“Retiree lottery winners have claimed their 190 million dollars and now plan to ‘just go crazy at Golden Corral’.”
Category: Best Line of the Day
Clever turns of phrase, special splashes of wit, provocative insight — all in a sentence or two.
Best line of the day
“I’m very, very happy for him. It’s overdue. I’m not going to comment on why he didn’t get elected the first time. But I forgave him. Maybe the rest of the world has.”
Umpire john Hirschbeck reacting to the election of Roberto Alomar to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his second year of eligibility. Alomar spit in the face of Hirschbeck during an infamous 1996 incident.
Best line of the day
“Elizabeth Edwards left nothing to her ex-husband John in her will, or about twice what he deserved.”
Best line of the day
“If dolphins are really trying to communicate with humans, why don’t they just use Facebook? Duh.”
– Allyson
Best line of the day
Red: What is the difference between [a] winner and loser?
Me: Yes.
Red: A winner is someone who can tell the difference.
Joe Posnanski writes A Basketball Carol. A wonderful essay, ostensibly about basketball, but really about so much more. It’ll make your day.
Best line of the day
“The intellectual level of the ministry of our American churches is pathetically low. Recent controversies could hardly have arisen had our pulpits been filled with men abreast of current thought and seriously teaching the people. The number of college professors and leaders in the professions who show no interest in the Church is an alarming sign of the inability of our clergy to grip the minds and stir the imaginations of many of our educated people. A rift between teachers of religion and foremost thinkers . . . constitutes a grave national peril.”
Reverend Henry Sloane Coffin, born on this date in 1877. He made the remark during his inauguration as President of Union Theological Seminary in 1926.
Best line of the year, so far
“But I love the finance story and would be happy writing about it for a long time. It’s dirty, corrupt, and endlessly complicated, i.e. there’s no shortage of horrible stuff to write about. I know this is the wrong way to think, but sometimes I thank God for a lot of those Wall Street-CEO types, I’m sort of in love with how much they suck.”
Much of Taibbi’s Mailbag this week is good readin’.
Best redux line of the day
“Byron surprised Jill with a short birthday trip to New York, where they saw a show and actually had dinner in a restaurant where crayons were not given out with the menus.”
Jill, then mother of two (going-on-three) sons, in her 2005 holiday newsletter
Best ‘thought to keep in mind during 2011’ line of the day
“Because the fact is, that a year after losing the use of their legs and a year after winning the lotto, lottery winners and paraplegics are equally happy with their lives.”
Dan Gilbert
Best line of the day from a movie review
“Young people have no idea that there was an original True Grit. And don’t even mention Glen Campbell unless you want to feel like a village elder explaining the motivation behind your cave drawing.”
Shoebox » Tiny Little Movie Review: True Grit
I loved the whole last paragraph of the review — click and read it.
Best line about the Northeast blizzard
“VIRGINIA BEACH … – Rev. Pat Robertson sparked controversy in today’s broadcast of his 700 Club program when he claimed that God created the blizzard currently battering the Northeast ‘to punish Americans who were planning to drive to do something gay.’ ”
Best line of the day
“Just the other day, I was in my neighborhood Starbucks, waiting for the post office to open. I was enjoying a chocolately caffe mocha when it occurred to me that to drink a mocha is to gulp down the entire history of the New World.
“From the Spanish exportation of Aztec cacao, and the Dutch invention of the chemical process for making cocoa, on down to the capitalist empire of Hershey, PA, and the lifestyle marketing of Seattle’s Starbucks, the modern mocha is a bittersweet concoction of imperialism, genocide, invention, and consumerism served with whipped cream on top.”
Sarah Vowell, 41 today
Two more (although I could go on forever):
“Like Lincoln, I would like to believe the ballot is stronger than the bullet. Then again, he said that before he got shot.”
Assassination Vacation
“Buffy’s high school was built on top of a vortex of evil, the Hellmouth. And whose wasn’t?”
The Partly Cloudy Patriot
Best line of the day
“84 year old Hugh Hefner is engaged to a 24 year old woman who understands that even though Hugh is 84, he is still a multi-millionaire.”
