Ten years. A decade. That's how long this has been going on. Will the madness never end? With any luck, not for a long while.

In 2003 I compiled my favorite quips from the year's PDML posts. Then, as now, I missed a lot of good ones (I may have missed the entire months of September and October this year, due to school committments, home remodeling and visiting in-laws). And I probably included some quotations that entertained no one but me — while annoying everyone else. That's the kind of randomness, imprecision and treachery that makes the annual PDML Quotations List beloved to Pentax users and feared by everyone else. Except possibly the spooks at the NSA monitoring Internet communications who just frown and add another sheet to my already-bulging dossier. ("They're talking about cormorants again. Gotta be a code word for something. Call out the black helicopters.")

So what's the end result? Widsom. (Stop laughing!) You could learn something here! Nothing encompasses both art and technology as well as photography and our enormous spectrum of knowledge, insight and humor is guaranteed to broaden your horizons. Or at least help you convince your friends down at the pub that your horizons have been broadened. Buy them a couple of pints as well and they'll be convinced you're a genius.

One final word about the people from whom these words have been stolen selected for immortality herein: They're not a cross-section of humanity. They're just a cross-section of people who shoot with Pentax cameras and are on the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. Or as Dave Brooks would say, "Not a big parade by Santa Claus standards".

I came here for the puns. I stayed because there's no unsubscribe key.

— Bruce Walker

If your goal is to sell photos, the refined tastes of the PDML do not necessarily match those of the general populace.

— Larry Colen

I don't bother to complain any more, but it's pretty much a given that APS-C sized viewfinders suck bunny bums.

— Bill Robb

It is always useful and refreshing to hear a contrarian view from an accomplished photographer, even when you are dead wrong.

— Stan Halpin

Give me a good old fashioned computer anytime.

— Marnie AKA Doe

As much an aggravation as having another birthday can be, it still beats not having another one.

— John Sessoms

Like lenses, birthdays are something that you can't have enough of.

— Stan Halpin

I am but a simple photographer who neither pixel peeps nor can add past nine with his shoes on.

— Bill Robb

Maybe I'm just odd...

— P.J. Alling

Oh never mind, it's just too juvenile, even for this list.

— Frank Theriault

I totally agree with Christine. Except for the parts about the man, and the mountains, and actually everything else.

— Cotty

If anybody claims to 'hate' film, or to 'hate' digital, then I really don't see how they can also claim they like photography.

— Mike Johnston (The Online Photographer blog http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2012/10/random-excellence-gary-nylander.html)

Kodak is getting out of the business of being in business. Like everything else Kodak has done in the past decade or so, they are doing it badly.

— Bill Robb

I shot 1200 frames last weekend, mainly of empty air where hummingbirds had just been.

— Peter Jordan

We prefer calling it 'ethereal monochromatic nocturnal urban imagery'.

— Frank Theriault

Excellent image — the light is great. (So is the dark.)

— Mark Cassino

Nobody ever claimed the market was rational.

— Bob Walkden

Even though my body is several generations old it does what I need it to do.

— Frank Theriault

When everyone is an artist everyone is also a part time curator. Nobody has the time or patience to do a thorough and skilled job of it, so we skim and burn our eyes on a lot of toxic sludge.

— Bruce Walker

Most things related to Pentax are hard to imagine, even if they do actually happen.

— Miserere

I almost composed a rant about this but dammit, I'm committed to being mellow.

— Mark Cassino

Some of these (photos) are so noisy that I need ear plugs to look at them.

— Rick Womer

If I had any self control I'd be doing something productive with my time rather than hanging out on PDML.

— Larry Colen

Kenny Boy gets so much stuff wrong that this is really close to right by his standards.

— Steve Desjardins

That's a very well executed mistake.

— Bruce Walker

I'd be pretty damned happy if my photographs were 30% worse than the world's best.

— Matthew Hunt

Ending up as a macro flash diffuser has to be Tupperware nirvana.

— Jostein Øksne

Since my daughter has no interest in photography, maybe I can show one of the cats how to frame a picture.

— Dave Brooks

Sometimes friends are more precise than Google.

— Collin Brendemuehl

The better I get at waiting for the decisive moment, the better everyone else seems to get at stepping in front of my camera just before the decisive moment.

