Quotes: n

This collection maintained by and are copyright © 1991-2024, Faisal N. Jawdat, faisal@faisal.com. Please read the about page for details.


Anti-ninjas were the most feared assassins in the world. Instead of appearing out of thin air, throwing metal stars and messing around with bo staffs and numchuks they simply shot people and then drove everyone mad with pointless conspiracy theories for years afterwards.
from N-Man #3
You are not I, and therein lies the irreparable calamity.
Vladimir Nabokov
If I were worried about whether Gore or Bush were going to be elected would I be running for president to establish a progressive political reform movement, both before and after November 7th? ... If Gore cannot beat the bumbling Texas governor with that kind of a record, what good is he? Good heavens.
Ralph Nader
After hearing my story, DO NOT try to snort TANG up your nose. You think i would have learned after the hot cocoa.
Ken "Vlad" Nagle
Creation is quite different from sex, unless you take everything to a metaphoric level, which if you do, you should never allow your children to play with Legos.
Ken Nagle
Dead puppies can be lots of fun. Collect and trade them with your friends.....
Ken Nagle
Forget CKOne! The fragerance of the summer is WetGoth by Wet N Wild. WetGoth is specially designed to remind you of those rainy nights after a club, waiting for a cab. It's got the perfect hint of old grass and stale clove smoke to remind you of the special night when you had to sleep in on the lawn because your parents wouldn't let you inside. There is the barest hint of sweat from that last gig you went to to remind you of how you were crushed against the stage by a thousand other screaming fans, where no one else could hear your screams of pain. WetGoth! Remember, Wetgoth is the official fragerance of the 1936 Olympic games.
Ken Nagle
Go ahead and use my father's words against me. We'll see how crafty you can be when I fill you full of margaritas......
Ken Nagle
I don't currently have access to my alt.gothic.gun^3, but if you give me your name and number, I shall surely get back to you with my alt.gothic.hatchet^3.....
Ken Nagle
I know one guy that if his ratty hair wacks me in the face one more time, I'm gonna go perky all over his ass!!!!
Ken Nagle
I was born about about 1600 years ago, raised by wolves who had a penchant for chickens, burgers, and breath mints. I was there with Alaric when he sacked Rome in 410AD and have always thought that would be a cool name when I eventually fathered children.....
Ken Nagle
I'll make you a deal: Either I see you there... or I don't.... How's that sound?
Ken Nagle
I'm not even sure if I've just been insulted.
Ken Nagle
we're satanic hippies. we drink human blood and make scrifices, but we always recycle.
Ken Nagle
You all thought Calypso Lou set that up? WRONG! I replaced Louis Farrakhan with an android under my control, and he organised the march in order for me to be able to fit the marchers with my specially patented mind control chip (remote control until sold seperately). Be on the lookout for the Million Woman March, the Million Kid March, the March to the Scaffold, the Wedding March, and the Million Guys Named Bob Who Don't Know What SPAM(TM) Is March.
Ken Nagle
my brain hurts... it shouldn't, i haven't used it much recently
Nailbunny
I recently obtained an Open Firmware specification book, and found it quite useful. As soon as I try to read this book, I become sleepy as if I read a phone book.
Hamada Naoki
Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.
Charles James Napier
It follows that any commander in chief who undertakes to carry out a plan which he considers defective is at fault; he must put forth his reasons, insist of the plan being changed, and finally tender his resignation rather than be the instrument of his army's downfall.
Napoleon, "Military Maxims and Thought"
Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.
Napoleon
There are two ways to fix reliability problems. One is to lose customers. The other is to actually build a reliable system.
Arun Narayan
In the U.S. Government, there is a lot more incompetence and a lot less conspiracy than is generally believed.
a NASA spokesperson
The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make the rest of us wonder at the possibility that we might be missing something.
Jamal Abdul Nasser
Novel writing is mostly a "one day" event. As in "One day, I'd like to write a novel."
National Novel Writing Month FAQ
It doesn't make sense to make pages complex and use a lot of graphics. If you make a site look really fancy, it looks great the first time. The second time it's amusing. And the third time it's just plain annoying.
Farzad Nazem, CTO, Yahoo!
Personally, should I ever form a globe spanning conglomerate, I intend to do it fairly and without malice or dirty politics. I hope you fellows don't make that too difficult a task; I would have to have you all killed.
David Neal
Americans have Thanksgiving, the British have Guy Fawkes Night, and NTK has the annual review of another bloody Windows compression utility.
