MOPper World
HomeMOP 2000MOP Quotes
Welcome, Guest!
Log in
MOP 2000
· Pictures
· Field Guide
· MOP Quotes
· Dictionary
· Hall of Fame
· Songs

MOP Quotes 2000

MOPpers say the darndest things...

(Thanks to George Lee for the graphics.)

Part I: The Original Quotes

"This is a quadratic equation in 5. So let's solve for 5."
titu a.
 
"You could prove ... actually, this is a terrible idea."
dan s., discussing the rectangle tiling MOP test question
 
melanie w.: "How are these colored?"
tiankai l.: "Big white blobs."
(or something along these lines)
 
"I ... WATER POLO!!!"
melanie w.
 
"Hey! That's my banana!"
alex s., as MOPpers tried to hit flying juggling balls with flying juggling balls — and bananas
 
jeff a.: "Are you throwing the balls at the balls or the people?"
alex s.: "???."
???: "I think the first thing's an excuse for the second."
 
"Chris owes Michael negative $5·-1005."
"Um ... actually that would be -$5.00 ... or -$10.00 should he divulge our solution."
anonymous
 
"The answer is ... NOOOOOOOOOOO!"
tiankai l., during a team contest presentation
 
"You all know Little Fermat's Theorem, don't you?"
titu a.
 
"Let's run onto the frisbee field with big sticks!"
melanie w., along with Andrew, George, and Shuang
 
"The idea of this proof is to show 10 > 4."
po-ru l.
 
"Well, there's no reason why they shouldn't be cyclic, and there are four points."
melanie w.
 
"It certainly looks closed, but is it a form?"
dan s., about Andrew's noncommutative algebra solution to a homework problem
 
"This radical is totally unhappy. ... You should definitely make substitutions to get rid of the square roots. This is for purely emotional reasons."
melanie w., on nasty inequalities
 
"This doesn't have a name. I don't think it deserves a name, because it's Hölder's Inequality. But you need to show why it's Hölder's Inequality."
melanie w.
 
"Are those ridges supposed to be of the same height?"
austin s., about a schematic diagram of problem scores (where as many people got 7's as 0's)
 
"He's majorizing all of us by word scores."
austin s.
 
"Damn! An odd stairwell!"
austin s.
 
"So much / Depends / On Ptolemy's Theorem."
oaz n.
 
"Proof by dogmatic assertion."
josh b., defining "fiat"
 
george l.: "A penny for your thoughts."
dan s.: "You're the only person who seems to realize I have interesting thoughts!"
 
"We need to form a search-Andreescu operation."
josh b., after Titu showed up late to class
 
"I find it strange that you don't mind coming on to me ..."
andrew d. to oaz n., in a laughing contest
 
"Austin and I just finished a three-and-a-half hour laughing contest."
andrew d.
 
"I have the classic 60's mentality, except, instead of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, it's sex, math, and rock and roll."
andrew d.
 
"As soon as that car started flying, I gave up my willing suspension of disbelief."
melanie w., about -Gone in 60 Seconds-
 
"Ape fungus."
andrew d., in a laughing contest — he won
 
" 'How was the test?'
'The test was hard.'
'Oh, it was hard, was it?' "
andrew d., recalling an encounter with Titu
 
"... Basically the same thing he said."
reid b., giving a deep answer in the IMO video
 
mike h.: "So, then the world is doomed."
jeff a.: "Well, that's not a problem."
 
"Dan ... Oaz ... Dan ... Oaz."
oaz n., about transforming garlic bread
 
reid b.: "Are you AAA?"
dan s.: "No, I'm ANT."
on ELMO teams ... Antarctica II, Antarctica III, Elmonia, TeXas, Po-Land, Obviousland, and the Zero Ring
 
"Is that a one with a line through it? That's the whole point. Ones don't have lines!"
reid b., on the ELMO score postings
 
david sh.: "No, I don't want to play rock-paper-scissors. You know you are better."
howard l.: "Okay, I'll play left-handed."
 
"Hmm ... By Cauchy ... looks like you beat me."
someone whose initials are not as., calculating the winner in Anagrams
 
???: "I'm thinking about inverting my foot about my head."
howard l.: "Then your brain would stink."
 
