Top 100 Carl Hiaasen Quotes (2024 Update)
Page 2 of 3

51. “Unfortunately for novelists, real life is getting way too funny and far-fetched.”

— Carl Hiaasen

52. “There’s so much hate that we direct externally that we forget we have our own psychos. But that’s the role of the satirist – you have to examine your own country and say, look!”

— Carl Hiaasen

53. “Buck stared incredulously. “This is the first time you ever fired a gun? And you live in Florida?”

— Carl Hiaasen

54. “Unfortunately, I don’t get to read nearly as much as I want because I’m always working on my own stuff, either the novels or newspaper columns.”

— Carl Hiaasen

55. “I’ve always enjoyed making people laugh. But in order for me to be funny, I have to get ticked off about something.”

— Carl Hiaasen

56. “Mrs. Bonneville never buckled her seat belt, even though it was required by state law; an ardent libertarian, she opposed government meddling in all matters of personal choice.”

— Carl Hiaasen

57. “Garcia wondered why people with JESUS stickers on their bumper always drove twenty miles per hour under the speed limit. If God was my co-pilot, he thought, I’d be doing a hundred and twenty.”

— Carl Hiaasen

58. “I think in the old days, the nexus of weirdness ran through Southern California, and to a degree New York City. I think it’s changed so that every bizarre story in the country now has a Florida connection. I don’t know why, except it must be some inversion of magnetic poles or something.”

— Carl Hiaasen

59. “As frightening as this may sound, what you see in the books is the way I see the world. And so far I haven’t seen anything, either in Florida or elsewhere, to dissuade me from it.”

— Carl Hiaasen

60. “My roommate is a 240-pound homicidal hermit. For dinner he’s fixing me a dead fox he scraped off the highway near Ponchatoula, and after that we’re taking a leaky tin boat out on a windy lake to spy on some semi-retarded fishermen. Don’t you wish you were here?”

— Carl Hiaasen

61. “The gunshots awakened Mr. Ullman, a banker by trade and a recent arrival from Copenhagen, who looked out the bedroom window just in time to see a tremendous bull galloping across his yard with a thrashing young American impaled on its rack. Mr. Ullman quickly telephoned the police and informed them, as urgently as his newly-acquired English would allow, that an ’unlucky cowboy is being perforated seriously.”

— Carl Hiaasen

62. “Every writer scrounges for inspiration in different places, and there’s no shame in raiding the headlines. It’s necessary, in fact, when attempting contemporary satire. Sharp-edged humor relies on topical reference points.”

— Carl Hiaasen

63. “Hey. Sometimes to conclusions.”

— Carl Hiaasen

64. “When I’m working on a novel of my own, I try to read mostly nonfiction, although sometimes I break down and peek at something else.”

— Carl Hiaasen

65. “I’d love to see a good script of one of my books, in these years of animations and comic book sequels, and had so many written over the years, but none quite clicked.”

— Carl Hiaasen

66. “After the first gunshot, they dove to the ground and pressed themselves flat. Then came two other shots, followed shortly by more. Nick was sure he heard one of the bullets zing off a nearby tree.”

— Carl Hiaasen

67. “Earl, you can’t walk around with a lead slug up your bottom. It’s bound to affect your outlook.” Tool jerked his hand away. “I’ll get it took care of, I swear.” “It could well be the turning point in your life,” she said. “What they call an epiphany. Or at least a catharsis.” He assumed those to be the surgical terms for a bullet removal, and he promised Maureen he would schedule the operation as soon as he got a break in his bodyguarding schedule.”

— Carl Hiaasen

68. “Obviously you have to make a profit to put out a newspaper. I’m not an idiot. But when the margins are in excess of 25 per cent you’re talking about greed.”

— Carl Hiaasen

69. “He paused and manufactured a chuckle.”

— Carl Hiaasen

70. “Don’t order the fish,” Yancy advised Merry when they sat down. “But it’s a seafood joint.” “More like a petri dish with menus. When they say ‘catch of the day,’ they mean infection.” Brennan.”

— Carl Hiaasen

71. “For now, there’s nothing to do but strap on an attitude and act like I’m having a ball.”

— Carl Hiaasen

72. “Love isn’t about thinking. You should know that by now.”

— Carl Hiaasen

73. “From the pancake house I drive directly to the county morgue. The contrast is not especially striking.”

— Carl Hiaasen

74. “The deceased was a well-known scumbucket and they don’t usually have the decency to kill themselves. Usually someone else does the honor.”