Need to Know News
Lovely girls are terribly insecure. They are convinced that their legs are too thick, and their bottoms are too big, and their bosoms are too small. They are conviced that their nose is the wrong shape, that their ears stick out, and that their eyes are too close together. They need a man who will tell them they are exactly right as they are. They do not believe him, but they need to hear it said.
Richard J. Needham
Money must become an instrument of the search for self-knowledge. Money must become a tool in the only enterprise worth undertaking for any modern man or woman seriously wishing to find the meaning of their lives: we must use money in order to study ourselves as we are and as we can become.
Jacob Needleman
Most so-called moral dilemmas simply dissolve when one gathers all the knowledge that is actually available. We waste an immense amount of precious energy trying to make decisions before we really have to or are able to. Once we see something clearly, the question of morality more or less takes care of itself. Authentic morality is the child of understanding.
Jacob Needleman
I've started referring to the voices in my head in my check-in comments. That's probably bad.
Chris Nelson
Hm. My master's thesis reads much better once I pipe it through jive.
Chris Nelson
Jeepers, he holds the world's fate in his hands and he can't drive a stick!
Mike Nelson, Mystery Science Theater 3000
the core skill of an innovator is error recovery, not failure avoidance
Randy Nelson
Violence never solves problems, it just changes them into more subtle problems.
Russell Nelson
I have enough trouble socializing with people. I don't need some object saying 'good morning' to me.
Ted Nelson
Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be philosophers.
Willie Nelson
If you give it anything higher than Yum-Wok, it'll seg-fault.
Craig Nemecek
It's billed as the first movie about murder on the Internet. how can you resist this Web promo? Very easily.
Net Guide
You are an old man... who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no Third Worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic, and subatomic and galactic structure of things today. And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon - those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state - Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories and mini-max solutions and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale.
Ned Beatty in "Network"
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Netscape error message
Anyone attempting to generate random numbers by deterministic means is, of course, living in a state of sin.
John Von Neumann
Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin.
John von Neumann
It would appear that we have reached the limits of what it is possible to achieve with computer technology, although one should be careful with such statements, as they tend to sound pretty silly in 5 years.
John Von Neumann, 1949
The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct which, with the addition of certain verbal interpretations, describes observed phenomena. The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely that it is expected to work.
John Von Neumann
There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking about
John Von Neumann
You wake me up early in the morning to tell me I am right? Please wait until I am wrong.
John Von Neumann at 10 a.m.
The only difference between someone who claims they are God and someone who claims they speak for God is that the latter is more often believed.
Chris Newman
A friend and I recently decided that we had heard the word "artist" used far too often, and that from now on, whenever we heard anyone say the word "artist" we would mentally replace it with the word "retard." The universe sorted itself out with a terrible velocity. Imagine being in a gallery and seeing this: "Prints Available -- signed by the retard."...
New York Press
DOS Computers manufactured by companies such as IBM, Compaq, Tandy, and millions of others are by far the most popular, with about 70 million machines in use worldwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form.
New York Times, November 26, 1991
Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.
New York Times editorial, 1921
The confusion of a staff member is measured by the length of his memos.
New York Times, January 20, 1981
The flying machine which will really fly might be evolved by the combined and continuous efforts of mathematicians and mechanicians in from one million to ten million years.
New York Times, October 9, 1903, the same day that the Wright brothers began assembly
Deep Impact - A dire warning that should concern us all. You may feel safe in your bed, but beware: even as you sleep, Earth is under threat from a vast, overheated surplus of character actors.
The New Yorker
Yo! My man! Who be needin' 'Ariadne auf Naxos' tickets?
The New Yorker, Oct. 6, 1997
Christopher Date isn't even dead yet, and he's rolling over in his grave.
Ted Neward
Object-relational mapping is the Vietnam of computer science.
Ted Neward
Theories are more like graduate students - once admitted you try hard to avoid flunking them out, it being much better for them and for the world if they can become long term contributors to society.
Allen Newell
If John Madden steps outside on February 2, looks down, and doesn't see his feet, we'll have 6 more weeks of Pro football.
Chuck Newcombe
Ben, I threw food at you to make you shut up. It hasn't worked. If you don't shut up, I want my food back.
Dale Newfield
I'd like to make a motion that we face reality.
Bob Newhart
For maybe a hundred thousand years or more, grownups have been waving tangles of string in their children's faces.... No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids look and look at all those X's.... No damn cat, and no damn cradle.
