“
But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
”
”
Carl Sagan (Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science)
“
Dude. Hot Bozo. Best nickname ever.
”
”
Cynthia Hand (Unearthly (Unearthly, #1))
“
News flash, Bozo. Don't ever tell a girl to relax. It only makes us madder.
”
”
Jess Rothenberg (The Catastrophic History of You and Me)
“
Steve Jobs had a tendency to see things in a binary way: "A person was either a hero or a bozo, a product was either amazing or shit
”
”
Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs)
“
Steve Jobs has a saying that A players hire A players. But B players hire C players, and C players hire D players. It doesn't take long to get to F players. This trickle-down effect causes bozo explosions in companies.
”
”
Guy Kawasaki
“
Every single person is a fool, insane, a failure, or a bad person to at least ten people.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Should she stick with the nice, sensitive guy who treats her well (Ben Stiller), or should she roll the dice with the frustrating boho bozo who treats her like crap (Ethan Hawk)? Winona made the kind of romantic decision most people my age would have made in 1994: She pursued a path that was difficult and depressing, and she did so because it showed the slightest potential for transcendence.
”
”
Chuck Klosterman (Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto)
“
Sex talk? You mean the bee and the flower sex conversation? Your parents should have taken care of that a long time ago. Mine did."
She elbowed him. "No, you bozo, I meant the safe-sex conversation where the bee explains in detail to the flower how he's always worn a raincoat while buzzing around, and how he'd never gotten entangled with dubious pollen.
”
”
Elle Aycart (More than Meets the Ink (Bowen Boys, #1))
“
Question is are you bozos smart enough to feel stupid?
”
”
Eminem
“
we're all bozos on the bus,
so might as well sit back
and enjoy the ride.
”
”
Wavy Gravy
“
firm takeaway from all our interviews with women is that most dudes out there are straight-up bozos.
”
”
Aziz Ansari (Modern Romance: An Investigation)
“
It was strange how he’d made a 180-degree change. Not sure what to make of that curly, bigheaded, bozo yet, she thought, other than fruitcake nuts!
“Blah, I’m not sure about your other big brother,” Savanna said, wiggling her nose upward. “I’d rather not chat about him. Do you come to the museum often?” she asked, quickly changing the topic. “I love unusual old history,” she divulged.
”
”
Sharon Carter (Love Auction II: Love Designs)
“
I'm shocked by anyone who doesn't consider Los Angeles to be anything less than a bozo-saturated hellhole. It is pretty much without question the worst city in America. The reason "Walking in L.A." by Missing Persons was the most accidentally prescient single of 1982 was because of its unfathomable (but wholly accurate) specificity: Los Angeles is the only city in the world where the process of walking on the sidewalk could somehow be a) political and b) humiliating. It is the only community I've ever visited where absolutely everything cliche proved to be completely accurate.
I don't care if 85% of Los Angeles is stupid. I can deal with stupid. My problem is that every stupid person in Los Angeles is also a) unyieldingly narcissistic and b) unyieldingly nice. They have somehow managed to combine raging megalomania with genuine friendliness.
”
”
Chuck Klosterman
“
She stared up at him, and her eyes were so large they looked like blue mint candies. 'I get to stay?'
'You're damn right you're staying, and I don't want to hear another word of disrespect.' His voice broke. 'I'm your father, and you damn well better love me the same way I love you, or you'll be sorry.'
The next thing he knew, he was grabbing her, and she was grabbing him, and all the bozos coming down the jerway trying to get past them were jabbing them with bags and briefcases, but he didn't care. He was holding tight to this daughter he loved so desperately, and he wasn't ever going to let her go.
”
”
Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Kiss an Angel)
“
Get rid of this bozo!!
”
”
Junji Ito (Tomie)
“
Books are a way of saying: This room seems to have more than its fair share of bozos in it.
”
”
Joe Queenan (One for the Books)
“
We repeatedly found that one text can change the whole dynamic of a budding relationship. ... When I spoke with Sherry Turkle about this, she said that texting, unlike an in-person conversation, is not a forgiving medium for mistakes. In a face-to-face conversation, people can read each other’s body language, facial expressions, and tones of voice. If you say something wrong, you have the cues to sense it and you have a moment to recover or rephrase before it makes a lasting impact. Even on the phone you can hear a change in someone’s voice or a pause to let you know how they are interpreting what you’ve said. In text, your mistake just sits there marinating on the other person’s screen, leaving a lasting record of your ineptitude and bozoness.
”
”
Aziz Ansari (Modern Romance)
“
Guys don't understand great art. They don't care that sometimes the camera has power beyond the photographer to record emotion that only the heart can see. They're threatened when the camera jumps ahead of me. Todd Kovich was pissed when I brought my Nikon to the prom, but I'd missed too many transcendent shots over the years to ever take a chance of missing one again. A prom, I told him, had a boundless supply of photogenic bozos who could be counted on to do something base.
”
”
Joan Bauer (Thwonk)
“
These are the bozos. They are graspers and self-promoters, shameless resume padders, people who describe themselves as “product marketing professionals,” “growth hackers,” “creative rockstar interns,” and “public speakers.
”
”
Dan Lyons (Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble)
“
The face of the clown in the stormdrain was white, there were funny tufts of red hair on either side of his bald head, and there was a big clown-smile painted over his mouth. If George had been inhabiting a later year, he would have surely thought of Ronald McDonald before Bozo or Clarabell.
”
”
Stephen King (It)
“
I think we're all bozos on this bus.
”
”
Firesign Theatre
“
The bozo who’s going to go early John Woo all over the manicured lawns and flower beds just to show he doesn’t give a fuck about convention.
