Dave Barry Quotes

So it's mix and match. Hold your line when you really feel something you're saying is wonderful and you really want to get this point across and prove it to your partner by just throwing it into the tape and letting it speak for itself.

I avoid my neighbors - luckily, my building has two exits.

I'll match wits with anybody. I don't care if they have the top degree in the world.

I am afraid I am totally hermetic to social games in general.

I have a talent for missing the best and greatest parties.

I'll argue anyone into the dust when it comes to facts.

I've been very successful at negotiating debates.

I was the girl who didn’t get invited to parties.

I welcome opposing viewpoints, but I should warn you that you'll be facing off against the 2nd-place finisher at the 1981 Charleston County High-School Debate Tournament. And whatever became of that county champ who argued in favor of tractor safety modifications? Last time I checked, she didn't have her own show.

An introvert may feel asocial when pressured to go to a party that doesn't interest her. But for her, the event does not promise meaningful interaction. In fact, she knows that the party will leave her feeling more alone and alienated.

Rhetoric is the counterpart of logic; since both are conversant with subjects of such a nature as it is the business of all to have a certain knowledge of, and which belong to no distinct science. Wherefore all men in some way participate of both; since all, to a certain extent, attempt, as well to sift, as to maintain an argument; as well to defend themselves, as to impeach.

I'm aware, as a sane person, that I'm not the best-looking guy in the world. I'm aware of it. But when I go into a party, I will walk out with your girlfriend.

I will sit there on the air and look at every position and play devil's advocate.

A powerful idea communicates some of its power to the man who contradicts it. Partaking of the universal community of minds, it infiltrates, grafts itself on to, the mind of him who it refutes, among other contiguous ideas, with the aid of which, counter-attacking, he complements and corrects it; so that the final verdict is always to some extent the work of both parties to a discussion.

It was always important to me to be that kid who could rock the party as well as rock the English professor's mind.

The only thing worse than having a party that no one attends is having a party attended only by two vastly, deeply uninteresting people.

I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child.... My hemmings and hawings over the telephone cause long-distance callers to switch from their native English to pathetic French. At parties, if I attempt to entertain people with a good story, I have to go back to every other sentence for oral erasures and inserts.... In these circumstances nobody should ask me to submit to an interview if by "interview" a chat between two normal human beings is implied.

Why be a dumb dud? Do your friends shun you? Do people cross the street when they see you approaching? Do they run up the steps of strange houses, pretend they live there and force their way into the hall while you are passing by? If this is the sort of person you are, you must avail yourself today of this new service. Otherwise, you might as well be dead.

I know no better way of waging the battle for Truth than arraying the facts face to face on either side and letting them fight it out.

And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.

I'm not good at debating - I'm much better at pontificating.

I wasn't some weird loner in school, but I definitely wasn't invited to any of the cool parties. Girls didn't like me that much -- I didn't even go to my prom.

I normally can't stand vice-free people. They conflate a narcissistic instinct for self-preservation with moral superiority. Plus, they suck the life right out of a party.

I changed schools a lot when I was in elementary school because some girls were mean. They were less mean in middle school, because I was doing all right; although this one girl gave me invitations to hand out to her birthday party that I wasn't invited to.

The best party is but a kind of conspiracy against the rest of the nation.