Quotes by Dave Barry

A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.

The IRS spends God knows how much of your tax money on these toll-free information hot lines staffed by IRS employees, whose idea of a dynamite tax tip is that you should print neatly. If you ask them a real tax question, such as how you can cheat, they're useless. So, for guidance, you want to look to big business. Big business never pays a nickel in taxes, according to Ralph Nader, who represents a big consumer organization that never pays a nickel in taxes. . . .

Without computers, the government would be unable to function at the level of effectiveness and efficiency that we have come to expect. . . . Today's government uses computers which are capable of cranking out millions of documents per day without any regard whatsoever for their content, thereby freeing government employees for more important responsibilities, such as not answering their phones.

The function of RAM is to give us guys a way of deciding whose computer has the biggest, studliest, most tumescent MEMORY. This is important, because with today's complex software, the more memory a computer has, the faster it can produce error messages. So the bottom line is, if you're a guy, you cannot have enough RAM.

I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me.

American business long ago gave up on demanding that prospective employees be honest and hardworking. It has even stopped hoping for employees who are educated enough that they can tell the difference between the men's room and the women's room without having little pictures on the doors.

The trouble is, you cannot grow just one zucchini. Minutes after you plant a single seed, hundreds of zucchini will barge out of the ground and sprawl around the garden, menacing the other vegetables. At night, you will be able to hear the ground quake as more and more zucchinis erupt.

If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering there are men on base.

Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but television's message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom and world peace pales by comparison with the need for a toothpaste that offers whiter teeth and fresher breath.

The greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison. . . . Edison's first major invention, in 1877, was the phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of American homes, where it basically sat until 1923, when the record was invented.