"I'm fine with the paper and the rock, but the scissors — aaaah!"
austin s.
 
mike h.: "WHAZZUP?!"
michael c.: "Question."
during a game of Mao
 
"I know I can make this, but I want something sexier."
austin s., in Anagrams
 
"Oh, sorry, I have a bad memory."
pie guy
 
"So if I made a rule that George was a cow, then you'd have to milk him to win? ... No, no, no! Drunken ramblings don't count!"
paul v., giving a night-drunk musing about "Fluxx"
 
"When I read this problem, I was, like, 'n girls! This is so great!' "
dan s. and oaz n.
 
anonymous joke: Why was Epsilon afraid of Zeta?
answer: Because Zeta Eta Theta.
andrew d.?
 
"This is the most convergent thing I've ever seen."
dan s., on Newton's Method
 
"[If you combined Paul and Po-Ru you'd get] Ru-Paul!"
andrew d. ... also, you'd get "Greid" from George, Ricky, and Reid
 
george l. to po-ru l. "One day I'll 'accidentally' push you down the stairs and eat you when you're dead."
alison m.: "I'd like to see you fall down the stairs."
oaz n.: "I'd like to see you eat him!"
 
oaz n.: "Austin's not Lawrence. I understand him."
austin s.: "You understand me? Now I'll have to kill you."
...
austin s.: "Oaz and I have our own way of communicating. Especially about food."
...
austin to oaz: "You have so many cucumbers it could be a pagan god."
 
"Nuclear launch detected. Yay."
dario a., playing Mao
 
"Oh, everybody's here — we should have class here!"
zuming f., walking into the men's room
"What about Alison?!"
melanie w., after reading Zuming's quote
 
"... I'm going to suck that lightbulb. You're not going to be able to stop me."
dario a., not Dan
 
ricky l.: "Once I saw some kids playing rock-paper-scissors, and they didn't know that paper beat rock!"
alex s.: "Hey, I can win at that game!"
during a conversation about rock-paper-scissors at Maggie Moo's
 
"I'm never going to grow up. I don't want to grow up."
dan s. on maturity and maximizing happiness
 
george l.: "Could you please prove Fermat's Last Theorem?"
tiankai l.: "I did!"
 
paul v.: "Let me just say that the first time I solved it, I took 18 derivatives."
...
luke g.: "I guarantee it's right because I got it out of my TI-89."
...
paul v.: "He solved it reasonably well with just three derivatives."
about Paul's eeeevil inequality ("Right-Handed Trefoil's Folly")
 
"From Team Number Three, person number ... Josh!"
paul v., during the RTC
 
"What's gonna be the basis for your, like ... casis?"
dan s., describing a triangle dissection problem case by case
 
melanie w.: "The denuminator ..."
dan s.: "That sounds like the title of a movie!"
 
"It'd probably be unphrasable in, like, whatever language you were using."
dan s.
 
"Except for if you're Mario, who can only walk in the plane. And then when a turtle comes up to him, he just walks into him."
ricky l.
 
"My job here is to provide motivation; when you write up a solution you don't need to. You don't have to say to me, 'I was thinking about my foot, and ...' "
dan s.
 
luke g.: "I was thinking about Tiankai's foot ..."
jeff a.: "I was thinking about my foot when I suddenly realized I have two feet, and I wondered if anything else had two feet ..."
david sh.: "I was thinking about my foot when I saw the letters AM-GM ..."
david st.: "So I was thinking about my foot and how when you take your socks off you always have lint between your toes."
josh b.: "Now consider your bellybutton ..."
jeremy t.: "I can't do this problem, but wait — maybe my foot knows ..."
jeremy t.: "Well I was trying to get the answer from Reid's foot, but it was only giving negative answers ..."
austin s.: "I was gazing Buddha-like at my foot ..."
tiankai l.: "Je pensais à mon pied, et, tout d'un coup, j'ai vu la vérité ..."
mike h.: "Now, I was, like thinking about my foot, and I realized that my smallest toe is smaller than the average size of all my toes ... then I was like, spreading my toes ... and I realized that the last expression would be, like, way cooler if I expanded it ... Then I noticed that, like, the a's are divided all over the place, and it would suck if someone, like chopped all my toes in half and scattered them all over the place, so I put them together ..."
the rookies on the last MOP test
 
melanie w.: "You are Satan."
"You are Howard."
 
melanie w.: "... the smart dumb-ass method."
david sh.: "The smart-ass method?"
 
