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Dave Barry Quotes - Page 28

All Quotes Age Arguing Art Atheist Beer Boat Business Character Childhood Children Christmas Cleaning Coffee College Commitment Country Dad Darkness Doubt Drinking Driving Effort Fashion Feelings Fighting Flying Food Football Fun Funny Giving God Golf Halloween Hate Hilarious Holiday Home House Humanity Inspirational Internet Journalism Justice Killing Kissing Literature Memories Mountain Music Office Pain Past Politics Pregnancy Purpose Rain Reading Religion Respect Responsibility Risk Running Sailing Sarcasm School Science Sleep Son Sports Students Stupidity Taxes Team Technology Today Training Travel Vacation Waiting War Water Weed Weight Loss Wife Winter Writing

In 1765, Parliament passed the Stamp Act, which, as any American high school student can tell you, was an act that apparently had something to do with stamps.

In 1765, Parliament passed the Stamp Act, which, as any American high school student can tell you, was an act that apparently had something to do with stamps.

School, Literature, Students

Dave Barry (2011). “Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway”, p.28, Ballantine Books

Playing an unamplified electric guitar is like strumming on a picnic table.

Guitar, Tables, Picnics

Dave Barry (2010). “Dave Barry's Greatest Hits”, p.12, Ballantine Books

We idolized the Beatles, except for those of us who idolized the Rolling Stones, who in those days still had many of their original teeth.

Teeth, Rolling, Literature

Dave Barry (2013). “My Teenage Son's Goal in Life Is to Make Me Feel 3,500 Years Old: and Other Thoughts on Parenting from Dave Barry”, p.59, Andrews McMeel Publishing

There are terrific TV shows now. This is a golden age for TV humor, I think. There's an actual market there. Of course, I have no idea how you'd break in, but there must be a way. They have all these shows and they need jokes and somebody is writing them.

Writing, Thinking, Tv Shows

Source: www.writersdigest.com

As far as outlining is concerned, I don't outline humor. I might right down a word or two to remind myself of a punch line I thought of, but the actual structure of a piece I really don't. I don't think it would really help me because for me the process is joke, joke, joke, joke.

Thinking, Two, Pieces

Source: www.writersdigest.com

I am much more likely to care about someone trying to be funny and give them some credit for whatever he or she did that was remotely funny than I am to be mused by somebody declaring this isn't funny, that isn't funny, this sucks. If you want to write humor, you're going to have to get used to that.

Writing, Giving, Trying

Source: www.writersdigest.com

The thing I have learned, especially in the Internet age, probably the easiest thing in the world is to declare that something is not funny. I mean it's not actually humor to say something is not funny, but it is viewed by a lot of people - and by that I mean mainly snarky young Internet men - as a kind of humor in and of itself is putting down other people's efforts at humor. And I don't care that much anymore about that because I know how easy that is to do.

Mean, Men, People

Source: www.writersdigest.com

Avoid the traffic by using one of the park's shuttle buses and view the elk rut with a park ranger.

Views, Parks, Elk

I'm one of those people who tells my wife, "No coaching from the sidelines."

People, Wife, Coaching

Source: www.chicagotribune.com

I am a superior form of human and I have absolutely no quirks or irrational impulses of any kind.

Kind, Form, Quirks

Source: www.chicagotribune.com

Weddings are crazy. When you get right down to it, a wedding is a party, and not an important party, really. But for young people, it becomes the biggest thing in their lives. After it's over, they realize it wasn't that big a deal.

Crazy, Party, People

Source: www.chicagotribune.com

With a novel, you have the reader with you a lot longer, and you owe him a lot more. Obviously you have to have a plot - I say "obviously," although I think a lot of fiction doesn't, and nothing seems to happen. But to me, there should be something that happens, and it should be at least vaguely plausible. And because the readers are going to be with these characters for a long time, you have to get to know them and like them and want to know what happens to them.

Character, Thinking, Long

Source: www.chicagotribune.com

Generally the pythons are better than anything else at killing.

Python, Killing

Source: www.chicagotribune.com

The older I get and the more fiction I write, the more I outline, the more I think about plot before I dive in and plunge too far.

Writing, Thinking, Plot

Source: www.writersdigest.com

I can snap your spine like a toothpick.

Spine, Toothpicks, I Can

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.

Food, Mean, Wind

The newspaper industry when I came along in the mid-70s was rich and powerful and growing and hungry for material and open to new people. None of that is true in the newspaper industry today. Print in general is pretty rugged. The good thing is that you can gain a foothold on the Internet because everybody has access to it, even things like Twitter - I mean, you can get a reputation for being funny pretty quickly on Twitter, on a blog, that kind of thing.

Powerful, Mean, People

Source: www.writersdigest.com

As a professional journalist, I have always been fascinated by people who appear to have even more spare time than I do.

Funny, People, Journalism

Dave Barry (2010). “Dave Barry Talks Back”, p.83, Crown Archetype

I think Twitter is kind of fun, it's not deep and it never will be, but it's a great way to communicate one-liners and to sort of see what people are laughing about. It's a terrific source of misinformation.

Fun, Thinking, Laughing

Source: www.writersdigest.com

For the benefit of those of you who have real jobs and are not involved in the news business, I should first explain that . . .

Funny, Jobs, Real

Dave Barry (2010). “Dave Barry's Greatest Hits”, p.4, Ballantine Books

...Terry Jackson, who is the Miami Herald's automotive writer and TV critic. That's correct: This man gets paid to drive new cars AND watch television. If he ever dies and goes to heaven, it's going to be a big let down.

Funny, Men, Car

Dave Barry (2003). “Boogers Are My Beat: More Lies, but Some Actual Journalism”, p.100, Crown Archetype

The best way to understand this whole issue is to look at what the government does: it takes money from some people, keeps a bunch of it, and gives the rest to other people.

Government, Issues, People

Always remember that if editors were so damned smart, they would know how to dress.

Smart, Writing, Editors

It's very slow for me to create humor. It takes me a long time to write a humor piece. It takes days.

Writing, Long, Pieces

Source: www.writersdigest.com

I feel like I have more experience with publishing humor than pretty much any editor I'm going to be dealing with so sometimes I'll get a little bit nuts if I write something I know is good a certain way, and some editor because of some restriction he has and wants to change it that I know is going to make it less funny that'll piss me off and then I'm inclined to go, "Well, hey I've been doing this a long time, maybe you should..." That doesn't happen that often, but I'm more likely to say that now than I would have been a long time ago. Because dammit, I'm infallible!

Writing, Nuts, Editors

Source: www.writersdigest.com

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