Ymca Quotes

The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable. ~ H.L. Mencken

We're all adolescents now," writes Thomas Bergler. "When are we going to grow up?"17 Bergler explains that churches and parachurch organizations first began to provide youth-oriented programs - mainly to help at-risk kids in the cities (e.g., the YMCA). Then the "teenager" was invented as a unique demographic in society. As a result, the youth group was created, offering adolescent-friendly versions of church. "In the second stage, a new adulthood emerged that looked a lot like the old adolescence. Fewer and fewer people outgrew the adolescent Christian spiritualities they had learned in youth groups; instead, churches began to cater to them." Eventually, churches became them. ~ Michael S. Horton

The truth is ... that the great artists of the world are never puritans, and seldom ever ordinarily respectable. No virtuous man - that is, virtuous in the YMCA sense - has ever painted a picture worth looking at, or written a symphony worth hearing, or a book worth reading, and it is highly improbable that the thing has ever been done by a virtuous woman. ~ H.L. Mencken

I never lost a freestyle race. Never. Not even in the YMCA. ~ Johnny Weissmuller

Like most of my generation, I was brought up on the saying: 'Satan finds some mischief for idle hands to do.' But I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached. I hope that, after reading the following pages, the leaders of the YMCA will start a campaign to induce good young men to do nothing. If so, I shall not have lived in vain. ~ Bertrand Russell

Millions of guys play millions of basketball games every day of the week at the playground or the YMCA. But LeBron James gets $20 million a year because he can jam on all of those guys. We're always going to want to see LeBron and Kobe go at it. ~ Adam Carolla

When I'm panicked about my love handles, I go to the YMCA and get obsessed with Kid Rock videos as I'm on the running machine. ~ Emily Mortimer

Living at the YMCA in Harlem dramatically broadened my view of the world. ~ Constance Baker Motley

I've never changed my life since I was 4 and went to the YMCA with a gym bag. I still have that philosophy. In fact, I still have that gym bag. ~ Dan Gable

The Roman Catholic portrait at the reception of the Indian YMCA displayed the generic Christ, the timorous, blonde-haired, blue-eyed face upturned to the heavens, a lost middle-class student searching for guidance in an inhospitable world. ~ Amit Chaudhuri

While in high school, I worked part time at Subway, then at the front desk of the local YMCA, then at a tennis club, until I landed an unpaid internship at 'The Mountain View Voice,' my hometown newspaper. ~ Jose Antonio Vargas

Basketball is a business. Pure and simple. If you want to have fun, go to the YMCA. ~ Pat Riley

As long as the Southern colleges have revivals on their campuses and students get converted to Methodism and join the YMCA and are accepted as gentlemen, it will be impossible to think of the South as civilized ... The educated folk of the Old South took theology lightly, and religion to them was hardly more than a charming ritual, useful on solemn occassions. ~ H.L. Mencken

The music filled the room, making the windows shake. I'd forgotten how much I loved to dance. It didn't take long before I was letting go of Princess Catherine and dancing like Cathy-and it felt good. Free and fun. I bumped butts with Patricia, wrapped a boa around Chadwick, and laughed as Daniel did the YMCA. ~ Nichole Chase

If it is gay, ribald and lascivious night-life you are after, Israel is not the place for you. The night clubs you do find are nearer in spirit to a YMCA than to dens of iniquity. ~ George Mikes

I had always wanted to be an actress. I went to summer theater camp from kindergarten on up until high school, and always had the leads in all the plays - even though they were at the YMCA - but it was something I always wanted to do. ~ Chloe Sevigny

I was in Washington State, at a small-town YMCA, when a boy wandered into the lap lane and popped his head, seal-like, out of the water. I would later learn that he was nine, but at the time he was just this kid, slightly pudgy, with a stern haircut. It's like he went to a barbershop with a picture of Hitler, that's how severe it was. We got to talking, and when I told him I wasn't a very good swimmer, he challenged me to a race. I think he assumed that, like most adults, I'd slow down and intentionally let him win, but he didn't know who he was dealing with. I need all the confidence I can get, and one victory is just as good as any other. Thus I swam for my very life and beat the pants off him. I thought this was it - he'd accept his defeat and move on with his life - but five minutes later he stopped me again and asked me if I believed in God. "No," I told him. "Why?" I thought for a second. Because I have hair on my back, and a lot of other people, people who kill and rob and make life miserable, don't. A real God wouldn't let that happen. ~ David Sedaris

H.L.Mencken's war aims, according to the handful of observers who deigned to notice his conflict, were the overthrow of American Democracy, the Christian religion, and the YMCA. He was also credited with trying to wipe out poets and luncheon orators. ~ Ben Hecht