Quotes

(an imaginary prime-ministerial directive) To accuse political opponents of siding with deviant criminals who exploit young children is perhaps the vilest, sleaziest, most repugnant political tactic of all. That's why we save it for political campaigns.

Hollywood has taught us that geniuses are at all times to be revered, even if they suffer from horrible afflictions such as schizophrenia, or 'being played by Russell Crowe'.

Researchers now claim you can tell a lot about the size of a man's penis by comparing the length of his index finger to that of his ring finger. The lower the ratio, the longer the penis. (At this point I would like to take a moment to welcome back to the column all the men who stopped reading just now to check the ratio of their fingers.)

'Santa Claus is Coming to Town' has long been the 'Every Breath You Take' of Christmas songs - a seemingly upbeat number with a sinister overtone. Santa watches you in bed. Santa knows if you're naughty. You half expect the song to continue: 'He knows your g-mail login, He rifles through your trash! He's stolen your identity and withdrawn all your cash'.

Cruising through middle age with a feeble memory is a real thrill ride. Every moment holds the potential for adventure and intrigue. Will I remember where I parked the car? Will I remember that I own a car? My pulse is racing!

[on visiting the Guggenheim Museum with his son] I learned that the Frank Lloyd Wright design ensures that the human voice reverberates when spoken at anything more than a murmur. This is especially true if the human voice is that of of a 12-year-old boy saying too loudly, 'This is all a big pile of junk.

The fundamental bargain of life is that as you grow older you acquire a measure of insight and perspective - which sort of makes up for all the nose hair and incontinence.

(reviewing 'Breasts: a Natural and Unnatural History) The book is a serious examination of the female anatomy - one that explores evolutionary questions and reveals that breasts of women today are the largest in recorded history. Apparently, 'the average-sized breast for an American woman is now a C cup, and certain lingerie stores sell sizes from H to KK. Sadly, the book is silent on urgent questions such as why this is happening and whether you can see into these lingerie stores from the street.

[on men's washrooms] At football stadiums I've queued a bit for a space at the shiny metal trough. (Yes, ladies, there's a trough - and you're expected to pee into it, right in there with the other men's pee, because, apparently, we're animals now.)

Pretty much every day now we wake up to news that the Hang Seng is down three per cent, which is a bummer because hearing 'Hang Seng' used to be so much fun, in that it sounded like a bounty hunter from 'Star Wars'.

Many economists now believe most nations are destined to suffer through what's known as a 'double-dip recession', which we've been trying to avoid because that's how the germs of the first recession get into the salsa.

I may not have a degree in economics - in fact, I'm pretty sure I don't. They tend not to bestow them on students who think Supply and Demand is a pop duo from the '80s.

Economic collapse may not be all bad. It's stressful trying to keep up with the Joneses. Maybe we'd all enjoy an extended period where instead we tried hunting them down for food.

In Canada, national political campaigns are brief. We begin by pretty much ignoring the whole thing for a few weeks - then there's the debate, a little yelling, maybe some pointing, every leader buys a bunch of Timbits and - boom, suddenly it's election day. But in the United States, presidential campaigns last longer than pregnancies and most wars.

[on advances in technology] A group of scientists recently built a robot that can pick up a towel, stretch it out and then stack it neatly after meticulously folding it over three times. This is a good start, assuming they've also taught it to tell the difference between a towel and a baby.

Those who eschew region and reject the existence of God say death brings nothingness. FYI, this is why no one likes you, atheists. Your marketing is terrible. Put yourself in our shoes. We've just muddled through seventy or eighty years of drab human existence and finally learned how to make a decent smoothie. And now you're telling us this skill is useless? Not cool, atheists.

[Mitt] Romney revealed that his solution to Americans killing numerous other Americans with semi-automatic weapons is not to ban or limit semi-automatic weapons but to make sure people get married. Because apparently nothing stops you from gunning down strangers quite like having to be home for supper by 5:30.

[on Mitt Romney's answer on pay equity] It began with Mitt bragging about how, as Massachusetts governor, he ordered up 'binders of women' when selecting his cabinet. (I too amassed binders of women as a younger man, but for a different reason.)

An hour into the debate, you'd have sworn that Obama alone was responsible for saving the U.S. economy, the auto industry, the entire middle class, Medicare, Harrison Ford's wife in 'Frantic', and the last dance for me.

[on getting used to dorm living] All you can do is make the best of it. I knew two guys in residence who hated each other but found a way to tolerate life together by barely coming into contact. Think of it as useful preparation for marriage.

A hunger strike is the most childish of all negotiating ploys. It's basically the grown-up equivalent of dropping to the floor in Toys R Us and wailing until Mommy says, 'Fine, one Power Ranger'.

Did you know that having to deal with pennies has cost the Canadian economy $78 billion in lost productivity a year? It hasn't, but it's a plausible excuse and now let's use it for nickels.

