Prof. Berkowitz: "Were they hunting and dancing to rock and roll? No, Confucius would have had the rock and rollers killed."
Prof. Berkowitz (on when Confucius lived): "551 to 479 BC are the traditional dates. That's like a long time ago."
Prof. Nackenoff: "For him, democracy is pretty fucking chaotic. Excuse me."
Prof. Kurth: "And that's us! Swarthmore! A community of nerds!"
Lindsey to Prof. Kurth: "Why don't you explain to me why you think I'm a hypocrite?"
Tom: "If you want I'd be happy to handle this one."
Prof. Kurth: "What are you going to be talking about today?"
Ben: "Your article, within the context of The Next American Nation. ...
Should I use the second or third person?"
Prof. Kurth: "Pardon?"
Ben: "Should I say 'your article' or 'Kurth's article'?"
Prof. Kurth: "'Kurth's article' will do fine."
Prof. Kurth: "Everybody here thinks Swarthmore is important and I don't."
Prof. Kurth: "You have to have a lot of flowers if you live in Victoria or else you're not a real person!"
Prof. Kurth: "Did I ever admit here what I did as a teenager to organize a gang to throw rocks at cars with California license plates?"
Prof. Berkowitz: "I don't mean to be an advocate of wine or drugs..."
Gardner sensei: "Is there anything else we like to buy? Come on, let's be materialistic!"
Chris: "Politicians."
Gardner sensei: "Now we have a few minutes and I'd like to sadistically torture you by making you publicly embarrass yourself by acting out verbs."
Prof. Kurth: "Ah, you listen to them! I love to eavesdrop!"
Ben (discussing a section in Kurth's article): "I know you all read about that, but it
was really interesting."
Prof. Kurth: "Yeah, I was sorta proud about that myself."
Prof. Kurth: "I once gave a presentation at the US Institute for Peace that was critical of humanitarian intervention and I barely got out alive!"
Prof. Kurth: "I don't want to be quite that crass and cynical, but I guess I am."
Jo sensei (after looking around the room for someone to call on): "Maxwell-san!"
Maxwell-san: "I made eye contact, right."
Lim-san: "A fatal mistake."
Prof. Berkowitz (on the first day of snow): "So this is either the advantage or disadvantage of being at a residential college..."
Prof. Berkowitz: "For those of you who are able to, you can have a glass of wine when writing your paper."
Prof. Turner: "When Khamenei, who is the supreme ruler, finally gets around to dying..."
Prof. Turner: "The Baha'i started out as a violent resistance movement and quickly become pacifist after being smacked hard enough."
Prof. Turner, on Selim the Grim: "And he dies a suitably nasty, brutish death."
Prof. Turner: "When the US Army drafts you the first thing they do is shave your head in order to break down your sense of being an individual. Cults do this, too. Not to say that the US Army is a cult."
Prof. Turner: "It's a bit of a touchy topic, who's campaigning to be the next supreme leader."
Prof. Turner: "Being a peasant is always a bad thing. Avoid it if at all possible."
Prof. Turner: "He's not as sharp a cookie as- cookies aren't sharp, are they?"
Prof. Turner: "There's this notion that if you're happy you're not thinking about God enough."
Prof. Murer: "Let's do some housekeeping first... how are your papers coming?" (silence) "Okay, how many of you have started your papers?"
Prof. Murer: "And let me reiterate just one more time- obviously that's redundant..."
Prof. Murer on the afternoon of March 17: "I'm also quite disturbed that it appears as though we'll have a war this evening..."
Prof. Turner, about Bush: "They've practiced the frown. Did you see the frown? He was fighting the smirk really hard."
Prof. Turner, on a US official in 2001: "Oh yeah, and he was trying to secure a deal with the Taliban until... August!"
Prof. Turner: "This is a pretty consistent theme. Whoever's not the British or Russians is good... until the Americans."
Prof. Turner: "The Shah's like, 'Uh oh, this is a problem, the schools are breeding intellectuals.'"
Prof. Turner: "Don't eat anything that comes out of the Caspian Sea!"
Prof. Turner: "And we skipped summer and went straight to winter... and there was much rejoicing."
Prof. Turner, on whether to talk about the war in Iraq or the Iranian Revolution: "So, today we're going to talk about other sticky stuff unless anyone wants to continue with this- revolution, or war?"
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