"I no longer pretend that my stuffed animals are alive, because I sleep with them, and that would be weird."
as.
 
"You never care about my needs, Dario! Do you hear me? I want a divorce!"
josh b.
 
"I've always wanted to be one of the girls."
alex s., during a debate over whether Melanie was a girl or a woman
 
???: "?I'm looking at my feet a lot.?"
ricky l.: "That's just because it's down. I mean, if your feet were up there you wouldn't look in the air!"
 
"One and one and one is three."
the beatles
 
josh b.: "How many feminine wiles do you have?"
michael c.: "Six."
 
"I can fornicate at a rate of 30 wpm."
austin s., referring to a prank involving word processing software
 
"I dunno, like, he's smart!"
oaz n., about Reid
 
"The pencil is the mathematician's most powerful weapon."
titu a., about the strange pencil-holding mathematician on the MOSP 2000 airport signs
 
mopper: "Who keeps on taking down all the %$& quotes??"
george l. "Sorry =), I'm typing them up."
 
mopper 1: "Why do people keep taking down the quotes?"
mopper 2: "Why not?"
 
"I found a piece of paper on my bed, so I said 'Moo.' "
michael c.
 
alex s.: "What's an odd cycle?"
chris m.: "It's a cycle that's odd."
 
"Chess is an odd variant of bughouse when there are only two players."
unknown
 
"C:\DOS
C:\DOS\RUN
RUN\DOS\RUN"
an aspiring author
 
yan z.: "Kamaldeep, teach me math."
kamaldeep g.: "Okay, I'll teach you nothing."
yz: "Nothing?"
kg: "If you don't concentrate, you can't learn nothing."
yz: "..."
... a few minutes later ...
yz: "Kamaldeep, has nothing been taught to Alex?"
kg: "No, he heard nothing."
yz: "You can't learn nothing, Alex!"
alex x.: "So, how do we do this problem with nothing?"
yz: "Darn! Nothing works."
 
"It's nice to see the numbers getting more consecutive."
ian l., at 11:16 PM the last night of MOP, preparing the Field Guide
 
yan z.: "Where the @$!? are my quotes?"
anders k.: "Where the @$!? are everyone's quotes?!"
discussing the stolen MOP quotes
 
paul v.: "If you had an infinitely long stick it would be infinitely easy!"
ricky l.: "But where would you get it? And what if you poked the moon or something?"
discussing balancing sticks in your palm
 
"More than one. That's many."
george l., discussing Po-Ru's years left at MOP
 
"Is that why you are so good at those religious arguments ... er, theological discussions?"
michael
 
"That's like being in a pinball machine, and then ... Aaaaah! Watch out, here it comes!"
george l., discussing playing squash
 
"Chris gets frustrated when there are more people whistling than he has in pens."
unknown
 
"WHHHHUUUUUZZUUUP!!!"
shuang y.
 
paul v.: "What's your name?"
shuang y.: "You."
 
"I'm going to work not with apples, but with pairs."
gabriel c., in his Estimating Sums lecture
 
"And I'm giving you a dead sexy."
austin s., and do you really need any context?
 
"Reid: You are writing up #5. You are consultant for #5. Consult Reid."
a grader, about the trig inequality on a MOP test
 
"Did you say 'Indian Chess' or 'Idiot Chess?' "
jeff a.
 
"I am a mathlete! Proud and true! And something that rhymes with two plus two!"
ricky l., discussing a team chant
 
"That way, if one of them writes a bad proof, you can say they're being ambiguous."
howard l., about Po-Ru's ELMO team — which included a Liu, a David, and a Michael
 
"Ooh, they're playing Frisbee, not knowing their fate is in our hands. ... BWAAAHAAAAHAAAA!"
ricky l., watching rookies playing while he was planning the ELMO
 
ricky l.: "I didn't say that!"
george l.: "You did now."
BWAAHAAAAHAAAA!
 
