Had a high school biology teacher, Brother DeSalles Lawless, what a name! This member of the religious order of Xaverian Brothers could spit out quotables like nobody -- a Kentuckian who could out-jive his street-kid students in Brooklyn with lines like: "Man, I could trade you in for a broken stickball bat and lose on the deal!"
Anyway, here are a few quotables that caught my attention of late:
- "We seem to live in a time of arteriosclerotic orthodoxy. A lot of the fun has gone out of it. I mean, gee whiz." (From a Wall Street Journal story about Christopher Buckley, son of the late William Buckley who founded the conservative magazine National Review. Buckley resigned as columnist for the magazine after endorsing Barack Obama for president.)
- "Fruit and vegetables are by definition becoming luxury items." (From a Wall Street Journal story about soaring food costs, quoting Adam Drewnowski of the University of Washington Center for Obesity Research.)
- "I had a friend named Father Charlie Sheedy, and he used to say life is mainly showing up. So I figure as long as I show up every day and the door is open and people pop in, I have the feeling that at least I'm still alive, and I still have something to do and I enjoy doing it." (From a Wall Street Journal interview with 91-year-old retired Notre Dame president, the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh.)
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"These are much harder times because of the Internet, where more information and leaks and chatter from former employees and others create more chances for the CEO to be compromised." (From a Los Angeles Times story about record-high turnover among chief executive officers in America --1,132 over the last nine months with the most -- 206 -- occurring in health care. The quote is from Leslie Gaines-Ross of Weber Shandwick.)
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"We got that authentic thing from (President George W.) Bush, where we all felt we could have a beer with him. We had too many. And now we're drunk." (From a Sacramento Bee story about 24 Sac State students evaluating the authenticity factor in the Oct. 15 debate between presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama. The quote is from Arsalan Syed, an Army vet who served in Iraq.)