Top 500 Dave Barry Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “He’s a boating enthusiast, although that phrase seems too weak to describe the level of his interest, kind of like describing someone as a heroin fancier.”

— Dave Barry

202. “If Peter was nine, and a new boy came to St. Norbert’s Home for Wayward Boys who said he was ten, why, then, Peter would declare himself eleven. Also, he could spit the farthest. That made him the undisputed leader.”

— Dave Barry

203. “I realize that I’m generalizing here, but as is often the case when I generalize, I don’t care.”

— Dave Barry

204. “Today’s beauty ideal, strictly enforced by the media, is a person with the same level of body fat as a paper clip.”

— Dave Barry

205. “There’s only one way kids will wear helmets, and that’s if their parents are nagging them to. They will never wear helmets because some state passes a law requiring it.”

— Dave Barry

206. “The whole thing about whether you smoke marijuana or not is so ridiculous. That and whether you protested the Vietnam War. Give me a break. Especially the marijuana thing.”

— Dave Barry

207. “Dinner Special – Turkey $2.35; Chicken or Beef $2.25; Children $2.00.”

— Dave Barry

208. “Sign outside a country shop: We buy junk and sell antiques.”

— Dave Barry

209. “Sign at a Kentucky appliance store: Don’t kill your wife. Let our washing machine do the dirty work.”

— Dave Barry

210. “Never board a commercial aircraft if the pilot is wearing a tank top.”

— Dave Barry

211. “I’ve noticed that one thing about parents is that no matter what stage your child is in, the parents who have older children always tell you the next stage is worse.”

— Dave Barry

212. “Dogs make good pets because they are very loyal.”

— Dave Barry

213. “Nevada has a very dynamic economy, with gambling being the number-one industry, followed closely by blood donorship.”

— Dave Barry

214. “I believe that we parents must encourage our children to become educated, so they can get into a good college that we cannot afford.”

— Dave Barry

215. “Airline food is not intended for human consumption. It’s intended as a form of in-flight entertainment, wherein the object is to guess what it is, starting with broad categories such as “mineral” and “linoleum.””

— Dave Barry

216. “The greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison Edison’s first major invention, in 1877, was the phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of American homes, where it basically sat until 1923, when the record was invented.”

— Dave Barry

217. “Once again we find ourselves enmeshed in the Holiday Season, that very special time of year when we join with our loved ones in sharing centuries-old traditions such as trying to find a parking space at the mall.”

— Dave Barry

218. “Entire new continent can emerge from the ocean in the time it takes for a Web page to show up on your screen. Contrary to what you may have heard, the Internet does not operate at the speed of light; it operates at the speed of the DMV.”

— Dave Barry

219. “This book is dedicated to Wilbur and Orville Wright, without whom air sickness would still be just a dream.”

— Dave Barry

220. “Palestinian and Israeli leaders finally recover the Road Map to Peace, only to discover that, while they were looking for it, the Lug Nuts of Mutual Interest came off the Front Left Wheel of Accommodation, causing the Sport Utility Vehicle of Progress to crash into the Ditch of Despair.”

— Dave Barry

221. “I’m not saying that women don’t think about sex also. I’m saying that women are capable, for at least brief periods of time, of not thinking about sex, and that most guys are not.”

— Dave Barry

222. “We decide to start with the best-known sight of all, the one that, more than any other, exemplifies what the Big Apple is all about: the Islip Garbage Barge.”

— Dave Barry

223. “Black Stache had no love for the Queen, no love for women of any sort, except for his ma. He had a real soft spot for his ma, and was truly sorry for the time he’d marooned her.”

— Dave Barry

224. “Toaster: A gift that every member of the family appreciates. Automatically burns toast.”

— Dave Barry

225. “You have to be careful on the deck, because of the “hatches,” which are holes placed around a sailboat at random to increase the insurance rates.”

