Notable Family Quotes

  • "Grandma, you can never have too many swords." -- Connor to Gram as she played the game "Witcher" and told Connor she had enough swords when the game presented an opportunity to pick up another.

  • At the Park.

       Grandpa: "Look, Connor, there's a tricycle." 

       Connor: "Just like me." 

       Grandma: "Just like mine." 

       Connor:  "You don't have one!"

  • "I'm busy." - Connor to Corey.  Connor was working on a puzzle and Corey urged him to try and rotate a piece to try and fit it.  Connor said "Daddy do it."  Corey replied "Connor do it."  Connor said "I'm busy."

  • There’s just one more spoonful of mashed potatoes.” – Dorothy Gough to sons while hiding the real (and substantial) amount of mashed potatoes remaining.   

  • "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride." - Dorothy Gough to sons when they wanted something they obviously could not get.

  • "If it had teeth it would bite you." - Dorothy Gough to sons when they claimed they could not find something that was in plain sight.

  • This is designed for light towels” – Richard Gough lecturing Chris and Corey to be careful with a towel rack he had just attached to the Apple Valley bathroom wall which subsequently collapsed when a demonstration light towel was applied to it.  

  • "At $50 thousand per megabyte we're giving this stuff away." - Richard Gough at IBM in 1979 after a major memory price reduction in mainframe memory (in 2006, PC memory was selling for about 20 cents per megabyte and flash memory for about a penny per megabyte.)  

  • “I’ll be in right after these messages.” – Chris Gough watching TV as a child when asked to come into the kitchen by his mom. 

  • “He was a son-of-a-bitch, that guy” – Mildred Coupe at age 90 about her father after viewing a birthday card her father sent to her sister in 1925. 

  • The only people you can trust are God and Santa Claus.” – Chris Gough as a child after being disappointed by a rescheduled activity. 

  • “If Santa lives in the North Pole how come all his toys are made in Taiwan?” – Chris Gough as a child. 

  • If all goes well in a few hours we’ll be eating hot fudge sundaes in Ghirardelli square.” – Richard Gough to family on a plane to San Francisco in 1987.  If all doesn’t go well we’ll be in some remote mountain lake.” – Chris Gough in reply. 

  • Are we there yet?” – Corey Gough 4 miles into a 100 mile car trip to Cape Cod. 

  • I’ll get up when your hand is on the doorknob” – Richard Gough to Diana when she says she’s ready to leave. 

  • We got all the hair, but you got all the brains.” – Bill Gough to Dan Gough when kidded about how thick and dark his hair was at 59. 

  • It’s the light.” – Richard Gough to Chris and Corey when they suggested his hair might be turning gray.

  • First day, don’t have to share.” – Richard Gough to Chris and Corey on the rules of sharing new presents lying idle with their brother (all bets off on 2nd and subsequent days). 

  • Dear Mrs. Jacobs, I think I speak for all of us when I say as a teacher, you suck...  -- Kerry Gough when very disgusted with her 5th grade teacher.  She came home from school and quietly worked on a project on the computer.  Josh's curiosity finally overcame her, and she investigated Kerry's project.  Kerry sheepishly admitted that she was writing an "anonymous" letter from her classmates to the teacher.  Josh nearly choked when she read the letter.  Since then, we frequently characterized events with the assessment that  "I speak for all of us when I say this sucks." 

  • "... and furthermore we don't throw roast beef on the furniture."  -- Dan Gough to family at dinner.  Dan and Josh were having an animated discussion as Dan was on his soapbox railing on some topic nobody was interested in.  Kerry, apparently feeling that the adults were distracted threw a piece of roast beef over her shoulder to her favorite canine admirer.  Unfortunately, it landed on one of the kitchen cabinet doors.  As Dan wrapped up his diatribe, without pausing for a breadth, he ended his sentence with this quote.  This has facetiously become one of the quoted rules of the house. 

  • "Life isn't fair, get use to it." – Josh Gough to her kids.  Josh was tiring of hearing that any number of events or situations "just "weren't fair."   This is now a standard response to any injustice in the family. 

  • It is four batmans until we stop”  -- Cleve & Sally Peeke to their kids in the car.   When traveling and confronted with the eternal question, "how much longer," Josh's sister, Sally, and her husband Cleve, would always put things in terms that the kids could relate to.  The Batman TV series was popular at that time, so all abstract references to time would be put on a "batman scale." -- we have another two batmans to go, etc. Of course, each Batman equaled 30 minutes, the length of the TV show.  At a later time, Josh and Dan adopted an updated version of the batman scale since Batman had long since gone by the wayside.  They would make reference to "Sesame Streets."   We are going on a trip that will last 12 Sesame Streets or we will eat in two Sesame Streets. 

  • "suck it up and get back in the game."  -- Dan Gough to members of his family.  Dan, not generally an award winner for empathy, would always use this as counsel to other members of the family when they were sick or discouraged, etc. This has now been added to family lexicon.

  • "I wonder if this game has a god mode..."  --Diana Gough when frustrated at the difficulty of particular scenario in a PC game she was playing at age 56.