— Carl Hiaasen

75. “All novels are about crime. You’d be hard pressed to find any novel that does not have an element of crime. I don’t see myself as a crime novelist, but there are crimes in my books. That’s the nature of storytelling, if you want to reflect the real world.”

— Carl Hiaasen

76. “You from the IRS? The man’s voice was deep and wet, like mud slipping down a drain.”

— Carl Hiaasen

77. “We get along fine. In return for food and shelter, they give me unconditional indifference.”

— Carl Hiaasen

78. “Wiley’s behavior had lately become so odd that younger reporters who once sought his counsel were now fearful of his ravings, and they avoided him.”

— Carl Hiaasen

79. “Not my circus, not my monkey.” Yancy.”

— Carl Hiaasen

80. “He’s got basically the same height and frame as the President,” Christian explained, “so we use him for the trial tan, just to make sure there’s no temperature issues or electrical glitches.” The Knob glanced over at Angie. “Thirteen minutes on my back,” he said with a salacious hitch of an eyebrow. “Easy money, babe.”

— Carl Hiaasen

81. “He wondered if something was mentally wrong with him for being content with what he had.”

— Carl Hiaasen

82. “From my experience, politicians are much more uncomfortable being made fun of than they are being preached at and screeched at – you know, and the soapbox routine. They’re much more uneasy knowing they’re a target of ridicule.”

— Carl Hiaasen

83. “Cab Mulcahy was a patient man, especially for a managing editor. He had been in newspapers his entire adult life and almost nothing could provoke him. Whenever the worst kind of madness gripped the newsroom, Mulcahy would emerge to take charge, instantly imposing a rational and temperate mood.”

— Carl Hiaasen

84. “Aldous Huxley. ‘Being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune.’ You think about that.”

— Carl Hiaasen

85. “I won’t be making any friends in the corporate suites.”

— Carl Hiaasen

86. “In his love life Yancy specialized in devising scenarios that could lead only to unwise decisions.”

— Carl Hiaasen

87. “Angie had been summoned to Casa Bellicosa to unfasten a screech owl from the presidential pompadour, which the low-swooping raptor had mistaken for a road-kill fox. When Angie arrived, the commander-in-chief was lurching madly around the helipad, bellowing and clawing at the Velcro skull patch into which the confused bird had embedded its talons.”

— Carl Hiaasen

88. “Mastodon railed on a while longer, making air quotes with his stubby doll fingers whenever mentioning the name Diego, and thundering that this was exactly the bloodthirsty breed of invader that the White House had been warning the nation about.”

— Carl Hiaasen

89. “The nation was under siege by bloodthirsty hordes charging like rabid wolverines across the borders.”

— Carl Hiaasen

90. “Deep in every angler’s soul is a secret confidence in his own special prowess that impels him to keep fishing in the face of common sense, basic science, financial ruin, and even natural disasters.”

— Carl Hiaasen

91. “You won’t change the whole world, but you’ll change somebody’s world – and for the better. And, just as inevitably, some of you won’t. You’ll park your principles in the long-term lot and spend your future taking advantage of people.”

— Carl Hiaasen

92. “In nature violence is pure and purposeful, one species against another in an act of survival!”

— Carl Hiaasen

93. “The vandals didn’t stand a chance against five hundred–odd pounds of badass dog flesh. They.”

— Carl Hiaasen

94. “It’s pretty tough to keep the lid on mass murder,” remarked the Miami police chief. “God knows we’ve tried.”

— Carl Hiaasen

95. “Buck got walloped by flying fists and Budweiser bottles, and at one point a man costumed as Lady Gaga attempted to rip the beard from his chin. The man was surprisingly strong, and wore just enough jasmine perfume to be distracting.”

— Carl Hiaasen

96. “In a place like South Florida, such heart-bound faith in the justice system could best be described as quaint.”

— Carl Hiaasen

97. “Despite the meatiness of his fingers, Dominick showed himself to be a nimble texter.”

— Carl Hiaasen

98. “If you can’t find anything wet enough, leave the premises immediately.” “My life motto,” said Uric.”

— Carl Hiaasen

99. “Buck’s girlfriend went by the porny name of Miracle though she had a master’s in computer science from Florida State.”

— Carl Hiaasen

100. “Merry sighed. “Once again, Andrew, you’ve opened my eyes. To what, I’m not sure.”

— Carl Hiaasen