W
ORDS . . .
Collected 1996 . . .
"They're creative business-wise, but they sure don't know films. They're lawyers mostly. I don't think the creative people are in charge."
Mavrick actor, James Garner, on the folks who run Hollywood these days.
(The Oregonian; 26 December, 1996; p. D5)
"Those who shave like Elvis Presley, Sylvester Stallone and the U.S. Marines, will not go unpunished."
The Islamic Court that sets rules for parts of Mogadishu, Somalia, announcing that, like the prophet Mohammed, men must grow beards.
(The Oregonian; 3 December, 1996; p. B1)
"We've arranged a society based on science and technology. But the population knows very little about science. This combustible mixture of power and ignorance is a frightening recipe for disaster."
Carl Sagan, Physicist and Philosopher. (The Charlie Rose; 27 May, 1996)
"It is the very fact that this society allows undeserving people to breed indiscriminately that creates the tragedies of [child] abuse and [child] neglect."
Kari Kincannon of Willamina, Oregon; in a Letter-to-the-Editor.
(The Oregonian; 8 December, 1996; p. B5)
"We're more than just politicians. We're more than just the cynical, venal, narrow, corrupt profession that all too often is a reflection of the current culture. We are in fact the inheritors and the lifeblood of freedom."
Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
(The Oregonian; 21 November, 1996; p. A6)
"Any idiot can get laid when they're famous. That's easy. It's getting laid when you're not famous that takes some talent."
Famous Actor Kevin Bacon.
(Movieline; November, 1996; p. 57)
"This is very bad from the point of view of keeping guns out of the hands of people who talk to God."
Isreali author Ze'ev Chafets, on recent legislation in Israel that relaxes requirements for gun licenses.
(The Oregonian; 17 November, 1996; p. A10)
"It was a good thing; the only way to end this kind of sinning."
Sixty-year-old teacher Mohammed Younus, of Kandahar, Afghanistan, commenting on the August, 1996 Taliban government-organized stoning deaths of a 38-year-old-man and a 40-year-old woman who were accused of adultery. The two were buried up to their chests and then set upon with rocks by mullahs and soldiers. Between them, the man and woman left 10 children.
(The Seattle Times; 3 November, 1996; p. A5; "Afghan lovers pay penalty; Death in the Stoning pit "; by John Burns of the New York Times)
"When David stood up to Goliath and had his sling in his hand and his punk-rock attitude, I'm sure he felt the way I feel now."
Popular musician Michelle Shocked, after prevailing in her legal dispute with Mercury Records.
(The Oregonian; 24 October, 1996; p. D4)
"I use researchers -- I actually check my facts."
Writer and Filmmaker Michael Moore, on the difference between he and fellow social commentator Rush Limbaugh.
(The Oregonian; 27 October, 1996; p. D7)
"I think that one of the qualifications of artists should be a vow of celibacy. They should be confined to ruining only their own lives."
Author Roger Lewis, biographer of actor Peter Sellers.
(The Oregonian; 23 October, 1996; p. B7)
"After the battle against apartheid, this is the biggest challenge to [ . . . ] civil society[.]"
A description of India's caste system by Yogesh Varhade, an Indian-born Untouchable.
(The Seattle Times; 20 October, 1996; p. A26)
"The only thing I thought might ever kill me off was clean living. I thought, 'How am I going to listen to that horrible noise I make without a gram of coke and a couple of double Jack Daniels?'"
Rock-n-roll legend Iggy Pop.
(The Oregonian; 22 October, 1996; p. A2)
"The one good thing about prison: I am absolutely positive that I added 10 years, 15 years to my life."
72-year-old Californian Charles Keating, Jr. -- who was only sentenced to 12 years in prison after being convicted of fraud in one of the 1980's most notorious Savings and Loan scandals.
(The Oregonian; 14 October, 1996; p. A2)
"If a woman I've been with says the child is mine, I don't argue."
Potent Blues Legend B.B. King, the father of 15 children by 15 different women.
(The Oregonian; 11 October, 1996; p. A2)
"An unsupervised teenager with a modem is as dangerous as an unsupervised teenager with a gun."
Arizona State Attorney Gail Thackeray.
(The Oregonian; 21 September, 1996; p. B1)
"I'd better say my family, because they would feel really bad if they thought they came in second to some really gooey deserts."
