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Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) by Linux fortune

I remember once being on a station platform in Cleveland at four in the
morning.  A black porter was carrying my bags, and as we were waiting for
the train to come in, he said to me: "Excuse me, Mr. Cooke, I don't want to
invade your privacy, but I have a bet with a friend of mine.  Who composed
the opening theme music of 'Omnibus'?  My friend said Virgil Thomson."  I
asked him, "What do you say?" He replied, "I say Aaron Copeland." I said,
"You're right."  The porter said,  "I knew Thomson doesn't write counterpoint
that way."  I told that to a network president, and he was deeply unimpressed.
                -- Alistair Cooke
It's from Casablanca.  I've been waiting all my life to use that line.
                -- Woody Allen, "Play It Again, Sam"
Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the
Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.
"I would rather spend 10 hours reading someone else's source code than
10 minutes listening to Musak waiting for technical support which isn't."
(By Dr. Greg Wettstein, Roger Maris Cancer Center)
we're waiting for [the phone company] to fix that line
Little hamster in running wheel had coronary; waiting for replacement to be Fedexed from Wyoming
We ran out of dial tone and we're and waiting for the phone company to deliver another bottle.
Your/our computer(s) had suffered a memory leak, and we are waiting for them to be topped up.
... A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he
was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity.
                -- Mark Twain
I'm still waiting for the advent of the computer science groupie.
If you think the system is working, ask someone who's waiting for a prompt.
        Long ago, in a finite state far away, there lived a JOVIAL
character named Jack.  Jack and his relations were poor.  Often their
hash table was bare.  One day Jack's parent said to him, "Our matrices
are sparse.  You must go to the market to exchange our RAM for some
BASICs."  She compiled a linked list of items to retrieve and passed it
to him.
        So Jack set out.  But as he was walking along a Hamilton path,
he met the traveling salesman.
        "Whither dost thy flow chart take thou?" prompted the salesman
in high-level language.
        "I'm going to the market to exchange this RAM for some chips
and Apples," commented Jack.
        "I have a much better algorithm.  You needn't join a queue
there; I will swap your RAM for these magic kernels now."
        Jack made the trade, then backtracked to his house.  But when
he told his busy-waiting parent of the deal, she became so angry she
started thrashing.
        "Don't you even have any artificial intelligence?  All these
kernels together hardly make up one byte," and she popped them out the
window...
                -- Mark Isaak, "Jack and the Beanstack"
        Something mysterious is formed, born in the silent void.  Waiting
alone and unmoving, it is at once still and yet in constant motion.  It is
the source of all programs.  I do not know its name, so I will call it the
Tao of Programming.
        If the Tao is great, then the operating system is great.  If the
operating system is great, then the compiler is great.  If the compiler is
greater, then the applications is great.  The user is pleased and there is
harmony in the world.
        The Tao of Programming flows far away and returns on the wind of
morning.
                -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
        THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #13: SLOBOL

SLOBOL is best known for the speed, or lack of it, of its compiler.
Although many compilers allow you to take a coffee break while they
compile, SLOBOL compilers allow you to travel to Bolivia to pick the
coffee.  Forty-three programmers are known to have died of boredom
sitting at their terminals while waiting for a SLOBOL program to
compile.  Weary SLOBOL programmers often turn to a related (but
infinitely faster) language, COCAINE.
Sentenced to two years hard labor (for sodomy), Oscar Wilde stood handcuffed
in driving rain waiting for transport to prison.  "If this is the way Queen
Victoria treats her prisoners," he remarked, "she doesn't deserve to have
any."
Committee Rules:
        (1) Never arrive on time, or you will be stamped a beginner.
        (2) Don't say anything until the meeting is half over; this
            stamps you as being wise.
        (3) Be as vague as possible; this prevents irritating the
            others.
        (4) When in doubt, suggest that a subcommittee be appointed.
        (5) Be the first to move for adjournment; this will make you
            popular -- it's what everyone is waiting for.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
                -- Carl Sagan
What you want, what you're hanging around in the world waiting for, is for
something to occur to you.
                -- Robert Frost

        [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when
         referring to AST's.]
[Norm goes into the bar at Vic's Bowl-A-Rama.]

