Classic Comments on the Quote

[aerie]

they got together

"The word aerobics came about when the gym instructors got together and said, "If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it jumping up and down.""
— Rita Rudner


DrCryptell on April 1st, 2018
So then the word "airplane" came about when the pilots got together and said "if we're going to charge $500 a flight we can't call it "winging it."

skyystorm on July 19th, 2018
And the doctors got together and said "If we charge 10k a day, we can't call it practicing."

[aerie]

and lo, a colon has been added

"Censor: a self-appointed snoophound who sticks his nose in other people's business."
— Bennett Alfred Cerf


Lurker on January 6th, 2011
Perhaps there should be a colon after Censor?

gryhnd51 on November 25th, 2011
"censor" the VERB means to remove, suppress, delete, to express disapproval of. In this quote, it is NOT being used as a noun, in which case a colon would be required.

kb83 on November 14th, 2014
I vote for noun and a colon.

maradnu on January 29th, 2015
Having a colon is handy. I'd hate to be without one.

montyb on June 19th, 2015
Some censors are intimately acquainted with their own colons.

Roxanne on December 31st, 2015
I bet censor is a noun and the colon is missing. It sounds like Bennett Cerf's style that way, and I doubt he would have urged censoring someone, since he won a big court case against censorship (of James Joyce's Ulysses).

LLapp on May 23rd, 2016
ERROR: Please add a colon after "Censor" per the original quote. To verify: (link)

kb83 on November 30th, 2016
Okay, admin. A group colonoscopy has determined that the patient needs a colon transplant.

[ddph]

"I am incandescent with rage at the idea of horoscopes and of crystals and of the nonsense of 'New Age'."
— Stephen Fry

skoogie2 on October 9th, 2013
oooh...incandescent rage! Yikes!

maradnu on November 3rd, 2013
Merely petty distractions for those who cannot accept responsibility for their own actions.

msswitch on May 22nd, 2014
crystals are excellent for hurling at the heads of those who doubt their powers

montyb on October 4th, 2014
The only power crystals have is to fascinate me with their symmetries and beauty. You should see my amethyst-lined geode in my classroom.

tgreen517 on January 1st, 2015
unless they are dilitheum chrystals!

Spenser on February 18th, 2015
OMG! The digression of geeky references lets me know I have found a home!

dovid1946 on March 17th, 2015
someone once asked Steve Allen what sign he was born under ' he said ' Rooms to Rent'

LLapp on November 14th, 2017
^That goes right alongside my father's (though I think he was quoting someone) "If I had my life to live over, I'd live over a delicatessen."

abra on December 17th, 2017
I have two Amethyst geodes. Probably much smaller than Monty's. I don't get any spiritual vibes from crystals, but I find them very beautiful.

DrCryptell on April 19th, 2018
I'm neon with the idea of cantaloupe, antelope, microscope, heliotrope., endoscope, and jumping rope. Does any of that nonsense light up our lives?

[LLapp]

Contender for Silliest Wrong Solution

"Won't you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you." — Richard Brinsley Sheridan

locodad on May 15th, 2013
very nice quote

puzzleme on June 20th, 2013
Sweet.

abra on October 25th, 2013
Charming.

judy100 on August 22nd, 2014
How nice

MatthewReynolds on January 8th, 2016
For some reason I was hung up with "I would bite my noses to see you."

abra on May 7th, 2016
^^^LOL

[wvwoman]

montyb's comment gave me a good laugh!

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. " — Unattributed

Lurker on September 2nd, 2009
Favorite of Dear Abby's. She may have coined it.

bansaisequoia on March 12th, 2010
Gomer Pyle used this one, too.

countessofmontecrypto on January 8th, 2012
W tried to.

montyb on February 5th, 2014
Fool me 3 times, and welcome to Cryptograms.

msswitch on May 28th, 2014
According to the Colonial Williamsburg Journal, a 1786 essay refers to an early, non-English form of the familiar saying 'Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.' Wrote George Horne, an English divine: 'When a man deceives me once, says the Italian proverb, it is his fault; when twice, it is mine.'

marnita on October 7th, 2016
This one has fooled me more than twice.

maradnu on February 16th, 2018
Fool me three times and boy am I a schmuck

mmfs83 on August 8th, 2018
This one sure fooled me for 356 seconds.

[ddph]

"Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds. "
— Christopher Marlowe

puzzleme on June 6th, 2013
It doth, doth it?

wvwoman on September 10th, 2013
or maybe it dothn't!

JD_1947 on November 9th, 2014
Could doth tell me what the four elements are . . .?

LLapp on May 12th, 2015
Solid, liquid, gas and plasma?

maradnu on September 7th, 2016
Fire, earth, air, and water

BriddlesBob on March 13th, 2017
And who can help aspiring upon seeing a regiment of breasts?

Andy451 on June 19th, 2017
Three nice lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter verse as you will find. Marlowe was a great guy who died way before his time. The novel by Anthony Burgess about him, called A Death in Deptford is a wonderful read.

kb83 on October 31st, 2017
I thought maybe carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.