”
”
Don Winslow (Savages (Savages, #2))
“
One firm takeaway from all our interviews with women is that most dudes out there are straight-up bozos.
”
”
Aziz Ansari (Modern Romance: An Investigation)
“
They teach you how other people think, during your most productive years,” he said. “It kills creativity. Makes people into bozos.
”
”
Lisa Brennan-Jobs (Small Fry: A Memoir)
“
We've got a bozo who likes rubbing fear and lies in people's faces. He's the only media source in town except us. Who are we writing for?"
Elizabeth waved her hand emotionally. "The American people!"
Baker clasped his brow. "Let's narrow that."
Darrell stood. "We're writing for the community."
"And they deserve the facts," Baker warned. "Don't ever forget it.
”
”
Joan Bauer (Peeled)
“
The only exercise guru then was Richard Simmons—a flamboyant fuzzy-haired creature who vaguely resembled a gay Bozo the Clown, unless that’s redundant, which I, thank God, have no way of knowing, having no, thank God, direct
”
”
Carrie Fisher (The Princess Diarist)
“
Last call. It was about that time. He’d probably been drinking liquid courage all night, waiting for his chance to hit on her. I had little choice in assuming he was a three-time loser with a wad-of-cash to wave around and a bozo smile to boot. About to prate his many accomplishments as a man of the world and his travels among the world’s top markets.
”
”
Bruce Crown (Forlorn Passions)
“
Gideon looked down at her necromancer. She had the heavy-lidded expression of someone who was concentrating in the knowledge that once they stopped concentrating, they would fall abruptly asleep. Harrow had gone unconscious once before: Gideon knew that the second time she let Harrow go under, there would probably not be any awakening. Harrow reached up - her hand was trembling - and tapped Gideon on the cheek.
'Nav,' she said, 'have you really forgiven me?'
Confirmed. They were all going to eat it.
'Of course I have, you bozo.'
'I don't deserve it.'
'Maybe not,' said Gideon, 'but that doesn't stop me forgiving you. Harrow - '
'Yes?'
'You know I don't give a damn about the Locked Tomb, right? You know I only care about you,' she said in a brokenhearted rush. She didn't know what she was trying to say, only that she had to say it now. With a bad, juddering noise, a tentacle had started to pound their splintering shelter again: WHAM. 'I'm no good at this duty thing. I'm just me. I can't do this without you.
”
”
Tamsyn Muir (Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1))
“
Sunny laughed. "It's okay. You're right, Emma. My name is unusual, but I like to think of it as... special also."
Special?
Sam cocked his head as he studied Sunny. Almost all of her hair had escaped out of her ponytail now. She wore a baggy pink sweatshirt and had on the kind of drawstring plaid pants that would've set Bozo the Clown's heart pitter-pattering with envy. Her yellow tennis shoes were covered with dog hair.
Yeah, special was one word for her.
”
”
Jennifer Shirk (Sunny Days for Sam)
“
What do you mean? How does he look at me?
I don't know. It's like you're a chocolate ice- cream and he doesn't have a spoon.
”
”
Catherine Anderson
“
never could, and he was able to avoid having too many bozos working
”
”
Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs)
“
His goal was to be vigilant against " the bozo explosion" that leads to a company's being larded with second rate talent:
For most things in life, the range between best and average is 30% or so. The best airplane flight, the best meal, they may be 30% better than your average one. What I saw with Woz was somebody who was fifty times better than the average engineer. He could have meetings in his head. The Mac team was an attempt to build a whole team like that, A players. People said they wouldn't get along, they'd hate working with each other. But I realized that A players like to work with A players, they just didn't like working with C players. At Pixar, it was a whole company of A players. When I got back to Apple, that's what I decided to try to do. You need to have a collaborative hiring process. When we hire someone, even if they're going to be in marketing, I will have them talk to the design folks and the engineers. My role model was J. Robert Oppenheimer. I read about the type of people he sought for the atom bomb project. I wasn't nearly as good as he was, but that's what I aspired to do.
”
”
Walter Isaacson
“
The thing about bozos is that bozos don't know that they're bozos. Bozos think they're the shit, which makes them really annoying but also incredibly entertaining, depending on your point of view.
”
”
Dan Lyons (Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble)
“
From me to you. You got to be crazy. You know what I’m talking about? Full goose bozo. ’Cause what is reality? You got to be crazy. You got to! ’Cause madness is the only way I’ve stayed alive. Used to be a comedian. Used to, a long time ago. It’s true. You got to go full-tilt bozo. ’Cause you’re only given a little spark of madness. If you lose that, you’re nothing. Don’t. From me to you. Don’t ever lose that, because it keeps you alive. Because if you lose that, pfft. That’s my only love. Crazy.
”
”
Dave Itzkoff (Robin)
“
Now Arthur knew this dog, and he knew it well. It belonged to an advertising friend of his, and was called Know-Nothing-Bozo the Non-Wonder Dog because the way its hair stood up on its head reminded people of the President of the United States of America,
”
”
Douglas Adams (The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy #1-5))
“
Apple CEO Steve Jobs used to talk about a phenomenon called a “bozo explosion,” by which a company’s mediocre early hires rise up through the ranks and end up running departments. The bozos now must hire other people, and of course they prefer to hire bozos.
”
”
Dan Lyons (Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble)
“
This attitude arose partly out of his tendency to see the world in binary terms. A person was either a hero or a bozo, a product was either amazing or shit. But he could be stymied by things that were more complex, shaded, or nuanced: getting married, buying the right sofa, committing to run a company.
