for supplying documentation." -- unknown

"Your criticism of my work reveals an unsound technical background." -- source unknown; sticker on Guy Shuman's desk lamp when we worked together at Chicago Laser Systems

"Lather, rinse, repeat." -- anonymous technical writer

"Do the right thing even if it means dying like a dog when no one's there to see you do it." -- Admiral James Stockdale

"... document reuse is not a solvable problem in document delivery but rather an intractable problem in document writing - which is, how to retain any sense of logical connection between pieces of information while writing as if your target audience consisted entirely of people afflicted with ADD." -- Jon Bosak

"No One's Life, Liberty or Property is safe while the Legislature is in session." -- Benjamin Franklin

"Those who are willing to sacrifice freedom in the name of security will have neither." -- Benjamin Franklin

"The most powerful force changing our society is the information revolution." -- Newt Gingrich

"A technical writer in the computer industry writes books that teach how to plan for, install, implement, use, maintain, alter, or deinstall one of the most complex tools ever invented." -- unknown

"I don't know that I necessarily need printed instructions with all my SW, but I want them, and even if the manufacturer can somehow demonstrate that they aren't necessary, it still won't prevent me from wanting them or thinking less of the product if it doesn't come with them." -- Gene Kim-Eng

"The information technology industry is a shallow plastic money trench, a long narrow hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- Hunter S. Thompson

Hofstadter's Law: "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law." -- Douglas Hofstadter

"Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm." -- Publilius Syrus

"A plan without action is a dream. Action without a plan is a nightmare." -- Japanese proverb

"Never underestimate the cowardice of intellectuals." -- Noam Chomsky

"Documentation is like sex, when its good, its very very good, and when its bad its better than nothing." -- unknown

"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has attempted to contact us." -- Calvin and Hobbes, Nov. 9, 1994

"In the beginning was the word. But by the time the second word was added to it, there was trouble. For with it came syntax..." -- John Simon

"Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You didn't place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible." -- Jamie Raskin

"Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for the love of it, then you do it for a few friends, and finally, you do it for the money." -- Moliere

"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart." -- H.L. Mencken

"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug" -- Mark Twain

"Throw strikes. Home plate don't move." -- Satchel Paige

"There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the other is to read Pope." -- Oscar Wilde

"When a man spends his own money to buy something for himself, he is very careful about how much he spends and how he spends it. When a man spends his own money to buy something for someone else, he is still very careful about how much he spends, but somewhat less what he spends in on. When a man spends someone else's money to buy something for himself, he is very careful about what he buys, but doesn't care at all how much he spends. And when a man spends someone else's money on someone else, he doesn't care how much he spends or what he spends it on. And that's government for you." -- Milton Friedman

"Said the Zen master to the hot dog vendor 'Make me one with everything.'" -- Unknown

"You can paint over stoopid, but you can't hide it. It always show thru." -- Unknown

"If you say a tree falls and no one understands you did you make a sound?" -- Lester Smith

"I am a hoarder of two things: documents and trusted friends." -- Muriel Spark

"If all you want is "adequate" and your standards are low enough, there's a pretty good chance you can get there without a technical writer. If your goal is to have your users not associate your product with memories of cursing and skinned knuckles, that might be another story." -- Gene Kim-Eng

"I would not attack the faith of a heathen without being sure I had a better one to put in its place." -- Harriet Beecher Stowe

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -- Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, 1861

"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer." -- Abraham Lincoln

It is an open question whether any behavior based on fear of eternal punishment can be regarded as ethical or should be regarded as merely cowardly." -- Margaret Mead

"It seems that in this world, a failure to be shamed by one's own desires and longings and body is seen as a sign of unhealthiness, of perversion. How can this be?" -- Keith Morgan-Davie

"It's turtles all the way down!" -- Unknown

"Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia" -- E.L. Doctorow

"Always give the hardest or most complex job to the laziest person... they will find the quickest and most efficient way to get it done." -- unknown

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." -- James Davis Nicoll

"I worry about people who think anyone can do technical writing. It's like do-it-yourself heart surgery: I wouldn't recommend it." -- Grant Hogarth paraphrasing Dan Gingras