American Astronaut Shannon Lucid, answering the question 'What did you miss most during your record-breaking six months in orbit on the Russian space station Mir?'.
(The Oregonian; 21 September, 1996; p. A19)
"You know, it's cigarettes that killed (Jerry) Garcia. Everyone thinks it's heroin, but it wasn't. It was cigarettes."
- John Mellencamp
, popular musician.
- (CNN; 16 September, 1996)
"We weren't there with Rosa (Parks). We weren't there with Dr. (Martin Luther) King. We weren't there with John Lewis when he was hit in the face with a billy club. - But we're here today."
Republican vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp, looking for votes from among the crowd at Sylvia's Restaurant in the heart of New York City's Harlem.
(The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette; 7 September, 1996; p. 5A)
"He'd do just about anything to keep from turning 40 ."
Terresa Oxford, who's husband Richard was executed by the state of Missouri three weeks before his 40th birthday.
(The Oregonian; 25 August, 1996; p. A21)
"When we were looking at a game show to develop, we figured that by the way Americans were spending money, most of them had already bought their prizes ."
Andrew Golder, producer of the Lifetime TV hit game show 'Debt', which pays off the winning contestant's credit card bills at the end of each show.
(The Oregonian; 22 August, 1996; p. B6)
"Quite frankly Ted, the very mention of the word 'Republican' seems to have negative connotations for the Americans in our studio."
Genuinely surprised Republican pollster Frank Luntz, explaining to Ted Koppel the results of his initial polling on the first night of the 1996 G.O.P. Convention. Luntz is the pollster responsible for the G.O.P.'s 'Contract With America'.
(Nightline; 12 August, 1996)
"We'll have to get rid of that beard."
Civil libertarian Ross Perot's first words to his (brief) 1992 campaign manager Ed Rollins.
(The Charlie Rose Show; August, 1996)
"It's a stupid word . . . tolerance."
Seventy-one year old Republican charmer, Phyllis Schlafly.
(The Oregonian; 10 August, 1996; p. A6)
"Talking about planets? Tell me where you see a question about planets on a job application."
Oregon millionaire Loren E. Parks, fuming about the educational curriculum at the private elementary school he funded.
(The Oregonian; 15 August, 1996; p. B6)
"Haven't got a clue, man."
Smiling superstar Garth Brooks, when asked to explain the reason for his immense popularity.
(The Oregonian; 27 July, 1996; p. D9)
"I found the conflict between Nike and Reebok demeaning . . . but maybe the games on that level are no longer demeanable."
Richard Lapchik, Director of the Center for Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University in Boston, commenting on the incident at the 1992 Olympic Games when basketball players who were paid to endorse Nike, refused to accept the gold medal on a victory stand with Reebok's name on it.
(The Christian Science Monitor On-Line; 22 July, 1996; 'Shoe Sponsors Step On Each Others' Toes')
"I don't believe that forgetting is one of the signs of forgiveness. I forgive, but I remember. I do not forget the pain, the loneliness, the ache, the terrible injustice. But I do not remember to inflict some future retribution."
The Rev. Lawrence Martin Jenco, a Roman Catholic priest who was held hostage by Islamic radicals for 18 months during the 1980s.
(The Oregonian; 20 July, 1996; p. B9)
"Imagine handing over our kids to these electronic child molesters who treat children as profit centers."
Mario Cummo, on the state of Saturday morning cartoons.
The Charlie Rose Show, February, 1996
"When I reached 65, the kids were all gone. -- I figured I wouldn't have anyone to chase around anymore, so I started running."
Bertha Holt, 92-year-old dynamo and head of Holt International Children's Services, who laces up her tennis shoes every day at 5:30 a.m. and runs a half mile.
(The Oregonian; 12 July, 1996; p. B5)
"The strict free marketer says you get what you earn. That rests on a heroic ideal. But I think the market can keep some people down."
Paul Warner, the state of Oregon's Chief Economist, commenting on statistics showing that the top 20% of households in Oregon took 55% of all pretax income in 1994 while the bottom 20% took home only 1.4% of pretax income during the same period.
(The Oregonian; 11 July, 1996; p. A11)
"The greatest thing about 1996 is that 1997 will be even better."