”
”
Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs)
“
Unfortunately, no one has ever successfully postulated a super-symmetry holding between two known particles. Instead, in all the supersymmetric theories the numbers of particles are at least doubled. A new superpartner is simply postulated to go along with each known particle. Not only are there squarks and sleptons and photinos, there are also sneutrinos to partner the neutrinos, Higgsinos with the Higgs, and gravitinos to go with the gravitons. Two by two, a regular Noah's ark of particles. Sooner or later, tangled in the web of new snames and naminos, you begin to feel like Sbozo the clown. Or Bozo the clownino. Or swhatever.
”
”
Lee Smolin (The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science and What Comes Next)
“
When you run, run to me
”
”
Catherine Anderson
“
If you need to put eight-point or ten-point fonts up there, it’s because you do not know your material. If you start reading your material because you do not know your material, the audience is very quickly going to think that you are a bozo. They are going to say to themselves ‘This bozo is reading his slides. I can read faster than this bozo can speak. I will just read ahead.
”
”
Garr Reynolds (Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter))
“
The #1 demotivator for talented people is having to put up with bozos, as Steve Jobs would call them. Nothing is more frustrating for A Players than having to work with B and C Players who slow them down and suck their energy. In that sense, “The best thing you can do for employees — a perk better than foosball or free sushi — is hire only ‘A’ players to work alongside them. Excellent colleagues trump everything else,
”
”
Verne Harnish (Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't (Rockefeller Habits 2.0))
“
October 3, 2017
The clown, Hagarty said, looked like a cross between Ronald McDonald and that old TV clown, Bozo—or so he thought at first. It was the wild tufts of orange hair that brought such comparisons to mind. But later consideration had caused him to think the clown really looked like neither. The smile painted over the white pancake was red, not orange, and the eyes were a weird shiny silver. Contact lenses, perhaps . . . but a part of him thought then and continued to think that maybe that silver had been the real color of those eyes. He wore a baggy suit with big orange-pompom buttons; on his hands were cartoon gloves.
“If you need help, Don,” the clown said, “help yourself to a balloon.”
And it offered the bunch it held in one hand.
“They float,” the clown said. “Down here we all float; pretty soon your friend will float, too.
”
”
Stephen King (It)
“
The thing about bozos is that bozos don’t know that they’re bozos. Bozos think they’re the shit, which makes them really annoying but also incredibly entertaining, depending on your point of view. Shrinks call this the Dunning-Kruger effect, named after two researchers from Cornell University whose studies found that incompetent people fail to recognize their own lack of skill, grossly overestimate their abilities, and are unable to recognize talent in other people who actually are competent.
”
”
Dan Lyons (Disrupted: Ludicrous Misadventures in the Tech Start-up Bubble)
“
She went over to where the kitchen phone sat, picked up the receiver and dialled a number she had dialled approximately several thousand times.
'Hey bozo, meet me, usual place, just as soon as.' She replaced the receiver.
'And they say the art of conversation is dead,' commented Hitch, shaking out the newspaper.
Mrs Digby looked at Ruby and shook her head. It's a crying shame,' she said. 'All life's good manners and fine etiquette gone to the pot. I tried to raise this child a nice child, but I probably got to accept failure here.
”
”
Lauren Child (Take Your Last Breath (Ruby Redfort #2))
“
Well, imagine you are alone in a room. The lights are down low, you’ve got some scented candles going. Soothing New Age tunes, nothing too druid-chanty, seep out of the hi-fi to gently massage your cerebral cortex. Feel good? Are you the best, most special person in the room right now? Yes. That’s the gift of being alone.
Then a bozo in a CAT Diesel Power cap barges in. What’s the chance that you are the best, most special person in the room now? Fifty-fifty. If you both were dealt two cards, those would be your odds of holding the winning hand.
Now imagine ten people are in the room. It’s cramped. You’re elbow to elbow, aerosolized dandruff floats in the air, and the candle’s lavender scent is complicated by BO tones, with a tuna sandwich finish. What are the chances you’re the best, most special person in the room? If you were handed cards, you might expect to be crowned one time out of ten.
People, as ever, are the problem. The more people there are, the tougher you have it. Just by sitting next to you, they fuck you up, as if life were nothing more than a bus ride to hell (which it is). But what if you moved to another seat? Changed position? Your seat is everything. It can give you room to relax, to contemplate your next move. Or it might instigate your unraveling.
”
”
Colson Whitehead (The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death)
“
Doremus was amazed, felt a little apologetic over his failure to have appreciated this new-found paragon, as he sat in American Legion Hall and heard Shad bellowing: “I don’t pretend to be anything but a plain working-stiff, but there’s forty million workers like me, and we know that Senator Windrip is the first statesman in years that thinks of what guys like us need before he thinks one doggone thing about politics. Come on, you bozos! The swell folks tell you to not be selfish! Walt Trowbridge tells you to not be selfish! Well, be selfish, and vote for the one man that’s willing to give you something—give you something!—and not just grab off every cent and every hour of work that he can get!
”
”
Sinclair Lewis (It Can't Happen Here)
“
He was an embittered atheist (the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him), and took a sort of pleasure in thinking that human affairs would never improve. Sometimes, he said, when sleeping on the Embankment, it had consoled him to look up at Mars or Jupiter and think that there were probably Embankment sleepers there. He had a curious theory about this. Life on earth, he said, is harsh because the planet is poor in the necessities of existence. Mars, with its cold climate and scanty water, must be far poorer, and life correspondingly harsher. Whereas on earth you are merely imprisoned for stealing sixpence, on Mars you are probably boiled alive. This thought cheered Bozo, I do not know why. He was a very exceptional man.
