The Mark Melville Quote Blog

In person, I am a quiet, boring, awkward guy. But I like to think that in writing, I can be hilarious, and I would like to think that on my blog I have said some brilliant things. So, in honor of three years of this blog, I give you some of my best lines--either funny or not--based on feedback I've gotten and based on my own opinions. These go from most recent to oldest.

"I used to have an analogy that a shiny, red ornament would work on a pine tree but not on a black, dead, ugly Halloween tree. I used to say that I was a Halloween tree and therefore I couldn't have Christmas ornaments (normal things). I don't think that anymore." From The BYU Era

"You want them to let you live as you want. Be courteous enough to allow them the same thing." From Why boycotting Mozilla was a bad idea

"I think that banjos can fix all of life's problems. If we sent a banjo to North Korea, they would say sorry and start playing nice." From Blatant snobbery

"There are all sorts of dumb parents who have no idea how to raise children. I don't know how to raise children either, but I'm sure I would do a better job than they do. These parents tend to be parents precisely because they are dumb. They love their kids, but they seem to love them in a way that aunts and uncles should love them, not the way parents should love them. They seem to have other relatives do most of the child rearing. And their kids have picked up or will pick up all the life-destroying habits of their dumb parents. I am a virgin, and their teenage kids are not. It doesn't seem fair that a responsible almost-college-grad like me doesn't have kids, when these morons are out there procreating all they want." From Geriatrics

"And I have to agree with the lady on one thing. I also am surprised Alex Boye's video went viral. But that's because I find him vastly overrated." From  Umm...What?: A response to Frozen advocating a gay agenda

"The fact that the NRA thinks we shouldn't change anything makes me think that the 'N' actually stands for 'Nefarious.'" From All things political

"I also count candy corn as suitable for both Halloween and Thanksgiving, so I always go overboard buying clearance Halloween candy for Thanksgiving. In the last few days, I bought candy corn jelly beans, candy corn M&Ms, Starburst candy corn, caramel candy corn, s'mores candy corn, autumn mix, candy corn suckers, candy corn and peanuts, pumpkin spice candy corn, and a candy corn Blow Pop. When I showed [my roommate] my supply, he told me I was going to get diabetes." From There's only 362 days left till next Halloween!

"There are a few things in our Mormon culture that annoy me--like the perception that it's OK to watch a movie as long as it's not rated R, or that the Book of Mormon is the only worthwhile book of scripture, or that prayers on a rainy day must always say 'the moisture we are receiving.' Not to mention saying a blessing on refreshments." From Overrated hymns

"If I were ever asked to narrate a parade, I would probably get fired, because I would just make snarky comments the whole time. (Especially when the medieval and Dr. Who clubs passed by.)" From Oh, it was THAT week.

"Then when I came home [from running], my nipple was bleeding. If I were a mother with sucking child, my child would be a vampire." From Blast that hydraulic gradient!

"There was very little life in the Precambrian. (That's a structural ambiguity there: there wasn't much life, and the life that existed was very small!)" This sentence caused quite a nerdy conversation on Facebook. From Geology 210, week one

"Have you heard the theory some people have that World War I and World War II are really just one enormous war, with a brief peaceful interlude that led to the second part? Well, I just had Summer Vacation II, but it was really part of one great summer vacation with a week of working thrown in the middle." From La Terre de Disney

"Once upon a time in England, smart people learned Latin. They loved Latin, even though it was a dead language. This linguistic necrophilia led scholars to study Latin more than they studied English—but eventually they did turn around and start studying English." From A Prescriptive Addiction: How I Became a Descriptivist when I Became an Editor. (This paper was just published in the student journal Schwa, but I think the amateur editors took some of the life out of it.)

"I'm so excited to get done with everything this week! It will be a great summer, even though I usually don't like summer! (I feel dumb using all those exclamation points. At least I didn't use multiple exclamation points, as women who are 30 and older do.)" From Welcome summer

"Just as Earth formed in just the right place in the solar system for life to exist, I was born in just the right place to have a great mother. My mother is sane and intelligent. I don't have a mother who does crazy and dumb things. I have a sensible, wise mother, and I couldn't be more content. Even if she says things like 'not terribly much badder.'" From Not terribly much badder

"The worst thing about spring is Women's Conference, when hundreds of middle-age women crowd campus and generally get in the way. I'm glad that's done with now." From Only because it's spring

"Don't be so arrogant as to think that your idea is the only one that can possibly be right." From My thoughts on gun control

"You know the expression 'When Hell freezes over'? I'm not sure that's a good description, because I'm starting to think that Hell is covered in a permanent sheet of ice." From Gravity hurts

"And our langage has been around for a long tim. I am in an Earlie Moderne Englische class right nowe, and euen though the things that we reede are hundreds of yeares old, they are still very similar and we can still vnderstand most of it. Olde Englishe and Middle Englishe are more difficulte to vndesrtande, but that is also amazinge. Iust as it is amazing to see how animales have euolued ouer time, it is amazing to see how wordes haue euolued ouer time." From Mind. Blown. 

