"I will, no doubt, be taken to task for for criticizing the work of children, but as any pathologist will agree, if there's a cancer, it's best to treat it as soon as possible.

If you happen to stand over 4 feet tall, the agony awaiting you at Sacred Heart Elementary began the moment you took your seat. These were mean little chairs, corralled into a "theater" haunted by the stench of industrial strength lasagna.

My question is not why they chosen to stage the production in a poorly disguised cafeteria, but why they chose to stage it at all."

David Sedaris on This American Life's A Very Sedaris Christmas

"After all, the wool from the black sheep is just as warm."

Sister Margaretta in The Sound of Music

"There's no one quite like ewe."

birthday card from my mom

"Now, if you'll cooperate, I'd like to finish with you by tonight. I want to spend Christmas in Elmira with my family."

the bank examiner in It's a Wonderful Life

"Everybody is weird."

says a friend of mine.

"The storm could also affect senators, who are expected to meet on Saturday to continue work on health care legislation."

New York Times coverage of the 20.12.09 East Coast snowstorm

"Letztlich bricht Gott in unser Leben ein, wenn wir sterben. Dann kommt nicht das Nichts, sondern Gott. Das ist Advent."

says the new bishop of Essen in an interview.

"How Kors saw the outfits: 'looks like a bridesmaid's dress with a shower loofah ruched up the front of it'; 'looks like a tablecloth'; 'looks like a librarian's shirt dress from 1979'; 'looks like a teal charmeuse disco pumpkin.'"

June Thomas writing about Project Runway Season 6 on Slate's Brow Beat Blog

"My grandmother thinks she's American.
I get presents and there's always shrimp in it!
Unwanted hair is fast to grow.
The cat that lives near my house ignores me."

excerpts from the Tokyo Complaint Choir

“Like Peter Pan, we do not see our electronic shadow until it is pointed out to us. We assume it is not there.”

Text Messages: Digital Lipstick on the Collar in The New York Times

"Doch Schillers Verse sind einfach brutal.
So gut ich kann
kämpf ich mich durch den endlos langen Satz durch.
Doch komm ich hinten an,
erinner ich mich leider nicht mehr dran,
wie er begann."

Wise Guys Schiller

"Die will ich aber nicht!"

"But I don't want her!"

says the prince to his father who doesn't see that the woman in front of him is just pretending to be his son's fiancée.

From the opera Die Liebe zu den drei Orangen by Carlo Gozzi (libretto) and Sergei Prokofjew (music)

"Nu är det jul igen"

"Now it's Christmas again"

Swedish Christmas song

"Weltweiter Sicherheitshinweis: Die weltweite Gefahr terroristischer Anschläge besteht fort."

das Auswärtige Amt gibt Reisenden Informationen über gefährliche Ziele und spricht bei Bedarf Warnungen aus. Auch weltweit...

"Mr. and Mrs. Salahi, who are known in the area to have a taste for polo and fine wine, are aspiring reality-show celebrities."

from a NYTimes article about the state dinner crashers

"An jenem Tag im blauen Mond September
Still unter einem jungen Pflaumenbaum
Da hielt ich sie, die stille bleiche Liebe
In meinem Arm wie einen holden Traum.
Und über uns im schönen Sommerhimmel
War eine Wolke, die ich lange sah
Sie war sehr weiß und ungeheuer oben
Und als ich aufsah, war sie nimmer da."

von Errinerungen an Marie A. von Bertolt Brecht

"Is it bad parenting, or sheer brilliance, to take your parenting advice from a dog trainer?"

question posed on Motherload in response to this New York Times article

"sentence, actual
________'As the soles of my shoes hit the soft ground, I pushed past the tall cottonwood trees in a euphoric cadence, and meandered through willow branches that the moose munched on,' 102"

Slate's unauthorized index of Sarah Palin's book Going Rogue

"I don't understand why men need an extra space to show their emotions. - Well, they build stadiums just for that..."

from a conversation with a friend about soccer and reactions to Robert Enkes suicide.

