Oberlin Blogs

My semester in quotations

May 18, 2010

Zoe McLaughlin ’11

In high school, I did this thing called The Quote Book. I wasn't about to stop writing down quotations once I got to college, if only because I knew all you loyal readers of mine would benefit. Since classes have just finished, here is a run-down of some of my favorite quotations from the semester. They are skewed toward a certain professor, as you will soon see, but it's not my fault that some people are more quotable than others.

Professor Styer: If you try to memorize all the formulas in the book, you will fail. I mean, you will fail to memorize all the formulas in the book.

Professor Hyman: It'd be like if everyone in Saudi Arabia had to wear oil.

Professor Styer: Once we've found the answer, do we just say, 'Oh, that was hard,' and then go to sleep?

Professor Styer: Experimentalists spend much of their time looking for leaks in vacuum systems.
(This is probably only amusing to me, because this is what I spend most of my time doing.)

Professor Styer: You laugh. That's because you've never been a dictator shot at by charged bullets before.

Professor Styer: Every once in a while, the chemists change their conventions on me. I don't know because I'm not a chemist.

Professor Rowsell: It can occur through what we'll just call magic but what is really quantum mechanics.

Professor Styer: In the absence of Mr. Spock, Captain Kirk turns to you for advice.

Sophia: Stevie Wonder would not tolerate this!

Professor Styer: There are lots of things that are obvious that are not true.

Professor Styer (on the destruction of Alderaan): Does the Death Star recoil? No! That is why it's the most tragic moment.

Professor Styer: What is wrong with number six, other than saying, "Dan Styer hates ugly children"?

Professor Styer: I used to be able to do this problem.
Someone: That means you would be unable to put it on a test, right?
Professor Styer: No!

Professor Styer: No gas is really ideal, just as life is not ideal.

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