The End: Yearbook Quotes

The time has come. I'm shutting down production on Veni Vidi Vixi. Aaron, Eileen, and I simply don't have the time to write enough to make this blog worth reading, so I'm going to concentrate my efforts on Sportszilla and the Jabber Jocks, and I'm going to write everything else in my LiveJournal. It's hard for me to accept that I wasn't able to make this space work, but I can't run from the truth. At least I came up with something fun for the final column.

Back in 2002, Bill Simmons wrote a pair of columns (Insider required) in which he listed the best yearbook quotes he and his readers could come up with. While it's an impressive and very funny list, he screwed up. First, the vast majority of the quotes appeal primarily to guys in their mid-thirties... guys just like Simmons, not current high school kids. I mean, what high school kid today would use a quote referring to Road House? Second, he didn't include a single Simpsons quote. What? None? Zero? That's right, not a single quote from Homer Jay Simpson. Baffling, indeed.

So, in honor of Veni Vidi Vixi's transition into dormant blog, I've compiled a list of yearbook quotes that, if I could do it over again, I would definitely choose over the one I did submit. ("A poet must write if he is ultimately to be at peace with himself. What a man can be he must be." Blech.) None of the Simmons quotes are repeated here, and I hope these are more significant to the generations of kids graduating high school this year and over the next few years.

AND NOW, THE QUOTES...

"Your mom goes to college."
--Kip

"I'm sorry, officer. I didn't know I couldn't do that."
--Dave Chappelle

"Ya' know Hobbes, some days even my lucky spaceship underpants don't help."
--Calvin

"Opening Day isn't just any day. It's... it's... it's the Day of Days."
--Harold Reynolds

"Earth! Fire! Wind! Water! Heart!"
--The Planeteers

"You tell 'em I'm coming! And Hell's coming with me, you hear? Hell's coming with me!"
--Wyatt Earp

"In [your town], one man was more man then the rest. His name was [your name]. He was like a god walking amongst mere mortals. He had a voice that could make a wolverine purr and suits so fine they made Sinatra look like a hobo. In other words, [your name] was the balls."
--Anchorman

"Have you seen this boy?"
--my buddy, Ken, almost used this one

"I am the opiate of the masses."
--Captain Murphy

"Let them hate, so long as they fear."
--Caius Caligula

"No, kids. Daddy didn't really look like this."
--Lee Dolson, a senior when I was a freshman in high school

"If y'all see me in the news, and I make the news for something that I ain't got no business making it for, don't bash me. Say it was a young guy living."
--Clinton Portis

"The first half of our life is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children."
--Clarence Darrow

"I believe there ought to be a Constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter..."
--Crash Davis (I used the whole passage as my eighth grade yearbook quote, with "pussy", etc, edited out. I'd use the whole thing if my high school would let me, but we had space restrictions, and, being a Catholic school, probably wouldn't run it in all its unedited glory.)

"Me want cookie."
--Cookie Monster

"I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster and drank pina coladas. At sunset we made love like sea otters. That was a pretty good day. Why couldn't I get that day over and over and over..."
--Phil Connors

"I'm hunting for little Mexican girls."
--Karl Malone

"I'd love to wear a rainbow every day, and tell the world that everything's okay, but I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back. 'Til things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black."
--Johnny Cash

"Sometimes there's a man. Sometimes there's a man. But I'm talking about the Dude."
--The Big Lebowski

"Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you do criticize him, you're a mile away and have his shoes."
--Steve Martin or Jack Handey

"People are always asking me if I know Tyler Durden."
--Fight Club

"42"
--Douglas Adams


THE SIMPSONS GETS ITS OWN SECTION, DAMMIT

"You don't win friends with salad."

"When I grow up, I'm going to Bovine University."

"Sometimes, the only way you can feel good about yourself is by making someone else look bad. And I'm tired of making other people feel good about themselves."

"I can't live the buttoned down life like you. I want it all: the terrifying lows, the dizzying highs, the creamy middles! Sure, I might offend a few of the blue-noses with my cocky stride and musky odor - oh, I'll never be the darling of the so-called 'City Fathers' who cluck their tongues, stroke their beards, and talk about what's to be done with this [your name here]?"

"Just once, I wish someone would call me 'sir' without adding, 'you're making a scene.'"

"I'm not out of order. You're out of order. The whole freakin' system is out of order. You want the truth? You want the truth? You can't HANDLE the truth. 'Cause when you reach over and put your hand into a pile of goo that was your best friend's face, you'll know what to do. Forget it, Marge, it's Chinatown!"

"You're dumb as a mule and twice as ugly. If a strange man offers you a ride, I say take it!"

"We must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom."

"Stupid risks are what make life worth living."


Thank you to Zach, Sara, and Rudraigh for sending me their own suggestions for quotes to include in this list.

And thank you to everyone that's offered help and support with VVV over the past year. Thanks, especially, to Eileen, Aaron, and Jay, for their columns. I'll leave the blog up so that folks can read through it, but this is the last new column. And now, for the final yearbook quote suggestion, "Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow."

UPDATE, 25 MARCH 2006: I've copied the entire blog into a Word doc and taken down all the other pages.