”
”
George Orwell (Down and Out in Paris and London)
“
Marina Orlova was hooked on my quote about women not owing men. I scrolled through her posted paintings and recalled a Slovak friend once commenting on a guy wanna-be a great painter, something like this: "Aaano, on bol profesionalnym maljiarom na Slovensku, maloval tam pice a hakove krize po stenach". He meant graffiti, but I hesitate to translate it in detail for it may sound too rough. Another thought is about surreal, sometimes spurious aesthetics mixed with hinted or daring sexuality, which Marina Orlova endorses, deliberately or not, in line of her claimed profession. The posts call to mind The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover or even Titus Andronicus. No wonder, thousands of bozos are attracted to her internet activity because ..., well, the woman is hot.
”
”
Vinko Vrbanic
“
I was afraid of anyone in a costume. A trip to see Santa might as well have been a trip to sit on Hitler's lap for all the trauma it would cause me. Once, when I was four, my mother and I were in a Sears and someone wearing an enormous Easter Bunny costume headed my way to present me with a chocolate Easter egg. I was petrified by this nightmarish six-foot-tall bipedal pink fake-fur monster with human-sized arms and legs and a soulless, impassive face heading toward me. It waved halfheartedly as it held a piece of candy out in an evil attempt to lure me into its clutches. Fearing for my life, I pulled open the bottom drawer of a display case and stuck my head inside, the same way an ostrich buries its head in the sand. This caused much hilarity among the surrounding adults, and the chorus of grown-up laughter I heard echoing from within that drawer only added to the horror of the moment. Over the next several years, I would run away in terror from a guy in a gorilla suit whose job it was to wave customers into a car wash, a giant Uncle Sam on stilts, a midget dressed like a leprechaun, an astronaut, the Detroit Tigers mascot, Ronald McDonald, Big Bird, Bozo the Clown, and every Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Pluto, Chip and Dale, Uncle Scrooge, and Goofy who walked the streets at Disneyland. Add to this an irrational fear of small dogs that saw me on more than one occasion fleeing in terror from our neighbor's four-inch-high miniature dachschund as if I were being chased by the Hound of the Baskervilles and a chronic case of germ phobia, and it's pretty apparent that I was--what some of the less politically correct among us might call--a first-class pussy.
”
”
Paul Feig (Kick Me: Adventures in Adolescence)
“
In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey
Butane in my veins and I'm out to cut the junkie
With the plastic eyeballs, spray paint the vegetables
Dog food stalls with the beefcake pantyhose
Kill the headlights and put it in neutral
Stock car flamin' with a loser in the cruise control
Baby's in Reno with the Vitamin D
Got a couple of couches, sleep on the love seat
Someone came in sayin' I'm insane to complain
About a shotgun wedding and a stain on my shirt
Don't believe everything that you breathe
You get a parking violation and a maggot on your sleeve
So shave your face with some mace in the dark
Savin' all your food stamps and burnin' down the trailer park
Yo, cut it
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Double barrel buckshot)
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
Forces of evil on a bozo nightmare
Ban all the music with a phony gas chamber
'Cause one's got a weasel and the other's got a flag
One's on the pole, shove the other in a bag
With the rerun shows and the cocaine nose-job
The daytime crap of the folksinger slob
He hung himself with a guitar string
A slab of turkey neck and it's hangin' from a pigeon wing
You can't write if you can't relate
Trade the cash for the beef, for the body, for the hate
And my time is a piece of wax fallin' on a termite
That's chokin' on the splinters
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Get crazy with the cheese whiz)
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Drive-by body pierce)
Yo, bring it on down
I'm a driver, I'm a winner
Things are gonna change, I can feel it
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
(I can't believe you)
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Sprechen sie Deutsche, baby)
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Know what I'm sayin'?)
”
”
Beck
“
If you fret that the world grows short of genuine wonders, consider this: the most complex lump of matter in the universe. It works in ways we can only guess at. THrough generations of intense study, scientists have at last come to understand some of its local mechanism, but the connection between local and general remains for them, as for the rest of us, a matter of arm-waving speculation--we know less about what's going on inside of it than we do about the functional structure of the most distant galaxies. It weighs a little over three pounds and is the consistency of toothpaste; you're carrying it between your ears.
”
”
Michael Kaplan (Bozo Sapiens: Why to Err is Human)
“
Hi, Georgie,” it said. George blinked and looked again. He could barely credit what he saw; it was like something from a made-up story, or a movie where you know the animals will talk and dance. If he had been ten years older, he would not have believed what he was seeing, but he was not sixteen. He was six. There was a clown in the stormdrain. The light in there was far from good, but it was good enough so that George Denbrough was sure of what he was seeing. It was a clown, like in the circus or on TV. In fact he looked like a cross between Bozo and Clarabell, who talked by honking his (or was it her?—George was never really sure of the gender) horn on Howdy Doody Saturday mornings—Buffalo Bob was just about the only one who could understand Clarabell, and that always cracked George up. The face of the clown in the stormdrain was white, there were funny tufts of red hair on either side of his bald head, and there was a big clown-smile painted over his mouth. If George had been inhabiting a later year, he would have surely thought of Ronald McDonald before Bozo or Clarabell. The clown held a bunch of balloons, all colors, like gorgeous ripe fruit in one hand. In the other he held George’s newspaper boat. “Want your boat, Georgie?” The clown smiled.
”
”
Stephen King (It)
“
We got it on file,” Van Dyne said.
Vince could not believe what he had heard. “I thought people in your line of work didn't keep records? Safer for you and essential for your clients.”
