Sometimes, your friends make insightful comments.

My friend Jenn collects people’s humorous quotes. I’m ripping off her idea here and listing people’s notable (not necessarily humorous) quotes – those in general, those about me, and those from me.

Quotes in general:

Kara

(in response to my comment that i wish someone could assign me a career instead of choosing one myself:) But that would be communism. And we’re told that’s bad.

Duy, my brother

(after learning that a lot of streets in Philadelphia are discontinuous, being interrupted by large historical buildings:) Man, that’s like a crappy calculus function.

Ingrid

(in an email, in reference to being Canadian, after seeing the drugged spiders video:) that’s pretty funny! reminds me — sometime last semester, this guy from calgary came and gave a talk on opiates and poppies. he looked like a thug and was the most unprofessional prof i had ever met. at the end, he showed us his next project: cannabis research, including photos of an underground facility in saskatchewan. at times like that, i’m somewhat proud of my greencard.

Allison

(reading a fortune cookie:) “Each person is the architect of his or her own destiny.” So I guess that means fortune cookies are useless.

Terry (in an email about quotes from the journal Cell)

…this is my new favorite quote:

Like Sisyphus, atpase pumps are condemned to push ca uphill for etnernity into the ER or out of the cell.

Second favorite:

Like an aged homeowner, evolution has crowded every nook and cranny of the cell with its handiwork of lipids and proteins.

I now have a new goal in life…to be able to write crazy crap like this and have well-respectd journals publish it.

Karla (the most sane and therefore most lovable MD-PhD in my year)

(in discussing delayed gratification:) There’s [waiting for] sex after marriage. And then there’s the MD-PhD program. In that order.

Heidi, my voice teacher

One of the great things about art is that you don’t control it. You create the conditions – and you release it. All of this work we’re doing here with this technical stuff will give you a frame in which you can release the emotion. And you won’t control that.

Prescott

(in a conversation):

• Anh (answering an online “Which Disney Princess Are You?” quiz): My dream vacation would be spent (a) exploring a historical place, (b) hiking, (c) whitewater rafting, or (d) at Disney World?
• Prescott (looking upset): Are you on a dating site?

(distraught, in reference to the modem:) The entire information superhighway is sitting inside that box and Comcast WILL NOT let it out to roam free in the meadows of our home!

Quotes about me:

Chris

Sometimes I confuse your girliness for sulkiness. [i’m not sure whether to be livid on behalf of womankind or to laugh at the thought of me sulking. pssshh. i don’t sulk. i retaliate.]

Jeff

• Jeff: I wouldn’t put that, might scare off other guys.
• Anh: Well, what can I say? I bust on a∗∗holes.
• Jeff: Yeah, but you don’t need to lay that all out up front, trust me. People will find that out about you soon enough as it is.

Dr Stern

• Anh: The patient’s EKG was normal except for having low voltages.
• Dr Stern: Is she heavy?
• Anh: Yea, she’s 70 kilos.
• Dr Stern:Just because you’re Vietnamese does not mean 70 kilos is heavy.

Prescott

• Anh (excited) : I made someone cry today!
• Prescott: At work? Why, were you bitchy to them?
• Anh: Uh, no – I made someone cry with my song in musical theatre class…I see what you think of me!

My advisor

You have a lot drive, but I’m not sure where you’re going.

Anne

Anh: Breaks all social norms.

Quotes from me:

• I might not succeed, but I need to try, and sometimes I try until I succeed.
• On shopping for boots:
  • Anh: I like these, but they kinda look like what a streetwalker would wear.
  • Jeff: Well, sometimes you want to look like a streetwalker.
  • Anh: Yea, but I have other shoes for that.
• On acting in slow motion:
  • Bob (director): You can even lower your voice as you’re speaking in slow motion to add to the effect.
  • Anh: That was my low voice.
• I’ve never been one to go for a simple blackbox solution if I couldn’t overcomplicate things by doing it myself.
• Man, Canada is really big, huh?
• Some college students abuse their livers. Me, I abuse my pancreas.