That's just great!
"Global warming will warm the world except for eastern Canada, where it will get colder during the winter." - Denis Lefaivre, Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans

Radical upchuck
"I found it very unpleasant." - Priape salesperson Martin, after discovering fake vomit left on the store's doorstep by les Panthères roses, a queer anarchist group

But what if you'd been with Gene?
"I've had some great love affairs with men. I was with Paul Stanley of Kiss for two years and had a wonderful relationship with him. But I never wanted to spend the rest of my life with him - or any of the other guys. And I've always been attracted to women. When I was 11 I had a crush on the Bionic Woman." - '80s pinup turned dyke-diva Sam Fox

Guggulsterones debunked!
"Listen, there's no such thing as guggulsterones, that's just something the manufacturers made up. It's not anything. And really, white kidney bean extract? Come on, what does the colour of the beans have to do with anything?" - Gerry Zavorsky, professor of exercise science at Concordia, on suspicious weight-loss products

Uh, good question
"Why should a CEO earn 500 times as much as the average worker in his company?" - Local billionaire and anti-corporate corruption crusader Steven Jarislowsky

Next thing you know they'll want the right to marry
"One guy in Sept-Îles had a partner die. So he had the right to three days off work. Instead he took personal days off because he was afraid everybody would learn of his sexual orientation." - UQÀM sociologist Line Chamberland discussing homophobia in the workplace

Classy coupla guys
"Dugmor: This girl is fresh off the bus and looking for some work, she will be in L.A. for only a week. If anyone is interested in shooting her she is open to everything.… even double anal. She has current AIM tests and is ready to go. I am NOT saying she is the hottest girl in the world... but she has a great attitude.
Plan 9: Double Anal?? Good lord...she ain't gonna shit right for a week!" - A thread from www.gofuckyourself.com, a porn industry Web master discussion board, about aspiring Montreal porn starlet Lara Roxx, who later became HIV-infected

Eating garbage declared bad!
"We feed our kids garbage. Meanwhile, phys ed classes and health classes are being cut. That's a very bad message to send to our young people. To say that exercise isn't that important, while all these Ding Dongs and HoHos and pizza and french fries and cookies and chips are okay. We're putting them on a path to get sick." - Morgan Spurlock, director of Super Size Me

Eating garbage declared not necessarily bad!
"I was homeless, eating out of garbage cans, strung out and whatever, but I wouldn't change anything for the world. I know kids who have been handed everything their whole lives and those are the people who are really fucked up." - Lars Frederiksen of Lars Frederiksen & the Bastards

Did one of them look like Lars?
"It's not only poor people who come in to get the food in the dumpsters. You have also thieves who come and steal what they can get" - Atwater Market manager Marïus Couture

The bloody French
"I'm not trying to make sitcoms, nor am I trying to make normal type of cinema. I make viewers my puppets, rather than allow them to feel as though they are the person on the screen. I like brutalizing and raping the audience." - Catherine Breillat on her film Anatomie de l'enfer, which includes extreme close-ups of a used tampon

Puppetmaster speaks for puppet!
"Triumph is a puppet, a character… he is supposed to be an idiot, an ugly American. When we had him saying ‘You're in North America, learn the language,' it was meant as a dumb, ugly American kind of thing to say. The joke was deliberately crude… but perhaps I just had trouble conveying that.' - Robert Smigel, trying to explain his art to the many Quebecers who felt insulted by his puppet, Triumph the Insult Dog

Pile on Moore
"He's a big fat turd!" - Team America: World Police co-director Trey Parker on Michael Moore

And it's real money, too
"Our investigations show that Canadian Tire is a poor choice for auto repair. And one of the reasons is that they have this very curious incentive practice where the guy you're talking to at the counter is actually, in many stores, getting a percentage of your bill." - George Iny, of the Automobile Protection Agency

The need for needles
"The first time I walked into a Verdun shooting gallery, I dropped off 1,000 syringes and that lasted about four days. And because I had a pager, users would be calling me up at all hours, telling me what equipment they needed. It was like I was taking down grocery lists of supplies for them." - Anita Cugliandro, who after a long struggle was finally able to open up a needle exchange clinic in Verdun

Here, we usually just ignore them
"The mullahs hate poetry. Unless their poems are about God, poets are called deceivers of the people." - Iranian poet and exile Hussein Sharang

But that would be treasonous!
"Tony Blair and George Bush, both in their different ways, said they would do everything they could to minimize civilian casualties. Well, the only way you minimize civilian casualties is by not going to war." - www.iraqbodycount.net's John Sloboda

Because we're the last hope for the continent?
"Why on Earth would you want to protest? George Bush is the greatest president since Ronald Reagan and George Washington." - a U.S. border guard asking Canadians why they want to go to New York to protest the Republican National Convention