"Try as I might, I cannot recall taking a vow of poverty when I became a teacher."

letter to the editor of the New York Times in response to an article about the buying and selling of lesson plans online

"Barack Obama added Tougher Sanctions Against Iran and No More Currency Fixing to his Wishlist."

from Barack Obama's Facebook Feed on Slate.com

"She sees herself as a nerd. We look at the things that she's read and they seem completely typical. She writes about reading Animal Farm, you know, things that we all read. It's part of a public school education in America. It does not make you an intellectual. Reading the newspaper. Exactly."

from the Double X gabfest discussion of Sarah Palin's book Going Rogue

"Vorfreude ist die schönste Freude"

Schlagzeile in Patchwork Spezial Weihnachten

"Starting THIS Sunday, Nov. 22, 2009, and running through Thanksgiving Day, Audible is giving away free audiobooks. It's a thank-you from Audible for the great enthusiasm the Slate podcast audience has shown."

Juchuh! Listen to the Slate Culture Gabfest

M: I went to the moon yesterday.
Irma: I see. How was it?
M: Peaceful.
Irma: Meet anyone?
M: Not really; it was a Sunday.

Mies vailla menneisyyttä (The Man Without a Past)

"I have to go to the... whiz palace. [Pause] It’s a bathroom. It’s called a bathroom."

Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) during her practice date with her best friend (Parks and Recreation)

"Unga vill vara kreativa på fritiden"

"Young people want to be creative in their freetime"

Vasabladet headline

"Behinderte Delphine kommen zu mir und wollen mit mir schwimmen!"

"Disabled dolphins see me and want to swim with me!"

Stromberg about his therapeutic abilities (German version of The Office)

"58. Do not bring judgment with the ketchup. Or mustard. Or hot sauce. Or whatever condiment is requested."

100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do

“Dangers await only those who don't react to life.”

Mikhail Gorbachev in Berlin in 1989, as quoted in an interesting piece on On the Media this week

"Two eyes. That's the best amount of eyes."

from a conversation about a picture of a woman in The IT Crowd

"Indeed, it’s time for us to dust off James Baker’s line: 'When you’re serious, give us a call: 202-456-1414. Ask for Barack. Otherwise, stay out of our lives. We have our own country to fix.'"

in Thomas Friedman's column in the NYTimes

"Keine Macht den Dosen!"

das neue Programm vom GlasBlasSing Quintett. Gestern abend live gesehen. Hier ein Video aus dem alten Programm "Liedgut auf Leergut".

"It's too big to be a rabbit. It's a giant, giant Scandinavian rabbit."

Tim Gunn on Project Runway s6e12

“Show me a school where teachers are smart, well-educated, skilled and happy to be there, and I’ll show you a group of children who are getting a good education.”

NYTimes op-ed by Susan Engel (emphasis mine)

"Auf Gleis 1 fährt jetzt ein der ICE 2212 in Richtung Ostseebad Binz. Nächster Halt ist Köln Hbf. Vorsicht bei der Einfahrt."

jeden Morgen von Montag bis Freitag um 6:44 Uhr die gleiche Durchsage am Bonner Bahnhof

"Our beds are empty two-thirds of the time.
Our living rooms are empty seven-eighths of the time.
Our office buildings are empty one-half of the time.
It's time we gave this some thought."

R. Buckminster Fuller

"I know the world's been mean to you
I've got a cure
Hold tight
I know the world's not fair to you
I've got a cure for its crimes"

The Cure from the new Tegan and Sara album Sainthood

"Get excited and make things"

Matt Jones poster seen on NYTimes.com

"Gay guys throw the best Halloween parties."

apparently this must be the truth because it was a line in TWO tv shows: Park and Recreation and 30 Rock

"We love to entertain you"

slogan of a German tv station which they constantly repeat before, during and after commercial

"Bon Appetit!"

"During the presidential primaries, while the news media was on their best behavior to avoid racial stereotypes, it was still O.K. to discuss Hillary Clinton’s 'cankles.'"

New York Times Op-Ed

"You should want the moon. Don't do it. Don't go for a 40 watt bulb just because it looks pretty. You'll get stuck with it when it goes out."