Off-screen crowd:  Norm!
Sam:   How the hell do they know him here?
Cliff: He's got a life, you know.
                -- Cheers, From Beer to Eternity

Woody: What can I do for you, Mr. Peterson?
Norm:  Elope with my wife.
                -- Cheers, The Triangle

Woody: How's life, Mr. Peterson?
Norm:  Oh, I'm waiting for the movie.
                -- Cheers, Take My Shirt... Please?
Woody:  What's the story, Mr. Peterson?
Norm:   The Bobbsey twins go to the brewery.
        Let's just cut to the happy ending.
                -- Cheers, Airport V

Woody:  Hey, Mr. Peterson, there's a cold one waiting for you.
Norm:   I know, and if she calls, I'm not here.
                -- Cheers, Bar Wars II: The Woodman Strikes Back

Sam:  Beer, Norm?
Norm: Have I gotten that predictable?  Good.
                -- Cheers, Don't Paint Your Chickens
A book is the work of a mind, doing its work in the way that a mind deems
best.  That's dangerous.  Is the work of some mere individual mind likely to
serve the aims of collectively accepted compromises, which are known in the
schools as 'standards'?  Any mind that would audaciously put itself forth to
work all alone is surely a bad example for the students, and probably, if
not downright antisocial, at least a little off-center, self-indulgent,
elitist.  ... It's just good pedagogy, therefore, to stay away from such
stuff, and use instead, if film-strips and rap-sessions must be
supplemented, 'texts,' selected, or prepared, or adapted, by real
professionals.  Those texts are called 'reading material.'  They are the
academic equivalent of the 'listening material' that fills waiting-rooms,
and the 'eating material' that you can buy in thousands of convenient eating
resource centers along the roads.
                -- The Underground Grammarian
Alexander Graham Bell is alive and well in New York, and still waiting
for a dial tone.
        ... This striving for excellence extends into people's personal
lives as well.  When '80s people buy something, they buy the best one, as
determined by (1) price and (2) lack of availability. Eighties people buy
imported dental floss.  They buy gourmet baking soda.  If an '80s couple
goes to a restaurant where they have made a reservation three weeks in
advance, and they are informed that their table is available, they stalk
out immediately, because they know it is not an excellent restaurant.  If
it were, it would have an enormous crowd of excellence-oriented people
like themselves waiting, their beepers going off like crickets in the
night.  An excellent restaurant wouldn't have a table ready immediately
for anybody below the rank of Liza Minnelli.
                -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence"
After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
And you learn that love doesn't mean security,
And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts
And presents aren't promises
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open,
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,
And you learn to build all your roads
On today because tomorrow's ground
Is too uncertain.  And futures have
A way of falling down in midflight,
After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much.
So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting
For someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure...
That you really are strong,
And you really do have worth
And you learn and learn
With every goodbye you learn.
                -- Veronic Shoffstall, "Comes the Dawn"
And here I wait so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
You have to pay to get out of
Going thru all of these things twice
                -- Dylan, "Memphis Blues Again"
And now your toner's toney,                Disk blocks aplenty
And your paper near pure white,                Await your laser drawn lines,
The smudges on your soul are gone        Your intricate fonts,
And your output's clean as light..        Your pictures and signs.

We've labored with your father,                Your amputative absence
The venerable XGP,                        Has made the Ten dumb,
But his slow artistic hand,                Without you, Dover,
Lacks your clean velocity.                We're system untounged-

Theses and papers                         DRAW Plots and TEXage
And code in a queue                        Have been biding their time,
Dover, oh Dover,                        With LISP code and programs,
We've been waiting for you.                And this crufty rhyme.

Dover, oh Dover,                Dover, oh Dover, arisen from dead.
We welcome you back,                Dover, oh Dover, awoken from bed.
Though still you may jam,        Dover, oh Dover, welcome back to the Lab.
You're on the right track.        Dover, oh Dover, we've missed your clean
                                        hand...
Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol!  My darling!
Light goes the weather-wind and the feathered starling.

