"You can't drink coffee in the car. It's not safe."
"People mistakenly think that the cold war is nothing but an arm wrestle on a global scale."
Sarah: "Dad, what's it like having kids?"
Dad: (with heavy sarcasm) "Oh, it's wonderful, Sarah. It's just a question of which moment is better than the next."(Note: this was said after some deliberate annoyance by myself and my brother)
Sarah: "Dad, what's it like being a famous professor?"
Dad: (without hesitation) "I hate it!"
On bread:
"This bread has such a nice, wine-y smell."
"In 1960, at UC Berkeley, I was too poor to buy bread, so I learned how to make it. I couldn't afford yeast, so I just used the spores in the air, you could do that, because it was the Bay Area. Also, I packed myself a bag lunch and a bag dinner so that I wouldn't have to leave the library. So when you make bread, you can eat it after it comes fresh out of the oven, and after it gets stale for a few days, you can slice it real thin and it's like crackers. Then you can use the crumbs to make new bread, you add them to the dough...it's like a life cycle."
Sarah: "Dad, did you know that Phil keeps a bread knife in his room?"
Dad: "Oh, relax, Sarah! We have plenty of bread knives."
On tenth grade
"A kid in your class smokes?!!!"
Sarah: "Dad, do you still like jelly rolls?"
Dad: "Uh...do I still like jelly rolls...uh...yes."
Sam: "Dad, do you still answer every question by first repeating the question?"
Dad: "Uh...do I still answer every question by first repeating the question...uh...yes."
This isn't a quote, but my dad got tear gassed by Gov. Ronald Reagan in the 60's and then voted for him. Twice.
"You know, Sarah, there are these people who follow around the Grateful Dead. They try to go to as many Grateful Dead shows as they can. They're called 'deadheads.''" (1997)
The spicy food regatta
"You know, kids, in the summer it's important to eat a lot of spicy food, because it helps you sweat and uh, helps cool you off."
"You know, kids, in the winter it's important to eat a lot of spicy food, because it helps keep you warm."
On fruit storage: my dad doesn't care about fruit flies; they swarm all over the kitchen. He calls them his "pets." Ergo,
Dad: "Don't put the strawberries in the refrigerator. They'll lose their lusciousness!"
(But a nice healthy colony of mold and fruit flies don't matter, Vincenza)
To a class of students at West Point who hadn't done the reading and who couldn't respond to his questions:
"You're not being all that you can be!"
"Life is battling other people's incompetence."
"If you make something idiot-proof, they'll make a better idiot."
