Ross Petras - The 776 Stupidest Things Ever Said

Thanks to everyone who helped make this book a reality, especially:

Bruce Tracy, Robin Rue, Kris Dahl, Paul Bresnick, David Gernert, and Susan Moldowand, of course, to all of the people who contributed their favorite stupidities.

Ross and Kathryn Petras are writers and media junkies. When not collecting other peoples stupidities, they collect their own in a computer file slugged Hall of Shame.

hazards are one of the main causes of accidents.

from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administrations booklet, Safety with Beef Cattle, 1976

Things are more like they are now than they have ever been.

President Gerald Ford

As Duke Ellington once said, The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Elkton.

Babe Ruth on a radio show, garbling the adage by the Duke of Wellington that Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton

If at any time I change my address when I notify you I hope you will be so kind as to change also.

letter from a reader renewing his subscription, received by the business manager of Motor News

It would seem from the interviews and reports that both of you have had few, if any, negative experiences when children yourselves, and also seem to enjoy a marital experience where rows and arguments have no place. Under the circumstances, [adopted children would not have sufficient exposure to] negative experiences.

letter from the Lancashire (U.K.) Social Services Department, on why foster parents Harry and Esther Hough were not qualified to adopt as they exuded excessive harmony, although they had already raised over forty foster children from birth to age eight

Life its own self, as Dan Jenkins said. Life its own self. Figure that one out, Norm. But what it means is, I have a lot more to learn from President Reagan.

George Bush, at the beginning of his presidency, when asked whether he was getting advice from his predecessor

Dont cut off your nose yourself.

Casey Stengel

Bruce Sutter has been around for a while and hes pretty old. Hes thirty-five years old. That will give you some idea of how old he is.

Ron Fairly, San Francisco Giants broadcaster

And what is more, I agree with everything I have just said.

attributed to Piet Koornhoff, South African cabinet minister, ambassador to United States

If I entered into an agreement with that man, I would be sticking my head in a moose.

attributed to movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn

Gifts are positively corruptive. [Free air fares] are harmless, or at least only potentially corruptive.

Lee Wilbur, staff aide on the House Appropriations Transportation subcommittee, explaining why it was okay for him to accept a free (first-class) round-trip flight to Spain

Progression is not proclamation nor palaver. It is not pretense nor play on prejudice. It is not of personal pronouns, nor perennial pronouncement. It is not the perturbation of a people passion-wrought, nor a promise proposed.

President Warren G. Harding

This is the man who was not only the president of the National Council of Shopping Centers, but the International Council of Shopping Centers in 1986, and traveled around the world.

Senator Rudy Boschwitz of Minnesota in his recommendation for the appointment of Melvin F. Sembler to the post of ambassador to Australia, as quoted in Spy, May 1990. Sembler was appointed and confirmed shortly thereafter.

I understand its a nice life-style. I love golf, and I understand they have a lot of nice golf courses.

Chic Hecht, former senator from Nevada, explaining why he would like to be appointed ambassador to the Bahamas. (Note: Shortly after saying this, Hecht did become ambassador to the Bahamas.)

Thats part of American greatness, is discrimination. Yes, sir. Inequality, I think, breeds freedom and gives a man opportunity.

Lester Maddox, ex-governor of Georgia

Maybe we should not have humored them [when they asked to live on reservations]. Maybe we should have said, No, come join us. Be citizens along with the rest of us.

President Ronald Reagan during a trip to Moscow, when a student asked him about U.S. treatment of Native Americans

I dont feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.

John Wayne, actor who played mostly cowboys in the movies

Get some more from the reservoir.

supposedly said by movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn after being told that the Western film he was working on required more Native American extras

Wherever I have gone in this country, I have found Americans.

Alf Landon (in America), during a speech in his presidential campaign against FDR

I believe that mink are raised for being turned into fur coats and if we didnt wear fur coats those little animals would never have been born. So is it better not to have been born or to have lived for a year or two to have been turned into a fur coat? I dont know.

Barbi Benton, ex-Playboy bunny turned actress

I think were on the road to coming up with answers that I dont think any of us in total feel we have the answers to.

Kim Anderson, mayor of Naples, Florida

My position on Vietnam is very simple. And I feel this way. I havent spoken on it because I havent felt there was any major contribution that I had to make at the time. I think that our concepts as a nation and that our actions have not kept pace with the changing conditions, and therefore our actions are not completely relevant today to the realities of the magnitude and the complexity of the problems that we face in this conflict.

Nelson Rockefeller, governor of New York, when asked in a press conference for his position on the Vietnam War. When a reporter followed up with a question asking what he meant, Rockefeller answered, Just what I said.

They gave me a standing observation.

ex-Houston Oiler and Florida State coach Bill Peterson

Youre a parasite for sore eyes.

attributed to actor/director Gregory Ratoff

I juxtapose anticipated with anomalous imagery to create visual analogies. Discrepancy and contrast in scale are emphasized as I investigate perception and memory.

Sura Ruth, photographer, in a press release about a show of her photographs

I paint paintings because I cant get the experience in any other way but there are many more experiences that are equally satisfying to me and equally inept at answering all my questions, but hover in exactitude in describing themselves and defying me to define their logic.