Quotations

Each of these at one point struck me as humorous, inspiring, enlightening, or thought-provoking - at least enough to be worthy of a small fraction of 1K of Web space.

• Quotations from musicals (and one short play and three operas)
• Quotations from books
• Quotations from films
• Quotations from Murphy Brown
• Quotations from people

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Quotations from musicals (and one short play and three operas)

• "All that was is part of me, as I am part of what's to be, and thus it is our story goes on" Baby
• "And the whole world madly turning - turning, turning 'til you can't see" Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris
• "Any man can get where he wants to, if he's got some fire in his soul" Ragtime
• "Are not walruses human? When you prick us, do we not bleed?" Carnival
• "Bad news - that’s what people are" Honk!
• "Cats are the crabgrass on the lawn of life" You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown
• "Daphne may swell up like a melon, but at least she's my melon" The Kugelmass Affair
• "Everyone needs new ways to dream" Sunset Boulevard
• "Everywhere is chaos; everywhere is doubt" Martin Guerre
• "Half mankind thinks the other half is blind" Jekyll & Hyde
• "He who wears a coxcomb will never fail" The Scarlet Pimpernel
• "History is a dirty sow" Nixon in China
• "How can you stop with the prayers at a bar mitzvah?" Falsettos
• "I can't go losin' my job on the advice of a bird" The Secret Garden
• "I do like the auk, who mates with a squawk, and then throws rocks at her ex" Closer than Ever
• "I'd rather die than dry-clean Marvin's wedding gown!" Falsettos
• "If all I thought about were the consequences, I'd never accomplish anything" Jekyll & Hyde
• "If I could, I would fill your entire room with pineapples!" Cabaret
• "If we could extract all the evil from each of us, think of the world that we could create" Jekyll & Hyde
• "If you have no expectations, you can never have a disappointment" Passion
• "I hope you all enjoy linguine" Falsettos
• "I need that slipper to have a child!" Into the Woods
• "It looks like gala night aboard S. S. Titanic" Sunset Boulevard
• "It's days like this we almost believe in...gefilte fish" Falsettos
• "It's such a nightmare being everybody's dream come true" The Magic Show
• "I've got a voice that's crying, 'Go out and live - yes, live'" The Prince and the Pauper
• "I was sure that all I ever wanted was a life that was scripted and planned. And he said, 'But you don't understand...'" Songs for a New World
• "I would like to be everywhere at once - I know that's a contradiction in terms" Nine
• "Licensing slaughter of insects is hardly my mission" Evita
• "Life is a colorful carousel, reckless and terribly gay" The Fantasticks
• "Life is moments you can't understand" Falsettos
• "Life's a very long road, and the crossroads come up right away" Baby
• "Never be the first to believe; never be the last to deceive" Chess
• "No one really likes their offspring fighting to the death" Chess
• "Óh, te vén sülülülülülülülülülülülülülülülülü" Háry János
• "Once you've had a taste of all that high, high living, it certainly is hard to do without" Man with a Load of Mischief
• "On the green, purple, yellow, red grass, let us pass" Sunday in the Park with George
• "Quick conclusions often lead the best of us astray" The Mystery of Edwin Drood
• "Right now is a perilous time for Pisces" Sunset Boulevard
• "Send me to places where no one before me has been" Once On This Island
• "Sex is like dusting - if you don’t do it for years, you don’t notice the difference" Spend Spend Spend
• "Should that be a personalized form letter or a generic form letter?" Heart Throb
• "Sins can be buried but in the night they rise" Miss Saigon
• "Slotted spoons don't hold much soup" Into the Woods
• "Somehow, I'll have next time now" Closer than Ever
• "Take me different places, show me different faces, stop at any station, any destination, rounding every bending to the river's ending - that's the life I like best" Starting Here, Starting Now
• "Tell me - do you still like pancakes?" Aspects of Love
• "The best way to get rid of temptation is to give in to it" The Blue Angel
• "The nicest thing about being happy is that you think you'll never be unhappy again" Kiss of the Spider Woman
• "The only thing constant is change" Jekyll & Hyde
• "The people need sham 'cause the world is too real" Ragtime
• "There is sun on my taxi" Kiss of the Spider Woman
• "There's Amazon and Oregon, although I do concede that in eleven eighty-nine they're rhymes you may not need" Blondel
• "There's more than room enough for two inside my mind" The Mystery of Edwin Drood
• "There's not a taste that's not worth trying" Aspects of Love
• "There's only one commandment: thou shalt survive" The Life
• "There's so much about me I'm unsure of" Jekyll & Hyde
• "The slotted spoon can catch the potato" Into the Woods
• "The sun will rise and the moon will set, and you learn how to settle for what you get" Cabaret
• "The thing about explorers is: they discover things that are already there" In Trousers
• "The things that I prize like the stars in the skies are all free" Porgy and Bess
• "The trouble with poet is, how do you know it's deceased?" Sweeney Todd
• "They expelled me for my theory of actual reality" Rent
• "Things are not wrong just because they are new" Jekyll & Hyde
• "Though war may seem a bloody curse, it is a blessing in reverse" Candide
• "Trombone players don't last long" Call Me Madam
• "Unemployment's such a pleasure - these days we call it leisure" Blood Brothers
• "Visualise the earth descending on you clod by clod" Oliver!
• "What's a good thing for, if not for taking it to excess?" Nine
• "Who says that murder's not an art?" Chicago
• "Worlds of things to try - how can you refuse them?" Lucky Stiff
• "You are looking at a very special idiot" Sakina's Restaurant
• "You are only the fifth person I have ever met" Triumph of Love
• "You can have a fine conversation with him if you talk about kidneys and livers" Fiddler on the Roof
• "You never, ever learn, that nothing's yours on easy terms" Blood Brothers
• "You're Miss Desmond's German shepherd?" Sunset Boulevard
• "You won't regret selecting the vicuna" Sunset Boulevard

