Top 500 Dave Barry Quotes (2026 Update)
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301. “The most valuable function performed by the federal government is entertainment.”

— Dave Barry

302. “Orangutan are very weird animals but they look very soulful.”

— Dave Barry

303. “You should be prepared for anything during divorce proceedings – even the truth.”

— Dave Barry

304. “He felt a momentary pang of regret that he had not spent more time with his beloved wife. But it passed when he remembered that the reason he’d gone to sea in the first place was that he had never really liked his beloved wife.”

— Dave Barry

305. “You cannot paint the exterior of your house. You have to take the paint chip down to show the paint-chip Nazis.”

— Dave Barry

306. “As sensitive and broad-minded humans, we must never allow ourselves to be in any way judgmental of the religious practices of other people, even when these people clearly are raving space loons.”

— Dave Barry

307. “Geographically, Ireland is a medium-sized rural island that is slowly but steadily being consumed by sheep.”

— Dave Barry

308. “Trails need to be reconstructed. Please avoid building trails that go uphill.”

— Dave Barry

309. “Most American homes have alternating current, which means that the electricty goes in one direction for a while, then goes in the other direction. This prevents harmful electron buildup in the wires.”

— Dave Barry

310. “Don’t you wish you had a job like mine? All you have to do is think up a certain number of words! Plus, you can repeat words! And they don’t even have to be true!”

— Dave Barry

311. “Cats are independent, by which I mean smart.”

— Dave Barry

312. “Democracy: In which you say what you like and do what you’re told.”

— Dave Barry

313. “You know how on the evening news they always tell you that the stock market is up in active trading, or off in moderate trading, or trading in mixed activity, or whatever. Well, who gives a.”

— Dave Barry

314. “Is there a medical rule that requires doctors-office personnel to treat you as though you have the IQ of a Cheeto?”

— Dave Barry

315. “Found a smoldering cigarette left by a horse.”

— Dave Barry

316. “Reflectors need to be placed on trees every 50 feet so people can hike at night with flashlights.”

— Dave Barry

317. “Without good grammar, the United States would have lost World War II.”

— Dave Barry

318. “In my experience, you run into trouble when you ask a group of beer-drinking men to perform any task more complex than remembering not to light the filter ends of cigarettes.”

— Dave Barry

319. “Of course God enjoys a good prank as much as the next infallible deity.”

— Dave Barry

320. “Take out the fortune before you eat the cookie.”

— Dave Barry

321. “2. The instant the doors open, you want to push forward as hard as possible, in an effort to get onto the train without letting anybody off. This is very important. If anybody does get off, it is legal to tackle him and drag him back on.”

— Dave Barry

322. “He was distracted by a giggle, and turned to see a rare sight: a girl.”

— Dave Barry

323. “Ban walking sticks in wilderness. Hikers that use walking sticks are more likely to chase animals.”

— Dave Barry

324. “Infiniti ads are part of an exciting new trend called “Advertising Whose Sole Purpose Is to Irritate You.””

— Dave Barry

325. “I had no shoes and I pitied myself. Then I met a man who had no feet, so I took his shoes.”

— Dave Barry

326. “As you know, birds do not have sexual organs because they would interfere with flight.”

— Dave Barry

327. “Elsewhere in Italy is the lovely city of Venice, which each year attracts millions of visitors despite the fact that it is basically an enormous open sewer...”

— Dave Barry

328. “The nuclear generator of brain sludge is television.”

— Dave Barry

329. “Crabgrass can grow on bowling balls in airless rooms, and there is no known way to kill it that does not involve nuclear weapons.”

— Dave Barry

330. “The Republicans have a high Beady-Eyed Self-Righteous Scary Borderline Loon Quotient, as evidenced by Phyllis Schlafly, Pat Robertson, the entire state of Utah, etc.”

— Dave Barry

331. “The way this country deals with drugs is just not funny. What a waste of everyone’s time and effort. What a waste of a lot of people’s lives.”

— Dave Barry

Featured in: Country Quotes

332. “Never have a dog. Let’s not beat around the bush here: dogs are morons.”

— Dave Barry

333. “More and more products are coming out in fiercely protective packaging designed to prevent consumers from consuming them. These days you have to open almost every consumer item by gnawing on the packaging.”

— Dave Barry

334. “Megahertz: This is really, really big hertz.”

— Dave Barry

335. “I think Superman should go on the Larry King show and announce that he would come back to life if people in all 50 states wanted him to.”

— Dave Barry

336. “As long as humanity has been human, it has looked toward the heavens and dreamed that some day, some way, there would be giant federal contracts involved.”

— Dave Barry

337. “It would be hard to conceive of any activity more useless than stamp collecting.”

— Dave Barry

338. “My wife, like many women, actually LIKES wrapping things. If she gives you a gift that requires batteries, she wraps the batteries separately, which to me is very close to being a symptom of mental illness.”

— Dave Barry

339. “My current computer, in addition to ‘DOS,’ has ‘Windows,’ which is another invention of Bill Gates, designed as a security measure to thwart those users who are somehow able to get past DOS.”

— Dave Barry

340. “Another foreign-policy triumph for Reagan was his 1984 visit to China, where he met for more than three hours with Mao Zedong before realizing that Mao was dead.”

— Dave Barry

341. “Newspaper readership is declining like crazy. In fact, there’s a good chance that nobody is reading my column.”

— Dave Barry

Featured in: Reading Quotes

342. “Never allow a child to spend all of his allowance. Insist that he set aside a certain amount of money every week and put it in a safe place, where you can get it if you need to buy beer.”

— Dave Barry

343. “Avoid the traffic by using one of the park’s shuttle buses and view the elk rut with a park ranger.”

— Dave Barry

344. “I hate to speak for the whole society, but I will. I’m a journalist, it’s my job. There’s been something of a reaction against political correctness. Needless to say, the government hasn’t caught up yet.”

— Dave Barry

345. “Skiers view snowboarders as a menace; snowboarders view skiers as Elmer Fudd.”

— Dave Barry

346. “If for some reason you are unsure where to go, all you have to do is stand there looking lost, and within seconds a helpful New Yorker will approach to see if you have any “spare” change.”

— Dave Barry

347. “We don’t shoot somebody soon, I’m gonna forget how.”

— Dave Barry

348. “The question is, why are politicians so eager to be president? What is it about the job that makes it worth revealing, on national television, that you have the ethical standards of a slime-coated piece of industrial waste?”

— Dave Barry

349. “Spiders so large they appear to be wearing the pelts of small mammals.”

— Dave Barry

350. “What I need is a search engine that, no matter what I type in, comes back with GO BACK TO WORK.”

— Dave Barry