— Dave Barry

226. “You can put suspenders on a salamander, but it still won’t make waffles. See what I mean? That sentence makes absolutely no sense, but I got paid to write it. It’s printed right here in a published book!”

— Dave Barry

227. “Sign at a Tennessee highway: When this sign is under water, this road is impassable.”

— Dave Barry

228. “In foreign countries such as Italy, the government puts strict-looking speed limit signs everywhere, but nobody ever sees them because light does not travel fast enough to catch the Italian drivers.”

— Dave Barry

229. “All other nations are drinking Ray Charles beer and we are drinking Barry Manilow.”

— Dave Barry

230. “I have been a gigantic Rolling Stones fan since approximately the Spanish-American War.”

— Dave Barry

231. “To enter Europe, you must have a valid passport with a photograph of yourself in which you look like you are being booked on charges of soliciting sheep.”

— Dave Barry

232. “The leading cause of death among fashion models is falling through street grates.”

— Dave Barry

233. “First, a few words about this title. It isn’t easy, coming up with book titles. A lot of the really good ones are taken. Thin Thighs in 30 Days, for example. Also The Bible.”

— Dave Barry

234. “Mother Nature clearly intended for us to get our food from the “patty” group, which includes hamburgers, fish sticks, and McNuggets- foods that have had all of their organs safely removed.”

— Dave Barry

235. “Childbirth, as a strictly physical phenomenon, is comparable to driving a United Parcel truck through an inner tube.”

— Dave Barry

236. “In Spain, attempting to obtain a chicken salad sandwich, you wind up with a dish whose name, when you look it up in your Spanish-English dictionary, turns out to mean: Eel with big abcess.”

— Dave Barry

237. “Canada, as you know, is a major important nation boasting a sophisticated, cosmopolitan culture that was tragically destroyed last week by beavers.”

— Dave Barry

238. “My theory is that there is a finite amount of intelligence in a family, and you’re supposed to gradually transfer it to your children over a period of many years. This is why your parents started to get so stupid just at the time in your life when you were getting really smart.”

— Dave Barry

239. “The first animals to be successfully domesticated were dogs, which were a big help because they would bark all night and fetch thrown sticks, thereby freeing humans from having to perform these tedious yet vital tasks.”

— Dave Barry

240. “RAM: This gives guys a way of deciding whose computer has the biggest, studliest memory. That’s important, because the more memory a computer has, the faster it can produce error messages.”

— Dave Barry

241. “Classical music gradually lost popularity because it is too complicated: you need twenty-five or thirty skilled musicians just to hum it properly. So people began to develop regular music.”

— Dave Barry

242. “The Russians will never be able to get their missiles thought the dense protective layer of delayed flights circling over the United States in complex, puke-inducing holding patterns.”

— Dave Barry

243. “A sense of humor is a measurement of the extent to which we realize that we are trapped in a world almost totally devoid of reason. Laughter is how we express the anxiety we feel at this knowledge.”

— Dave Barry

244. “If Black Stache laughed, you laughed. If he snarled, you snarled. If he breathed in your direction, you ran for cover.”

— Dave Barry

245. “Each year, millions of skiers come to Colorado to experience its superb emergency medical facilities.”

— Dave Barry

246. “Skiing combines outdoor fun with knocking down trees with your face.”

— Dave Barry

247. “Lobsters displays all three of the classic biological characteristics of an insect, namely: 1. It has way more legs than necessary. 2. There is no way you would ever pet it. 3. It does not respond to simple commands such as “Here, boy!””

— Dave Barry

248. “When I write my annual tax column, some ex-IRS agent will complain, “There you go IRS bashing again.” They’re always saying that they’re just doing their job. Someone I know once said, “You could get another job.””

— Dave Barry

249. “I’ve never been struck by lightning as far as I know, so the Higher Power is treating me as well as even those people who love him very much.”

— Dave Barry

250. “Happens if a big asteroid hits Earth? Judging from realistic simulations...”

— Dave Barry