Some Lewis Grizzard Quotes

Some of the better zingers from that great Southern humorist, Lewis Grizzard (1946-1994)

"The only good thing that ever came out of Chicago was I-65 South.”

“The world around me is a tuxedo, and I'm a pair of brown shoes.”

"Don't let your mouth write a check your ass can't cash."

"There are only three ways to sleep on a train: be dead tired, dead drunk, or just plain dead.”

"I grew up in a very large family in a very small house. I never slept alone until after I was married."

"The public, more often than not, will forgive mistakes, but it will not forgive trying to wriggle and weasel out of one."

“Why is it necessary to stand in line to deal with any branch of the government?”

"Bad luck is meeting your date's father and realizing he's the pharmacist you bought condoms from that afternoon."

"Baptists never make love standing up. They're afraid someone might see them and think they're dancing."

“Pornography does, in fact, have an effect on men. I grew up thinking that all women had a staple in their navel."

"Money doesn't grow on trees, and if it did, someone else would own the orchard."

"The greatest form of birth control known to man is a Bronx accent."

The game of life is a lot like football. You have to tackle your problems, block your fears, and score your points when you get the opportunity.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/l/lewis_grizzard.html#MZwPfJAVLt5fSGES.99

The game of life is a lot like football. You have to tackle your problems, block your fears, and score your points when you get the opportunity.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/l/lewis_grizzard.html#MZwPfJAVLt5fSGES.99

"First, we really don’t care how you did it in Chicago. Second, if you miss it so much, Delta is ready when you are."

"How can I trust a bank to keep my money safe when it has dozens of pens stolen every day?"

“There's nothing inherently dirty about sex, but if you try real hard and use your imagination you can overcome that.”  

"I have three ex-wives. I can't remember any of their names, so I just call 'em Plaintiff."

"I know lots of people who are educated far beyond their intelligence."

"My ex-wives had one thing in common. When they left, they all backed up a truck."

"There's a big difference between the words, ‘naked’ and ‘nekkid.’ ‘Naked’ means you don't have any clothes on. ‘Nekkid’ means you don't have any clothes on - and you're up to something."

“Kinky sex involves the use of duck feathers. Perverted sex involves the whole duck.”  

“The only way that I could figure they could improve upon Coca-Cola, one of life's most delightful elixirs, which studies prove will heal the sick and occasionally raise the dead, is to put bourbon in it.”

"Life is like a dogsled race. If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes.”

"The game of life is a lot like football.  You have to tackle your problems, block your fears, and score your points when you get the opportunity."

The game of life is a lot like football. You have to tackle your problems, block your fears, and score your points when you get the opportunity.

Lewis Grizzard

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/lewisgrizz393058.html#dcdZgGaMILuLOUlD.99

The game of life is a lot like football. You have to tackle your problems, block your fears, and score your points when you get the opportunity.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/l/lewis_grizzard.html#MZwPfJAVLt5fSGES.99

Quotes About Alcohol

There's nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion. - Lord Byron, Don Juan, Second Canto

What's drinking? A mere pause from thinking! - Lord Byron, The Deformed Transformed


Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy  - Benjamin Franklin

 Oh brother, be a brother, fill this tiny cup of mine. And please, sir, make it whiskey: I have no head for wine! - Nick Cave, lyric, "Brother My Cup is Empty"

 I drink when I have occasion, and sometimes when I have no occasion. - Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quiote


A man who doesn't drink is not, in my opinion, fully a man. - Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)

  It is most absurdly said, in popular language, of any man, that he is disguised in liquor; for, on the contrary, most men are disguised by sobriety. - Thomas de Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1856).


Always be drunk.That's it!The great imperative!In order not to feelTime's horrid fardelbruise your shoulders,grinding you into the earth,Get drunk and stay that way.
                 - Charles Baudelaire, 1821-1867

Getting Away with Something . . . .

That old saying that 'there is no free lunch' is pretty much true nowadays.  I remember the university providing free Domino's pizzas for registration workers; but the hours were long and the complaints were many. 


At one time someone with an internet connection could read major newspapers' web sites gratis; now many of them either require you to subscribe or give you a restricted number of free views.  The local paper, the Press-Sentinel, gives no free peeks; but the Times-Daily grants ten per month.  Naturally, the major newspapers like the New York Times or the Washington Post limit the number of free views.