"Off the keyboard, past the hub, over the bridge, thru the router, down the line, around the world... nothing but net!" -- Stuart Palkovitz

"Technical writing -- It's like changing the tires on a moving car." -- unknown

"Email is a party to which English teachers have not been invited." -- R. Craig Hogan

"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort." -- Herm Albright

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know." -- Donald Rumsfeld

"Political correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional illogical liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous liberal press which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end." -- Unknown

"Many people hear voices when no-one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing." -- Meg Chittenden

"If engineers and managers don't go running for cover and diving under their desks at the sight of the approaching tech writer, you're being too easy on them." -- Gene Kim-Eng

"Give me chastity and continence, but do not give it yet." -- St. Augustine

"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats." -- Albert Einstein

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." -- Albert Einstein

"Either your thinking is loose, confused and turbid, which I do not believe to be the case, or you are trying to lull me into believing you are stupid." -- E.E. "Doc" Smith

"I love being a writer… what I can't stand is the paperwork" -- Peter De Vries

"Cheap, quick, excellent: pick any two" -- unknown

"I had a lover's quarrel with the world." -- Robert Frost

"Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea… massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it." -- Gene Spafford

"Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake." -- E.L. Doctorow

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." -- Stephen Henry Roberts

"My definition of an expert in any field is a person who knows enough about what's really going on to be scared." -- PJ Plauger

"Aren't you outraged?" -- Lisa Simpson
"No, but if you're going to throw a spaz I'll come with." --Bart Simpson

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." -- Albert Einstein

"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned." --Buddha

"Language... has created the word "loneliness" to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word "solitude" to express the glory of being alone." -- Paul Tillich

"Even a superstitious man has certain inalienable rights: the right to harbor and indulge his imbecilities, provided only that he does not try to inflict them upon others by force; he has the right to argue for them as eloquently as he can. But he has no right to be protected from the criticism of those who do not hold them. He has no right to demand that they be treated as sacred. He has no right to preach them without challenge.'' -- H.L. Mencken

"There will always be good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.'' -- Steven Weinberg

"Each morning I open my eyes and say to myself: 'I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day — today — and I'm going to be happy in it.' That system has worked for me for a long time; try it."-- Groucho Marx

"Take those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, and slay them before me." -- Jesus (Luke, 19:27)

"When I die, I'd like to go peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather... not screaming, like the passengers in his car." -- W.G. Simeon

"Sometimes it's just time to shoot the engineer and start production." -- Unknown

"If I did kill someone, it would probably be anyone who ever said to me, 'You could be so pretty if you'd just lose a few pounds.' " -- Patricia J. Washburn

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." -- Albert Einstein

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps." -- Emo Phillips

"When you take stuff from one writer it's plagiarism; but when you take it from many writers, it's research." -- Wilson Mizner

"The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of meeting the schedule has been forgotten." -- Unknown

"Why did the chicken cross the mobius strip? To get to the other... umm... well..." -- Unknown

"I can't believe that we are going to let a majority of the people decide what's best for this state." -- LA State Rep J. Travis

"Don't you see what it's like in this deranged whirring blender of a world? Everyday is an agonizing ordeal, like balancing a pot of scalding water on your head while people whip your legs and butt (eh, you never forget your senior prom). You think I'm sick? Well the only disease I've got is modern life, a shnaug busting gauntlet of inefficiency and misery, that's one long parade of let downs, put downs, trickle downs, shut outs, freeze outs, sell outs, numb-nuts, nincompoops, and nimrods. All making everyday about as fun as waxing a flaming Pontiac with you tongue, where even if you do look into the possibility of some fleeting pleasure, like say, if some nymphomaniac telephone operator with the muscle control of a Romanian madslapper agrees to a little strip air hockey, it'll be over before it starts. Because some foul smelling, feathery, cab-jockey slams his checker up your hatchback, and the cab is owned by some Piñata spanker from a Santa Rio cult in Walculpa who starts shaking chicken bones at you and gives you a boil on your neck so big, all it needs is Michael Jordan's autograph to make it complete. And even with all this, with all this, I still drag my sorry butt off the ceiling every morning and stick my face in the reaping machine for one more day, knowing when it's time to flash the cosmic car keys at those pearly gates, I won't be in a coffin anyway because some under handed, undertaker sold my heart, pancreas and other assorted good and plenty to that same Santa Rio cult! So does anybody really wonder why anybody is hanging on to sanity by the atoms on the tips of their fingernails, while life dirty dances on the digits, and is it really any wonder WHY I SEEM DERANGED?!" -- Duckman

