DUMB QUOTES

"Smoking kills.  If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of
your  life."
     Brooke Shields, said to demonstrate why she should become
spokesperson for a federal antismoking campaign

"I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body."
     Winston Bennett, University of Kentucky basketball forward

"I support efforts to limit the terms of members of Congress,
especially members of the House and members of the Senate."
     Vice-President Dan Quayle

"Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates
in the country."
     Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, D.C.

On Pesticides:
"Sure, it's going to kill a lot of people, but they may be dying of
something else anyway."
     Othal Brand, member of a Texas pesticide review board, on chlordane

"The exports include thumbscrews and cattle prods, just routine items
for the police."
     Commerce Department spokesman on a regulation allowing the export
of      various products abroad

"Are you any relation to your brother Marv?"
     Leon Wood, New Jersey Nets guard, to Steve Albert, Nets TV commentator

"If you can't make the putts and can't get the man in from second on
the bottom of the ninth, you're not going to win enough football games
in this league, and that's the problem we had today."
     Sam Rutigliano, Cleveland Browns coach, on why his team lost

On  Government Ability to Communicate After Death,:
"Beginning in February 1976 your assistance benefits will be
discontinued...Reason: it has been reported to our office that you
expired on January 1, 1976."
  Illinois Department of Public Aid

On Criticism:
"That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a
jackass--and I'm just the one to do it."
     a congressional candidate in Texas

"It takes a virile man to make a chicken pregnant."
     Perdue chicken ad, as mistranslated abroad

MEMBERS AND NON-MEMBERS ONLY
     sign outside Mexico City's Mandinga Disco in the Hotel Emporio

Wish--To end all the killing in the world
Hobbies--Hunting and fishing
     from personal statistics of California Angel Bryan Harvey, flashed
on the scoreboard at Anaheim Stadium

"He's trying to take the decision out of the hands of twelve honest men
and give it to 435 Congressmen!"
     Representative Charles Vanik of Ohio, when he heard that the
indicted Spiro Agnew was asking to have his corruption case tried by
the House instead of in a regular court

"The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history...this
century's history....  We all lived in this century.  I didn't live in
this century."
     Dan Quayle, then Indiana senator and Republican vice-presidential
candidate during a news conference in which he was asked his opinion
about the Holocaust

"In the early sixties, we were strong, we were virulent..."
     John Connally, Secretary of Treasury under Richard Nixon, in an
early seventies speech, as reported in a contemporary "American Scholar"

"At the Lincoln Park traps on Sunday...over 80 shooters took part in
the program.  Rotarians, be patriotic!  Learn to shoot yourself."
     from Chicago Rotary Club journal, "Gyrator"

"The streets are safe in Philadelphia, it's only the people who make
them unsafe."
     Frank Rizzo, ex-police chief and mayor of Philadelphia

"I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly
underpolluted."
     Lawrence Summers, chief economist of the World Bank, explaining
why we should export toxic wastes to Third World countries

On the Little-known Importance of Poultry Inspectors:
"The crime bill passed by the Senate would reinstate the Federal death
penalty for certain violent crimes:  assassinating the President;
hijackiing an airliner; and murdering a government poultry inspector."
     Knight Ridder News Service dispatch

"After finding no qualified candidates for the position of principal,
the school department is extremely pleased to announce the appointment
of David Steele to the post."
     Philip Streifer, superintendent of schools, Barrington Rhode Island

"The doctors X-rayed my head and found nothing."
     baseball great Dizzy Dean explaining how he felt after being hit
on the head by a ball in the 1934 World Series

"I want to make sure everybody who has a job wants a job"
                 --George Bush, during his first Presidential campaign

"This is a great day for France!"
          --Richard Nixon, while attending Charles De Gaulle's funeral

"Now, like, I'm President. It would be pretty hard for some drug guy
to come into the White House and start offering it up, you know? ... I
bet if they did, I hope I would say, 'Hey, get lost. We don't want any
of that.'"
        --George Bush, talking about drug abuse to a group of students

"For seven and a half years I've worked alongside President Reagan.
We've had triumphs. Made some mistakes. We've had some sex ... uh...
setbacks."
                                          --George Bush

"I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and
democracy. But that could change."
                                          --Dan Quayle

"Hawaii has always been a very pivotal role in the Pacific. It is in
the Pacific. It is a part of the United States that is an island that
is right here."
                              --Dan Quayle during a visit to Hawaii in 1989

"What a waste it is to lose one's mind--or not to have a mind. How
true that is."
                        --Dan Quayle addressing the United Negro College
Fund

"The caribou love it. They rub against it and they have babies. There
are more caribou in Alaska than you can shake a stick at."
                              --George Bush, on the Alaska pipeline

"I hope I stand for anti-bigotry, anti-Semitism, anti-racism. This is
what drives me."
                                          --George Bush

"If I listened to Michael Dukakis long enough I would be convinced
that we're in an economic downturn and people are homeless and going
without food and medical attention and that we've got to do something
about the unemployed."
                                         --Ronald Reagan

"My fellow Americans, I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia
forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."
             --Ronald Reagan, about to go on the air for a radio
               broadcast, unaware that the microphone was already on

"Mars is essentially in the same orbit. Mars is somewhat the same
distance from the sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures
where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that
means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe."
                                         --Dan Quayle

"Now we are trying to get unemployment to go up and I think we're
going to succeed."
                                         --Ronald Reagan

Walter Mondale: George Bush doesn't have the manhood to apologize.
Bush: Well, on the manhood thing, I'll put mine up against his any time.

"I'm not against the blacks and a lot of the good blacks will attest
to that."
                 --Evan Mecham, then governor of Arizona

"Nixon has been sitting in the White House while George McGovern has
been exposing himself to the people of the United States."
     --Frank Licht, then governor of Rhode Island, campaigning for
       McGovern in 1972

"Retraction: The 'Greek Special' is a huge 18 inch pizza and not a
huge 18 inch penis, as described in an add. Blondie's Pizza would like
to apologize for any confusion Friday's ad may have caused."
     --correction printed in The Daily Californian

"Winfield goes back to the wall. He hits his head on the wall and it
rolls off! It's rolling all the way back to second base! This is a
terrible thing for the Padres!"
            --Jerry Coleman, Padres radio announcer

"I want you to take your balls in your hand and bounce them on the
floor and then throw them as high as you can. Now, have you all got
your balls in your hands?"
            --announcer of children's radio show "Life With Mother" to
              her audience