"But they're overcoming angst so it's okay. As opposed to some songs, they have unresolved angst. ... (other people laugh) It's true!"
dan s., talking about Melanie's "Angst" CD
 
"I think elephants are the only mammals who can't jump."
paul v.?
 
mike c.: "Clock to a4."
alison m.: "No, pawn to h8, promotes to clock!"
 
"Chess is a variant of ping where some moves are illegal."
alison m.
 
"Narc!"
austin s. and andrew d.,after a stranger walked across the second floor
 
 
shuang y.: "Tiankai, why do you always have a math book with you?"
tiankai l.: "Just in case."
 
"I thought you said 'oral degeneracy.' "
josh b. to oaz n.
 
"Degenerate suction is, like, represented by the zero vector."
austin s.
 
"I would've never thought to use dot products. Score!"
melanie w. to tiankai l. while helping a Physics REU student find coordinates of atoms
 
"People start to feel unwanted when they know they're just linear combinations of other people." ... "You'd have to take -100 of Alison and -50 of George; huge negative amounts of different people to even approximate Melanie!"
dan s., expressing Melanie as a linear combination of MOPpers (the second quote might not be right)
 
"I'm such a quotable person."
david sh., staring at the quote list that had none of his quotes
 
"I don't have any quotes."
howard l.
 
andrew d: "Shuang never says complete sentences."
shuang y.: "Do too!"
oaz n.: "You mean, I do too."
 
"I was thinking of how it would be fun to be a Supreme Court Justice and how court cases are like math puzzles ... so I said, anybody who solves the case of Yoda Yoder v. Wisconsin deserves a pizza."
dan s., in a now (hopefully) corrected quote
 
andrew d.: "Lithuania."
dario a.: "Lithuania, indeed."
 
"Do you guess how many points you'll get for being right?"
austin s., about "Oh Hell"
 
"Yes! The world is good!"
ian l., solving a math problem (combine 3, 3, 7, and 7 into 24)
 
"So there can only be finitely many smarter, smaller, stupid, special, or sophisticated super n-tuples and finitely many simple, strange or stinky sets without something being senseless."
david st., in his solution to #5 on the TSE
 
andrew d.: "You can define a chicken to be a vector."
josh b.: "Even a chicken has to have coordinates."
???: "Then what would an identity chicken be?"
 
"The number is getting down now."
zuming f., in a descent proof
 
"AM!
GM!
Thank you, ma'am!"
austin s.
 
"The chili peppers flying at Mach 1 are big."
gabriel c., translating Latin inscriptions in Washington, D.C.
 
"In about 5 minutes I proved to myself that a fat hand would contain the numbers 1-9, because I accepted faulty (?fatty?) logic."
chris m.
 
po-ru l.: "This problem is screaming coordinates."
dani k.: "Are you sure that isn't Howard screaming coordinates in your ear?"
 
"So he can massage the USAMO scores and get a good feeling for them."
alex s., explaining why the USAMO papers were in Titu's garage
 
"That's the only way you can have equal power!"
zuming f.
 
???: "Oh, we're overtaking them!"
reid b.: "No, actually they're overtaking you because you're both going down."
during a game of Gluck
 
californians: "You're red!"
"You're black!"
"You're red!"
"You're black!"
tiankai l.: "You're a two."
during a game of Indian Mafia at a California MOP party
 
"Sometimes I don't brush my teeth for a couple of days."
"Yeah, me too ..."
"Did you push the button?"
oaz n. to gabriel c., after standing in an elevator for a very long time
 
"There are two right-handed trefoils and there are two right-handed trefoils."
nsf presenter in d.c., describing four different trefoils
 
"It's scary when your friend's mom knows your AHSME score. I don't even remember my AHSME scores!"
melanie w.
 
"If monkeys in India took the '94 AHSME they'd get a perfect score."
"But definitely cows in Wyoming."
unknown ... a false rumor also spread around that at IMO '96, the team took a picture of a monkey holding a perfect AHSME score plaque

Part II: Yan Quotes

... dedicated to all of Yan's quotes that mysteriously appeared on (and disappeared from) the bulletin board
 
yan z.: "Reid, teach me math."
reid b.: "It's a little late right now."
 