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world." -- Calvin (speaking to Hobbes)

"There's no such thing as a free lunch, but certain accounting practices can result in a fully-depreciated one." -- Unknown

"Roses are FF0000
Violets are 0000FF
All your heart are belong to us" -- Unknown

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable. Nothing but the truth shall be spoken about him or anyone else. But it is more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about (the president) than about anyone else." -- Theodore Roosevelt

"You gotta sing like you don't need the money, Love like you'll never get hurt, You've got to dance like nobody's watching, It's got to come from the heart if you want it to work." -- G Clark

"René Descartes is sitting in a bar, having a drink. The bartender asks him if he would like another. "I think not," he says and vanishes in a puff of logic." -- Unknown

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made victim. Accept no one's definition of your life ... but define yourself." -- Harvey Fierstein

"Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something." -- Robert A. Heinlein

"Every writer, without exception, is a masochist, a sadist, a peeping Tom, an exhibitionist, a narcissist, an injustice collector and a depressed person constantly haunted by fears of unproductivity." -- Edmund Bergler

"Higgledy Piggledy, my white hen;
She lays eggs for gentlemen.
You cannot persuade her with gun or lariat
To come across for the proletariat." -- Dorothy Parker

"vivivi, the Editor of the Beast." -- Miche

"There is no God and I am His Prophet." -- Alan Watts

"Two fonts walk into a bar and the bartender says, 'We don't serve your type here.' " -- Unknown

"If there is a God who will damn his children forever, I would rather go to hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous tyrant. I make my choice now. I despise that doctrine. It has covered the cheeks of this world with tears. It has polluted the hearts of children, and poisoned the imaginations of men. It has been a constant pain, a perpetual terror to every good man and woman and child. It has filled the good with horror and with fear; but it has had no effect upon the infamous and base. It has wrung the hearts of the tender, it has furrowed the cheeks of the good. This doctrine never should be preached again. What right have you, sir, Mr. clergyman, you, minister of the gospel to stand at the portals of the tomb, at the vestibule of eternity, and fill the future with horror and with fear? I do not believe this doctrine, neither do you. If you did, you could not sleep one moment. Any man who believes it, and has within his breast a decent, throbbing heart, will go insane. A man who believes that doctrine and does not go insane has the heart of a snake and the conscience of a hyena." -- Robert G. Ingersoll

"My candle burns at both ends, it will not last the night, but for all my foes and all my friends, it gives a lovely light." -- Edna St. Vincent Milay

"Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment." -- Robert Benchley

"I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." -- Ayn Rand

"And don't give me any of this 'save the whales, harpoon a fat chick' shit, either, unless you want that teeny-weeny little harpoon of yours broken right off, okay, Ahab?" -- Johanne Blank

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, & the wisdom to hide the bodies of the doctors who say, 'If you would just lose some weight you wouldn't have all these problems.' " -- deke@generous.net

"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words." -- Goethe

"Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them." -- John Ruskin

"A 'torn in two' heart is a seductive lens..." -- mztish

"I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them.  I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do." -- Professor Bernardo de la Paz in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by R.A. Heinlein

"...government has no business intervening in any consensual private behavior." -- Camille Paglia

"Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and smoke cigars all day." -- John Posada

"If you were a member of Jesse James's band and people asked you what you were, you wouldn't say, 'Well, I'm a desperado.' You'd say something like, 'I work in banks,' or 'I've done some railroad work.' It took me a long time just to say, 'I'm a writer.' It's really embarrassing." -- Roy Blount, Jr.