Spam fighter poised to claim millions?
"In Washington state recently they impounded the proceeds from this penis growth pill organization. They seized something in the $100-million range, which is supposed to go back to the men who were cheated, except nobody wants to go claim it. Nobody wants to go, ‘Hey everybody, look at me, I've got a small dick and I'm also an idiot." - Spam fighter Neil Schwartzman

Tits 'n' Pop
"One time I got this group of American kids, maybe five guys and six girls, to come inside. Then a little while later these two girls rush out actually crying, telling me they just saw their daddy with tits in his mouth and it wasn't their mother's. I tell you, the father came running out pretty quick after that." - Montreal strip club caller Karim aka The Pussy King

Boys and boobs
"My female models were a lot more comfortable with the nudity, which is funny considering they have a bit more at stake in that they have breasts." - Montreal artist Kristi Ropeleski on the men who posed topless in her painting exhibition Blood Harmony

Don't forget the black light!
"It's gonna be really classy. It used to be a high-end bistro, so I have to take down some of the tapestries and put up some posters." - David McKenzie, proprietor of Le Pot de Café, a new Latin Quarter marijuana café

But you get all the chicks, right?
"You have no protection of any sort, you're guaranteed to hurt yourself, have your bike break down, there's no vacation pay, and you end up making about $400 a week." - Torrey Pass, organizer of the North American Cycle Courier Championship event, on the fun life of bike couriers

It isn't?
"There was an image of Montreal as a city living underground with ice covering it, which of course isn't true." - Italian architect Mirko Zardini, on Montreal in the '60s

In defence of free, albeit stupid, speech
"When we say, ‘Bun dem out,' we just mean that we don't like them, we are not agreeing with them. It doesn't mean that we are actually going to do something. People is free to say whatever they want. No one's going to tell Sizzla what to say. But I could do without dancing to it. I could do without listening to it. Maybe they should tone down their lyrics. This ‘kill this, shot up batty man' or whatever. That don't make sense." - Reggae elder statesman Sugar Minott, on the homophobia controversy in dancehall

Fur for the poor!
"It's not just for the rich anymore. Fur is very much democratized and has a broader appeal." - Fur Council of Canada VP Alan Herscovici

Avoid the hors d'oeuvres
"It's mummified now. I left it in the freezer for a while but it kind of got freezer burn. I boiled it but nothing happened. It just seized up on itself 'cuz it was so burned. So I just chucked it into some salt and put it back in the freezer. It's kind of like beef jerky now." - Performance artist Jerome Abramovich discussing his finger, which he chopped off out of personal curiosity

Ageing celebrity metrosexuality explained!
"You see, when you get old, in your 50s, your toenails turn all yellow. You know, like your grandpa's toenails. So I paint them bright red. It kills the stuff that makes them yellow. Plus, it gives me an excuse to inspect my feet. To get in touch with them." - Nick Nolte and the joys of senior citizenship

Famous last words
"I think, if you're applying it to an older man, it suggests he's trying to act young. And I'm not trying to act young, I'm just being young!" - Cartoonist Harry Mayerovitch, on being told he's "Montreal's oldest hipster." Mayerovitch died on April 16, his 94th birthday, shortly after appearing on the cover of the Mirror

Bottoms up!
"I come from a family where there was nothing. The bookshelf was tiny, like the tavern's heater over there. I had nothing. One day, after an event on which I won't expand, I told myself, ‘Okay, now that I've reached the bottom, how do I get out of here?' So I got myself together and I really started to write songs." - Plume Latraverse, reflecting over pitchers of beer at the Taverne Verres Stérilisés

RIP Ramones
"Johnny wasn't very nice or very personable. But he was always easy to deal with because you could reason with him. Whereas, the other guys were out of control and hysterical. Everybody else would be like, ‘I'm going to sue you, I'm going to kill you.' We went through hell." - Jim Fields, who spent six years making End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones

Now get back in your cage, worm!
"A lot of girls think, ‘Wow, if I can beat up guys and get paid for it, well, what better job could there possibly be?' But it's really not about that. Just because you're dominant and a bitch, doesn't mean you're a dominatrix" - Mistress Vanisha

So much for nepotism
"I happen to know the guy, so I thought I could get the option on his book for free, which was a consideration because I didn't have a lot of bread at the time. But I quickly found out that wasn't gonna happen. He said, ‘Yeah, I love you but I don't want to get fucked on the deal.'" - Mario Van Peebles, Baadasssss! director and son of Melvin Van Peebles, on getting the rights to his father's story

Maybe it's the plaid pants?
"Members of the media think I'm a loser, punk rockers think I'm a loser, people in high school thought I was a loser. Here I am, walking home from school one day, and some kids are chasing me, so I run to a block parent home. I banged on the door, like, ‘Help! These guys are after me!' And they're like, ‘You're on your own.' It was awful, and that's what's happened to me all my life!" - Nardwuar the Human Serviette of the Evaporators