Down along under Hill, shining in the sunlight,
Waiting on the doorstep for the cold starlight,
There my pretty lady is, River-woman's daughter,
Slender as the willow-wand, clearer than the water.

Old Tom Bombadil water-lilies bringing
Comes hopping home again.  Can you hear him singing?
Hey!  Come merry dol! derry dol! and merry-o
Goldberry, Goldberry, merry yellow berry-o!

Poor old Willow-man, you tuck your roots away!
Tom's in a hurry now.  Evening will follow day.
Tom's going home again water-lilies bringing.
Hey! come derry dol!  Can you hear me singing?
                -- J. R. R. Tolkien
Hop along my little friends, up the Withywindle!
Tom's going on ahead candles for to kindle.
Down west sinks the Sun; soon you will be groping.
When the night-shadows fall, then the door will open,
Out of the winfow-panes light will twinkle yellow.
Fear no alder black!  Heed no hoary willow!
Fear neither root nor bough!  Tom goes on before you.
Hey now! merry dol!  We'll be waiting for you!
                -- J. R. R. Tolkien
On a morning from a Bogart movie, in a country where they turned back time,
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre contemplating a crime.
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running like a watercolor in the rain.
Don't bother asking for explanations, she'll just tell you that she came
In the Year of the Cat.

She doesn't give you time for questions, as she locks up your arm in hers,
And you follow 'till your sense of which direction completely disappears.
By the blue-tiled walls near the market stall there's a hidden door she
    leads you to.
These days, she say, I feel my life just like a river running through
The Year of the Cat.

Well, she looks at you so coolly,
And her eyes shine like the moon in the sea.
She comes in incense and patchouli,
So you take her to find what's waiting inside
The Year of the Cat.

Well, morning comes and you're still with her, but the bus and the tourists
    are gone,
And you've thrown away your choice and lost your ticket, so you have to stay on.
But the drum-beat strains of the night remain in the rhythm of the new-born day.
You know some time you're bound to leave her, but for now you're going to stay
In the Year of the Cat.
                -- Al Stewart, "Year of the Cat"
Romeo was restless, he was ready to kill,
He jumped out the window 'cause he couldn't sit still,
Juliet was waiting with a safety net,
Said "don't bury me 'cause I ain't dead yet".
                -- Elvis Costello
There is no point in waiting.
The train stopped running years ago.
All the schedules, the brochures,
The bright-colored posters full of lies,
Promise rides to a distant country
That no longer exists.
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine                And then one day you find
Staying home to watch the rain                Ten years have got behind you
You are young and life is long                No one told you when to run
And there is time to kill today                You missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter                Hanging on in quiet desperation
                                                is the English way
Never seem to find the time                The time is gone, the song is over
Plans that either come to nought        Thought I'd something more to say...
Or half a page of scribbled lines
                -- Pink Floyd, "Time"
Watching girls go passing by
It ain't the latest thing
I'm just standing in a doorway
I'm just trying to make some sense
Out of these girls passing by                A smile relieves the heart that grieves
The tales they tell of men                Remember what I said
I'm not waiting on a lady                I'm not waiting on a lady
I'm just waiting on a friend                I'm just waiting on a friend
...
Don't need a whore
Don't need no booze
Don't need a virgin priest                Ooh, making love and breaking hearts
But I need someone I can cry to                It is a game for youth
I need someone to protect                But I'm not waiting on a lady
                                        I'm just waiting on a friend
                                        I'm just waiting on a friend
                -- Rolling Stones, "Waiting on a Friend"
Two golfers were being held up as the twosome of women in front of them
whiffed shots, hunted for lost balls and stood over putts for what seemed
like hours.
        "I'll ask if we can play through," Bill said as he strode toward
the women.  Twenty yards from the green, however, he turned on his heel
and went back to where his companion was waiting.
        "Can't do it," he explained, sheepishly.  "One of them's my wife
and the other's my mistress!"
        "I'll ask," said Jim.  He started off, only to turn and come back
before reaching the green.
        "What's wrong?" Bill asked.
        "Small world, isn't it?"
"And finally, " said Max, quieting the audience down and
putting on his solemn face, "finally I believe we have with
us here tonight, a party of believers, very devout
believers, from the Church of the Second Coming of the
Great Prophet Zarquon. " ... "There they are, " said Max,
"sitting there, patiently. He said he'd come again, and
he's kept you waiting a long time, so let's hope he's
hurrying fellas, because he's only got eight minutes left! "
You Might be a Microsoft Employee If...