MissKitty on March 9th, 2018
Pizza ,beer .smokes and a Large screen. Kilroy 79

[LLapp]

"The Creator gave man two ears and one mouth; there is a reason why He did so." — Thomas Barron

Quizzical on June 4th, 2017
Because food is so hard to hear?

[wvwoman]

"The Creator gave man two ears and one mouth; there is a reason why He did so." — Thomas Barron

Quizzical on June 4th, 2017
Because food is so hard to hear?

now that's a great comment, quizzical!

[LLapp]

"We will move forward, we will move upward, and yes, we will move onward." — Dan Quayle

Elephino on August 14th, 2018
It's a new dance craze!

[LLapp]

"As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death." — Leonardo da Vinci

chopstix on August 8th, 2014
Then he must have had one of the most happy deaths imaginable!

Hash on October 24th, 2015
My new band's name is going to be "Happy Death".

Barnabas on September 19th, 2017
"It's my party and I'll die if I want to, die if I want to, die if I want to. You would die too if it happened to you."

abra on October 25th, 2017
^ I'm picturing one of those awful horror movies where Johnny and Judy leave at the same time and come back as the walking dead.

[Barnabas]

"To be a hero or a heroine, one must give an order to oneself."
— Simone Weil


montyb on March 14th, 2012
And not be insubordinate.

kb83 on February 12th, 2015
This really shows hot the best leaders are good followers.

LLapp on April 3rd, 2016
I am totally insubordinate to my own executive function. If I were self-employed, I would still grouse about my boss.

[aerie]

ten Y's and one S? No problem for skeeter.

"The way you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You are overcome by the fact because you think you are."
— Norman Vincent Peale



montyb on June 7th, 2012
Therefore, rely on flights of fancy?

montyb on March 23rd, 2014
Ten Ys and only one S. There is no way those letter frequencies can occur in the English language. I'll never solve this puzzle.

Allen on June 25th, 2014
And yet you did.

tskaggs6 on November 5th, 2014
Am I wrong in thinking he's a prime example of form over function? Can't make up my mind. What do you think?

LLapp on March 25th, 2016
Clever comments. I like how monty disproves the quote.

Persephone59 on April 16th, 2017
Personally, I have little use for motivational speakers or religious leaders who don't seem to DO anything but try to advise other people. Thanks, I can figure this out.

skeeter on December 1st, 2017
Daily you yearn for yesterday yet the memory you will have tomorrow of today may bring more joy.

bigdave on April 11th, 2018
The comments are the chewy chocolate center of my Cryptogram Tootsie Pop.

[ddph]

"Apothegms are portable wisdom, the quintessential extracts of thought and feelings."
— R. W. Alger

haverwench on June 19th, 2010
Now there's a word you don't see every day.

irisheyes on October 5th, 2010
WHAT is an apothegm?? I thought I had a larger-than-average vocabulary, but I've never seen this one before.

bansaisequoia on August 28th, 2011
It's a marsupial of the Western Hemisphere.

Lurker on August 30th, 2011
They carry dictionaries in their pouches.

fishbum on February 4th, 2012
A short, pithy saying.

montyb on May 15th, 2013
Boy, am I pithed!

wvwoman on July 21st, 2013
Synonyms are adage, aphorism, saying, byword, epigram, maxim, proverb, saw

abra on August 14th, 2013
Ah, so it is an aphorism. I suspected it was.

kb83 on August 25th, 2014
Rhymes with phlegm. (cough-cough).

abra on January 23rd, 2015
It doesn't roll off the tongue.

Spenser on May 30th, 2015
Don't you mean it's a marthupial?

QuexUl on March 28th, 2016
Whatever they are, they don't seem so very portable to me.

figmo on June 11th, 2017
Wall-a-by damned!

[ddph]

"It's no good agreeing with a person who can't make up his mind. "
— Unattributed

eis on January 12th, 2010
Unfortunately I usually find that I do so!

montyb on May 21st, 2013
I agree.

maradnu on October 16th, 2013
I'm not sure about that. Might be, might not. Let me think about it some more.

Allen on April 12th, 2014
I agree, Maradnu. Wholeheartedly!

toddcmz on August 30th, 2015
My approach to marriage might be less good than I thought

LLapp on January 20th, 2017
I'm with every one of you, one hundred percent.

MamaB on September 19th, 2018
I'm not. Except maybe t hat one...

[ddph]

"We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public."
— Bryan White

Allen on January 18th, 2013
Still working on that.

skoogie2 on November 15th, 2013
Yep, some of us don't.

Barnabas on May 4th, 2015
Very true... I look forward to a new Marvel or DC movie release as much as anyone. You can steadily move the boy to the year 2015, but you can't completely remove 1970 from the boy.

fishbum on October 27th, 2015
Just read a quote on facebook: "If you haven't grown up by age 50, don't bother."

SippyGurl on November 28th, 2016
its the yuppies fault - they started wearing designer sweat suits to nice restaurants in manhattan, acting like skyscraper incinerator fodder, and it's been all downhill from there. does anyone teach their children about behaving in public anymore?

darkyr on January 19th, 2017
I behaved in public once. Very awkward.

jimdgar on May 2nd, 2018
Behaving in public is vastly overrated.

SippyGurl on July 2nd, 2018
really sippy? it's just the yuppies? lol what was u drinking