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“Don’t Just Sit There, Prophesy!” (Quotes)

Me and Brandon. Photo credit: Myself. Contents credit: Our respective parents, particularly our mothers.

I like to say that my greatest talent is having the coolest friends. And what better way to judge the quality of your friends than the ludicrousness of the quotes you share together?

Please enjoy this selection of quotes, exquisitely curated from the Fall 2023 semester and before.

Music People

People who don’t date me are preliterate societies. –Brandon

Yo check me out with my Gucci greaves bro, and my Prada shoulder pauldrons. –Sam Craven on the future of fashion

Use a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer, babe. –Melissa on George Orwell

I just need to like get really good at the piano in one day. Or drop out of school and play the accordion on a farm in Sweden. Those are my two options. –Em

I’ll go months without listening to a metronome in my sleep. –Michael

Hatsune Miku is like the Spongebob Squarepants of the anime community. –Camryn

It’s like wearing a tie with nothing else, except not as hot. –Camryn

[watching Princess Mononoke]
Matt Heslop: Did that impala become more feminine looking?
Brandon: Are you saying you find it more attractive?

Em: Cereal tastes good out of a tupperware.
Dana: Does it taste different?
Em: It does! In a metaphysical sort of way.

Emma: Yeah Emily, what’s your interpretation?
Brandon: Yeah, don’t just sit there. Prophesy.

Anonymous BYU Professors

Yes I taught you that! And now I’m trying to disabuse you of that because it’s wrong!

I’m seriously going to pass out, this marker is so strong. Let’s pass this around! Let’s talk about how we’re gonna build community!

If I say I’ve been crying all day, she will feel bad for me, because she’s socially obligated to.

We have ‘discuss,’ we have ‘discussion.’ ‘Discussive’ feels…disgusting.

It’s a ham sandwich with a brioche bun! Let’s not be ridiculous.

You’re like a ditransitive verb because you need a lot of compliments.

Other

I found a Van Gogh calendar in the dumpster and I was like, ‘This is a waste.’ –George

I feel like a lawyer is a very basic thing to have…. Aren’t your parents old, aren’t they about to die? –Girl in my apartment complex

Resident: Those kids were always at the back of the bus!
Asher: That’s why I dealt drugs at the front of the bus.

Erica would murder you in your sleep and then write a love novel about it. –Emily M. (from the Japanese house) on my laptop Erica

Have your ever read the Book of Mormon? First book they cut someone’s head off! –Overheard in the Wilkinson Center

Not only did I enjoy that kiss last night, I was awed by the efficiency of it. –To Catch a Thief (an old Cary Grant movie) ∎

Categories
Personal Update

“So I Get to Be the First Pancake?!” (Winter 2023 Quotes)

Drawing in Microsoft Paint
A work of fine art by Michael Memmott. Left: “The traditional framework for understanding compliance is stylized, hierarchical, and static. It assumes that states accept international agreements only when their governments regard them to be in their interest. Because of this, states generally comply with their obligations. If they do not, dispute resolution is available and sanctions will be used to deter violations and to punish offenders.”

It’s that time of the semester again: all the weirdest, wisest, and most unhinged quotes I’ve heard during the last four months of school, all in one place. We’ve got a liberal—nay, promiscuous—helping this time. So buckle your seat belts and remember, in the words of a random stranger I overheard: “Love is stronger than communicable disease. Trust me on this.”

The Band

The closest you get to a one night stand at BYU is ‘hey do you want to do the bowling deal with me?’ —Brandon

Emily (about Portal): I really love the little turrets. They’re so cute.
Brandon: Probably 70% of my social skills come from those turrets. Conservative.

I have as much reading comprehension as a poodle right now. Possibly less. —Emily

That’s actually a swear word in my conlang. —Em
My conlang is exclusively swear words. —Em, upon having this quote reread to her

I have a devil on both shoulders. —Em

As I read that sentence, my eyes narrowed promiscuously. —Camryn

People think it’s weird when I give them earlobe massages. —Michael

Every time I go to Tucano’s I feel so sick afterwards and it takes me like two business days to recover —Em

Actually they were infertile because they were vaporized. —Brandon, on the dinosaurs

Michael: Captain Crunch is like eating tacks.
Camryn: Tacks that love you.