1. When a Microsoft program crashes for the millionth time, you say "Oh,
    well!" and reboot without any negative thoughts
2. The Windows 95 startup screen (the clouds) makes you feel all warm and
    fuzzy inside
3. You fully understand why Windows 95's Shutdown Option has to be
    accessed from the Start Menu
4. You believe Internet Explorer's security flaws were slipped in by a
    crack team of Netscape programmers
5. You keep valuable papers near your fireplace. Therefore, you are
    comfortable with Windows 95's "may-delete-it-at-anytime" philosophy
6. You're the Bob that Microsoft Bob was named after
7. Instead of "I'd rather be fishing," your bumper sticker says, "I'd
    rather be writing buggy Microsoft code"
8. You know the technical difference between OLE 1.0 and OLE 2.0
9. You've ever completed your income taxes while waiting for Windows 95
    to boot, and didn't think anything of it
10. You run Solitaire more than any other program, and therefore you
    consider your computer a Dedicated Solitaire Engine (DSE)
I'm still waiting for the "Honk if you hate Microsoft" [bumper sticker],
but that might get annoying, everyone honking at you.

   -- From a Slashdot.org post
Dave Finton gazes into his crystal ball...

July 2000: Government Issues Update on Y2K Crisis to American Public

In a statement to all U.S. citizens, the President assured that the
repairs to the nation's infrastructure, damaged severely when the Y2K
crisis hit on January 1, is proceeding on track with the Government's
guidelines. The message was mailed to every citizen by mail carriers via
horseback. The statement itself was written on parchment with hand-made
ink written from fountain pens.

"Our technological progress since the Y2K disaster has been staggering,"
said the statement. "We have been able to fix our non-Y2K compliant horse
carriages so that commerce can once again continue. We believe that we
will be able to reinvent steam-powered engines within the next decade.
Internal combustion engines should become operational once again sometime
before the dawn of the next century."

No one knows when the technological luxuries we once enjoyed as little as
6 months ago will return. Things such as e-mail, the Internet, and all
computers were lost when the crisis showed itself for what it really was:
a disaster waiting to happen. Scholars predict the mainframe computer will
be invented again during the 24th century...
Jargon Coiner (#10)

An irregular feature that aims to give you advance warning of new jargon
that we've just made up.

* HOBTOB (Hanging Out By The O'Reilly Books): Seeking free Linux technical
  support at a bookstore by waiting near the computer books for a geek to
  come by and then casually asking them for help.

* MOOLA (Marketing Officially Organizes Linux Adoptance):  A press release
  issued by a Dot Com (or Dot Con?) heralding their "support" for Linux
  (i.e. "BigPortal.com adopts Linux as their official operating system by
  adding five Linux-related links to their BigDirectory"); used to inflate
  their stock price and rake in moola even though none of their employees
  have ever used Linux and don't really care.
  
* KARMA KOLLECTOR: Slashdot user who treats the acquisition of "karma" as
  a game; often has a detailed strategy on how to sucker moderators into
  raising the score of their posts (i.e. posting a comment with a title
  like "Microsoft Sucks!!! (Score 3, Insightful)" or using "Only a fool
  would moderate this down" as a signature). See also "Karma Whore".
NEWSFLASH: Colonel Panic's Software Bazaar in Yakima, Washington has
instituted a new policy requiring customers to undergo a five-day waiting
period before purchasing any Microsoft products.
A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head.  The
green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that
grew in the ears themselvse, stuck out on either side like turn signals
indicating two directions at once.  Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the
bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled
with disapproval and potato chip crumbs.  In the shadow under the green visor
of the cap Ignatius J. Reilly's supercilious blue and yellow eyes looked down
upon the other people waiting under the clock at the D.H. Holmes department
store, studying the crowd of people for signs of bad taste in dress.  Several
of the outfits, Ignatius noticed, were new enough and expensive enough to be
properly considered offenses against taste and decency.  Possession of
anything new or expensive only reflected a person's lack of theology and
geometry; it could even cast doubts upon one's soul.
                -- John Kennedy Toole, "Confederacy of Dunces"
The opposite of talking isn't listening.  The opposite of talking is waiting.
                -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies"
Vila: "I think I have just made the biggest mistake of my life."