Twit vs. twat, or vice-versa
"The editor of NME came up to me and said, ‘You're going to hate me when I tell you who I am,' and he told me, and I told him that he could fuck right off. Then he got down on one knee and said, ‘I'm sorry we backed the wrong horse," and I said, ‘You better get up or I'm going to kick you in the face, you ignorant little shit.' - Justin Hawkins of the Darkness, on how his "incredible" band deals with the British media

Porn with a vengeance
"As a way of getting revenge on people who thought they were being so radical and political - but were actually very conventional when it came to sex - it was very important to me to make work that was very explicitly homosexual. We'd also get straight guys from bands staying at our house and when they'd get drunk, we'd make them take their clothes off and publish their pictures in the fanzine. It was a revenge motif, basically." - Filmmaker Bruce LaBruce on getting back at punk rock fag-bashers

Gay-friendly jackass
"Out magazine gave me the coolest straight guy of the year award a few years back, and The Advocate just put me on their cover - I'm wearing a white sailor's outfit. I guess I have become a gay icon." - Johnny Knoxville

Art with balls
"I realized that my whole life up to that point had been spent working with my body as a way of both taking things in and understanding the world, using your body as a filter of sorts, and also as a tool for expression." - Artist Matthew Barney, whose scrotum is lifted by silk ribbons and anus excretes a fleshy substance as a few of the expressions in his conceptual film series The Cremaster Cycle

Gorilla tactics
"We always try to be gentle and delicate with the songwriting arrangements, we have these grand ideas for intricately structured songs, and then we go to the practice spot to play them and inevitably the songs get louder and louder and louder until they achieve what I like to call totalosity. Usually near the end of the song, it's at maximum volume. It's like an ape in a dinner jacket trying to sit down to a fancy dinner and use the salad fork correctly. Things go okay for a while, but eventually he's just peeing on the table." - Wolf Parade's Dan on the theory of totalosity

Calling all lunatics!
"I find it absolutely incredible that I've never had a lunatic after me. Not one, in how many years now? Given what I do, I would expect it. I mean, I have plenty of guys asking for naked pictures of me, but they are always super nice, super polite." - Local sex vedette Anne-Marie Losique

Next big dead thing?
"We're about to play a shitload. We're either going to fucking kill each other or end up a much better band. Or a mixture of both." - Arcade Fire's Will Butler

Casting call
"Once, we were drunk and Shane [Smith, Vice honcho] was like, ‘If you don't sign with us, I'll break your fucking legs.' Nobody else said that! At least he's passionate. Nobody else threatened us, so let's go with them." - Dave Hamelin of the Stills on signing to Vice's label

Bushed
"The process of grassroots mobilization has only just begun, and I mean, I'm literally just catching my breath and able to talk about what the fuck just happened, because I was really shocked. We were shocked to find out how many people subscribe to the politics of fear, and faith-based actions that discriminate and manipulate. We were shocked to find out that it's not as easy as surrounding ourselves with likeminded people. You have to go out and find people who don't think like us and try to communicate with them as well. This really is just the beginning." - Poet/preacher/musician Saul Williams, recovering from John Kerry's defeat

Roadmap for pieces
"We've seen the tremendous mess that you humans are making of your lives. We enjoy this chaos, we've forced it upon the world, but we don't think you're embracing the violence enough. Basically, what we're trying to do is get the human race to help us with our most cherished goal (begins to yell), destroying the human race, by allying you all together into one great, seething war party, dedicated to the eradication of all life on this planet! We will ally Mossad with Al-Qaida! The Blank Panthers with the KKK and the Republicans with the Democrats! We will give them all malt liquor and nuclear weapons, and this planet will explode in a seething nuclear fireball!" - Gwar's Oderus Urungus

The girls they love to see him shoot
"In the States the girls are all over you. In Canada, if I go out in my flight suit people don't know if I'm a fireman or bus driver. Down there, everyone knows your rank, what your badges mean - it's a different thing, a different culture. Anywhere in the States they all love and support their military." - Fighter pilot/instructor Steve Legassik

And look who you voted for!
"I think we Americans bring an arrogance overseas with us that is really appalling. Nobody pronounces to the rest of the world, "We're the greatest country on Earth" as much as we do. You don't go fucking screaming this shit to the world. You know, like, we're the people who are going to bring democracy to Iraq when only 45 per cent of us vote. You gotta be a monkey not to realize how fucking dumb that is." - Comedian Lewis Black

Speaking of monkeys…
"I fuckin' don't like monkeys… They just scare me, the creepy little fuckers. I don't like the dirty little stinky-ass little bastards… Oh I've seen monkeys. Wild monkeys come after me a few times now." - The Trailer Park Boys' Bubbles