Worth the Clickbait: 11 Should-Be Famous Quotes

We opted not to fact-check this humour piece by Chelsea Campbell, one of the funniest and brightest writers we know. Find another piece by Campbell in our Cheese issue. 

Worth the Clickbait: 11 Should-be Famous Quotes
by Chelsea Campbell

The Internet is a great tool for finding inspiration. Perhaps you have tried it. You can go on brainyquotes.com or tumblr.com and find everything you need to know about living a fulfilled life. Those websites are not paying me to say that, even though I asked them many times.  

Now we don’t have to actually know much about anybody to get a cute little summation of their ethos. There was a time when you had to read an author’s full canon and decide for yourself what lines were worth awkwardly sharing with friends. Now it is not like that. It’s almost like change correlates with the passage of time. But I digress. What I’m trying to say is why does no one care about the personal lives of famous people, huh? 

Do we really know Marilyn Monroe? I mean, we know that if we can’t “handle her at her best” we don’t “deserve her at her worst” but who is the woman behind the quote? “Happy birthday Mr. President,” she once said, and we all nodded our heads blandly and thought, “That’s Marilyn alright.” But was it? What about the millions of other things she said during her life? Don’t those count for anything?

Look at her boyfriend, who said “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for yourself.” He probably said a lot of other things too. Maybe he said, “Thank you, but I’m not much for Marmalade, I prefer my toast dry.” Or even “Ayyyyy shucks.” Or the guy who said, “There’s nothing to fear but fear of a-bombs.” Do we even know his name? No, it’s literally impossible to know.

IllustrationS by Hayley Dawn Muir, ballpoint pen on paper

I did a little digging around and found some cool quotes from famous people that are totally #offthegrid. I can’t reveal my sources but I can tell you that they are impossible to fact check. I can also tell you that they are not brainyquotes.com or tumblr.com because those websites are apparently incompetent (this is why you PAY me).

Behold:

I like to play hard to get with my hopes and dreams.
-Vincent Van Gogh

I put the id in idiot and the ego in misbegotten. I put the superego in the garbage can, idk.
-Freud

You can get addicted to alcohol cocaine and smoking
Or hooked on gambling and erotic choking
On heroin and meth and sniffing glue
With all these great options, why'd I choose you
Fuck this shit
-Emily Dickinson

It's not that I was a better writer on percocets, it's that I thought I was. In the end I learned it doesn't matter what drugs you are on unless your audience is on the same kind of drugs at a much, much higher dose. I know you may not think that has anything to do with working at Denny's. Please hire me.
-Mark Twain

I'm like half-prepared for a dystopian future. Like, I don't have Nexus but I also can't do long division.
-Aldous Huxley

Men have walked on the moon, but you’ve never seen your face in 3D.
-Pope Francis

Seize the day
Foreclose on the night
Slap Father Time with a subpoena
-Judge Judy

I watched a movie called “Hypochondria” last night. It was so art-house that it wasn’t even a movie, ha-ha-ha, it was literally just me eating magnesium pills and trying to find my pulse. I know, I know, so esoteric, I do it for the culture.
-Andrei Tarkovsky

Reddit sucks.
-Albert Camus

Don't worry it's all part of God's plan. God's coked-out fever dream plan.
-God

These quotes are all true. All of them were said by the people who were said to have said them. We checked. We sure did.
-infowars.com

Chelsea Campbell is a graduate of the Creative Writing program at the University of British Columbia. Her work has appeared in the “Rants and Raves” section of community message boards and in long text messages to ex-boyfriends. She is the co-writer of a web series to be released later this year.

Hayley Dawn Muir, born 1994 in North Vancouver, Canada, currently works in Vancouver. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, has been part of several group shows within the past four years, and recently curated her first solo show at the Number 2 Gallery in Vancouver. Find more of her work here.