Top 500 Dave Barry Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Washington is nicknamed “The Evergreen State” because it sounds better than “The Incessant Nagging Drizzle State.””

— Dave Barry

52. “Dating means doing a lot of fun things you will never do again if you get married. The fun stops with marriage because you’re trying to save money for when you split up your property.”

— Dave Barry

53. “I tried sniffing Coke once, but the ice cubes got stuck in my nose.”

— Dave Barry

54. “Some archeologists believe that Stonehenge – the mysterious arrangement of enormous elongated stones in England – is actually a crude effort by the Druids to build a computing device.”

— Dave Barry

55. “Today’s scientific question is: What in the world is electricity? And where does it go after it leaves the toaster?”

— Dave Barry

56. “Today, you’re 50. Now we can round your age up to 100! Happy 50th birthday!”

— Dave Barry

57. “A printer consists of three main parts: the case, the jammed paper tray and the blinking red light.”

— Dave Barry

58. “Talking about golf is always boring. Playing golf can be interesting, but not the part where you try to hit the little ball; only the part where you drive the cart.”

— Dave Barry

59. “It is a scientific fact that your body will not absorb cholesterol if you take it from another person’s plate.”

— Dave Barry

60. “There shall be a National Anthem containing incomprehensible words and a high note that normal humans cannot hit without risk of hernia.”

— Dave Barry

61. “Aside from Velcro, time is the most mysterious substance in the universe.”

— Dave Barry

62. “I can snap your spine like a toothpick.”

— Dave Barry

63. “It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent.”

— Dave Barry

64. “Thanks to modern medical advances such as antibiotics, nasal spray, and Diet Coke, it has become routine for people in the civilized world to pass the age of 40, sometimes more than once.”

— Dave Barry

65. “We operate under a jury system in this country, and as much as we complain about it, we have to admit that we know of no better system, except possibly flipping a coin.”

— Dave Barry

66. “The Ford Falcon holds the proud title of Slowest Car Ever Built. In certain areas of the country you can go to a stoplight and find Falcon drivers who pressed down on their accelerators in 1963 and are still waiting for their cars to move.”

— Dave Barry

67. “Snowboarding is an activity that is very popular with people who do not feel that regular skiing is lethal enough.”

— Dave Barry

68. “It was not easy victory in the America Cup. Our boys spent years experimenting with different designs for their boat before they came up with the innovative idea of having a submerged nuclear submarine tow it.”

— Dave Barry

69. “Violence and smut are of course everywhere on the airwaves. You cannot turn on your television without seeing them, although sometimes you have to hunt around.”

— Dave Barry

70. “Do not spit gum in the drinking fountains.”

— Dave Barry

71. “The doctor looked at my cardiogram and made that “hmmmm” noise that doctors are taught in medical school so they won’t come right out and say “UH-oh!””

— Dave Barry

72. “Print neatly. That’s the kind of advice that the IRS considers a “dynamite” tax tip. If you ask them a real tax question, such as how you can cheat, they’re useless.”

— Dave Barry

73. “As a child, I was more afraid of tetanus shots than, for example, Dracula.”

— Dave Barry

74. “Unlike cats dogs never scratch you when you wash them. They just become very sad and try to figure out what they did wrong.”

— Dave Barry

75. “Database: the information you lose when your memory crashes.”

— Dave Barry

76. “Dogs need to sniff the ground; it’s how they keep abreast of current events. The ground is a giant dog newspaper, containing all kinds of late-breaking dog news items, which, if they are especially urgent, are often continued in the next yard.”

— Dave Barry

77. “There comes a time in a man’s life when he hears the call of the sea. If the man has a brain in his head, he will hang up the phone immediately.”

— Dave Barry

78. “Scientists tell us that the fastest animal in the world, with a speed of 120 mph, is a cow dropped out of a helicopter.”

— Dave Barry

79. “Thus the metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count the increasing popularity of the nine-millimeter bullet.”

— Dave Barry

80. “A child can go only so far in life without potty training. It is not mere coincidence that six of the last seven presidents were potty trained, not to mention nearly half of the nation’s state legislators.”

— Dave Barry

81. “I love the Olympics, because they enable people from all over the world to come together and – regardless of their political or cultural differences – accuse each other of cheating.”

— Dave Barry

82. “I recently had my annual physical examination, which I get once every seven years, and when the nurse weighed me, I was shocked to discover how much stronger the Earth’s gravitational pull has become since 1990.”

— Dave Barry

83. “Florida’s number three industry, behind tourism and skin cancer, is voter fraud.”

— Dave Barry

84. “Another important rule of affair-having: Never be discreet at the office.”

— Dave Barry

85. “As the saying goes: “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re a newspaper columnist.””

— Dave Barry

86. “Spain travel tip: If bathroom genders are indicated by flamingos, the boy flamingo is the one with a hat. I learned this the hard way.”

— Dave Barry

87. “No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.”

— Dave Barry

88. “DNA is an abbreviation for deoxyribonucleicantidisestablishmentarianism, a complex string of syllables.”

— Dave Barry

89. “Microsoft has a new version out, Windows XP, which according to everybody is the ‘most reliable Windows ever.’ To me, this is like saying that asparagus is ‘the most articulate vegetable ever.’”

— Dave Barry

90. “The population of earth has reached 7 billion people, every single one of whom send you irritating emails to join something called “LinkedIn.””

— Dave Barry

91. “I have never had a point in my life to make. I’m just trying to entertain the reader.”

— Dave Barry

92. “We believe that electricity exists, because the electric company keeps sending us bills for it, but we cannot figure out how it travels inside wires.”

— Dave Barry

93. “I would not know how I am supposed to feel about many stories if not for the fact that the TV news personalities make sad faces for sad stories and happy faces for happy stories.”

— Dave Barry

94. “Chair lifts need to be in some places so that we can get to wonderful views without having to hike to them.”

— Dave Barry

95. “Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.”

— Dave Barry

96. “Although humans tend to view sex as mainly a fun recreational activity sometimes resulting in death, in nature it is a far more serious matter.”

— Dave Barry

97. “Babies and Other Hazards of Sex: How to Make a Tiny Person in Only 9 Months, with Tools You Probably Have around the Home.”

— Dave Barry

98. “Earnest is our dog. She senses instantly that something is wrong, and guided by that timeless and unerring nurturing instinct that all female dogs have, she tries to lick my ears off.”

— Dave Barry

99. “Dogs do not grasp the concept of house cleaning.”

— Dave Barry

100. “The easiest way to make a fruitcake is to buy a darkish cake, then pound some old, hard fruit into it with a mallet. Be sure to wear safety glasses.”

— Dave Barry