"Calm self-confidence is as far from conceit as the desire to earn a decent living is remote from greed." -- Channing Pollock

"Life begins when you can spend your spare time programming instead of watching television." -- Cal Keegan

"How can I be substantial if I fail to cast a shadow? I must have a darkside if I am to be whole." -- Carl Jung

"Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that." -- Homer Simpson

"Gød, grant me SERENITY tø deal with prøblems I can't change, COURAGE tø face the challenges øf all øther prøblems and WISDOM tø hide the bødies øf thøse whø fuck with me." -- Mrs Båbymåsh [668 - Neighbøur øf The Beåst]

"A thousand times better it is to have a brave, outspoken woman by one's side, than a piece of mincing nothingness who is ashamed to have an opinion. -- Frederick Douglass

"I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I write and I understand." -- Chinese proverb

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats," -- H.L. Mencken

"Remember, when someone annoys you it takes 42 muscles in your face to frown BUT, it only takes 4 muscles to extend your arm and bitch-slap the freak upside the head." -- unknown

"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines." -- unknown

"And the day came when to remain tight in a bud became more painful than the risk it took to blossom." -- Annais Nin

"The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to be insane in such a useful way that they can't commit you." -- Mark Edwards

"I prefer honest arrogance to hypocritical modesty." -- Frank Lloyd Wright

"A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money." -- G. Gordon Liddy

"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." -- P.J. O'Rourke

"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free." -- P.J. O'Rourke

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery." -- Winston Churchill

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." -- James D. Nicoll

"If I had one wish, I'd wish for a big enough ass for the whole world to kiss" -- Eminem

"Homeschooling and public schooling are as opposite as two sides of a coin. In a homeschooling environment, the teacher need not be certified, but the child must learn. In a public school environment, the teacher must be certified, but the child need not learn." -- Gene Royer

"Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other 'sins' are invented nonsense." -- Robert A. Heinlein

"A medical professional who recommends dieting to all of their fat patients is like a financial advisor who give the following advice to all of their clients with financial problems: 'What you need to improve your financial situation is more money. Many people have successfully solved their financial problems by inventing a important software application, making several million dollars from the sale of the product, more millions from the sale of the company, and investing the profits in good mutual funds. All it takes is determination and a little effort on your part. I can name many people who have solved their financial problems this way and I am sure that, if you simply determine that you will stick with the plan, you will also have success. Please pay my secretary $60.00 on the way out.' " -- Russell Williams

"He who knows and knows that he knows; he is wise, follow him. He who knows and knows not that he knows; he is asleep, wake him. He who knows not and knows that he knows not; he is ignorant, teach him. He who knows not and knows not that he knows not; he is a fool, spurn him!" -- unknown

"Technical writing... requires understanding the audience, understanding what activities the user wants to accomplish, and translating the often idiosyncratic and unplanned design into something that appears to make sense." -- Donald Norman

"People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within." -- Elizabeth Kübler-Ross

"Most technical writers make their living describing the smile on the face of a black cat in a dark room in a house that will be built next week." -- unknown

"Some people are like slinkies. Not good for anything really, but they still put a smile on your face when you push them down the stairs." -- unknown

"Would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of bar-room vernacular, that is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed but attentive." -- Raymond Chandler

"I'm a very smart guy. I haven't a feeling or a scruple in the world. All I have the itch for is money. I am so money greedy that for twenty-five bucks a day and expenses, mostly gasoline and whisky, I do my thinking myself, what there is of it; I risk my whole future, the hatred of the cops . . . I dodge bullets and eat saps, and say thank you very much, if you have any more trouble, I hope you'll think of me, I'll just leave one of my cards in case anything comes up." -- Raymond Chandler

"It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window." -- Raymond Chandler

"It is not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, if he wins, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." -- Theodore Roosevelt

"Age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill." -- unknown

"Meaningless sex is an empty experience, but as empty experiences go, its one of the best." -- Woody Allen