"Peace on Earth Man is an elderly foreign man in a power chair whom I met at the grocery store. I was looking at a cart of clearance Christmas potato chips when he approached me. He showed me a card that had a dove on it that said 'Peace.' He told me to read it (it said 'Peace on Earth' inside) and said, 'Give me a dollar, please!' in his European accent. It was really random. I took pity on him, since he didn't have any legs, and gave him a dollar. But it was really strange." From A Character-Driven Description of My Week

"I had a fun time seeing my three nephews in California. We got home a week ago. They said and did lots of funny things, like when Franklin (who is almost 5) asked me why my neck is thin." From Randomness

"Unfortunately, I ended the semester with two A minuses. Oh, well." From Year in Review

"I don’t think the fad of 'ugly sweater parties' is a tradition that should stay. It seems to me that ugly sweaters are kind of like fruitcake—there are more jokes and parties about them than there are actually sweaters." From Christmas Traditions 

"I think the only people who like [operatic] singing are those who have been educated to like it, and what's the point of that?"From Merry Thanksgiving

"I abstain from Christmas until after Thanksgiving to respect Thanksgiving. But I also do it to respect Christmas. Some people think I must be a grinch or hate Christmas. On the contrary, I love Christmas. Christmas is a special time, so I don't want to bastardize it by celebrating it early. If I did, I would no longer associate Christmas stuff with Christmas. I want to keep special, so I keep it in its proper time frame." From My annual rant

"This week I got my copy of Mapping Mormonism. It's a book that is for sale at Deseret Book and I think even Costco. And my name is in it! Yes siree, there is a PDF of the front matter that proves it. So my name is available for sale at Costco." From Bewitched, Bewitched, you've got me in your spell

"This is exactly why I hate politics. You have these two political parties, and once someone claims their allegiance to one, they turn into mindless robots who support every measure their party supports. What's worse, they will attack any measure the opposite party supports, even if they otherwise might agree with it. People may have particular reasons for adhering to a party. Some may stick to a party because it is a family tradition. Others might stick to a party precisely because it is not a family tradition. The problem is not with the parties themselves; the problem lies with sacrificing your reasoning to other people and having them tell you what you should believe and do." From Why I hate politics


"I only had two companions there, three if you count my MTC companion. But I only talked to one, Elder Betenson. My MTC companion came late and I didn't feel a great need to talk to him, and the other companion was the evil Elder LaPratt who I wish would disappear." From Let the Lower Lights be awesome

"This week I did, however, read a BYU Studies article from 1999 that, although scholarly, was incredibly stupid. My editing professor used to be an editor for BYU Studies, so the bulk of our material for the class comes from past issues. One of the options we had for an assignment this week was an article comparing Joseph Smith and Herman Melville. I thought it sounded interesting, so I read it. Boy, was it stupid. So stupid that my professor said that when it was in the process of being published she refused to edit it--I think it was the only one she ever refused. It seemed fairly obvious to me that this scholar was like, 'Hey, I like Herman Melville, and I'm a Mormon, so why don't I compare Herman Melville and Joseph Smith?' You could compare anyone to anyone! You could compare me to ol' Hermy Baby. Moby Dick has a chapter about fossilized whales; I like fossils. Herman made a lot of biblical allusions; I like the Bible. We even share the same last name! I was embarrassed that my job would consider publishing such a ridiculous article, even if it was thirteen years ago. The author had a brief section talking about references Melville made to Mormons--I think that would have been a much better topic for a nineteen-page article." From Ah, fall

"Some passages of Isaiah sound pretty funny because of the older English--like the daughters of Zion wearing mufflers and round tires like the moon." From Pioneers and Olympians

"Isn't tarantula a great word? The word spider is a rather blah word--but tarantula just sounds like it should describe something big, hairy, and creepy. It's named after a place in Italy where they had giant wolf spiders, and then the name was later applied to other kinds of big spiders. Maybe you've read old books that talk about the dance called the Tarantella. People thought that a tarantula bite made you go crazy and dance--so they named a dance after it. It bugs me when people say tri-antula--where'd that three come from?" From Tarentule

"It was a very nice rainstorm, the first in a long time. It's a good thing it came, because I was almost converted to liking sunlight. Then the rain came and reminded me how awesome it is." From Oh, beautiful for rainy skies

