Neverisms

someone.

Never trust your memory;

it makes you forget a favor in a few days,

while it helps you remember an injury for years.

Never trust anyone over thirty.

This 1960s catchphrase has been attributed to all of the famous revolutionary figures of the period—Abbie Hoffman, Mark Rudd, Jerry Rubin, and Mario Savio—but it is now fairly certain that the original author of the sentiment was a twenty-four-year-old University of California protester named Jack Weinberg. In 1964, the San Francisco Chronicle quoted Weinberg as saying: “We have a saying in the movement that you can’t trust anybody over thirty.” Weinberg later admitted that the saying occurred to him on the spur of the moment, but he phrased it as a “movement” maxim to give it an air of authority. Over time, you can’t trust evolved into never trust, and that is the version history remembers. The saying has been parodied in many ways, but the most creative alteration I’ve seen comes from the quotation anthologist Robert Byrne: “Never trust anyone over-dirty.” Byrne’s tweaking of the saying even inspired me to attempt a spin-off: “Never trust anyone over-flirty.”

Never trust a man who has only one way to spell a word.ANONYMOUS

This admonition has been attributed to Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Oscar Wilde, but it was almost certainly authored by some anonymous wit. The most famous citation of the quotation occurred in 1992. Vice President Dan Quayle was on a political trip to New York City when his aides arranged for a publicity stop at a middle school in Trenton, New Jersey. During his visit, school officials staged a spelling bee and asked the vice president to assist. When Quayle asked twelve-year-old sixth-grader William Figueroa to spell “potato,” the lad did so correctly on a chalkboard. Quayle looked at the board and then quietly said to the boy, “You’re close, but you left a little something off. The ‘e’ on the end.” William reluctantly added the vowel and, as he did, the assembled politicos and members of the press gave him a round of applause.

When the event ended, nothing was said about the incident, and the vice president began taking questions. Near the end of the press conference, after a reporter asked, “How do you spell potato?” the vice president knew something was up. For the next few days, the incident was all over the news, with many pundits and Quayle critics viewing it as yet another example of the VP’s lack of intelligence. Quayle tried to make light of the matter, even citing Mark Twain as the author of the “only one way to spell a word” quotation. The story continued to hound Quayle for the remainder of his term, and it is an incident from his life that he has said many times he would prefer to forget.

Never trust anything you read in a travel article.DAVE BARRY, in Dave Barry’s Greatest Hits (1989)

Barry added: “Travel articles appear in publications that sell large expensive advertisements to tourism-related industries, and these industries do not wish to see articles like: URUGUAY: DON’T BOTHER.”

Never trust anyone who wants what you’ve got.

Friend or no, envy is an overwhelming emotion.EUBIE BLAKE, legendary composer & musician

Never trust the bureaucracy to get it right.MCGEORGE BUNDY

This was the second of six “lessons in disaster” that Bundy learned as he reflected on—and later learned to regret—his role in crafting the military strategy that resulted in the Vietnam War. Bundy’s reassessment was reported in Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam (2008), by Gordon M. Goldstein. As national security advisor to JFK and LBJ from 1961 to 1966, Bundy was an outspoken “hawk.” In the decades after the war, though, he had a change of heart. One additional lesson that Bundy learned was also beautifully expressed: “Never deploy military means in pursuit of indeterminate ends.”

Never trust a woman who says: “I’m a woman’s woman.”JULIE BURCHILL

Burchill, a well-known British columnist added: “It means they incorporate all the base elements of femaleness: they want to be the thinnest girl, get the best boy, and have a better outfit.” Her observation suggests a number of spin-offs, including, “Never trust a man who says, ‘I’m a man’s man.’ ”

Never trust a man who parts his name on the side.HERB CAEN, on J. Edgar Hoover

Never trust a skinny ice cream man.BEN COHEN

In 1978, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, childhood friends from Long Island, cofounded the Vermont-based Ben & Jerry’s ice cream company. Cohen’s motto was undoubtedly inspired by the familiar culinary quotation, “Never trust a skinny cook.” The message behind the skinny chef line, which first appeared in the mid–1970s, is that food prepared by such a chef is so bad that even the chef refuses to eat it. Joan Rivers also offered a spin-off when she said, “Never trust an ugly plastic surgeon.”

Never trust a man who speaks well of everybody.JOHN CHURTON COLLINS

Never trust a man who,

when left alone in a room with a tea cozy, doesn’t try it on.BILLY CONNOLLY, in Gullible’s Travels (1983)

Never trust a man with short legs—brains too near their bottoms.NOEL COWARD, from his 1935 play Red Peppers

Never Trust a Naked Bus DriverJACK DOUGLAS, title of 1960 book

Douglas was one of the best-known gag writers of his era, writing for Jack Paar (for more than twelve years), Bob Hope, Red Skelton, Jimmy Durante, and George Gobel. His 1959 My Brother Was an Only Child was the best-selling humor book of the year.

Never trust a man who says, “Don’t struggle.”JENNY ECLAIR, from her comedy routine

Never trust a man who, within five minutes of meeting you,

tells you where he went to college.ESQUIRE MAGAZINE EDITORS, in The Rules:

A Man’s Guide to Life (2005)

Other Esquire rules for men appear in other chapters of this book, but here we feature the best of their never trust rules:

Never trust a man with two first names.

Never trust a man named after a body part.

Never trust a man who uses nautical metaphors.

Never trust an act of civil disobedience led by a disc jockey.

Never trust a man who owns a video of his middle school musical.

Never Trust a Man Who Doesn’t DrinkW. C. FIELDS, title of a 1971 anthology

of Fields’s quotations

Never trust a woman who says she likes football

until she demonstrates the ability to eat a plate of hot wings clean.JESSE FROEHLING, citing an adage

This appeared in a