WIST Quotations

Barry, Dave -- Dave Barry Turns 40, ch. 2 “Your Disintegrating Body” (1990)

Dave — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 16:03:20 +0000

There really are things you can do to keep your body looking healthy and youthful for years to come. But before I discuss these things, I want you to answer the following questions honestly: Are you willing to make the hard sacrifices needed to be really healthy? Are you willing to commit yourself totally to a program of regular exercise, close medical supervision, and the elimination of all caffeine, alcohol, and rich foods, to be replaced by a strict diet of nutrition-rich, kelp-like plant growths so unappetizing that they will make you actually lust for tofu?
Or are you the kind of shallow, irresponsible person who wants a purely cosmetic change, a “quick and dirty” surface gloss that may make you look young and healthy, but actually has no long-term value? Me too.

Dave Barry (b. 1947) American humorist, author, columnist
Dave Barry Turns 40, ch. 2 “Your Disintegrating Body” (1990)
(Source)

Kerr, Jean -- Essay (1957-08), “Aunt Jean’s Marshmallow Fudge Diet,” Harper’s Magazine, Vol. 215, No. 1287

Dave — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 19:08:53 +0000

If you have formed the habit of checking on every new diet that comes along, you will find that, mercifully, they all blur together, leaving you with only one definite piece of information: french-fried potatoes are out.

Jean Kerr (1922-2003) American author and playwright [b. Bridget Jean Collins]
Essay (1957-08), “Aunt Jean’s Marshmallow Fudge Diet,” Harper’s Magazine, Vol. 215, No. 1287
(Source)

Collected in Please Don’t Eat the Daisies (1957).

Howell, James -- Paroimiographia [Παροιμιογραφία]: Proverbs, or, Old Sayed Sawes & Adages, “Proverbs in French” (1659) [compiler]

Dave — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 17:00:53 +0000

The Gluttons dig their own graves with their teeth.

[Le gourmans, sont leurs fosses avec leurs dents.]

James Howell (c. 1594–1666) Welsh historian and writer
Paroimiographia [Παροιμιογραφία]: Proverbs, or, Old Sayed Sawes & Adages, “Proverbs in French” (1659) [compiler]
(Source)

Russell, Bertrand -- Conquest of Happiness, Part 2, ch. 17 “The Happy Man” (1930)

Dave — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 16:32:17 +0000

The happy life is to an extraordinary extent the same as the good life. Professional moralists have made too much of self-denial, and in so doing have put the emphasis in the wrong place. Conscious self-denial leaves a man self-absorbed and vividly aware of what he has sacrificed; in consequence it fails often of its immediate object and almost always of its ultimate purpose. What is needed is not self-denial, but that kind of direction of interest outward which will lead spontaneously and naturally to the same acts that a person absorbed in the pursuit of his own virtue could only perform by means of conscious self-denial.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Conquest of Happiness, Part 2, ch. 17 “The Happy Man” (1930)
(Source)

Milne, A. A. -- Winnie-the-Pooh, ch. 2 “Pooh Goes Visiting” (1926)

Dave — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 23:56:53 +0000

“How long does getting thin take?” Pooh asked anxiously.

A. A. Milne (1882-1956) English poet and playwright [Alan Alexander Milne]
Winnie-the-Pooh, ch. 2 “Pooh Goes Visiting” (1926)
(Source)

While stuck in Rabbit's hole.

Moffat, Steven -- Coupling, 01×04 “Inferno” (2000-06-02)

Dave — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 20:45:30 +0000

JANE: Could you remind lovely Susan that Jill and I are vegetarians?

STEVE: You’re what?

JILL: You’re not a vegetarian!

JANE: I’m a bi-vegetarian!

JILL: What? That doesn’t exist! It’s not possible!

JANE: I’m an emotional vegetarian, Jill. I know a lot of vegetarians and we tend to like the same films. Do you have a problem with that?

JILL: You could never finish your greens and you could suck a whole pig through a straw.

JANE: I’m not exclusively vegetarian, Jill, if that’s what you’re trying to say. Vegetarianism for me is about, mmmm, saying yes to things — even meat.

JILL: No, it isn’t.

Steven Moffat (b. 1961) Scottish television writer, producer
Coupling, 01×04 “Inferno” (2000-06-02)
(Source)

Verified against Source (Video), at 13:21.