"This week I had a symbolic dream. I dreamed that there was a horse that didn't really like its owner, but for some reason it really took a liking to me. I was flattered that it liked me so much, but I couldn't help thinking, 'What am I going to do with a horse?' Lately there have been a lot of people visiting me. I'm very flattered that they visit me; I've never had so many visits in my life, and I feel like I actually have some semblance of a social life. I really like visiting with them, but I just realized how much harder summer term is going to be for me than spring term was, and it's only the beginning of the term and I already feel like I'm way behind. How am I going to stay caught up when I have all these visitors? What am I going to do with all these horses?" From Summer bummer 

"I had to get my book printed as a saddle-stitch book. So I went to the JFSB, but their color saddle-stitch machine was broken. So then I went to the Cougar Copy Center just south of campus by where I live. Their machine was broken. So then I went to Cougar Creations in the Wilk. Their printer was having problems so they couldn't get the cover to print with everything else, which meant that I had to staple the cover on. But they made me, an inexperienced stapler, staple it with a stapler that wasn't meant for the job, which resulted in bent staples and a generally sloppy appearance. It took me an hour to get a sloppy book." From Quelle semaine

"When it comes to candies, desserts, drinks, and other sweets, I can only have them when they are in season. I have eight holiday seasons, each with their own designated in-season sweets. When it comes to candy, a lot of deciding whether or not something is in season depends on if the candy would look festive in a candy dish." After this quote, I included a detailed list of the things I can eat for each holiday. From What a weirdo, part 2

"Historians also have weird hair. I don't like talking about hair, but they sure have weird hair. My professor I think is going for the Ben Franklin look. He is bald on top and has gray hair around the sides and back of his head, but he grows it out so it's a bit long and ratty and nasty. The TA also has weird hair. From the sides it looks normal enough, but from the front--I can't quite describe it. He has these two bulges of hair on either side of his head, above his ears. It gives his head a bit of a mushroom shape. Tomorrow I'm going to talk to Mushroom-Head Man to figure out why my test score was so low." From What a weirdo

"[While watching the solar eclipse,] at one point I think I accidentally swallowed a bug. A lot of snarky people drove by yelling "Eclipse!" and even "The sky is falling!" I must say, the eclipse was pretty d**g awesome." From Various and sundry things

"[After scraping myself up,] I found out I even got some blood on the doorknob. Fortunately, I don't have AIDS." From Of bones, blogs, and blackouts


"Suppose that there is NOT climate change, but we do something about it. We diminish our dependence on fossil fuels, which won't last forever anyway. We develop new technologies and methods of providing energy. And everything stays the same. What would we lose?" From Global Warming

"And last night I was driving back to Provo through Utah County construction. I had to laugh that the sign on the side of the road had not one but two typos: HEAVY TRCFFIC. USE CANTION." From Running, reruns, and runny jam

"[At the St. Patrick's Day parade,] the radio station X96 had a theme entirely about beer. Now, if people want to drink responsibly, whatever--although I think the term 'drink responsibly' is an oxymoron. But there were children among the group! There was even one young person dressed as a beer bottle! One of the children was a boy my mom recognized from her school--a boy who has behavior problems. That explains a lot of things! I suppose that could be considered a post hoc argument (I was tested about logical fallacies this week), but nevertheless I know about alcoholic families, having seen them firsthand. I hope all these drunkards get in crashes and kill each other. OK, maybe not. But they should keep the kids away from the alc-y." From  The most overhyped pointless day of the year

"When I run, I think about jelly beans and socks. (In that sentence, jelly is modifying beans but not socks.) Yesterday when I went running I thought about Thanksgiving and Christmas jelly beans. (Thanksgiving is modifying jelly beans in that sentence.) I think about these things to keep my mind off of the fact that I hate running." From One Weird Dude

"I would rather talk about hair elsewhere on my body (since I am a very hirsute individual) than the hair on my head. This week I pulled a splendid hair out of my nose, so thick and black it looked like it was plastic." From Free as my hai-ai-ai-ai-ai-air

"Please don't misunderstand. I love Christmas. But "to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1). So if you put up your Christmas tree or listen to yule music before Thanksgiving, you are disobeying the Bible." From The REAL most wonderful time of the year

"I did the math, and if I did it correctly, if you drew a line of which one inch equaled 1,000 years, from today to the time the dinosaurs died out would be over a mile long!" From In memoriam of the dinosaurs

"In all my days cleaning up after softball, baseball, volleyball, gymnastics, and women's conference, I've never seen so much garbage. I don't know if softball spectators eat more, or if they're just too lazy to clean up after themselves. (That's not an unreasonable assumption, since softball is a lazy game.)" From Immune system, put your armor back on!