Let me take a break from responding to readers' quote queries.
I'm starting to think about my annual list, run by the Associated Press, of the top 10 most notable quotations of the year. By "notable" I mean "important" or "famous" or "particularly revealing of the spirit of our times" rather than necessarily being eloquent or admirable.
Some that seem to stand out this year include Mark Sanford's spokesman saying "The governor is hiking the Appalachian trail"; Joe Wilson's calling out "You lie!"; Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift; and Sarah Palin on "Obama's death panel."
I would welcome suggestions of additional quotes from 2009, particularly ones from politics or popular culture or entertainment or sports or business or technology.
"We inherited a ________", insert any convenient issue in the blank.
ResponderEliminar"The buck stops here" is no longer the operative phrase in the White House.
"It's important to realize that I was actually black before the election." - Obama on Letterman, dismissing the suggestion that opposition to his health care plan stems from the American people's racism.
ResponderEliminarTwo suggestions: Green shoots ("The green shoots of economic revival are already evident": Bernanke), and "too big to fail" (not sure who said that first...)
ResponderEliminarHow about Ben Bernanke declaring the end of the recession, Barbara Boxer's "call me Senator," or just about anything from the Jon Stewart takedown of Jim Cramer?
ResponderEliminar"This morning, I did something I've never done in my life. I had to go downtown and testify before a grand jury." -- David Letterman
ResponderEliminar"It was the worst sickening, pit-of-your-stomach, falling-through-the-floor feeling I've ever felt in my life." -- Sully Sullenberger
ResponderEliminar"'This is it' really means this is it." -- Michael Jackson
"I am deeply sorry and ashamed ...." -- Bernard Madoff
"I don't know anything about cars. A business is a business, and I think I can learn".-- Edward Whitacre Jr., chairman of GM
"The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." - Matt Taibbi
ResponderEliminar"there's an app for that"
ResponderEliminar"You lie!" was the best one of the year.
ResponderEliminar"I can see Russia from my house."
ResponderEliminarI think your mother probably did.- Debbie Stabenow
ResponderEliminar"Are we all going to die oinking?"
ResponderEliminarFrank Skinner, swine flu
"I screwed up."
President Obama
"Two weeks into the Obama presidency, we like his campaign better than his administration." - The Charlotte Observer editorial page.
ResponderEliminarObama's most famous comment this year: "The Cambridge police acted stupidly." (He was right, but backed off his claim.)
ResponderEliminarInterestingly, his inaugural address proved utterly forgettable.
Then there was A-Rod: "I did take a banned substance and, you know, for that I'm very sorry and deeply regretful." (But I only did it in Texas and Seattle, ha ha ha!).
And James DeMint: "If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo."
"I'm happy for you and I'm gonna let you finish but [proper noun] had the [adverb] [adjective] of ALL TIME."
ResponderEliminarThis sentence basically encapsulates the tone of discourse on any subject in 2009.
"Balloon boy"
ResponderEliminarWasn't this the year of "doubling down?" I heard "he's doubling down on (any political issue)" so often that I've developed an intense aversion to losing money at casinos.
ResponderEliminar"Yet his research tells him that carbon dioxide is not the right villain in this fight."
ResponderEliminarCaused a firestorm if I ever saw one.
"You may not agree with some tough decisions I have made, but I hope you can agree that I was willing to make tough decisions." - Bush's farewell address
ResponderEliminarshouldn't "too big to fail" have been on the 2008 list?
ResponderEliminar'green shoots' is a good one.
"cash for clunkers" I would think has to be on the list.
Good bye.
ResponderEliminarGeorge B ush
As far as I can see, "This is a no brainer."
ResponderEliminarNow I'm happy for you, and I'ma let you finish, but Kanye had the best quote of all time!
ResponderEliminar"I'm not a hero. A hero is a sandwich and I'm on a low carb diet" - Shaq
ResponderEliminar"You never want a serious crisis go to waste" -- Rahm Emanuel
ResponderEliminar"we're going to be in the Hudson"
ResponderEliminarI would say Rahm Emanuel's quote in the Times, right after the election: "Never allow a crisis to go to waste." It's been interpreted in so many ways, both negative and positive, and is undoubtedly at the center of the White House's strategy.
