Steven Wright

If you're not familiar with the work of Steven Wright, he's the famous
erudite scientist who once said:  "I woke up one morning and all of
my stuff had been stolen.. and replaced by exact duplicates."

His mind seems to see things differently than we do, to our
amazement and amusement.

Here are some of his gems:

1. I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.

2. Borrow money from pessimists -- they don't expect it back.

3. Half the people you know are below average.

4. 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

5. 42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

6. A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.

7. A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

8. If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.

9. All those who believe in psychokinesis, raise my hand.

10. The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

11. I almost had a psychic girlfriend, but she left me before we met.

12. OK, so what's the speed of dark?

13. How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?

14. If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked
something.

15. Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.

16. When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

17. Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.

18. Hard work pays off in the future, laziness pays off now.

19. I intend to live forever. So far, so good.

20. If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?

21. The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.

22. What happens if you get scared half to death twice?

23. My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn
louder."

24. Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?

25. If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

26. The colder the x-ray table, the more of your body is required to
be on it.

27. Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

28. The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.

29. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is
research.

30. The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.

More Laws

Agnes Allen's Law: Almost anything is easier to get
into than out of.

Army Laws: If it moves, salute it. If it doesn't move,
pick it up. If you can't pick it up, paint it.

Barth's Distinction: There are two types of people:
those who divide people into two types, and those who
don't.

Bartz's Law of Hokey Horsepuckery: The more ridiculous
a belief system, the higher the probability of its
success.

Baruch's Rule for Determining Old Age: Old age is
always fifteen years older than I am.

Basic Law of Construction: Cut it large and kick it
into place.

Becker's Law: It is much harder to find a job than to
keep one.

Benchley's Law: Anyone can do any amount of work,
provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing
at that moment.

Berra's Law: You can observe a lot just by watching.

Bicycle Law: All bicycles weigh 50 pounds: A 30-pound
bicycle needs a 20-pound lock and chain. A 40-pound
bicycle needs a 10-pound lock and chain. A 50-pound
bicycle needs no lock or chain.

Boling's Postulate: If you're feeling good, don't
worry. You'll get over it.

Bombeck's Rule of Medicine: Never go to a doctor whose
office plants have died.

Boren's Laws of the Bureaucracy: 1. When in doubt,
mumble. 2. When in trouble, delegate. 3. When in
charge, ponder.

Borstelmann's Rule: If everything seems to be coming
your way, you're probably in the wrong lane.

Bralek's Rule for Success: Trust only those who stand
to lose as much as you do when things go wrong.

Brien's First Law: At some time in the life cycle of
virtually every organization, its ability to succeed in
spite of itself runs out.

Cannon's Comment: If you tell the boss you were late
for work because you had a flat tire, the next morning
you will have a flat tire.

Captain Penny's Law: You can fool all of the people
some of the time, and some of the people all of the
time, but you can't fool MOM.

Cardinal Conundrum: An optimist believes we live in the
best of all possible worlds. A pessimist fears this is
true.

Character and Appearance Law: People don't change; they
only become more so.

Clarke's Law of Revolutionary Ideas: Every
revolutionary idea -- in Science, Politics, Art or
Whatever -- evokes three stages of reaction. They may
be summed up by the three phrases: 1. "It is completely
impossible -- don't waste my time." 2. "It is possible,
but it is not worth doing." 3. "I said it was a good
idea all along."

Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Cleveland's Highway Law: Highways in the worst need of
repair naturally have low traffic counts, which results
in low priority for repair work.

Clyde's Law: If you have something to do, and you put
it off long enough, chances are someone else will do it
for you.

Cohen's Law of Wisdom: Wisdom is considered a sign of
weakness by the powerful because a wise man can lead
without power but only a powerful man can lead without
wisdom.

Cole's Axiom: The sum of the intelligence on the planet
is a constant; the population is growing.

Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage.

Colvard's Logical Premise: All probabilities are 50%.
Either a thing will happen, or it won't.

Commoner's Three Laws of Ecology: 1. No action is
without side-effects. 2. Nothing ever goes away. 3.
There is no free lunch.

Cooper's Law: All machines are amplifiers.

Dieter's Law: The food that tastes the best has the
highest number of calories.

Displaced Hassle Principle: To beat the bureaucracy,
make your problem their problem.

Ducharm's Axiom: If you view your problem closely
enough, you will recognize yourself as part of the
problem.

Dykstra's Law: Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.

Edelstein's Advice: Don't worry over what other people
are thinking about you. They're too busy worrying over
what you are thinking about them.

Ehrlich's Rule: The first rule of intelligent tinkering
is to save all the parts.

Ettorre's Observation: The other line moves faster.
Corollary: Don't try to change lines. The other line --
the one you were in originally -- will then move
faster.

Farber's Third Law: We're all going down the same road
in different directions

Finagle's Laws of Information: 1. The information you
have is not what you want. 2. The information you want
is not what you need. 3. The information you need is
not what you can obtain. 4. The information you can
obtain costs more than you want to pay.

Finnigan's Law: The farther away the future is, the
better it looks.