Van Dyne shrugged. “Fuck the clients. Maybe one day the feds or the locals hit us, put us out of business. Maybe I find myself needing a steady flow of cash for lawyers' fees. What better than to have a list of a couple of thousand bozos living under phony names, bozos who'd be willing to be squeezed a little rather than have to start all over again with new lives.”
“Blackmail,” Vince said.
“An ugly word,” Van Dyne said. “But apt, I'm afraid. Anyway, all we care about is that we are safe, that there aren't any records here to incriminate us. We don't keep the data in this dump. Soon as we provide someone with a new ID, we transmit the record of it over a safe phone line from the computer here to a computer we keep elsewhere. The way that computer is programmed, the data can't be pulled out of it from here; it's a one-way road; so if we are busted, the police hackers can't reach our records from these machines. Hell, they won't even know the records exist.”
This new high-tech criminal world made Vince woozy. Even the don, a man of infinite criminal cleverness, had thought these people kept no records and had not realized how computers had made it safe to do so
”
”
Dean Koontz (Watchers)
“
Hearing may make shorter intuitive leaps than sight, but it too is subject to illusions. The most pleasant of these are 'mondegreens,' named by the author Sylvia Wright from her youthful mishearing of the Scottish ballad that actually says, 'They hae slain the Earl o' Moray / and they layd him on the green'--not, alas, 'the Lady Mondegreen.' Children, with their relaxed expectations for logic, are a rich source of these (pledging allegiance to 'one Asian in the vestibule, with little tea and just rice for all'), but everyone has the talent to infer the ridiculous from the inaudible--and, what's more, to believe in it. Here, at least, we do behave like computers, in that our voice-recognition software has little regard for probability but boldly assumes we live in a world of surrealist poets. We are certain that Mick Jagger will never leave our pizza burning and that the Shadow knows what evil lurks in the hot cement.
”
”
Michael Kaplan (Bozo Sapiens: Why to Err is Human)
“
You got to go full-tilt bozo. ’Cause you’re only given a little spark of madness. If you lose that, you’re nothing. Don’t. From me to you. Don’t ever lose that, because it keeps you alive.
”
”
Dave Itzkoff (Robin)
“
Manage to keep the best people. Steve jobs feared what he named ‘the Bozo explosion’, that is a system in which the failure of the management to seek for the best and get rid of the less efficient only leads to mediocrity.
”
”
Life Hacks Books (Leadership Development: If Steve Jobs was Coaching You: Charismatic Leadership Lessons Borrowed from Steve Jobs for High Potential People and Leaders. (The Leadership Series Book 1))
“
It was time to use the audio medium to look into the future once again, and the opportunity was taken by The Firesign Theatre to transport its fans to The Future Fair, which introduced a new generation to the fast-arriving Digital Age. “I Think We’re All Bozos on This Bus” (1971) took its listeners into the Hard Disk of Darkness,
”
”
David Ossman (Dr. Firesign's Follies)
“
Mr Stavely ( Fields ): That pill from Medicine Hat been here again?
Mrs Stavely: Yes, and he wants his money.
Drat his hide.
He wants more money and if he don't get it he'll take our malamuts.
He wont take old Bozo, my lead dog!
Why not?
'Cause I et him.
”
”
W.C.Fields
“
Who are you?” Dave demanded. “I am Mobius,” said the computer. “I am the artificial intelligence who runs Colony Zeta. More commonly known as the End.” “Listen, bozo,” said Carl, “we’re not in the mood for any stupid speeches or quests. And if you’re a secret bag guy, just go ahead and kill us now because we don’t have any armor or weapons.
”
”
Dave Villager (Dave the Villager 40: An Unofficial Minecraft Book (The Legend of Dave the Villager))
“
If your country elects a bozo whom you can’t stand, you will feel a disconnect with your nation and government and even other citizens. You will also feel as though you are owed something in return for putting up with terrible policies.
”
”
Mark Manson (Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope)
“
Bozo-les-culottes n.m. – clown, idiot (lit. the clown with the pants)
”
”
Daniel J. Kraus (Speak Québec!: A Guide to Day-to-Day Quebec French)
“
Modern life is becoming more and more like that bus hurtling down the highway: speedy, turbulent, stimulus saturated, and mobile. As a result, we are all becoming less and less able to think hard and well about what best to do in many situations. Hence, even the most careful-minded of us are increasingly likely to react automatically to the cues for action that exist in those settings. So, given the quickening pace and concentration-disrupting character of today’s world, are we all fated to be bozos on this bus? Not if, rather than raging against the invading automaticity, we invite it in but take systematic control of the way it operates on us.
”
”
Robert B. Cialdini (Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade)
“
When all go berserk for sect as bozos on booze, be the sectless sapiens and stand indivisible.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Honor He Wrote: 100 Sonnets For Humans Not Vegetables)
“
What gets headlines? Murder, mayhem, and madness—the cardinal M’s of the newsroom. That’s what terrifies the travel agents of the world. That’s what rates congressional hearings and crime commissions. And that’s what frightens off bozo Shriner conventions. It’s a damn shame, I grant you that. It’s a shame I simply couldn’t stand up at the next county commission meeting and ask our noble public servants to please stop destroying the planet. It’s a shame that the people who poisoned this paradise won’t just apologize and pack their U-Hauls and head back North to the smog and the blizzards. But it’s a proven fact they won’t leave until somebody lights a fire under ‘em.
”
”
Carl Hiaasen (Tourist Season)
“
In text, your mistake just sits there marinating on the other person’s screen, leaving a lasting record of your ineptitude and bozoness.