"Hey! I just proved that n > n - 1! ... Wait ..."
yan z.
 
zuming f.: "Okay, let's do number 23 in Inequalities."
yan z.: "Cauchy!"
... a few minutes later ...
yz.: "Darn. Maybe not Cauchy ..."
zf.: "Actually, this problem should be solved by Cauchy. Cauchy up there won't be happy with you, Yan."
 
"Stupidity killed the cat."
yan z.
 
"You lose some of your pieces, especially, like, most of your pieces."
yan z., during chess
 
"Whoa, you're a 10, baby — on the Rigor Mortis scale."
yan z.
 
"Cheaters never win unless they cheat a whooole lot!"
yan z.
 
"Confucius say that stupid villagers should stop being detectives and become fishermen."
yan z.
 
"Screw this game, maybe we should all be innocent villagers. We are all one big team here."
yan z., during Mafia
 
"Okay, all dead people, three, two, one, WHAZZZZZZUP?!"
yan z., during Mafia
 
"Yeah, you should die this turn and join the 'WHAZZUP'-saying-dead-people band. Your life will be better."
yan z., during Mafia
 
yan z.: "Why don't you guys kill David Shin, dead people need some fun too."
josh b.: "Awww ... Yan, you ditched me already?"
yan z. during Mafia (and dead)

Part III: Rediscovered MOP Quotes

"What are Zagnuts?"
kamaldeep g., on the Night of the Unknown Candy
 
"oaz n.": "Kill tails!"
austin s.: "Kill heads!"
while playing Mafia with quarters on the thirteenth floor of Cather
 
"Your chaperones just got back, and they were none too pleased."
security guard to andrew d., after Melanie and Dan returned with Alison from the Greek Place at 2:00 a.m.
 
"Want more spoodles."
austin s., making a suggestion to the Cather dining hall
 
"There definitely should be a fraternity called Zeta Theta Beta."
daniel j.
 
"Number of signs with the word `palimpsest.' "
ian l., on a rookie team contest sign
 
"I think I look more like cheese than you do."
yan z. to josh b.
 
"Thermonuclear genitalia."
andrew d., in a laughing contest
 
" 'Entre le pénis et les mathématiques ... il n'existe rien. Rien! C'est le vide.' — Louis-Ferdinand Céline"
andrew d., not in a laughing contest
 
"Hello. My name is Zuming."
"Zu-ming."
"Why are you up? It's past curfew!"
"I'll murderply you!"
"Good bye."
austin s., during a prank call to the Neihardt front desk
 
"Hello, is Austin there? Austin, this is your mother!"
george l., during a prank call to Oaz's room
 
"H-h-h-hi."
josh b., after eating a garlic pretzel
 
"Tiankai's going to be the next Zuming."
andrew d.
"I get ABDUCTED to go to EXETER by ZUMING!!!"
tiankai l.
 
"Ask me about anything, except for windows, and other things related to buildings, and anything else that's not related to sex."
andrew d.
 
"Most of my friends started drinking freshman year of their eighth grade."
dan s.
 
"I'm a gay French pirate!"
josh b., wearing a gay-French-pirate hat
 
david sh.: "This."
shuang y.: "Is God."
 
"I'm afraid the Canadian team will be very mad if they hear that and they will hunt you down and beat you up. Raaaaarr! We're big and mean and scary!"
zed a., hearing about the RTC titles "Canadian Bacon" and "Canadians Have Mothers, Too?"
 
"Quote."
name n., context
 
"Does anyone here know Ricky Liu?! Ricky sucks!"
alex x., during a MUD — many times
"That's not edible."
MUD, telling Alex not to eat his corpse
 
"I'm pretty sure I said 'moldy.' The cheese had hairs on it."
little stronger, commenting on an old quote about a gastropod
 
"I'll give the classic Walter advice: don't open your mouth in the showers."
alex s., during an IMO prep talk
 
"The flea markets in Korea are wonderful. You see, I collect clocks ... It's very hard to find wind-up clocks today, most of them run on batteries ... Have you been up to my house? That's a shame."
walter m. in the AMC office the day of the ELMO
 