The Man in the Wooden Hat by Jane Gardem, reviewed on Fresh Air

"What does a man pillow look like? - Daniel Craig. It's for my lower back...."

Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) defending her pillow purchase on Parks and Recreation

"For Some Parents, Shouting is the New Spanking"

New York Times headline today

"We are friends now. I mean, do I still snoop her red purse, read her texts and log on to her facebook page? Sure. But only as a friend."

character on The New Adventures of Old Christine about his ex-fiancée.

"Det är bara att ta bort ett A..."

"It's only taking away an A..."

headline in today's Vasabladet

"Are you a large child or a small adult?!"

Tracy on 30 Rock

"Still, it's interesting to read, if only for the chance to experience a blind date between J.D. Salinger and Sarah Orne Jewett."

online comment about Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge

seen this weekend in a little village near my hometown

"When in doubt, add 20 more colors."

Kaffe Fassett

"Hallo, ich bin Günther. Und du? - Ich nicht."

aus dem Film Männerherzen

"I didn't come here to make friends."

from every reality tv show ever made, heard most recently from Robin on Top Chef S6E08

"Das ist alles ein Rätsel hier."

die Kollegin aus der IT-Abteilung bei dem Versuch einen PC in unserem Büro zu reparieren

"A noise measurement will be conducted in Restaurant Buffetti’s dining hall situated in the ground floor of the Fabriikki building this coming Sunday. Time for reverberation will be measured in the space helping to assess the possible need for more acoustics. The noise to be measured will be produced with a start pistol used in sporting events.
The noise measurement of Restaurant Buffetti will occur this coming Sunday-afternoon between 3 and 4 p.m. Approximately 25 shots will be fired in the space."

another work email

"Obama, meet me at camera 3."

John Stewart in The Daily Show

"The autumn days are soon getting darker, and we will have to rely on artificial lighting again for some time."

Notification from the [University of Vaasa] Facility Services

"There are two kinds of thinkers, the monists and the pluralists - that's what he called them. Otherwise known as hedgehogs and foxes.

The fox knows lots of things. The hedgehog knows only one thing but he knows it in his bones. I've been thinking. Been thinking about which one Senator Bonwiller is."

from the novel America, America by Ethan Canin

"When I was 5 years old, my mom always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'happy.' They told me I didn't understand the assignment and I told them they didn't understand life."

found on FFFFOUND

"What did your mom teach you about gender roles?"

Terry Gross interviewing Michael Chabon on Fresh Air

"Unfortunately I cannot help in this matter."

a work-related email I received

"Ich bin die Uncoolste bei der Arbeit, weil ich nicht mit dem Auto komme."

a friend

“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.”

Coco Chanel

"moving macht den Rücken fit!"

my mum called me today to tell me about these excercises she saw on tv

"'There’ve been several times when I felt like I didn’t really fit in at M.I.T.,' she wrote. 'I nearly fell asleep during a Star Wars marathon. It wasn’t a result of sleep deprivation. I was bored out of my mind.'"

blog post from Cristen Chinea, a senior at M.I.T., as quoted in the New York Times

"Everyone has an accent."

a student quoting David Crystal from a TOTN interview

"Sie sollten einfach künftig nichts mehr auf der Straße unterschreiben!"

die nette Mitarbeiterin bei der Verbraucherzentrale

"WebOodi is under update. We are out of business 29.9-1.10.2009."

WebOodi, the University of Vaasa's course and exam schedule and registration platform

"It's funny, 'cause it's true."

Karen Walkers (Megan Mullally) from Will and Grace

"My favorite thing is to go where I've never been."

Diane Arbus, US photographer (1923 - 1971)

found on a friend's blog

"Die Zeichen stehen auf Schwarz-Gelb"

Schlagzeile auf tagesschau.de

"Creativity takes courage."

Henri Matisse as found on FFFFOUND!

"Let me tell you something. There's not much of a difference between a stadium full of cheering fans and an angry crowd screaming "abuse" at you. They're both just making a lot of noise."