Jerome, Jerome K. -- Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), ch. 10 (1889)

Dave — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 21:09:13 +0000

It is very strange, this domination of our intellect by our digestive organs. We cannot work, we cannot think, unless our stomach wills so. It dictates to us our emotions, our passions. After eggs and bacon, it says, “Work!” After beefsteak and porter, it says, “Sleep!” After a cup of tea (two spoonsful for each cup, and don’t let it stand more than three minutes), it says to the brain, “Now, rise, and show your strength. Be eloquent, and deep, and tender; see, with a clear eye, into Nature and into life; spread your white wings of quivering thought, and soar, a god-like spirit, over the whirling world beneath you, up through long lanes of flaming stars to the gates of eternity!”
After hot muffins, it says, “Be dull and soulless, like a beast of the field — a brainless animal, with listless eye, unlit by any ray of fancy, or of hope, or fear, or love, or life.” And after brandy, taken in sufficient quantity, it says, “Now, come, fool, grin and tumble, that your fellow-men may laugh — drivel in folly, and splutter in senseless sounds, and show what a helpless ninny is poor man whose wit and will are drowned, like kittens, side by side, in half an inch of alcohol.”

Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), ch. 10 (1889)
(Source)

Child, Julia -- “What I’ve Learned: Julia Child,” interview by Mike Sager, Esquire (2001-06)

Dave — Mon, 06 Mar 2023 16:02:47 +0000

I’m awfully sorry for people who are taken in by all of today’s dietary mumbo jumbo. They are not getting any enjoyment out of their food.

Julia Child (1912-2004) American chef and writer
“What I’ve Learned: Julia Child,” interview by Mike Sager, Esquire (2001-06)
(Source)

Reprinted in Brendan Vaughan, Esquire: The Meaning of Life (2004).

Heinlein, Robert A. -- “The Man Who Sold the Moon” (1950)

Dave — Thu, 14 Oct 2021 19:44:04 +0000

Don’t use that word [censorship]! How anybody expects a man to stay in business with every two-bit wowser in the country claiming a veto over what we can say and can’t say and what we can show and what we can’t show — it’s enough to make you throw up. The whole principle is wrong; it’s like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can’t eat steak.

Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
“The Man Who Sold the Moon” (1950)
(Source)

This may be the origin of the spurious Mark Twain quotation, "Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it."

Prentice, George -- Prenticeana (1860)

Dave — Tue, 12 May 2020 21:25:38 +0000

What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn’t much better than tedious disease.

George D. Prentice (1802-1870) American newspaper editor
Prenticeana (1860)
(Source)

Dunne, Finley Peter -- “Casual Observations,” Mr. Dooley’s Philosophy (1900)

Dave — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 16:23:32 +0000

Most vigitaryans I iver see looked enough like their food to be classed as cannibals.

[Most vegetarians I ever see looked enough like their food to be classed as cannibals.]

Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936) American humorist and journalist
“Casual Observations,” Mr. Dooley’s Philosophy (1900)

Woollcott, Alexander -- (Attributed)

Dave — Fri, 20 Mar 2015 12:45:37 +0000

Anything I like is either illegal or immoral or fattening.

Alexander Woollcott (1887-1943) American critic, commentator, journalist, wit
(Attributed)

Apparently a gag attributed by Woollcott to a Frank Rand of St. Louis on his radio show in September 1933; it was then directly attributed to Woollcott in Reader's Digest in Dec. 1933. It is sometimes cited to Woollcott's essay "The Knock at the Stage Door," The North American Review (Sep 1922), but not found there.

Variants:

"All the things I like to do are either immoral, illegal, or fattening."
"All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal or fattening."
"Everything I want to do is either illegal, immoral or fattening."

More discussion about this quotation:

Butcher, Jim -- Blood Rites (2004)

Dave — Tue, 30 Dec 2014 17:21:00 +0000

“Oh, what would you like on your vegetarian pizza?”
“Dead pigs and cows,” I said.
She glanced up at me and wrinkled her nose.
“They’re vegetarians,” I said defensively.

Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Blood Rites (2004)

Fromm, Erich -- The Art of Loving, ch. 4 (1956)

Dave — Tue, 21 Jan 2014 13:38:17 +0000

Discipline should not be practiced like a rule imposed on oneself from the outside, but that it becomes an expression of one’s own will; that it is felt as pleasant, and that one slowly accustoms oneself to a kind of behavior which one would eventually miss, if one stopped practicing it.

Erich Fromm (1900-1980) American psychoanalyst and social philosopher
The Art of Loving, ch. 4 (1956)

Child, Julia -- Quoted in Nancy Verde Barr, Backstage with Julia, ch. 3 (2007)

Dave — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:33:33 +0000

The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook.

Julia Child (1912-2004) American chef and writer
Quoted in Nancy Verde Barr, Backstage with Julia, ch. 3 (2007)
(Source)

Swift, Jonathan -- Polite Conversation, Dialog 2 (1738)

Dave — Fri, 14 May 2010 12:21:02 +0000

The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
Polite Conversation, Dialog 2 (1738)

Borrowed / popularized from William Bullein, Government of Health, folio 50 (1558): "The first was called doctor diet, the seconde doctor quiet, the thirde doctor merry-man." (1558)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 4. “Thursday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 19:47:27 +0000

They had once — at Adam’s instigation — tried a health food diet for a while one afternoon. Their verdict was that you could live very well on healthy food provided you had a big cooked lunch beforehand.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 4. “Thursday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]