"So if Melanie is being slow, I can pull out my Melanie-is-being-slow card."
dan s., explaining the rules to Twitch
 
"WAAAAAAAAH! It's a four!"
ricky l. to po-ru l. in the office, over Michael Catlin's solution to ELMO #3
 
"Hey, do you have a room? You can't sleep in the hallway."
security guards, again
 
"Hello? This is Po! I have free long-distance!"
po-shen l., calling on the last night of MOP
 
"Bienvenidos al décimo prueba de POM."
"In memory of ..."
george l.
 
dani k.: "I have to make my [Prisoner's Dilemma] program more evil now."
dani k.: "I think my program is too evil now."
dani k.: "I'm going to try to make my program less evil now."
 
"You are a unique and beautiful snowflake."
dan s. to ricky l. on an IMO test problem
 
"And her name is ... G! ... L! ... O! ... R! ... I! I! I! I! I! IIIIII! ... A!"
oaz n., accompanied by andrew d. on guitar
 
"That's an amazing Missouri, don't you think?"
ricky l., drawing pictures of states with ian l.
 
"I would like to state that MOPpers are the coolest people ever."
dan s.

Part IV: IMO Quotes

"That's kinda sketchy."
"Eeeeeeew!"
"252!!!"
the team
 
"I think Americans are psycho."
zed a., everybody's favorite Canadian-American
 
"When you said 'zooming in and out,' I thought you were talking about me."
zuming f.
 
"I'm trying to light things on fire with my toes."
oaz n., after buying a foot-shaped lighter for thirteen bucks
 
"Where's your gun?"
"Uh-oh, you better hide your gun."
"Did you find your gun yet?"
"If they don't give me three 7's tomorrow I'm going to shoot them."
zuming f.
 
"The showers here are really sketchy. There are no curtains or walls, and there are mirrors in the showers!"
reid b., about Handong University
 
"Evil has an accent."
newspaper clipping
 
"You want the 5's to be closed under fiveness."
reid b., on juggling
 
"The bigger concern was, had I eaten my blanket? Because they couldn't find the pink thing."
paul v., about the dorms' Korean-speaking maids
 
ricky l.: "The shower faucet is really sensitive. If you turn it one millimeter, it goes up by 20 degrees."
reid b.: "That's 20,000 degrees per meter!"
ricky l.: "Well, maybe I was exaggerating. Ten degrees."
 
ricky l.: "My pants fell off."
reid b.: "Eeeeeew!"
... fell off the -chair-: I don't know what YOU'RE thinking!
 
"You're British. You're a degenerate Canadian."
zed a. to thomas b-l.
 
"I was very annoyed when I found out I'm just a [British] citizen, not a subject!"
thomas b-l.
 
"Oh the places you'll go!"
ricky l., reading the night before IMO
 
"Except Euler probably already proved it. And you can't take credit for something Euler proved!"
ricky l., on an unsolved problem he created
 
"We have a bad track record, invading Canadia. We've tried, what, three times? The Revolutionary War; the War of 1812; ... and, tomorrow."
oaz n.
 
?oaz n.:? (eyeing Zed) "I want to eat some Canadian bacon."
po-ru l.: "Eeeeeew!"
reid b.: "And that's not just because Candian bacon tastes bad."
 
"Where did the points come from?"
"From Titu-land. It's like Jensenland except ... bigger."
reid b.
 
"Reid is in Blacksockland."
george l.
 
oaz n.: "I've never seen your legs."
george l.: "Good."
 
"A, B, C, D, E, F, G. H, I, J, K, LMNOP. Q, R, S. T, U, V. W, X. Y and Zed."
thomas b-l.
"Zeds have lines through them. Z's don't."
reid b.
 
"Who's the guy in the suit? He looks important; he has two men flanking him."
paul v. (probably misquoted)
 
"As opposed to me, I'm just a Chia pet."
george l., about hair
 
"Can you stop that?! It's driving me mad!!!"
thomas b-l. to george l., about George's fake British accent
 
george l.: "Thank you. Zuming." ...
oaz n.: (pointing to a 7) "This is obviously a seven!" ...
george l.: "I theenk we are screwed."
using Titu accents during "99"(a card game)
 
"Tortellini!"
"Fettucini!"
"Parmesana!"
"Mario!"
"Luigi!"
"Mussolini!"
the team, during Italian "99"
 
"... philosophers smoking pot all day ..."
oaz n.
 