Phil Knight, Chairman and CEO of shoe manufacturer Nike, Inc.. Nike's shoes are assembled - often by children - in Asian countries where the workers often make $2.00 per day. Nike reported profits of 553.2 million dollars for the 1996 fiscal year.
(The Oregonian; 10 July, 1996; p. A1)
"Software will never replace the Koran"
Writing on a yellowed scrap of paper pinned to the wall in the office of innovative and Emmy-award-winning advertising guru Dan Wieden.
(The Oregonian; 7 July, 1996; p. A8)
"Barry Manilow has a career. I don't see why Paul McCartney shouldn't."
music critic Robert Christgau.
(The Oregonian; 24 June, 1996; p. C4)
"But why is it unconscionable for a poor country to allow child labor? Pakistan has a per-capita income of $1,900 per year - meaning that the typical person subsists on barely $5 per day. Is it a revelation - or a crime - that some parents willingly send their children off to work in a factory to survive? Is it cruel for Nike to give them the chance?"
"Libertarian" newspaper columnist Stephen Chapman, arguing that the best way to end child-labor is to buy more of the products the children produce.
(The Oregonian; 15 June, 1996; p. B9)
"[Women facing "female circumcision"] simply don't have the resources or the control over their lives to flee or to flee to a country as far away and as different from their own countries as the United States."
Attorney Karen Musalo, calming fears about a rush of refugees into the U.S. after the Board of Immigration Appeals granted asylum to a young woman from Togo who fled her country in order to avoid the ritual of genital mutilation referred to as female circumcision.
(The Oregonian; 15 June, 1996; p. A8)
"We know [smoking tobacco] is not good for kids, but a lot of other things aren't good. Drinking's not good. Some would say milk's not good."
Former U.S. Senator Bob Dole.
(The Oregonian; 15 June, 1996; p. A9)
"Each generation suffers different pain. The thing young people seem to suffer now is a lack of comprehension at how beautiful life is."
Pioneer punk Patti Smith.
(The Oregonian; 15 June, 1996; p. A2)
"It is not the critic who counts. Not the one who points out how a strong man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; and who, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."
Former Journalist and U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.
"With all due respect to the world's great drummers - it ain't brain surgery."
Mickey Dolenz, former drummer for The Monkees.
(The Oregonian; 10 June, 1996; p. A2)
"I think we ought to have hearings."
House Majority Leader, Republican Richard Armey, announcing his priorities as a statesman. He's referring to the issue of why a military aide temporarily detailed to the White House and working from an outdated list of those with White House access, mistakenly requested - and then returned - FBI background summaries on several people in early 1994.
(The Oregonian; 10 June, 1996; p. A1)
"I believe that once children are in Texas, regardless of how their parents arrived here, it is in our best interest to educate them. An educated child is less likely to commit a crime and more likely to succeed."
Texas Republican governor George W. Bush, bucking election-year anti-foreigner hysteria and sounding like a decent human being.
(The Oregonian; 9 June, 1996; p. A15)
"It was never the intention of the prosecutor's office or the court to punish the juvenile as much as to help her and her unborn child to become productive members of society."
Douglas Varie, Esq., Gem County, Idaho prosecutor who charged a 17-year-old high school girl with the crime of fornication after he learned that she had become pregnant out of wedlock.
(The Oregonian; 9 June, 1996; p. C6)
"That's the only place you see real justice done."
72 year-old Hayden Jones, who is destitute and dying of cancer, commenting on why he spends his last days watching legal dramas like Matlock and Perry Mason on television. Jones is a Pennsylvania man who spent 21 years of his life in prison. He was framed by police in 1949 after refusing to pay them bribe, and sentenced to 20 years in prison. His wife and three children were killed in an automobile accident on the way to visit him in prison. The state of Pennsylvania refuses to compensate him for fear of establishing a precedent for paying those it has unjustly imprisoned.
(The Seattle Times; 5 May, 1996; p. A11)
"I think he's one of the more politically sensitive people we have in our party when it comes to women and the women's vote."
Republican Congresswoman Susan Molinari, invoking the theory of relativity in order to lionize G.O.P. Guru Newt Gingrich.
(The Oregonian; 21 April, 1996; p. A12)
"Most of the people I know have done heroin . . . and I didn't even know. -- It's so hard to keep spoons in Seattle. At first I couldn't figure out why I had so many knives and forks, but I kept losing my spoons."