”
”
Aziz Ansari
“
A ilusão coletiva ocorre quando histórias extraordinárias são repetidas e amplificadas ao longo do tempo, levando as pessoas a acreditar em eventos sem evidências concretas. Como destaco anteriormente, tanto a repetição quanto a quantidade gera uma ilusão de verdade. Quanto mais se espalha algo, menor as chances de pessoas questionarem. Quanto mais pessoas acreditam, menor as chances de pessoas questionarem. Até hoje as notícias falsas do Lula circulam. Estava conversando com uma crente, da Assembleia de Deus, então ela disse: Lula recebeu a maioria dos votos nos presídios. Presos não votam, isso foi desmentido desde o início. Mesmo que fosse, e daí? O Lula é um democrata e respeita os direitos humanos, coisa que o Bozo nunca fez, ao disser repetidamente que “direitos humanos é para bandidos”, o que falso.
”
”
Jorge Guerra Pires (Seria a Bíblia um livro científico?: Por que a Bíblia Sagrada não deve ser levada a sério e como argumentar contra ela (Inteligência Artificial, Democracia, e Pensamento Crítico) (Portuguese Edition))
“
When he died, much was made of how singular Steve Jobs had been. For comparisons, observers needed to reach back to the mythic inventors and showmen of earlier eras, particularly Thomas Edison and Walt Disney. Jobs was singular, to be sure. But he also was of a type. He was what psychotherapist and business coach Michael Maccoby called a “productive narcissist.” In 2000, Maccoby published an insightful article in the Harvard Business Review that applies Freudian terminology to three categories of executives Maccoby had observed in corporate life. “Erotics” feel a need to be loved, value consensus, and as a result are not natural leaders. These are the people to whom a manager should assign tasks—and then heap praise for a job well done. “Obsessives” are by-the-books tacticians with a knack for making the trains run on time. An efficient head of logistics or bottom-line-oriented spreadsheet jockey is the classic obsessive. The greats of business history, however, are “productive narcissists,” visionary risk takers with a burning desire to “change the world.” Corporate narcissists are charismatic leaders willing to do whatever it takes to win and who couldn’t give a fig about being liked. Steve Jobs was the textbook example of a productive narcissist. An unimpressed Jobs was famous for calling other companies “bozos.” His own executives endured their rides on what one called the “bozo/hero rollercoaster,” often within the same marathon meeting.
”
”
Adam Lashinsky (Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired--and Secretive--Company Really Works)
“
He was a self-righteous know-it-all who had the breath of a dung beetle, a gray ponytail he barely pulled together from the bozo ring of hair clinging to his balding, freckled dome, and loved to drink, of all things, tea. Usually it was some sickly sweet-smelling herbal crap that was made in the hippie wasteland of Boulder, Colorado. The box was festooned with the image of a happy, dancing bear in a field of multicolored flowers and the tea had some idiotic name like Tai Chai. After work one evening, I snatched the box of tea bags from the break room and changed the recipe. I wasn't really worried that any other employees would use one of the tea bags because NO ONE DRINKS FUCKING TEA AT WORK, especially not the totally useless, noncaffeinated fairy tears reserved for old maids to sip while they watch Murder, She Wrote in bed with their legion of cats.
”
”
Shane Kuhn (Hostile Takeover (John Lago Thriller, #2))
“
Vanity metrics wreak havoc because they prey on a weakness of the human mind. In my experience, when the numbers go up, people think the improvement was caused by their actions, by whatever they were working on at the time. That is why it’s so common to have a meeting in which marketing thinks the numbers went up because of a new PR or marketing effort and engineering thinks the better numbers are the result of the new features it added. Finding out what is actually going on is extremely costly, and so most managers simply move on, doing the best they can to form their own judgment on the basis of their experience and the collective intelligence in the room. Unfortunately, when the numbers go down, it results in a very different reaction: now it’s somebody else’s fault. Thus, most team members or departments live in a world where their department is constantly making things better, only to have their hard work sabotaged by other departments that just don’t get it. Is it any wonder these departments develop their own distinct language, jargon, culture, and defense mechanisms against the bozos working down the hall? Actionable metrics are the antidote to this problem. When cause and effect is clearly understood, people are better able to learn from their actions. Human beings are innately talented learners when given a clear and objective assessment.
”
”
Eric Ries (The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses)
“
Inoculate yourself from dangerous bozos.
”
”
Guy Kawasaki
“
impact. Even on the phone you can hear a change in someone’s voice or a pause to let you know how they are interpreting what you’ve said. In text, your mistake just sits there marinating on the other person’s screen, leaving a lasting record of your ineptitude and bozoness.
”
”
Aziz Ansari (Modern Romance: An Investigation)
“
Red isn't your color, Bozo." Tina had said the first time Eleanor suited up. The other girls all laughed, even the black girls who hated Tina. Laughing at Eleanor was Dr. King's mountain.
”
”
Rainbow Rowell (Eleanor & Park)
“
And the cost of hiring too many wrong people (and one wrong hire often leads to multiple wrong hires because the wrong person will tend to attract more wrong people) is what Guy Kawasaki called a “Bozo explosion”—a term he uses to describe what happens when a formerly great team or company descends into mediocrity.1
”
”
Greg McKeown (Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less)
“
Bozo crawled over to me and licked my face; I turned in time to avoid his thick tongue on my lips. I’d seen where that tongue had been.
”
”
Ashlan Thomas (To Hold (The To Fall Trilogy, #2))
“
I'm not saying that Beautiful Peole don't have the right to exist... I'm not saying they should be rounded up and taken to an island. I'm just saying that they are never, ever to be trusted because they can never know what it's like not to be Beautiful and their priority will always be being Beautiful with other Beautiful People.