"You know the whole thing, if the world's about to end then you should immediately pair up and start screwing!"
oaz n. — eeeeew!
 
"K, L, and M take an exam to become star fighters. ... L won the reaction test. Who won the running test?"
latvia, in a strange math question on the national olympiad
 
oaz n.: "There's something to be said for jumping up and down and giggling like a little girl."
george l.: "Heeee heee heee heee!" ...
oaz n.: "Heeee heee heee heee!" ...
zuming f. "..."
george l.: "Hey, you didn't giggle!"
 
"I think I have a better chance of seeing Titu do that. I could get him drunk, right?"
zuming f., about jumping up and down and giggling like a little girl
 
"Riiide the donkey, George!"
oaz n.
 
"... and, enjoy the trees."
wahn l. (our happy juggling guide), translating a villager's speech
"Censored."
wahn l., translating "He pulled out her armpit hairs."
 
"The first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club."
ricky l.
 
"The thing we'll remember most about the president is that he was wearing a green tie."
oaz n.
 
"Then the leftmost flea Bob is at most k(n - 1) away from the rightmost flea; have Bob jump over the rightmost flea. ..."
"... the sum of all the distances from each flea to the rightmost flea (who we will call Wahn =) ) ..."
george l., in his solution to IMO #3
" 'Are you the one who used a Bob? We heard somebody used a Bob!' "
zuming f., quoting another adult at the IMO
"No, really — I'm ... honored."
wahn l., hearing about his namesake
 
"Did you know George tried to rape a cow once?"
paul v.
 
"The thing that bothers me about the definition of species is that it's not an equivalence class."
paul v.
 
"My hamster can mate with everyone! Woo-hoo!"
po-ru l.
 
"So if I was a monotreme I would lay eggs? No. I'm not a monotreme."
oaz n.
 
"Hair doesn't exist in our world."
george l.
 
"Zip." "Zap." "Zop." "Zip." "Zap." "Zop." "Zip." "Zap." "Zip. Aaaaaah!"
reid b. and ?ricky l.?
 
ricky l.: "a2 is congruent to b2 mod (a + b)."
po-ru l.: "a2 is congruent to b2 mod (a - b)."
paul v.: "There exists a number whose sum of digits in base negative b is greater than its sum of digits in b."
false statements, inspired by jet lag
 
"The Korean name for the Blue House is the Green House."
unknown
 
"Yee-haw! Join us on a trip to the land of adventure!"
brochure for Everland amusement park, describing "American Adventure"
 
"A map of course."
title of a map, of course
"Restaurant."
sign on a restaurant
"Let's go Kyongju!"
brochure
 
po-ru l.: "The Americans had heard of Kyongju before, but were not quite up to using it as a verb."
george l.: "Please, do me a favor. Try Kyongju for just five minutes!"
 
"Wasn't this bagel plain the first day? Now it's raisin."
ricky l., cleaning in the last hours of the IMO
 
"The second urinal is broken. It starts flushing before you're done, if you know what I mean."
oaz n.
 
"I'm going to go chase that guy down."
wahn l., when someone cut short -A Bug's Life- outtakes
 
"Big!"
reid b. and the team
"Big big!"
reid b. in Taipei during a flight connection
"Subject!"
george l. and the team
"That's not a subject."
reid b.
 
"THANK YOU FOR ... OUR COOPERATION."
electronic airport sign in Taipei
 
george l.: "Reid, Oaz just told me he's Mafia and that he could tell me that as many times as he wanted because if I told you, he'd deny it!"
oaz n.: "WHAAAT?!"
after George told Oaz that he was Mafia and that he could tell him that as many times as he wanted ...
 