But what if you pursue a link to a newspaper not normally read by you?   Then, it's a free ride!  It's not like you're going to visit the Des Moines Register or the Boston Globe more than once or twice a month.


Yahoo!  It's like getting away with something. Maybe there's still the unbridled teen left in me.  I hope so.  I'm an outlaw at heart; and at my age reading articles free from papers that would like to charge will do it.


Another little story:  The Times-Daily (referred too as the Tee Dee by students) would leave piles of free papers on the university campus in order to inflate circulation numbers.  These papers served admirably as packing materials.

Yes to Allowing University Athletes to Form Unions!

A recent development is that the National Labor Relations Board has reacted positively to the notion that the athletes of Northwestern University can unionize, and negotiate with the university as to how they might be treated.  They opened the door for the College Athletes Players Association to be voted on by secret ballot as a collective bargaining agent.


In fact, the NLRB has asserted that they are employees of the university!


This can potentially be a game-changer in big time athletics!   Right now, the Division I universities are making out like bandits when it comes to the revenues from some of their sports programs.  Maybe the time for athletes' rights has come; they work (my choice of words is deliberate) anywhere from 30 to 50 hours per week while the season is in force,   Also, there is the rather lame concept that the NCAA has fostered regarding the student-athlete that seems to play into an excuse to subject these young people to such abuses.


There is a kind of institutional peonage that big-time college athletics has become.


Of course, Northwestern University has served notice that it plans to appeal; and the NCAA has issued a statement deploring the NLRB ruling.  No surprise here.


In my opinion, university athletes should be treated as salaried employees.   They should be provided fringe benefits, including health insurance, unemployment insurance, and other expectations that go with the modern workplace environment.


In short, the athletic scholarship is not enough.   It's time for a square deal.


Yes, Southeastern Conference; this should mean you too!

Why the Oxford Comma Is Important

When listing a series of words in a sentence, separate each noun by commas.

As this illustration indicates failure to do so changes the meaning:

Undercited Cause of Mortality

Problems of Universities

Well, I've been retired from professing for over three years now; and I pretty kept my peace about the general state of university life.  Admittedly, my perspective is limited; I was employed full-time at only two state universities.  One for 38 years.

There are a lot of things that are being done well; some not so much.

The biggest problem that immediately confronts potential students is the cost.  Costs of tuition and other expenses have greatly outstripped what might be expected due to general inflation.  And, let's face it: some university towns tend to milk students for what they're worth on rent, food, and other amenities.   Therefore, they come out of universities with massive debts: possibly as much as $100,000 dollars!  How about being saddled with that at such a young age?

But universities don't keep costs down, either.  Some of that is self-defense due to decreasing levels of state assistance per annum.  After all, the money must come from somewhere.  But there's also a lot of baggage.

One of the things I've noticed is the general proliferation of administrative-level personnel (oops, human resources!).  There's a lot of these persons that are involved in decision-making and they have dramatically increased the overhead of many universities.  And the salaries!  While it's reasonable to expect that a dean or a vice-president should be paid more than a professor, some of them draw fantastic salaries.  Not to mention the presidents or chancellors!  The former President of Ohio State drew $1.9 million a year!

But when it comes to actual instruction, more and more class sections are taught by adjunct (part-time) instructors.  These are paid very poorly by comparison.  As a matter of fact, full-time tenure-track faculty positions are declining as these carry more of a load.  And, what makes it worse, they are given no health insurance or retirement benefits.  Universities should be ashamed of this, if they were capable of shame.


Not to mention how teaching assistants are trained!

Athletics, of course, is overemphasized.  But it was also the case 40 years ago too.

And there are fraternities, some of which are known for their boorish behavior.  When will these relics of the past go away?

Another problem is legislative interference.  State legislatures are the source of funding, and they sometimes tack on their own agendas.  For example, at one institutions I had been employed many years ago, all students were required to take a course, Americanism Versus Communism.  (Guess what side they were supposed to take.)


The American university system is perhaps the glory of our education system,  especially on the graduate level.  But these aspects are real problems.