Professor Quotes, 2003-2004

I am a quote-writing machine, and some of my professors are quote-making machines.  This is the last one of these there will ever be, so enjoy it.

    "And anyone who's seen Little Nemo, why would they take a bet with Winsor McCay?  'I'll bet you can't do that... you famous cartoonist and animator, you."
    --- History of Animation professor Scott Curtis on the plot of McCay's Gertie the Dinosaur

   "Wile E. Coyote goes off the cliff and doesn't fall until he realizes.  And I think that's a profound moment in the history of philosophy."
    --- Professor Curtis

    "Fishsticks... one of the greatest inventions of modern times."
    --- North American Geography professor John Hudson

    "A lot of people ask me, 'What's the point of Canada?'"
    --- Professor Hudson

    "This is the actual house where this girl that never existed lived."
    --- Professor Hudson on the Anne of Green Gables house on Prince Edward Island

    "Looks like Boston's getting an enema here."
    --- Professor Hudson on a map with a lot of arrows pointing in towards Boston

    "You don't have to do anything serious.   Skiing, summer theater... making salad bowls, whatever."
    --- Professor Hudson on New England exurbia

    "It's all right to be amused by this.  Are you folks Lutherans or something?"
    --- Professor Hudson

    "Tootsie's World Famous Orchid Lounge, and that's on North Broadway in Nashville... you can go in there at like eight in the morning and get your kids drunk."
    --- Professor Hudson

    "I have ten thousand [VHS tapes] in my basement and I don't know what to do with them.  [students laugh]  It's not funny."
    --- History of Broadcasting professor Lawrence Lichty

    "For that class of station, the average quarter-hour audience was 800 people. You can reach that many people by yelling."
    --- Professor Lichty

    "Which of course you know it is not."
    --- Professor Lichty noting that WGN stands for "World's Greatest Newspaper," as it was started by the Tribune

    "KOOL is in Phoenix, which it isn't.  KOLD is in Tucson, which it especially isn't."
    --- Professor Lichty on misleading radio call letters

    "These are arguments that people are having in coffee houses, over newspapers, in bars, and all of the rest. ... Not in bars."
    --- International Relations professor Ian Hurd

    "When the Netherlands wanted to be on the [U.N. Security] Council, the Royal Ballet of the Netherlands magically appeared in New York and started doing shows, to which all of the U.N. delegates were freely admitted.  Well, how did that happen?"
    --- Professor Hurd

    "Does Iraq have to listen to what the United Nations Security Council says?  No.  If I park my car on Sheridan Road for more than three hours, can I say, 'I don't have to listen to what they say?'  No - they can ticket me, and tow my car, and make my life a huge pain in the ass.  Which they did."
    --- International Relations TA Lee Seymour, discussing matters of jurisdiction

    "Oh... how about 'plot?'"
    --- Screenwriting professor Dave Tolchinsky, after listing numerous screenplay components on the board

    "And they had the guy from Reservoir Dad... uh, Dogs, as the stepdad."
    --- Professor Tolchinsky on Free Willy

   "A guy in a cage full of tigers, you just can't go wrong.  That's a metaphor for your writing - put your guy in a 'cage' full of 'tigers.'"
    --- Professor Tolchinsky talking about going to the circus

    "I'm not gonna show you The Sixth Sense, because you've all seen it, but, duh.  Right?  Duh."
    --- Professor Tolchinsky on the day we were looking at film endings

    "I have an uncle who talks like this.  That's because he never went to college."
    --- Linguistics professor Lotus Goldberg on using construction like "To whom did you speak?" in normal speech

    "'Here is a box,' blank... figs.  I love figs."
    --- Professor Goldberg, constructing sample sentences

    "You know, a lot of ad guys are linguists - because linguists graduate and they can't find jobs."
    --- Professor Goldberg on the linguistic-rule-breaking wordplay of "uncola"

    "What linguists sometimes use are trees.   Which makes me happy, because I like squirrels, and squirrels live in trees..."
    --- Professor Goldberg on how to break down sentence structure

    "Not even a chuckle.  Okay, if this had been funny, why would it have been funny?"
    --- Professor Goldberg, trying to use an old joke as an example

(complete as of 03 June 2004)

02-03 Prof Quoes | 01-02 Prof Quotes | 00-01 Prof Quotes | Very Witte