"Let's play rock-paper-scissors. Whoever loses is Mafia. ... Oh wait, we tied. Let's kill Reid!"
oaz n. and george l. after a full-day version of three-player Mafia
 
walter m.: "To those of you who did not win medals: you will learn in life that many times, you will not be first."
david p.: "He's basically calling them losers!"
during one of Walter's closing speeches ... the background noise was loud, so David's quote might be wrong
 
"If you can't do anything, you can't do math. Therefore if you can do math, you can do anything."
po-ru l. and also zuming f., explaining the logic of Po-Ru's NCTM shirt
 
"It's a sign! Cauchy! ... If we actually do use Cauchy on an inequality, we're all going to burst out laughing during the test."
george l., during the opening ceremony, as Titu smiled up at the team
 
thomas b-l.: "Do you have a passport that says, 'Loyal citizen of her royal majesty of Britain with ...' "
paul v.: "Yes."
thomas b-l: "Then you're British."
... Thomas's quote was much, much longer and ridiculous, too much for a simple American mind to remember
 
"I inhaled some water and started coughing for a minute; I didn't want you guys to get the wrong idea."
oaz n., after Day One
 
"Last year Paul was the only one to get the geometry. This year he was the only one to get #6, the hard geometry. Paul is the best at geometry!"
titu a.
 
"Best roommate: makes snacks and cleans the room. Worst roommate: has loquacious and garrulous conversations outside the dorms with a boyfriend or girlfriend."
handong university brochure (not quoted exactly)
 
"Are you USA 6? Paul? Tell him he's my hero! Anyone who uses coordinates on geometry is my hero!"
imra l.
 
"Yes, my name is really Leader. It's not a typo."
imra leader, leader, again
 
"Imra knows solutions to all the Imra problems. He just refuses to tell us."
"Imra accepts what the coordinators say because he has respect for them. ... Last year the coordinators gave a solution a three and Imra demanded a two. They had to argue him up to a three."
thomas b-l., comparing Imra to Titu
 
 
???: "So if the pagoda breaks, you have to go around all of Korea and break all the pennies?"
po-ru l.: "No, if you break the pagoda, all the pennies in Korea automatically break."
while visiting the pagoda featured on the Korean penny
 
"Get ... the f--- ... off ... the computer!"
oaz n., in a subtle hint to a girl using a computer
 
titu a.: "Everybody got one vote, except the Armenian guy who voted every time. So of course his vote didn't count."
zuming f.: "It just kept on sucking up all the votes from the other problems that got thrown out."
on the selection of problem six for the IMO
 
"It was inappropriate. It was not a number six. ... Yes, it was a good number seven; I would have voted it for number seven."
titu a., on problem six
 
paul v.: "You owe me a cookie. ??? said the plane left after 11:30." ...
george l.: "I bet you a cookie we'll get a 252." ...
everyone: "I bet you a cookie ..."
 
"This is a gift from the Australian prime minister ..."
george l., as the team desperately tried to get rid of food
 
"They are like ... the Korean Spice Girls!"
"Let me tell you a funny story: when I was in high school, I hated math ... "
hostess of Korean Culture Night
 
"President ___ ... President ___ ... Professor ___ ... Professor ___ ..."
walter m., starting a speech
 
zed a.: "We are the group of Canadians and Brits who refuse to go on rides."
thomas b-l.: "Half the people here don't like amusement parks."
 
"Arthur is Mafia!"
denise accusing zed a.
"Maaah-fia."
the brits (that's pronounced aaah as in aaah-ple)
"WHO THE HELL WAS MAFIA?!"
thomas b-l., after an entertaining last game of Mafia — "Shhhh! ... And if you tell, we'll kill you!"
 
voice: "And now it is time for us to reluctantly say good-bye to the land of Korea."
woman:
(appearing onscreen)
"Good-bye!"
tourist:
(shaking her hand)
"Good-bye!"

Part V: IMO Puns

"You're full of yourself."
po-ru l. to zed a., after Zed said we actually lived in an inverted universe inside him
 
"They're looking for someone to take the cake."
po-ru l. as students passed around a piece of cake and sniffed it
 
"I just took a picture of King George."
po-ru l. after taking a picture of George beneath a crown
 
george l.: "¿Dónde está el llave?"
ricky l.: "Aquí. Get it? A key, ¡aquí! It's a pun!"
 
... and too many more from Po-Ru to possibly remember ...
This website is maintained by Anders Kaseorg.