Melissa Rossi, author and former grunge-club columnist for Seattle Weekly.
(The Oregonian; 5 May, 1996; p. D2)
"There's this hypocrisy that 'We're a family - We're on the same team'."
Former head of HBO and Warner Brothers Music, Michael Fuchs, describing life within Corporate America.
(The Charlie Rose Show; 25 April, 1996)
"I believe the war on poverty is a more American idea than the war on the war on poverty. I believe that most people feel like that. -- And I believe that it ain't over till it's over."
Bruce Springsteen, American Icon. Explaining why he dedicated the song Ghost of Tom Joad to "the Gingrich mob" during a Washington, DC concert.
(Mother Jones; April, 1996; p. 24)
"I think history is moving in a very interesting way. Twenty years ago we worried about the pressures of government . . . about government censorship. Today the pressures are from business, which is just as dangerous, just as menacing - even more so in some ways"
Daniel Schorr, Emmy-winning 79-year-old broadcast journalist.
(The Oregonian; 1 April, 1996; p. C8)
"You need to know that a member of Congress who refuses to allow the minimum wage to come up for a vote made more money during last year's one-month government shutdown than a minimum wage worker makes in an entire year."
Bill Clinton, President of the United States.
(The Oregonian; 31 March, 1996; p. A10)
"I said yes immediately. - Anything else would have been bad form. If a woman proposes, that's a huge statement in our society. I had to say yes. I'm just lucky that it was her who proposed."
Nicolas Cage, actor, relaying an etiquette tip - as well as the story of his marriage to actress Patricia Arquette.
(The Oregonian; 1 April, 1996; p. C5)
"You don't take a shower with a raincoat on. One hears that quite a lot. But I think things will change. Human nature is such that even the most obtuse person will eventually avoid things that kill him."
Zimbabwe Minister of Health Timothy Stamps talking about condom use in south-central Africa.
(Seattle Times; 5 May, 1996; p. A24)
"American dreams are strongest in the hearts of those who have seen America only in their dreams."
Travel writer Pico Iyer.
(The Seattle Times; 21 April, 1996; p. A11)
"It is a great achievement."
Robert Foote, professor emeritus of animal physiology at Cornell University, commenting on the never-before-achieved-in-mammals feat of cloning and growing to birth, hundreds of genetically identical sheep. The accomplishment was performed at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh, Scotland.
(The Seattle Post-Intelligencer; 7 March, 1996; p. A8)
"You're going to test someone for drugs and alcohol before they go into the studio to make a record? . . . That would disqualify most of the great albums of the past."
Gordon Sumner (Sting), maker of great albums, commenting on a proposal by the National Association of Recording Artists to drug-test musicians.
(CNN Headline News; 28 February, 1996)
"More depressing than what 'Friends' considers wit, [ . . . ] is the fact that the program transmits to teenagers the message that such shallow sexuality is not only acceptable, it is expected of them. Those who accept this notion of sophistication are apt to have an impoverished sense of sensuousness, of the delights of real adult sexual electricity [ . . . ] Mature eroticism will be unimaginable to them."
Political pundit and love counselor, George F. Will.
(Seattle Post-Intelligencer; 25 February, 1996; p. E3)
"[The video] contains some very, very revealing information, [but Simpson] doesn't reveal the real killer nor does he admit he did it. If he revealed the real killer, this video wouldn't be selling for only $29.95."
Tony Hoffman, producer of O.J. Simpson: The Video -- and a man who obviously knows the value of a dollar.
(The Oregonian; 11 January, 1996; p. A17)
"Let me tell you, you can paint pictures and get people indicted for just about anything."
Alfonse D'Amato, Republican, and Chairman of the Senate Whitewater hearings.
(The Oregonian; 11 January, 1996; p. A13)
"You have a better chance of being killed in a car accident on the way to work than from a gunman who walks into your office. - But they are increasing in frequency and are more likely now than ever."
Reassuring words from James Alan Fox, dean of the college of criminal justice at Northeastern University in Boston, interviewed by a Portland, Oregon reporter the day after a gunman took hostages and shot two people at an office building in downtown Portland.
(The Oregonian; 7 January, 1996; p. A11)
You can reach me by e-mail at: williamf@drizzle.com
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Compilation Copyright © 1996 Bill Frick (All Rights Reserved)