Sue (Jane Lynch) in Glee

"Palin Emerges in Asia with Speech to Investors"

Washington Post headline September 23, 2009

"You're not happy! You just think you're happy, because you feel happy."

Lily (Alyson Hannigan) on How I Met Your Mother

"Back at the Draper ranch, Betty gave her latest clinic in bad parenting:

Bobby: I'm bored.
Betty: Go bang your head against a wall.
Bobby: Mom.
Betty: Only boring people are bored."

From a post by John Swansburg about Mad Men on Slate's Talking Television

"Das Hilfe- und Supportcenter kann nicht gestartet werden. Starten Sie das Hilfe- und Supportcenter um das Problem zu lösen."

Windows XP Fehlermeldung

"Someday I'm going to be amazing."

Christopher on Project Runway S06e01

"It is September 9, 2009. Get it? That's 9/9/09 - sounds like a bunch of German Republicans."

Kate Clinton

"And how is it that students at Southern Maine Community College have unfettered access to long-fermented water-boiled bagels, when I have none?"

NYTimes article about the lively food scene in Portland

"Julia: Hej. Do you have wood filler?
Salesman: What is that?
Julia: It's similar to glue. I have a wooden surface that has holes in it and I want to fill them.
Salesman: Holes?
Julia: Yes. And I need something to fill them.
Salesman: We have wood over there.
Julia: Yes, but I need something to fill holes in wood.
Salesman: You can buy the wood and make holes in them...?!
Julia: No, I have wood and I have holes. But I don't want the holes!
Salesman: Ohhhhh.
Julia: Yes!"

a rather confusing conversation with a very nice salesman from Clas Ohlson

"Ich muß mein Leben verändern, alles verändern, und ich geh zum Friseur."

"Alles Wird Einfacher" Reinald Grebe

"Welcome to Tampere. Congratulations. Your flight arrived five minutes ahead of schedule."

Ryanair announcement

"[Diane] Rehm asked [Julia] Child how she managed to maintain a schedule that would tire a great many people. 'Well,' Child quipped, 'that's because I eat properly — red meat and gin.'"

celebrating 30 years of the Diane Rehm Show on Weekend Edition Saturday

"Das ist wie ein Arbeitstag."

meine Mutter als sie zusammen mit meinem Vater feststellte, dass ihr Besuch bei mir schon sieben Stunden andauerte.

"I know nothing about teenage girls, but teenage boys are like clam shells. They really are exactly like clam shells. They are tightly shut and occasionally, just occasionally, when you least expect it, those clam shells open and you see inside this very soft and beautiful and very vulnerable interior. Then the clam shell shuts tight again and you don’t see it and you don’t know when, if ever, it will open. But it will open at a very unexpected time and in a very unexpected way, and if you’re not there when it opens you might as well be on the moon."

Former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich in a 2001 speech

"I never will negotiate on television."

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) on TRMS

“It's not just that what happens within the lines of a basketball court is beautiful to watch, it's that the game's energy and swagger has always been the energy and swagger of inner-city America (with midwestern rurality lobbing in its presence from the perimeter).”

comment on a NYTimes article

"#yaygay"

from the top 10 conversation topics on twitter.com

"Rysskarna älskar sitt njet, det används i de mest skilda sammanhang, och ofta på ett sätt som gör utlänning fullständigt konfys."

"The Russians love their nyet. It's used in the most varied of contexts and often in a way that makes a foreigner completely confused."

Anna-Lena Laurén in Hufvudstadsbladet 7 September 2009

"I took physics and I did really well. I get the logistics of how a plane stays up in the air. But I don't understand it."

Mila Kunis talking about being afraid of flying on The Late Late Show

"Alla kallar mig för idiot,
och jag har ingenting emot."

"Everyone calls me an idiot, and I have nothing against that."

from the play Drottning K by Laura Ruohonen

"Ich weiß viel über Dreadlocks." - "Aha. Wie das?" - "Learning by ... having."

small talk from tonight's birthday party

"I have a funny story - I was trying to get from the kitchen to the living room..."

a friend at lunch

"Es muss alles mehr sein."