Listen, I'm all in favour of efforts to humanize our Prime Minister. Like many Canadians, I was proud of him during the last campaign when, for the first time, he successfully touched a baby without making the 'Ewww!' face. But Harper's preoccupation with animals is getting a little disconcerting, right? He mails out glamour photos of his cats. His office recently tweeted a picture of the Prime Minister petting his wife's chinchilla. And now he's rushing to greet some panda bears? I'm telling you: we're at most a couple of months away from Harper showing up to question period with a parrot his shoulder.

Plagiarizing is commonplace now. Recently, a researcher was even censured for his habit of plagiarizing himself. Self-plagiarizing? It's not worth the risk of going blind, people! Kids today are always getting busted for cheating or plagiarizing and I just wonder why they don't do things the old-fashioned way: put in a half-hearted effort, earn a terrible grade and make parents wish you'd never been born. That method works, folks. It's time-tested.

[on Justin Trudeau's admission he had used marijuana] He went back through every moment he'd ever spent in the vicinity of weed. Gripped by the tale of the Joint He Puffed On Once After Dinner? You'll love the sequel: the Joint He Briefly Held But Passed On Without Smoking! Basically the whole interview was what 'Breaking Bad' would have been like if it had been made by the CBC.

A recent study estimated that humans today are 14 IQ points less intelligent than during the Victorian era. But we don't need studies to tell us what we already know from our own experiences. Few of us try to get anywhere these days without a GPS. We don't know anything without Google. The other day, I watched a cashier at a fast-food place try to make change. It was liking watching a puma trying to play billiards.

[on the Canadian political landscape] I'm not saying the NDP leader comes off as professorial, but an opinion poll would surely find that at least 85 per-cent of Canadians agree with the statement 'Thomas Mulcair is likely to smell of tweed'.

[on visiting Prince George at between and 0 and 6 months] You'll likely find your royal baby making progress. With substantial effort, he may even be able to lift his head briefly while lying on his stomach, just like Prince Harry on Sunday mornings.

Here's a Canadian summertime truth: The only thing better than owning a cottage is being invited to visit one. The cottage invitation confers all the benefits of seasonal bliss, with none of the worries about the sagging dock, the wonky plumbing, or the fact that the master bedroom was, over the winter, transformed into a swinger's club for mice.

[on helping to coach junior hockey] It brought to mind that image of cat-herding. I can now say with some authority: attempting to get seventeen teenagers to pay attention at the same time is exactly like trying to herd cats - flying cats that buzzed on Red Bull, and are also deaf..More than once I had to stop myself from scolding them for the profanity. I knew them when they were little boys, and it's those younger faces I sometimes see when they're dropping f-bombs and trading wang jokes. Making things even tougher, I usually have in my head a much better wang joke.

It is the simple truth of sport. Even among the very best, victory can force a smile onto the face of a stoic. And even when you're just playing on a Saturday night in Stittsville, coming up short can break your heart.

Arriving at a studio to be photographed..I was directed to the makeup artist, who took a quick look at my face and said, by way of greeting, 'Hmm, what are those eyebrows doing?'..It's hard not to wonder: What evolutionary purpose was served by eyebrows that bloom like mad in middle age? Is this nature's way of telling us we were all meant to be eccentric professors?

[on the revised wardrobe announced for Ronald McDonald] So why the new-look Ronald? According the the company's 'Global Relationship Officer' - which sounds like a position the United Nations would create for Gwyneth Paltrow - 'customers today want to engage with brands in different ways'. That's a trendy thought, but is there evidence to support it? From my experience, most people want to engage with McDonald's the same way they always have: without leaving their car, or being seen by an acquaintance, or thinking about what they're doing to themselves.

[about Black Friday] It is fast becoming my favourite day of the year - not because I love the start of the holiday shopping season, but because I'm a sucker for the end of civilizations. I'm not sure how Rome ultimately fell, but odds are good the end came right around the time a swarm of thousands lined up at midnight to score 30 per cent off a second-rate toga.

Discussing the Ebola outbreak last fall, President Obama declared the risk of contracting the disease to be relatively low for 'ordinary folks'. This came off as weirdly informal - kind of like if Roosevelt had proclaimed the attack on Pearl Harbor to be 'a day that will live as a real bummer'.

[advice to the families of politicians]] It may be months before your retiring MP stops wandering in to say a few words at the 50th anniversary celebrations of complete strangers.

'Never go to bed angry' is the granddaddy of marital advice, pitched to generation after generation as the Rosetta Stone of a good relationship. It also happens to be 100 percent horse crap. Want some practical advice? If you and your spouse are arguing, you should both commit to not going to bed sober. You can't nurse a grudge if you can't remember you have a grudge. Or why your pants are on the ceiling fan.