Best line of the day
“Being a nerd, which is to say going too far and caring too much about a subject, is the best way to make friends I know.”
Sarah Vowell, 41 today and quoted by The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor last year.
Best line of the day
. . . that puts down ASU.
Thanks to Jill for the link.
Best story of the day
Crackheads
A long-time NewMexiKen reader wrote to say, “No NMK until 2011? Come on, I need stuff to read.”
These are good.
The best feature films of 2010 by Roger Ebert
Your Burning Questions, Answered by Matt Taibbi
A Holiday Message from Ricky Gervais: Why I’m An Atheist
And a best line:
“It’s not Christmas until you throw the tape dispenser because you can’t get the tape started.” – Bill
Best movie review line of the day
“Yes, you can probably bring Grandma to this one on Christmas.”
Ethan Cohen, co-director of True Grit, quoted in a quasi-review/interview by David Carr.
Better yet, I hope someone takes GrandPA to see it.
BTW the Cohens rave about the book, as does Matt Damon — True Grit
Best hypothetical question of the day
“Apple people do tend to throw around that word ‘Genius’ quite a bit, don’t they? Want new music? Here’s our Genius Recommendation. Need help with your Apple device? Well, make an appointment at the Genius Bar. You didn’t make an appointment? Well, we’ll see if you we can sneak you in with one of our Geniuses between scheduled appointments. What exactly would Apple do if, say, Albert Einstein or Copernicus or Mozart went to work there? Would the Apple people come up with a new word to describe them? Would all of Cupertino fly apart in the bright-white light of supergenius imploding into itself?”
BTW the quotation above is rather atypical of this particular post by Posnanski. I recommend you go read the whole thing. I promise it will make you think and say, yeah I’m like that too. He really is something.
But of course line of the day
“Put these two observations together — and what you get is that the tax-cut deal makes Obama’s reelection less likely. Let me repeat: the tax cut deal makes Obama less likely to win in 2012.”
Best line of the day
I think I should preface this one. First, as someone who kept government secrets for 30+ years, including zillions of State Department cables, I have some ambivalence about what Wikileaks and Julian Assange have done. Second, if he committed a crime in Sweden as the women have alleged, then he certainly should be held fully accountable. That said, Scott Adams has the line of the day:
“To be fair, I don’t know if Assange’s alleged broken condom is because the product was defective. We have good evidence that Assange has the world’s biggest set of nuts, so assuming some degree of proportionality, he’d put a strain on any brand of condom that didn’t have rebar ribs.”
More best lines of the day
As soon as you’re born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you’re clever and they despise a fool
Till you’re so fucking crazy you can’t follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
When they’ve tortured and scared you for twenty odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can’t really function you’re so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you’re so clever and classless and free
But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
There’s room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
If you want to be a hero, well, just follow me
If you want to be a hero, well, just follow me
John Lennon (1940-1980)
Best lines for the day
Instant Karma’s gonna get you
Gonna knock you right in the head
You better get yourself together
Pretty soon your gonna be dead
What in the world you thinking of?
Laughing in the face of love
What on Earth you try’na do?
It’s up to you, yeah, you
Instant Karma’s gonna get you
Gonna look you right in the face
You better get yourself together darling
Join the human race
How in the world you gonna see?
Laughing at fools like me
Who on Earth do you think you are?
A superstar? Well, right you are
And we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Well, we all shine on
Everyone, c’mon
Instant Karma’s gonna get you
Gonna knock you off your feet
Better recognize your brothers
Everyone you meet
Why in the world are we here?
Surely not to live in pain and fear
Why on Earth are you there
When you’re everywhere
Gonna get your share
Well, we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Yeah, we all shine on
C’mon and on and on, on, on
John Lennon (1940-1980)
Best line yesterday
“Elsewhere, to commemorate Pearl Harbor, Republicans attacked someone from Hawaii and won.”
Best line of the day
“The President deserves credit for recognizing what the wealthiest .0000001% have known for years…. Our cost of living has soared astronomically, especially when you consider how expensive it’s gotten to control the outcome of elections.”
The Borowitz Report quoting Thurston Howell IV.