Orac: "It is unlikely.  I would predict there are far greater mistakes
      waiting to be made by someone with your obvious talent for it."
You know you're in trouble when...
(1)        Your only son tells you he wishes Anita Bryant would mind
                her own business.
(2)        You put your bra on backwards and it fits better.
(3)        You call Suicide Prevention and they put you on hold.
(4)        You see a `60 Minutes' news team waiting in your office.
(5)        Your birthday cake collapses from the weight of the candles.
(6)        Your 4-year old reveals that it's "almost impossible" to
                flush a grapefruit down the toilet.
(7)        You realize that you've memorized the back of the cereal box.
I would rather spend 10 hours reading someone else's source code than 10
minutes listening to Musak waiting for technical support which isn't.
        -- Dr. Greg Wettstein, Roger Maris Cancer Center
In Lowes Crossroads, Delaware, it is a violation of local law for any
pilot or passenger to carry an ice cream cone in their pocket while
either flying or waiting to board a plane.
I would rather spend 10 hours reading someone else's source code than
10 minutes listening to Musak waiting for technical support which isn't.
        -- Dr. Greg Wettstein, Roger Maris Cancer Center
For every bloke who makes his mark, there's half a dozen waiting to rub it out.
                -- Andy Capp
The Worst Car Hire Service
        When David Schwartz left university in 1972, he set up Rent-a-wreck
as a joke.  Being a natural prankster, he acquired a fleet of beat-up
shabby, wreckages waiting for the scrap heap in California.
        He put on a cap and looked forward to watching people's faces as he
conducted them round the choice of bumperless, dented junkmobiles.
        To his lasting surprise there was an insatiable demand for them and
he now has 26 thriving branches all over America.  "People like driving
round in the worst cars available," he said.  Of course they do.
        "If a driver damages the side of a car and is honest enough to
admit it, I tell him, `Forget it'.  If they bring a car back late we
overlook it.  If they've had a crash and it doesn't involve another vehicle
we might overlook that too."
        "Where's the ashtray?" asked on Los Angeles wife, as she settled
into the ripped interior.  "Honey," said her husband, "the whole car's the
ash tray."
                -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
Don't despair; your ideal lover is waiting for you around the corner.
That's life for you, said McDunn.  Someone always waiting for someone who
never comes home.  Always someone loving something more than that thing loves
them.  And after awhile you want to destroy whatever that thing is, so it
can't hurt you no more.
                -- R. Bradbury, "The Fog Horn"
The story of the butterfly:
        "I was in Bogota and waiting for a lady friend.  I was in love,
a long time ago.  I waited three days.  I was hungry but could not go
out for food, lest she come and I not be there to greet her.  Then, on
the third day, I heard a knock."
        "I hurried along the old passage and there, in the sunlight,
there was nothing."
        "Just," Vance Joy said, "a butterfly, flying away."
                -- Peter Carey, BLISS
Why I Can't Go Out With You:

I'd LOVE to, but...
        -- I have to draw "Cubby" for an art scholarship.
        -- I have to sit up with a sick ant.
        -- I'm trying to be less popular.
        -- My bathroom tiles need grouting.
        -- I'm waiting to see if I'm already a winner.
        -- My subconscious says no.
        -- I just picked up a book called "Glue in Many Lands" and I
                can't seem to put it down.
        -- My favorite commercial is on TV.
        -- I have to study for my blood test.
        -- I've been traded to Cincinnati.
        -- I'm having my baby shoes bronzed.
        -- I have to go to court for kitty littering.
No guarantee of accuracy or completeness!
©TU Chemnitz, 2006-2024
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