Average

Famous quotes containing the word average:

“...you don’t have to be as good as white people, you have to be better or the best. When Negroes are average, they fail, unless they are very, very lucky. Now, if you’re average and white, honey, you can go far. Just look at Dan Quayle. If that boy was colored he’d be washing dishes somewhere.”
—Annie Elizabeth Delany (b. 1891)

“The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)

“Today everything is different. I can’t even get decent food. Right after I got here I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce and I got egg noodles and catsup. I’m an average nobody, I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.”
—Nicholas Pileggi, U.S. screenwriter, and Martin Scorsese. Henry Hill (Ray Liotta)