Brandon: I wonder if there’s a place for LDS midwest emo.
Em: In French?
Brandon: It’s very niche.

That’s not a hearse, that’s Kate! —Michael

Who wants to bet that I’ll eat a screw by the end of the night? —Michael

Hot cameraman: lost to time —Camryn, watching The Ring

They’re already having a funeral, so it seems rather economical to have him die at the funeral. —Camryn

They really could have used more oboe when someone died. —Michael

You have free will. You can do whatever you want. You are like a sovereign state on the international stage. Laws are enforced, but not really. —Em, taking polysci

Okay when I say emo I just mean interesting. —Brandon

Camryn: Don’t die, Eric.
Me: Why would I do that?
Camryn: I can think of many reasons.

You should play hard to get with Colonel Sanders Eric, I think you’re worth it. —Camryn

NCMO skills, guys. I can play the mandolin with my tongue. —Brandon

I’d love to have that experience, but I would love to have someone else have that experience and transfer all the skills to me. In summary, I would not like to have that experience. —Em

BYU Faculty

There’s a line from the Bible about final exams: ‘Tis better to give than to receive.’ —Dr. Harper

This is almost as important as ‘don’t put the entire folder in the trash.’ —Dr. Eckstein

[…if I’m just standing here in the classroom], and I see Pope John Paul II. Wouldn’t that be surprising, especially because he’s dead. —Dr. Green

It’s okay to feel let down by the theory. —Dr. Green

People do say crap when they’re looking at this, but it’s an acronym. It means Commonly Recorded Artefactual Potentials. —Dr. Green

Your textbook talks about ‘Government.’ We’re going to ignore it. —Dr. Green

Anyone can kick the bucket. And most people do at some point. —Dr. Green

If you’re interested I can send you my friggin’ long dissertation. —Anonymous

Composition is the humanities equivalent of football. —Dr. Eckstein

That’s the reason I went into the humanities. I topped out at trigonometry. But it turns out that numbers are letters that are shaped differently. —Dr. Eckstein

So I get to be the first pancake?! —Dr. Johnson’s research assistant

We’re geeking out about vowels here, and you’re like, hey look, look at her consonants! —Dr. Stanley

There are people who are raised speaking Esperanto as an L1–their parents meet at Esperanto conventions, and they speak Esperanto at home. This happens with Klingon as well from time to time, but… —Dr. Whiting

People I Don’t Know

I saw a hot girl in my class, so I kinda went and sat down next to her. And I was like, ‘Your outfit makes you look like a Pokemon trainer.’ And she [thought for a second, and she] was like, ‘Do you have a type?’ And I was like, ‘Grass.’ She wasn’t talking about Pokemon. —Speaker in church

It was funny, I didn’t realize it was a date until like days afterwards. —Overheard

It’s very different when you see them in a casket and they have all their skin on. —Overheard, about anatomy class ∎

Categories
Personal Update

2022 Roundup (Quotes, Music, and More)

Bedroom wall with photos

It’s that time of the year when retrospectives and resolutions are popping up all over on social media. What did 2022 bring? What will be new in 2023? And how many of my friends got married? I wrote a brief reflection on this past year in my “Christmas Card”, but in the spirit of the season, there are a few loose ends to tie up before I can let the year well and truly die.

Quotes

First, quotes! Here are some of my favorite sound bites since last time’s roundup.

Dr. Smith, my historical linguistics professor
“This is the comfort zone, and this is the wheee! Zone.”
“Let's have fun, fring frang frung.”
“If you get stuck... unclench your brain.”