”
”
Bozo Laura
“
I'm not saying that Beautiful People don't have the right to exist... I'm not saying they should be rounded up and taken to an island. I'm just saying that they are never, ever to be trusted because they can never know what it's like not to be Beautiful and their priority will always be being Beautiful with other Beautiful People.
”
”
Laura Bozo
“
We’re all bozos on the bus, so we might as well sit back and enjoy the ride. —WAVY GRAVY
”
”
Elizabeth Lesser (Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow)
“
She was surprised because she was Emily, and she did not share Jonathan's frank assessment of coworkers as losers, whiners, bozos, sharks. No, she imagined people were rational and courteous, as she was, and when they proved otherwise, she assumed that she could influence them to become that way. Dangerous thinking. When she was truthful, she expected to hear the truth. Reasonable, she expected reasonable behavior in return. She was young, inventive, fantastically successful. She trusted in the world, believing in poetic justice- that good ideas blossomed and bore fruit, while dangerous schemes were meant to wither on the vine. She had passions and petty jealousies like everybody else, but she was possessed of a serene rationality. At three, she had listened while her mother sang "Greensleeves" in the dark, and she'd asked: "Why are you singing 'Greensleeves' when my nightgown is blue?" Then Gillian had changed the song to "Bluesleeves," and Emily had drifted off. Those songs were over now, Gillian long gone. Despite this loss- because of it- Emily was still that girl, seeking consonance and symmetry, logic, light.
”
”
Allegra Goodman (The Cookbook Collector)
“
The audience is super-wowed too but also freaked out as hell, all Oh my! What the hell? Is this supposed to be happening? So it’s the perfect time to follow my heart and do what overcomes me, which is grab the mic from Bozo and make sure the WGN cameras are on me when I say: I hereby declare Molly Sibly the winner of this stupid fucking contest as she’s more talented than all the other fuckers on this stage. If you want a piece of her she’ll be at the Reanimation tonight, motherfuckers! She’s making a portal, she’s having a séance, she’s bringing back the motherfucking dead!
”
”
Holly Wilson
“
Most of them were bozos. They knew how to manage, but they didn't know how to do anything.
”
”
Steve Jobs
“
Oi, bozos!” Carl shouted. “Come here!
”
”
Dave Villager (Dave the Villager 29: An Unofficial Minecraft Novel (The Legend of Dave the Villager))
“
We heard from two bozos who I didn’t know,
”
”
James Patterson (The Worst Years of My Life (Middle School #1))
“
If you don’t hand over that sword, I’m going to use my magic powers on you!” He pointed his staff menacingly at them. “Look,” said Carl, “I’m sure you’re used to everyone being scared of you and doing whatever you say, but you’ve just seen how powerful me and my friends are. We destroyed your entire army, and if you don’t leave us alone, we’ll bash your butt as well.” “Yeah!” said Alex excitedly. “B-but I’m the Necromancer!” said the Necromancer. It was clear that this wasn’t going the way he’d planned. “I’m a servant of the Nameless One! I’m a super-powerful bad guy!” “Listen,” said Carl, “a while ago, we would have been terrified by a bad guy like you, a bozo who can summon a massive skeleton army. But my friends and I are ridiculously overpowered now. We’re OP. A few weeks ago, we defeated the Ender Dragon.” The Necromancer’s eyes went wide. “You’re lying,” he said. “Nah, it’s true,” said Carl. “And after defeating the Ender Dragon, defeating a pipsqueak like you will be a piece of cake. So, I’ll give you one last chance. Either you and your bozos turn around and leave us alone, or we’ll bash you all to bits.” “B-b-but… I’m the Necromancer!” stammered the Necromancer. He looked so disappointed that Dave couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for him. “Last chance,” said Carl. The Necromancer looked like he wanted to cry. Finally, he scowled and then turned his horse around and rode off.
”
”
Dave Villager (Dave the Villager 42: An Unofficial Minecraft Story (The Legend of Dave the Villager))
“
Honor He Wrote Sonnet 47
Be the cactus, a proof of unsubmission,
And blossom amidst the fiercest environment.
In a world primed with the probability of hate,
Be love impossible and lift all lost in lament.
Aspire to expire for a cause uncausable,
And your heart will shine with light untamable.
When all go berserk for sect as bozos on booze,
Be the sectless sapiens and stand indivisible.
When all are possessed with the libido of liberty,
Be the first one standing, responsible 'n righteous.
In a world founded on unfounded assumptions,
Be the first ink of understanding unpresumptuous.
Blockheads and blockhearts have only blocked amity.
It's time to unblock, unfold and undivide our psyche.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Honor He Wrote: 100 Sonnets For Humans Not Vegetables)
“
One fear I knew Eric had was of clowns. Specifically, the bozos who showed up at a company when it reached a certain size and bloated it with bureaucracy and bogged it down in mediocrity. Google's hiring guidelines explicitly stated we should only add people smarter than we were.
That's why we started running a line on the homepage that said, "You're brilliant. We're hiring." The engineers loved it.
”
”
Douglas Edwards (I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59)
“
This line of questioning is absurd. You don't like me, fine. I don't much care for you, either. Eddie does, so I'll be civil because you don't mean a hill of beans to me. But, I refuse to remain here and be treated in such a rude manner."
"Surely you wouldn't expect special treatment as the sheriff's daughter, would you?"
Betsy could do way better than this bozo. "Of course not." I placed both hands on the table as I leaned closer to him. "As you so thoughtfully brought back to my attention, not that I needed a reminder, I've had experience with insecure men who need to demean women to make themselves feel powerful." I smiled sweetly at him.
"What are you insinuating, Miss Brown?"