ResponderEliminar'If Nuremberg standards were applied, every American President since World War Two would have been hanged.' - Noam Chomsky
ResponderEliminar"Can I owe you ?" - The government fedral, state, local ect...
ResponderEliminar"We were on the brink of a black hole" - Krugman on Charley Rose I think
"who the hell do you think paid for the war in Iraq... Santi Claus?!?" Barney Frank's frustration that Government peers couldn't make the jump of logic about how the US was tackling debt to the detriment of universal health care.
ResponderEliminar"BL BL BLUH BLUH BLUH BLUH BL BL BLUH BLUH BLUH BLUH BLUH BLUH!!!" The bikers on South Park.
ResponderEliminar"We did this for the show." Balloon Boy
ResponderEliminar"Grab a mop!"
ResponderEliminar"The Pope was never in the Hitler Youth." -- Vatican spokesman. ( I presume someone asked if the Pope was in the Hitler Youth. This should take the place of the old question, "Is the Pope Catholic?")
ResponderEliminar"You want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband is not Secretary of State. I am. You ask my opinion. I'll tell you my opinion. I'm not going to channel my husband." -- Hillary Clinton
(...and I'll second that "I was black before the election...")
"The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."
ResponderEliminar"We did it for the show!" Falcon the Balloon Boy.
ResponderEliminar"Keep plucking those chickens"
ResponderEliminarErnie Anastos
"I don't need maternity leave" "Excuse me, but your mom did."
ResponderEliminarOn the senate floor debating health/maternity leave/care
There was an article on CNN.com yesterday that discussed the Hadron Collider and the multiple issues it has had getting a certain experiment to work. I can't remember the exact quote, but a scientist said that they were trying to create a particle so "abhorrent to nature" that the Hadron Collider ITSELF was sabotaging the experiment *from the future.* I thought this was extremely interesting and provocative. Perhaps you could get that quote!
ResponderEliminarWhoopi Goldberg on Roman Polanski. "It's not rape-rape."
ResponderEliminarThis completely turned me off of that entire industry. I even now hate T-Mobile because of her statement.
Her sentiment represents the entire culture of Hollywood - if you are famous and powerful you can do or say anything you want, with impunity.
And, 'He acted stupidly'. The President calling out the Boston policeman.
This was very telling. Oprah has said, 'when people tell you who they are, believe them.' This told me a lot.
"no mind, no matter." my friend,
ResponderEliminarthe pscychologist, Alfred Jones
"The only answer I can deduce is that the number of idiots on the planet is greater by several orders of magnitude than previously believed." -Barry Ritholtz, "Bailout Nation"
ResponderEliminarI don't know who said it originally, but how about "Too big to fail is too big to exist".
ResponderEliminar"the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons." - Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize Committee
ResponderEliminar"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste" Rahm Emanuel
ResponderEliminarFrom the Australian Prime Minister - "Compassion is not a dirty word" should be a good motto for 2010 but perhaps doesn't encapsulate 2009
ResponderEliminar"Brace for impact." - Captain Sullenberger
ResponderEliminar"On what planet do you spend most of your time? "
ResponderEliminarfollowed by:
"Trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table - I have no interest in doing it."
- Barney Frank
Talk about finance, how about "private profit and social loss?"
ResponderEliminarTalk about health reform, how about "social healthcare vs. for profit healthcare?"
"You can't take it with you , but you surely can leave it alive and well and kicking."
ResponderEliminarLevi-Strauss apparently got himself into trouble, and may never have gotten himself out of it. This is a question for my colleagues to sort out. Me and my friends in real spirit did not. That is the gosh darn truth, as far as I know, and for some this must hurt.
I have been called many things lately and envisioned in many ways. People think they know what I am about. the trouble with assumptions is--- Well, I am, after all, a lady--so you can figure out what follows here for yourself
As far as the question posed a few days ago, there are limits in science. I have hit mine as far as understanding the problem upon which I have been focused. So for me, as far as a certain side of my work is concerned, it is time to move on. and that is what I have been trying to do.
