"Maybe it's how close we are to history here that makes Massachusetts such an interesting place to write about, or the sense that this was the initial American frontier, or the literary legacy of so many great Massachusetts writers." --Alice Hoffman "I guess God made Boston on a wet Sunday." --Raymond Chandler "I'll tell you what PAYGO means, when you're a senator from Massachusetts, when you're a colleague of Ted Kennedy, pay go means: You pay, and he goes ahead and spends." --George W. Bush Don't Blame Me-- I'm from Massachusetts -- Post-Watergate bumper sticker Being a conservative Republican in Massachusetts is a bit like being a cattle rancher at a vegetarian convention. -- Mitt Romney Puritanism-- The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. -- H.L. Mencken All I can claim for Boston is that it is the thinking center of the continent, and therefore of the planet. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes The [Boston] Pops are a good melting pot of music. I guess we're the classiest jukebox in the world. -- Arthur Fiedler Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, had always been the systematic organization of hatreds, and Massachusetts politics had been as harsh as the climate. -- Henry Adams The Red Sox are a religion. Every year we re-enact the agony and the temptation in the Garden. Baseball child's play? Well, up here in Boston, it's a passion play. -- George Higgins It's spring and the saps are running. -- early Boston Marathon joke Boston is the perfect city for the Democrats, ' cause the Democratsare like the Red Sox. They're optimistic in the spring, concerned in the summer, and ready to choke in the fall. -- Jay Leno, on selection of Boston for 2004 Democratic National Convention Chowderheads, rejoice! This compilation of 1001 wicked good quotes from and about the Bay State dishes up the most thought-provoking insights ever uttered by founding fathers, philosophers, celebrities, statesmen, writers, sports stars, and many others on all manner of things Massachusetts. Red Sox fans, travellers of the Freedom Trail, and anyone who's ever attempted "pahking the ka" in the People's Republic will find hours of delight and inspiration in these pages.