I'd hit a nerve. Good. "You're a smart fella, you'll figure it out.
”
”
Kate Young (Southern Sass and a Crispy Corpse (Marygene Brown Mystery, #2))
“
Sir.” Chance extended a hand, which Kit shook. “Just stopping by.” “We crossed paths at the library,” I said quickly. “Chance is interested in a book Shelton mentioned, so he hitched a ride out here. His driver is coming to get him, but it might take a while. Okay if he waits at our place?” “His driver. Right.” Kit chuckled. “Not a problem. I’ll have my butler take care of you.” Chance feigned a laugh at my father’s lame joke. Please, please go inside. Kit refocused on me. “I came over to tell you—you’ll need to feed yourself tonight. I’ve got a pile of work to do and Whitney’s at her bridge club.” “Okay.” My curiosity got the better of me. “Something wrong?” “Too many morons in the world.” Kit’s lips curled into a frown. “Some day-tripping yahoos visited Loggerhead Island this morning and stirred up trouble. Smashed things, made a mess. Now I have to write a dozen incident reports for the environmental commission. As if I don’t have enough to do.” Shelton’s eyes narrowed. “Smashed things?” Kit nodded tiredly. “They took out the wolf-pack feeders. Painted hooky symbols on a few trees, which got the monkeys all riled. H-troop bolted their territory in the northern woods and won’t go back. You wouldn’t believe the howling.” Kit yawned, apparently missing the electric tension that had infused our group. “What hooky symbols?” I asked, as casually as possible. “Triangles.” Kit snorted in disbelief. “Big black-and-white triangles all over the place, and a red-eyed dog face on one of the feeders. Like these bozos were taunting Whisper’s pack. People can be such idiots.” My eyes flicked to Chance. Then Ben. No one needed to say it. The Trinity. On Loggerhead.
”
”
Kathy Reichs (Terminal: A Virals Novel)
“
Dusky gave Lizard a wide-eyed look. “How do you know this place? Did you get my memories?” “Not yet,” she snapped. “You have to let me have them, you bozo. But I’ve seen this place through HiveWing eyes. I saw you here. I used to watch you whenever I wanted to.” “That’s heebie-jeebie,” Dusky said, frowning at her. “That gives me the heebie-jeebies,” Luna corrected him, and he transferred his frown to her with
”
”
Tui T. Sutherland (The Flames of Hope)
“
but gets to be in the Pantheon anyway and sit on Olympus with the Gods, as if you went to the Supreme Court and found Bozo the Clown planted among the justices.
”
”
Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon)
“
Most start-ups are terribly managed, half-assed outfits run by buffoons and bozos and frat boys, and funded by amoral investors who are only hoping to flip the company into the public markets and make a quick buck. They have no operations expertise, no special insight into organizational behavior.
”
”
Dan Lyons (Lab Rats: Tech Gurus, Junk Science, and Management Fads—My Quest to Make Work Less Miserable)
“
You’ve got to be crazy! It’s too late to be sane, too late. You’ve got to go full tilt bozo... ‘Cause you’re only given a little spark of madness... and if you lose that, you’re nothing
”
”
Robin Williams
“
Anyone ever go splat?’ some pale bozo with a neon drink asks the people running the ride, and then he laughs with his bozo friends. ‘I’d pay to see that!
”
”
Neil Shusterman
“
Inventors or creatives championing loonshots are often tempted to ridicule franchises—as Steve Jobs 1.0 did with the “bozos” developing Apple II follow-ons. But both sides need each other. Without the certainties of franchises, the high failure rates of loonshots would bankrupt companies and industries. Without fresh loonshots, franchise developers would shrivel and die.
”
”
Safi Bahcall (Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries)
“
Unfortunately, Bobs as a rule had too much common sense to get stuck with the duty, and I had too much of a sense of duty to listen to my common sense. I couldn’t walk away and leave an empty seat representing the Bobiverse; so here I was, once again listening to a snarling, self-centered, self-absorbed, self-righteous herd of bozos.
”
”
Dennis E. Taylor (Heaven's River (Bobiverse, #4))
“
Nonessentialist Essentialist MIND-SET Everything to everyone Less but better TALENT Hires people frantically and creates a “Bozo explosion.” Ridiculously selective on talent and removes people who hold the team back. STRATEGY Pursues a straddled strategy where everything is a priority. Defines an essential intent by answering the question, “If we could only do one thing, what would it be?” Eliminates the nonessential distractions.
”
”
Greg McKeown (Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less)
“
In enlightenment, there is no separation between “me” and “you.” So in enlightenment, there is no impulse to say that “I” no longer identify as “me,” but “you” still do identify as “you,” or that all desire and fear have completely vanished “for me,” but “you” are still stuck with them, or that “I” am like Ramana Maharshi and “you” are just another bozo on the bus. In enlightenment, it all happens Here / Now and none of it is personal.
”
”
Joan Tollifson (Painting the Sidewalk with Water: Talks and Dialogs About Nonduality)
“
She offered to have my glasses fixed but drew the line when I asked for a brand-new pair. “But the ones I’ve got make me look like a bozo.” “Well, of course they do,” she said. “They’re glasses. That’s their job.
”
”
David Sedaris (Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim)
“
We heard from two bozos who I didn’t know, then a guy named Matt Kruschik who ate his own boogers until fourth grade,
”
”
James Patterson (The Worst Years of My Life (Middle School #1))
“
Faith for a husband is all well and good, but ladies God isn’t giving you a Boaz, until you let go of that bozo.
”
”
Eddie M. Connor Jr. (Heal Your Heart: Discover How To Live, Love, And Heal From Broken Relationships)