And I certainly am not dead yet.
Robyn Ann Goldstein (2009)
"It's the foreclosures stupid... it's the foreclosures"...
ResponderEliminarAs I started using that line over two years ago, I'm not sure that if qualfies for the 2009 list!!!...
Dear ken;
ResponderEliminarThat's the problem. There are certain questions that we won't know the answer to, (Jones, 1971-2009), but (in science) there is one that we can know the answer to and be certain about(Goldstein, 2003) and that I have for some time. It's just a matter of bring it out to the surface. So as far as a conversation-- I am all for one, but one that is real grounded and that grants respect to every individual involved as far as their opinions are concerned. As far as the `truth'-- that's our business to work out..
"I know everybody here is on a 24-hour news cycle. I'm not." President Barack Obama, at press conference, 23 June, 2009
ResponderEliminarThis one did not get nearly the attention it deserved, but how many of 2009's biggest stories were not influenced by the Beast of 24-hour news?
"On what planet do you spend most of your time?" -- Barney Frank, responding to a town hall protester saying health care reform to Naziism
ResponderEliminarI can't think of a better quote than:
ResponderEliminar> (W. Buffet)
I think it perfectly pictures the financial mess of these years.
"This sucker's going down". George Bush referring to the US (world?) economy.
ResponderEliminarOne more thing and then I am done (I hope) for a while-- everyone of my collaborators in spirit- got themselves into a bit a trouble at one time or another. But they were able to get themselves out of it- with a bit of help. I should have said this before. the trouble is- I forgot- too much on my plate-
ResponderEliminarI just love America so much... sob sob sob.
ResponderEliminarGlenn Beck
Sign carried by a Seattle-area Tea Party protester: "Keep the Guvmint Out of My Medicare."
ResponderEliminar"No one here is a nun or saint, we are not in a convent, and it does not appear to me that in the history there is no fight at convents too."
ResponderEliminar13/04/2009
President of Brazil - Lula
Brazilian president speech during the launch of Republican Pact talking to the president of the Supreme Court, president of the Deputy House and president of the Senate.
This is one of his thousands nonsense phrases.
Just to register :
In Brazil legal processes takes forever to be concluded, more than 10, 20 years and has 50.000 murders a year with a rate of 2~4% of these murders solved. Justice should be take much more seriously.
Original in Portuguese:
Ningu
"I hope Obama fails!" Rush Limbaugh
ResponderEliminar"CHARR LEEE, [with a wink] What aspect of the Bush Doctrine are you referring to?"
ResponderEliminar"Katie, We get all sorts of reading materials in Alaska... I read everything."
Both attributable to (Former) Alsaka Governor, Sarah Palin.
John Kerry saying no one had showed him the SMOKING GUN evidence that Wali Karzai was involved in drug trafficking. Keep in mind he's the chairman of the foreign relations committee and two days later NYT published an article revealing the Wali had been on the CIA payrole for 8 years. So, how did Kerry not know what the rest of us knew? Can you say liar?
ResponderEliminarSotamayor's "Latina Woman" quote
ResponderEliminar"That was pretty impressive, wasn't it? I got the sucker."
ResponderEliminar- President Obama, after killing a fly during his CNBC interview
to paraphase: Keep your govt hands off my Medicaid.
ResponderEliminarTown Hall Participant
Obama to multi thousands in Brussels on campaign trail...
ResponderEliminar"America's Future is Soviet's Past"
As for as widespread publication and staying power in the popular culture it has to be:
ResponderEliminar"YOU LIE!"
Jake Tapper, Oct. 20: "It's escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations "not a news organization" and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it's appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one - [Interrupted by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs]"
ResponderEliminar"Jia Junpeng, your mom is calling you to come home and eat."
Amidst all the pathetic financial blather there's always some comment like: "it may be helping Wall St. but it's hurting Main St."
ResponderEliminar"Too big to fail" has to take it unless someone blurts out the truth before the year ends..."Too small to save."
ResponderEliminarRon D
http:start-a-business-faq.com
"I want Obama to fail". Rush Limbaugh
ResponderEliminar"Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state ?"
ResponderEliminarChristine O'Donnell