Notable Quotables From the Century’s Final Year

At year’s end, the overriding question is still whether Y2K will ravage the planet, whimper softly into the night or prompt Donald Trump to say something incredibly dumb.

It was a year of political turmoil (“Clinton Impeached!”), of tragic plane crashes. It was a year of violence, abroad and at home. Fortunes were made in the dot-com mania; and by playing a game on TV with Regis Philbin.

Campaign 2000 heated up, including a sitting first lady declaring her bid for a U.S. Senate seat.

Pikachu ruled.

And for just about every event that could be chronicled, somebody said something memorable. Or worse.

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“In 12 months, we’ll know if I’m right. If I’m wrong, the worst that will happen to me is I’ll be tremendously embarrassed. If other people are wrong and don’t listen to me, the worst that will happen is all men will perish.”

--Richard Wiles, who says God directed him to write his book, “Judgment Day 2000,” in which the Y2K problem causes the breakdown of all computers, exposing the United States to a nuclear attack by terrorists.

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“I think sleeping in coffins is fine. What’s wrong with that? When it comes to ingesting blood, I can’t recommend it.”

--Novelist Anne Rice

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“People feel so enslaved by technology that they will stop having sex to answer the telephone. What could be so important? Who’s calling, and who cares?”

--Author Michael Crichton

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“Sorry, very sorry.”

--Khieu Samphan, a top Khmer Rouge leader, apologizing for the suffering his regime caused the Cambodian people.

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“I now have a 7-year-old boy and a 9-year-old boy, so all I can say is, I apologize.”

--Matt Groening, creator of animated antihero Bart Simpson, frequently criticized as a bad role model for kids.

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“I found Monica warm and intelligent and very open. I told her, ‘You are very alive.’ And she said, ‘Maybe that was the appeal.’ ”

--Barbara Walters, after meeting with Monica Lewinsky.

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“It’s going to be different for me this time around, running for president--I will be in control.”

--Dan Quayle, on his prospective bid for the presidency

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“How about K Martha?”

--Gracious-living guru Martha Stewart, suggesting a new name for Kmart, which carries a vast array of her products, from towels to garden tools.

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“No way. There are a lot of damaged people out there.”

--Bette Midler, on why she won’t ever move back to Los Angeles.

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“It’s not as exciting as a case I had on ‘The People’s Court’ involving a python that swallowed a Chihuahua.”

--Television judge Ed Koch, former mayor of New York City, on the presidential impeachment trial over which his judicial colleague William Rehnquist presided in the U.S. Senate.

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“If you’re only going to have 10 rules, I don’t know if adultery should be one of them.”

--Cable TV magnate Ted Turner, suggesting that the 10 Commandments are “a little out of date.”

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“Why not aim to lower men’s sex drives?”

--Sex therapist Martha Gross of Washington, D.C., on suggestions that many women need help stimulating their libidos because, according to a study, they are more apt than men to suffer from lack of interest and other sexual problems.

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“Sometimes I feel like the fire hydrant looking at a pack of dogs.”

--President Clinton, to an Interior Department gathering.

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“You already have zero privacy--get over it.”

--Scott McNealy, chairman and CEO of Sun Microsystems, at the launch of new software that has raised privacy fears.

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“After all, it’s their money.”

--Former President George Bush, explaining why some of the federal government’s budget surplus should be returned to the taxpayers.

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“I would say, ‘You are a butthead.’ ”

--Barbara Lewinsky, Monica’s stepmom, on what she’d tell the president if she met him now.

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“I do not regard this impeachment vote as some great badge of shame.”

--President Clinton

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“Having your portrait painted is a strange experience. At the same time, to anyone who has served in Washington, there is something oddly familiar about it. First, you are painted into a corner. Then you are hung out to dry. And finally, you are framed.”

--Former Secretary of State Warren Christopher at the unveiling of his portrait in the State Department.

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“Too many sharp blows to the head while I was in prison.”

--Sen. John McCain, who was a POW during the Vietnam War, on his wife’s explanation for his presidential campaign.

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“I jumped on top of him and kissed him all over.”

--Actor-director Roberto Benigni, on meeting the pope.

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“They, like the rest of us, are doing the best we know how to raise our children in a very scary world. We are all one bullet and one pipe bomb away from the agony of Wayne and Kathy Harris.”

--Carolyn Payne, on her close friends Wayne and Kathy Harris, whose son, Eric Harris, along with his friend Dylan Klebold, carried out the killings of fellow students at Columbine High School.

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“They are like two balls of burning flame.”

--Pamela Anderson Lee, on the residual pain caused by her surgery to remove breast implants.

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“Well, you also step over more men on the sidewalk. A few win big, and a lot fail. You don’t see many groups of women on the Bowery too drunk to zip up their pants.”

--Rutgers anthropologist Helen Fisher, who says men predominate in top corporate jobs because they are more willing to sacrifice their health and personal lives.

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“Don’t people realize this thing is going to be in theaters for five months? What’s wrong with these people?”

--Russ Leatherman, president of MovieFone, the nation’s biggest film-ticketing service, on fans who camped out for weeks so they could see the premiere of “Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace.”

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“Momentary insanity--nothing more, nothing less.”

--Brandi Chastain, about ripping off her soccer jersey and exposing her sports bra after the U.S. won the Women’s World Cup final.

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“There’s all these touchy-feely things out there they want to spend money on.”

--Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), on why women don’t support defense spending.

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“If she’s successful, I’ll happily go to the Senate spouses meeting, if that’s part of the job.”

--President Clinton, on the possibility of the first lady being elected to the U.S. Senate.

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“People are afraid that if they go away for a week, they’ll return to find themselves obsolete.”

--Family therapist Ron Wiebe of Los Gatos, Calif., on Silicon Valley’s biggest disease--fear of vacations.

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“Dodgers and Angels highlights at 11. Please watch anyway.”

--Bill Weir, sports anchor at KABC in Los Angeles.

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“The crack of your behind corresponds to the divisions of the two hemispheres of the brain. The buttocks represent areas of your personality. The rump is divided into four quadrants that correspond to the four elements: air, fire, water and Earth.”

--Jacqueline Stallone, mother of Sylvester, on why she augmented her astrology business with “rumpology,” an art she said she learned from a French woman.

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“We’re not that worried. We just saw ‘Ishtar’ last weekend.”

--An aide to Vice President Al Gore on actor Warren Beatty’s reported interest in running for president.

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“The women in L.A. are really scary. Someone should tell them, ‘You don’t look any younger. You just look uncomfortable and weird.’ ”

--Actor Ewan McGregor, on cosmetic surgery.

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“There’s a time to stay and there’s a time to fold. There’s a time to know when to leave the stage.”

--Former Vice President Dan Quayle, announcing his withdrawal from the race for the GOP presidential nomination.

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“My women are more beautiful than Warren Beatty’s.”

--Donald Trump explaining the advantages he brings to a third-party challenge for the presidency versus his potential Hollywood rival.

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“I haven’t really talked to him about that.”

--First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, on whether her husband will live in their new Chappaqua, N.Y., residence.

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“Californians seem to be particularly afraid of their food.”

--Julia Child