Science Fiction Quote of the Week

All right you're a monomaniac. You're 40 and you've never married (and what a sweet damn fool you were to quarrel with Clarice over the candidates in 72) and you think your profession's taught you that politics means everything and so your party loses and it's the end of the world. But God damn it this time it is.
--Anthony Boucher, "The Other Inauguration"

Quote of the Week

We don't need an apprentice in the White House — we have one right now.
--Scott Walker, September 16, 2015

Quote of the Week

It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea.
--Robert Anton Wilson

Movie Quote of the Week

We better get out of here before I start talking politics!
--John Wayne, Big Jim McLain (1952)

Movie Quote of the Week

What do we do now?
--Robert Redford, The Candidate (1972)

Movie Quote of the Week

On television, Mr. President, you look much smaller.
--Peter Sellers, Being There (1979)

TV Quote of the Week

Don't blame me. I voted for Kodos.
--Dan Castellaneta, The Simpsons, "Treehouse of Horror VII"

Movie Quote of the Week

How do you feel knowing that this country doesn't belong to you any longer?
--Cole Hauser, Higher Learning (1995)

Movie Quote of the Week

You know he's a charming fellow. I rather wish I'd voted for him.
--John Barrymore, The Great Man Votes (1940)

TV Quote of the Week

It’s a robotic President! What’s not to love?
--Ed O'Neill, Modern Family, "Disneyland"

TV Quote of the Week

We’ve just averted a disaster. Can you imagine plastic politicians?
--Diana Rigg, The Avengers, "Never, Never Say Die"

Movie Quote of the Week

You, you say one thing, he says another, and everybody changes back again!
--James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

Movie Quote of the Week

Mayor Sargent, every time I bet on weakness, corruption and fallibility, I want to lose. But I always win.
--Arthur O'Connell, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)

Quote of the Week

I've got to be honest. I met President Obama and he was a nice fellow, but I'm not going to vote for him, and I'm not going to vote for Romney. So, that leaves me without many options. I don't see much that I like in either of them. It's a tough world and I don't think either of them is capable of representing this country right now.
--Merle Haggard, The Dallas Observer, June 28, 2012

TV Quote of the Week

Your guilty conscience may move you to vote Democratic, but deep down you long for a cold-hearted Republican to lower taxes, brutalize criminals, and rule you like a king.
--Kelsey Grammer, The Simpsons, "Sideshow Bob Roberts"

Movie Quote of the Week

Politics is a very peculiar thing, Woodrow. If they want you, they want you. They don’t need reasons anymore... They find their own reasons. It’s just like when a girl wants a man.
--Harry Hayden, Hail the Conquering Hero (1944)

TV Quote of the Week

Bernard, if the right people don’t have power, do you know what happens? The wrong people get it: politicians, councillors, ordinary voters!
--Nigel Hawthorne, Yes, Prime Minister, “Power to the People”

Quotes of the Year 2007

I actually wrote this back in December of 2007 but for some reason, I neglected to post it because I wasn't sure it would be all that relevant. Boy, was I wrong.

1. Don’t tase me, bro! -- Andrew Meyer, September 17, 2007.

Apparently this is becoming the most popular catchphrase in the year. Which would be nice if it was being quoted to establish solidarity with the dude who said it. But apparently it’s being quoted for the same reason Rodney King‘s “can we all get along?” was so often quoted -- to make fun of the person who said it. On one hand, I can understand this. No one likes a jerk, and it’s very tempting to see the person who said it as just another jerk who got his just desserts.

And yet one can’t help but find something ominous about the circumstances of that quote. After all, that guy who said it wasn’t harassing cheerleaders or schoolchildren. He was asking questions of a major Presidential candidate. And while he might not have been all that polite in the ways he asked his questions, he didn’t deserve to be punished so harshly for essentially doing no more than ask a few questions.

Yes, people will laugh at anything, and maybe I shouldn’t take the jokes surrounding that quote all that seriously. But then again, maybe I should. After all, if Americans have no shame about laughing at the tasering of a political dissident -- and let’s face it, that’s what the student in question is -- how long before they start laughing at far worse treatment?

2. Por qué no te callas? -- King Juan Carlos of Spain, to Hugh Chavez, November 10, 2007.*

Apparently this is becoming one of the most popular Spanish-language quotes of the year. It’s apparently appearing on T-shirts and everything.

Too bad that out of context, it comes across not as much as an effort to quiet a jerk’s insults but rather an attempt to silence free speech.

But, hey, that’s the Spanish tradition, right? Whenever someone tells us something we don’t like, our first response is not to debate them and prove them wrong. It’s to tell them to shut up.

Good thing we don’t yet have an attitude like that here in the United States, right? Er, right?

* Spanish for “Why don't you shut up?”

Movie Quote of the Week

Remember, you’re in Washington. Stop trying to be reasonable about money or you’re going to bollocks up the whole thing.
--Edward Andrews, Son of Flubber (1963)

TV Quote of the Week

Give me the players any day. At least you know going in, they’re motivated by the money. It’s the greed. But with these politicos, man, they just like it.
--Don Johnson, Miami Vice, “Free Verse”