Brandon, my everything else in linguistics professor
“Denmark doesn't have letters; it has dental schwa, velar schwa, palatalized schwa...”
“Ontology is talking in circles. That's what the O stands for.”
“I just called the therapist on both of you.”
“My body is a machine that accepts ice cream and spits out syntactically allowable but semantically useless strings.”
“Are you familiar with the term twinkle daddy?”

My other friend of whom these quotes may give the wrong impression
“I need to make a list of my psychopathic tendencies.”
(tired) “I would not pass a sobriety test right now.”
“How do you harass a male?”
(Do you have impostor syndrome?) “I don't think so. Maybe I should?”

And my middle-aged co-worker Sherri
“My children are bound by tradition. They are sentimental fools.”

Music

Last year, I picked an artist of the year (Parachute) and album of the year from a different artist (The Struggle, Tenth Avenue North). I’ll continue that tradition.

I think my album of the year was chosen for me when my Spotify Wrapped revealed that three out of my top five most listened songs were all from the Broadway cast recording of Once: A New Musical (based on the movie Once with Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová). I’m beyond hyped to see it performed live at the Hale in Orem this summer and may have it on repeat until then.

As for artist of the year, I really fell in love with The Airborne Toxic Event this year. I discovered them last year after reading the book they took their name from (White Noise by Don DeLillo) in my humanities class. I think there are basically two types of bands. There are bands who are there to have a good time and get their listeners to have a good time—and you can tell they’re having fun on stage (O.A.R., Marianas Trench, Parachute). Then there are bands that play from a deep place of emotion, and listening to them feels like getting to know someone and sharing intimately in their pain and love and hopes. I love listening to the first kind of band, but there’s something special about the second kind of band, and The Airborne Toxic Event is that kind. The bio for their most recent album calls it “at once uncomfortably intimate and unapologetically epic”, which is just what I love in music. My favorite song on the album, “All These Engagements”, “deals with the toll Jollett’s childhood took on his adult relationships. ‘I wanted to weave together the historical forces and the childhood trauma that resulted in an adult attempting to understand it.’” It might be the most profound confrontation with trauma that I’ve heard.

And then, new this year, here are my top 20 songs! These aren’t songs that came out this year (I’m not hip enough for that), just songs that I played and replayed that shaped the sound of my 2022. This list is limited to one song per artist, for variety’s sake.

  1. All These Engagements | The Airborne Toxic Event
  2. What in the World | O.A.R.
  3. Mended – Acoustic | Vera Blue
  4. Falling Slowly (reprise) | Once: A New Musical
  5. Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve | Taylor Swift
  6. Graveyard – Acoustic | Halsey
  7. There’s No Way – Live from Box Fresh, London, 2018 | Lauv, feat. Julia Michaels
  8. Lost in the Waves | Kooman & Dimond
  9. King | Lauren Aquilina
  10. Someone to Talk To | Tenth Avenue North
  11. Meant To Be | Ber, Charlie Oriain
  12. Teen Angst | M83
  13. Castle on the Hill | Ed Sheeran
  14. American Secrets | Parachute
  15. I Want You Anyway | John McLaughlin
  16. Meitheamh | Lúnasa
  17. Overboard | The Stolen
  18. The Rules for Lovers | Richard Walters
  19. Sailboat | Cody Fry, Ben Rector
  20. Stray Italian Greyhound | Vienna Teng

[Spotify playlist]

Yeah okay I like acoustic versions.

…And That’s a Wrap!

At risk of cliché, thanks for a wonderful year, 2022. It hasn’t been without its challenges. My friends and community have been through disappointment, divorce, health challenges, heartbreak, and death, not to mention Russia’s inhumane invasion of Ukraine, the reconquista of Afghanistan by repressive extremists, and all the suffering inflicted by evil people and regimes everywhere. Democracy in the United States seems more fragile and flawed than ever.

But despite all of that, joy and goodness have not died and will never die. We bring it with us into this world, and the best of things—whether it be a flower or a high five or a good book—keep it alive into the next year and the next and the next.

Here’s to a future we can be proud of! ∎