Newt, "Cat's Cradle"
we didn't mean 'free' as in no cost, we meant 'free' as in 'free to charge as much as we like'
Ashley Niblock
If you're going to shoot at something, kill it. Otherwise, take up knitting.
Rachel Nichols as Shana "Scarlett" O'Hara, "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra"
Sell crazy someplace else, we're all stocked up here.
Jack Nicholson, As Good As it Gets
Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives... You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty...we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use 'em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I'd rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to!
Jack Nicholson as Colonel Nathan Jessup in "A Few Good Men"
Chivalry is not dead, it's just taking a well deserved nap, and I'm here to make sure it sleeps late.
Van Nickels
i'll listen to reason when it comes out on CD
Kirstin Nickerson
Look, I tried the cat experiment. On the third trial, the cat was dead. On each of the subsequent 413 trials, it remained dead. Am I doing something wrong?
James Nicoll
The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
James Nicoll
Windows'98 is so similar to Windows'95 because Apple hasn't invented anything worth copying since 1995.
Jakob Nielsen
Never believe in a meritocracy in which no one is funny-lookin.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden
In Germany they came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, but I did not speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade-unionists, but I did not speak up because I was not a trade-unionist. Then then they came for the Catholics, but I did not speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me and by that time there was no one left to speak up.
Rev. Martin Niemoller
A higher kind of human being, excuse me for saying, doesn't think much of 'callings', the reason being he knows himself called....He takes his time, he has plenty of time, he gives no thought whatsoever to being 'finished and ready' - at the age of thirty one is, as regards high culture, a beginner, a child.
Friedrich Nietzsche
A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.
Friedrich Nietzsche
For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic avtivity or perception to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indisoensable: intoxication...sexual excitement...feasting, of contest, of the brave deed, of victory, extreme agitation, of cruelty, of destruction, of will.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Great and fine things can never be common property: pulchrum est paucorum hominum (beauty is for the few).
Friedrich Nietzsche
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
Friedrich Nietzsche
He divines remedies against injuries; he knows how to turn serious accidents to his own advantage; whatever does not kill him makes him stronger.
Friedrich Nietzsche
I despise mystics, they fancy themselves so deep, when they aren't even superficial.
Friedrich Nietzsche
In Heaven, all the interesting people are missing.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Nature, artistically considered, is no model. It exaggerates, it distorts, it leaves gaps. Nature is chance. To study 'from nature' seems to me a bad sign: it betrays subjection, weakness, fatalism - this lying in the dust before [petty facts] is unworthy of a complete artist.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Nothing succeeds in which high spirits play no part. Only excess of strength is proof of strength.
Friedrich Nietzsche
One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions to habit, and mean actions to fear.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Once and for all, there is a great deal I do not want to know. - Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge.
Friedrich Nietzsche
The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.
Friedrich Nietzsche
There are two tragedies in life: one is losing one's heart's desire, the other is gaining it.
Friedrich Nietzsche
There is no more dangerous error than that of mistaking the consequence for the cause.
Friedrich Nietzsche
When Gods were more Man-like, men were more god-like.
Friedrich Nietzsche
You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.
Friedrich Nietzsche
You who hate the Jews so, why did you adopt their religion?
Friedrich Nietzsche
The first bullet is never for you.
from Nikita
When you don't know what to say, just smile. It won't make you any smarter, but it will be pleasant for others.
from Nikita
The tragedy of our world is precisely that nothing any longer is capable of rousing it from its lethargy... we are drifting with time and our fight is with shadows.
Anais Nin
Your reader has his rights. Tell him a story and make him understand it, or you're fired.
Larry Niven
It's a nitwit idea. Nitwit ideas are for emergencies. The rest of the time you go by the Book, which is mostly a collection of nitwit ideas that worked.
Niven and Pournelle, The Mote in God's Eye
If I could find a way to get [Saddam Hussein] out of there, even putting a contract out on him, if the CIA still did that sort of a thing, assuming it ever did, I would be for it.
Richard M. Nixon
Television is to news as bumperstickers are to philosophy.
Richard M. Nixon
Believe nothing - Dare all
Nizari Isma'ilis saying
Nothing is True - Everything is Permitted
Nizari Isma'ilis saying
On Earth there is no reckoning.
Nizari Isma'ilis saying
I hit 528 Graffitt WPM regularly. I do have "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs." set up as a shortcut though.... ..
Steve Nizyborski
The likelihood of you're wanting to use a diskless workstation decreases as the square of your distance from Palo Alto increases.
