Top 500 Dave Barry Quotes (2024 Update)
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451. “Auto racing is boring except when a car is going at least 172 miles per hour upside down.”

— Dave Barry

452. “One key lesson of history is that virtually anything, including afternoon or evening thundershowers, causes Germany to invade Belgium.”

— Dave Barry

453. “Big business never pays a nickel in taxes, according to Ralph Nader, who represents a big consumer organization that never pays a nickel in taxes.”

— Dave Barry

454. “I report as a machine; I write as a person. That clear dichotomy softens the transition.”

— Dave Barry

455. “The fact that Gene Weingarten and I and Bathroom Inventory are now part of some kind of Matrix of Poop strongly suggests that the Pulitzer is not what it once was.”

— Dave Barry

456. “Never try to put all the chemicals in the entire world in your body at the same time.”

— Dave Barry

457. “Editorials are written by people who have agreed to have several strong opinions a day and to write them down, provided they do not have to sign their names.”

— Dave Barry

458. “This ball was so crowded that it took me – a trained professional journalist with vast experience in this area – forty five minutes to get a beer.”

— Dave Barry

459. “The major parties could conduct live human sacrifices on their podiums during prime time, and I doubt that anybody would notice.”

— Dave Barry

460. “To better understand why you need a personal computer, let’s take a look at the pathetic mess you call your life.”

— Dave Barry

461. “The only really good place to buy lumber is at a store where the lumber has already been cut and attached together in the form of furniture finished and put inside boxes.”

— Dave Barry

462. “What I like best about the telephone is that it keeps you in touch with people, particularly people who want to sell you magazine subscriptions in the middle of the night.”

— Dave Barry

463. “The simple truth is that balding African-American men look cool when they shave their heads, whereas balding white men look like giant thumbs.”

— Dave Barry

464. “It is an inconvenience, being located in a city where taxes are ludicrously high, where you pay twice your annual income to rent an apartment that could easily be carried on a commercial airline flight.”

— Dave Barry

465. “They looked plainly scared, except for one, a wiry boy with bright orange hair – not the largest of the lot, but the one who seemed to be in charge. He had an air about him, Alf thought, the look of a boy who doesn’t miss much.”

— Dave Barry

466. “I want to gag sometimes when I see who “we” are recommending that people vote for, and not just as a libertarian.”

— Dave Barry

467. “I have read that, on the average, the Japanese are getting taller, but at the moment they seem to be about the same height as American junior-high-school students, only with fewer guns.”

— Dave Barry

468. “Millions of Americans own dogs, because they are good-natured, simple, and easily amused. I am referring here to the Americans. The dogs are not exactly Mensa members either, but they definitely make better pets than tropical fish.”

— Dave Barry

469. “When Prince Charles speaks, everybody pretends to be fascinated, even though he has never said anything interesting except in that intercepted telephone conversation wherein he expressed the desire to be a feminine hygeine product.”

— Dave Barry

470. “If you were to open up a baby’s head – and I am not for a moment suggesting that you should – you would find nothing but an enormous drool gland.”

— Dave Barry

471. “England manufactures most of the world’s airline food, as well as all the food you ever ate in your junior-high-school cafeteria.”

— Dave Barry

472. “I’ve never actually given birth to a child, but I suspect that going to a Justin Bieber concert with a child is close.”

— Dave Barry

473. “What may seem depressing or even tragic to one person may seem like an absolute scream to another person, especially if he has had between four and seven beers.”

— Dave Barry

474. “Famous designers think nothing of putting their names on your clothing, but would have the servants set the dogs on you if you ever tried to put your name on their clothing.”

— Dave Barry

475. “I watched as an extremely nerdy exhibitor – I’m talking about a guy who makes Bill Gates look like Brad Pitt...”

— Dave Barry

476. “There are two distinctive classes of people today, those who have personal computers, and those who have several thousand extra dollars apiece.”

— Dave Barry

477. “For me, the worst part of playing golf, by far, has always been hitting the ball.”

— Dave Barry

478. “I guess libertarianism is always considered so weird and fringe that people assume that you’re in the closet if you don’t go around talking about it.”

— Dave Barry

479. “When I say ‘serve you better,’ I mean ‘increase our profits.’ We newspapers are very big on profits these days.”

— Dave Barry

480. “You can, legally, possibly hit and kill a fellow golfer with a ball, and there will not be a lot of trouble because the other golfers will refuse to stop and be witnesses because they will want to keep playing.”

— Dave Barry

481. “I can’t recall a story that played out exactly as I’d expected it to. That’s one of the thrills of journalism – being surprised, and learning new stuff, but it also poses the biggest challenge to a writer’s character.”

— Dave Barry

482. “People are afraid to own their own homes. People are afraid their own government will catch them fixing their houses.”

— Dave Barry

483. “Don’t emphasise money if you don’t have much; be happy.”

— Dave Barry

484. “I always assumed that at some point I would have to quit making jokes, get a real job and do something meaningful and productive that would actually benefit society. Fortunately this never happened.”

— Dave Barry

485. “Sailboats are the slowest form of transportation on Earth with the possible exeption of airline flights that go through O’Hare.”

— Dave Barry

486. “Unless you live in Indonesia, there should be several malls within five miles of your home. It makes no difference whatsoever which one you go to: Under federal law, all malls in the United States must have the same 42 chain stores.”

— Dave Barry

487. “Stache’s attack was perfectly timed, thanks to his veteran-pirate grasp tactics – and a big piece if luck.”

— Dave Barry

488. “Dogs feel very strongly that they should always go with you in the car, in case the need should arise for them to bark violently at nothing right in your ear.”

— Dave Barry

489. “Molly happy see Ammm,” she said. The Porpoise language has 237 words that mean “happy,” and Molly had actually chosen the one denoting the happiness derived from having one’s belly tickled by seaweed.”

— Dave Barry

490. “Panicky despair is an underrated element of writing.”

— Dave Barry

491. “If the people in Europe are SOOOOOO smart, how come so many of them can’t seem to locate the deodorant, huh?”

— Dave Barry

492. “I don’t know what you can possibly do for less than $50 to have somebody come in your house.”

— Dave Barry

493. “Before going on a diet you should consult your doctor, or at least send him some money.”

— Dave Barry

494. “Many, many of you have written to me asking the following question: ‘Dave, have their been any new advancements in the field of artificial falcon insemination, and could these developments be used to improve the American electoral process?’”

— Dave Barry

495. “The term SAT is a set of initials, or autonym, standing for Scholastic Attitude Treaty Organization.”

— Dave Barry

496. “Many things have been written, including by me, linking humor and pain. Mostly, in my case, the humor part keeps me sane. If I spent all my hours writing things like “Fatal Distraction,” I’d become a brooding, erratic melancholic. I’d be Raskolnikov.”

— Dave Barry

497. “As a professional journalist, I have always been fascinated by people who appear to have even more spare time than I do.”

— Dave Barry

498. “I am not the only person who uses his computer mainly for the purpose of diddling with his computer.”

— Dave Barry

499. “New houses, which are crap, because they don’t build them the way they used to anymore. Old houses, which used to be good, because they were built back when they built them the way they used to, but which today, as a result of being old, are crap. So whichever kind of house you own, it’s going to be some variety of crap, which means sooner or later everything in it will break. Dealing with broken things is the essence of home ownership, and it’s exhausting.”

— Dave Barry

500. “There was nowhere to sit except the bunk, which was covered with rotting food, and a wooden stool, upon which sat a large fur-covered lump – an old cheese, perhaps, or a dead cat.”

— Dave Barry