After a writer is dead, some anonymous scholar often collects the best quotes from all of his written works, reducing his laboriously written tomes to a few sound bites. A while back, I decided to save this anonymous scholar some work, compile quotations from my writings myself, and post them in a blog. I soon realized that I had many more important things to say than were in that first compilation. Here are more nuggets of my enduring wisdom.

“It was a small town where change comes slowly and news travels fast.”

“If MENSA members are so smart, why do they waste their time doing those pointless puzzles and quizzes?”

“I am the family member my family counts on to be tall enough to reach things off the top shelf and strong enough to open the pickle jar. My family is in deep trouble.”

“The reason men don’t use their wedding anniversary as their password is that they don’t want to risk forgetting their password.”

“Last night, I had a healthy meal of fruit, nuts, cocoa beans, honey, and dairy. Also known as a banana split with chocolate sauce and honey-glazed peanuts.”

“Bible teachers should not boast in their insights or their novel interpretations. They do not create anything. Rather, they are students of the Bible who just see what is already there and shout, ‘Wow! Look at that!’”

“A Canadian is someone whose primary loyalty is to the nation from which his ancestors fled in order to escape persecution or poverty.”

“Drummers travel to a different beat. They are flakey, like hockey goaltenders. I remember a time when our high school bandmaster stopped our band in the middle of practice to ask the drummers, ‘Is that what is written in your music?’ The drummers stopped, looked at each other and then opened their music book. They didn’t care what they were supposed to be playing or whatever the rest of the band was playing. They just played what felt right to them.”

“My beard, which used to be red, is now white. It seems appropriate somehow. My kids have been convinced for a long time that I’m Santa Claus.”

“My daughter was going to take her kids to see Santa Claus, but the mall was charging $30 so she decided not to. I told her that was okay—I would put on a red coat and make the kids cry for free.”

“You can learn something new every day. This morning, the news reported that woodpeckers were disturbing homeowners by pounding on roofs and chimneys during mating season. I didn’t even know homeowners had a mating season.”

“There is no cure for insomnia equal to the sound of the alarm clock going off.”

“I don’t belong to any organized religion. I’m a Baptist.”

“Do you remember when having an infectious laugh was considered a good thing?”