Brian Noble
If I could go through the dorms and shoot people, exam pressures would be put into perspective.
Professor Ralph Noble
It was important that he know women are strong. It was even more important, it turns out, that I know I was a jackass, but I didn't. I embarrassed a nice man who was attempting to help a lady. I wasn't lady enough to let him. I bet he never offered to help a lady again. I bet he became an intellectual, or a writer, and not a good man like a fireman or a businessman who says, 'Let's roll.'
Peggy Noonan
Academics get paid for being clever, not for being right.
Donald Norman
Saying a database is ODBC-compliant is like saying Titanic is a VHS-compliant movie.
Ken North
President Reagan didn't always know what he knew.
Oliver North
I will offer the observation that "data" is not the plural of "anecdote", nor is it the plural of "tangentially related temper tantrum", and leave it there.
Andrew Northrup
Have you no sense of brains, madam? At long last?
Andrew Northrup
I'll give you another example. Answer me this question: where do the New England Patriots play? If you said "Gillette Stadium", you are part of problem. The correct answer is "Foxboro Stadium", because that name isn't stupid. "Buh-bub-buh," you sputter, "the Gillette company paid millions of dollars to have its name put on the stadium," which may well be so, but, you see, they forgot to pay /me/.
Andrew Northrup
If there's one thing that the internet has taught me, besides where to find pictures of two chicks making out, it's that all problems in the world are simple questions of good guys and bad guys, and it is just a matter of having the courage to choose to be a moral person, preferably ungrammatically and in all capital letters. Because everyone else is stupid and bad.
Andrew Northrup
It's a dumbass trifecta. My tinfoil hat is off to you, sir.
Andrew Northrup
The great untold tragedy of our age is how often I get the feeling that Public Enemy songs are secretly about my life.
Andrew Northrup
When life gives you stupid, make stupidade!
Andrew Northrup
When The Poor Man returns, it will be full of exciting new content for the whole family, and, unfortunately, more of the same nonsense you've been subjected to for the past 2+ years.
Andrew Northrup
It's naive, and you're pardoned. I've seen sausage made and I've seen law made ... and the main difference is there aren't any ambushes in sausage. ... If you've never seen SBC lobby, stand back, get a grip, and load up.
Mac Norton
If you think that I'm implying that the RIDDICK movies can be dumb, well, they are a little bit. But they aren't quitters.
Nordling, Ain't It Cool News
If the terrain differs from the map, believe the terrain.
Norwegian Boy Scout's Handbook, attributed
It is a shame the author didn't read the tax code before writing this book. It is obvious she was unwilling to be encumbered by the facts. My right wing relatives love it. They also think of pork rinds as an entree.
Warren Norwood, amazon.com review of The Greedy Hand
This is a real discipline. It requires choosing for the light even when there is much darkness to frighten me, choosing for life even when the forces of death are so visible, and choosing for the truth even when I am surrounded with lies. I am tempted to be so impressed by the obvious sadness of the human condition that I no longer claim the joy manifesting itself in many small but very real ways. The reward of choosing joy is joy itself. Living among people with mental disabilities has convinced me of that. There is so much rejection, pain, and woundedness among us, but once you choose to claim the joy hidden in the midst of all suffering, life becomes celebration. Joy never denies the sadness, but transforms it to a fertile soil for more joy.
Henri J. M. Nouwen, "The Return of the Prodigal Son"
Anyone can commit a crime, but how many people do you know that can commit a crime that is not only ahead of it's time, but also isn't illegal...yet. Subtle manipulation of the masses with little effort on our part. It's not just a good idea. Hot ninja hacker chicks will think we're gods.
Joshua Nowell
At first it's booty, but then eventually it's just ice-tea.
Joshua Nowell
Okay, I was watching Voyager last night and all I can say is,"Assimilate me 7 of 9. Resistance is frustrating."
Joshua Nowell
People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from a rock than from most Linux distributors.
Joshua Nowell
See, you guys got it all wrong. The Easter bunny sucks, as Steve will attest. I've been hanging out with the Ether Bunny. Don't remember much but I'm sure I had a great time...except for the noticable twitch and the fact that I can't remember my login...
Joshua Nowell
No keyboard found. Press F1 to continue.
NT error message
Reboot your machine. Do not reboot your machine.
NT error message
The success of the Osbournes' TV show is an indictment to the soullessness of mankind.
Ted Nugent
I want them to play Britney Spears at my funeral. This way I won't feel so bad about being dead, and everyone there will know there is something worse than Death.
Gary Numan