Wahlspruch der HSP aus dem Film Isch kandidiere

"B got underneath the dishwasher and he was pawing out through the crack out into the kitchen meowing trying to go forward. All he had to do to get out was to just back up and come out from underneath the sink, and he couldn't figure out how to do that. So I had to slowly, very, very slowly push the dishwasher in and very slowly let him back up and get out."

Temple Grandin as heard on Fresh Air

Tom Ridge on the US government's decision to invade Iraq: "I find it rather difficult to think that anybody in this country would believe that the people in charge would committ our blood and treasure to a cause if they didn't truly believe in their heart and their mind that it wasn't to protect America. [...] The final history hasn't been written. Because if some form of democracy is ultimately achieved in Iraq, and it's not going to look exactly like ours, the notion that we went in improperly will be obviously reversed. The history is yet to be written."

Rachel Maddow: "You can go back in time and sell the Americans on the idea that 4000 ought to lose their lives and we ought to lose those trillians of dollars for democracy in Iraq, you have a wilder imagination than I do. We were sold that war because of 9/11. We were sold that war because of the threat of weapons of mass destruction and they didn't have them and our government should have known it. And frankly, a lot of people believe that our government did know it and that it was a cynical decision."

The former homeland and security secretary and journalist Rachel Maddow talk about the "elephant in the room" and agree to disagree on The Rachel Maddow Show.

"Maybe you’re sad because you’re bored."

from the blog entry 100 Ways to live a better life by Dragos Florin Roua

"The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects."

Senator Edward Kennedy quoting his brother Robert Kennedy at Robert Kennedy's funeral in 1968

"Möchtest du die Gitarre klopfen?"

ein Freund bei der Bandprobe

"[Obama] spoke in New Hampshire and wisely used the metafor 'Yes we can,' which was originally a spanish metafor, si, se puede, which was historically used in many speeches refering to the working (labor) class heroes."

from a student exam answer

"Das Netz stört mein Genie."

ein Bekannter beim Tischtennis spielen heute Abend

"Is common sense really common?"

a friend's Skype status line today

"Is chon vorbei."

Verkäuferin an der Sushibar, nachdem ich meine Punktesammel-Karte hatte geben wollte. Zu spät!

"I think that's pretty sad. People that is alone, they has water in their eyes."

Angelo, a kindergarten student quoted in You Can't Say You Can't Play by Vivian Paley as heard on This American Life

"Bill Maher: You're a Senator. You are one of the very few people who are really running this country. It worries me that people are running my country who think - who believe in a talking snake.

Mark Pryor: You don't have to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate, though."

Religulous by Bill Maher

"Not all who wander are aimless."

Mona Lisa Smile by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal

"Anwohnerinformation: Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, vom 17.08. bis 29.8.2009 sind Bauarbeiten zur Nachtzeit unumgänglich."

Baumaßnahme Oxfordstraße bis Berliner Freiheit

"After years of communicative euphoria, some language teachers are becoming dissatisfied with purely functional uses of language."

Claire Kramsch

"Now we look up in,
Into the eyes of bullies breaking backs.
They seem so very tough,
They seem so very scared of us.
I look into the mirror,
For evil that just does not exist.
I don't see what they see."

From the song "I was married" on The Con by Tegan and Sara

"As our ferryboat from Denmark made its way up the winding Oslo Fjord in May 1959, we looked at the granite boulders and high cliffs covered with pine tress, sniffed the cool, salty-piney air, and said to each other: 'Norway is just like Maine!' Which it was, and wasn't."

My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme

"I just set the world record in bullshitting."

Labor pains by Lara Shapiro and Stacey Kramer

"'Be kind and then be kind and then be kind,' sagte sie auf Englisch."

Paola Brunetti quoting Henry James.

Acqua alta by Donna Leon

"My home life is unsatisfying."

The Breakfast Club by John Hughes

"Madame Michel has the elegance of the hedgehog: on the outside, she's covered in quills, a real fortress, but my gut feeling is that on the inside, she has the same simple refinement as the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary - and terribly elegant."

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery