The statement “I am one of the happiest people I know” had, in retrospect, made her cringe. “Please specify,” she added, “that this may be because I don’t KNOW anyone else.”

from a New York Times Magazine profile of Debra Winger by Mark Harris

"For the uninitiated, '46' is the worst thing anyone can say to you at JFK. It means: Pack a rucksack, bring a machete, pack a lunch, hire a Sherpa, bring a hand-held-GPS, and before you set off for the gate, make sure your affairs are in order. I've seen some of the best minds of my generation wasted in pursuit of Gate 46. It's so far away, it's actually in Montauk, at the tip of Long Island. You can feel the seasons change while you're walking there. Babies are born, governments fall, Madonna changes her look.

Brian Williams on his blog The Daily Nightly

"Work is work. Otherwise it would be called "super-wonderful-crazy-fun-time"."

- That 70's Show

"Deutschland ist das neue Brasilien."

a friend after Germany won 4:0 this week.

"I am floating, I am floating,
with my eyes closed with no sails.
I am soaking; I am weathered
by the winter of mixed drinks."

Living in Colour by Frightened Rabbit

"Those in favor of Chlamydia, raise your hand."

discussion in class yesterday

"Princeton is our fascinating neighbor."

website of a quilt shop in Pennington, NJ

"Though Oprah is arguably the most powerful woman in America, I find it hard to believe that more than one or two of her millions of audience members would run out and buy syringes to start injecting their hoo-has with estrogen just because someone on the Oprah show recommended it."

from a piece last year on Slate's XX Factor about Oprah's guests' controversial medical advice

"Dear Concerned,
What a coincidence—this email, dated April 2020, just landed in my inbox:"

from Dear Prudie's advice to a woman about to marry a man with a serious alcohol problem

"A purchased a flatpack liberal democrat party from Ikea but when I got it home I found it was missing its nuts and the instructions were in French."

comment on the Guardian's Digital Election 2010 coverage

"The changes in the University have brought new challenges to us all. The beginning of this year has been hard but our personnel have praiseworthily had the strength to carry out their actions."

work-related email received this week

"I don't believe that less is more.
I believe that more is more.
That less is less, fat fat, thin thin,
and enough is enough."

quoted in a New York Times feature on the home of Duane Hampton

“There was a Russian joke in the 1950s, during the cold war. It claimed that America had 2 classes of people… the optimist and the pessimist. The optimist was teaching their children how to speak Russian… and the pessimist was teaching their kids Chinese!”

comment on the February 7th Room for Debate feature on Americans learning Chinese in the New York Times

"He looked homemade. As through his wife had self-consciously knitted or somehow contrived a husband when she sat alone at night."

The Key by Eudora Welty

"Live in the sunshine,
swim in the sea,
drink the wild air."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If I were a boy
I would turn off my phone
Tell everyone it's broken
So they'd think that I was sleeping alone"

If I Were a Boy by Beyonce
(great grammar example)

"- I got a hundred dollar check from my grandma and my dad says I need to put in a bank so it can grow over the years.

- Well, that's fantastic. A really smart decision young man. We can put that check in a money making mutual fund and we'll reinvest the earnings into foreign currency accounts with compounding interest aaand IT'S GONE.

- What?!

- It's gone. It's all gone.

- What's all gone?

- The money in your account. It didn't do too well. It's gone.

- What do you mean? I have a hundred dollars?

- Not anymore you don't. Poof."

Stan from South Park learns what a bank is for.

"Save Milk, Drink Beer: Swiss Philosophy"

on a postcard received this week

"How do you know [if you're a techie]? Take this simple test. Do you use BitTorrent? Do you run Linux? Do you have more e-mail addresses than pants? You’re a techie."

David Pogue in the New York Times

"He has an empire of semi-shitty websites that make a shitload of money."

phone conversation with a friend