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Quotations from books

• "It's hard to spend much time in western China and not do a good bit of thinking about sheep" Night Train to Turkistan
• "The grand tour is just the inspired man's way of heading home" The Great Railway Bazaar
• "Too much thinking can ruin you" Ordinary People
• "You can't dissect gumbo" The Hot Zone

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Quotations from films

• "Imagine traveling with your own private Neanderthal" Bullets Over Broadway
• "You've had a lock on the look of the '90s for decades" Pret-a-Porter

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Quotations from Murphy Brown

• "Can I help it if I've always been exceptional?"
• "I'm a celebrity, Miles - you'll never get a jury to convict me"
• "I'm telling you I usually have a problem with all people, regardless of race, creed, or color"
• "Journalists don't interview food - it's just not done"
• "Research shows that people like free money and public executions, but that doesn't mean we should give it to them"
• "You know how I feel about house guests - I don't even like to share my lane on the highway"

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Quotations from people

• "Could you time ten seconds for a minute?"
• "Don't be too puzzled by the 'Enigma' Variations"
• "Even if you've heard a Bruckner symphony, you can't have been paying attention all the way through!"
• "Every revelation is also an apocalypse"
• "He and Canseco hit back-to-back home runs yesterday, which is very painful"
• "How can something sound vaguely like a jet plane?"
• "I don't have any friends - just people I use"
• "I don't remember enough information for this anecdote to be useful"
• "I don't think I could wear a boa - it makes me want to sneeze"
• "If Barbie had a 28-inch waist, she'd be eight feet tall"
• "I have amnesia, remember?"
• "I know everybody - there are just people I haven't met"
• "I live in a small suburb just outside of Nantucket"
• "I'm going to give you a way to think about permutation groups that will perhaps help you bond with them"
• "I'm sorry if this is confusing, but reality is confusing"
• "I think this is the farthest I've ever been from anything"
• "It's in Portuguese, the national language of Britain"
• "It's like most of my sentences: some assembly required"
• "It's not always necessary to understand the problems all the time - the important thing is to suffer"
• "It's ridiculous to get married while you're still young enough to enjoy life"
• "It's so cheesy, it's brie!"
• "It took me a long time to get old-fashioned"
• "I will send this in batches of 6 (4 in each batch)"
• "Lights!...Camera!...Hold on!"
• "Mozart has to be inimitable, and fortunately it comes very easy for me"
• "My mental intake box is full"
• "That's pretty copious drooling there"
• "The Chinese put the last name first, and the Mexicans put it in the middle"
• "The more you can't tell people, the more important you are"
• "There'd be a lot more parking if we had a fire truck"
• "There is something very exciting about giving birth"
• "There's no excuse for asterisks!"
• "The sun is shining so beautifully through the window...ooh...I don't have a window"
• "They fly around in the water"
• "We don't say 'steak cow' - why do we say 'tuna fish'?"
• "Well, enough about me. What do you think of me?"
• "Well, if I dialed the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?"
• "When I was 20, I threw myself a huge surprise birthday party"
• "Why can't we just convince people to divide themselves into pieces?"
• "Why is my nose so nasal?"
• "Wow. They sent ten pregnant rats into space!"
• "You look more human every time I see you"
• "You're either a New Yorker or you're not...geography doesn't matter"
• “You’re not a snake in the grass - you’re a snake on display”
• "You're so bad, it would take Sondheim to describe you"
• "You set something in L.A., and you automatically know it's going to be a comedy"