— Larry Colen

Being a theorist, none of this actually affects me. ;-)

— Steve Desjardins

If she's an android with plastic skin, then the photographer did a fine job; if shes a living breathing girl someone's coated her in wax.

— P.J. Alling

That is not the worst picture I've seen this week.

— Larry Colen

We don't have to photograph everything that we see.

— Bill Robb

Facebook has enough evil in it to suffice

— Dave Brooks

Photorumors.com is a 'green' web site. They even recycle rumors.

— Darren Addy

Why not just find some smaller bricks to photograph?

— Bill Robb

When you're shooting action, especially outdoors, you're going to take one in the forehead every so often, no matter what your technique.

— Doug Franklin

Backwards bouncing flash is award ninja points.

— Derby Chang

I figure as long as I'm not going to cut it as a serious photographer, I may as well be an unserious one.

— Walt Gilbert

Even I look pretty good on a camera LCD.

— Dave Brooks

When I'm out walking around, especially with non-photographers, I take dozens of shots without ever reviewing. Am I a Bad Person?

— Tim Bray

I object to anyone my age dying. It encourages what I consider to be a bad trend.

— Steve Desjardins

We take a lot of pride in our lack of taste here.

— Paul Stenquist

You're right that it might, in theory, be some new genre that we are too stupid to recognise. But in practice it's not, it's just shit.

— Bob Walkden

It would be fun (and theoretically possible, but not worth the effort)

— Larry Colen

I think of you as more of cheapskate than a tightwad, Christine. Just for the record.

— Steve Desjardins

I don't see myself ever looking back and saying to myself, 'Dammit, I wish I'd never bought that K20D'.

— Walt Gilbert

All I know is that the Pentax Faerie only appears to those who believe in her.

— Walt Gilbert

The photo trick guy may make you want throw bleach in your eyes, this wedding photog will make you want to gouge them out with a sharp stick.

— Frank Theriault

He is nowhere near as good a photographer as he is a publicist.

— Larry Colen

Usually the goal is more important than the process.

— Don Guthrie

I'm glad for the ever-increasing capabilities of our equipment, but at some point you need to just look at the picture!

— Matthew Hunt

I've got more time than talent.

— Walt Gilbert

I hate to be a Semantic Nazi, but you were being a Semantic Nazi, not a Grammar Nazi.

— Matthew Hunt

It's a really cool idea. Too bad the pictures look like crap.

— Larry Colen

It's life. Blur happens.

— Bruce Walker

I can take solace in the fact that I'm just a dirty old man rather than a full-blown perv.

— Walt Gilbert

If I was a collector of overpriced, hideous little pink cameras, that's the one I'd buy next.

— Bob Walkden

Coffee maker still works, so it's not a total disaster.

— John Sessoms

It's almost impossible to engineer human judgement out of an artistic process.

— George Sinos

Snobs have class or try to. This guy sounds more like a barista who thinks he's creative...

— Underpaid N. Overpentaxed

One advantage of 'retro' is that it is easier to avoid 'butt ugly'.

— Steve Desjardins

I am a new camera slut. I want to hold them, feel them, and twist their knobs.

— Sam L

I can't stand the way the 16-50mm DA* ejaculates; it's so vulgar, though I do recognize it takes nice pictures.

— Christine Aguila

That doesn't mean I won't buy one, I just can't afford it.

— P. J. Alling

Understood every word, but have no idea what they're talking about – just like the PDML at times.

— Ken Waller

If that's all it takes to make you give up and go home, you should probably take up a different hobby than photography. There are annoyances out there that will have you slitting your wrists.

— Bill Robb

In 2012, may we all win a few of our battles against entropy.

— Tim Bray

I'm always fighting the good fight against losses that might occur in a thermodynamic process.

— Paul Stenquist

I can't define what I mean exactly, but I'll know when I'm doing it.

— Christine Aguila

Hard to believe she's only 17 (I know I was shocked when I found out).

— Dave Savage

I'm always told that Lightroom is great once you get used to it, but to me that's a also a good description for a prosthetic limb.

— Steve Desjardins

Photographers have their Art so they don't need friends.

— Tim Bray

It's hard to incorporate all of our sarcasm into our images.

— Steve Desjardins

Oh dear, I'm agreeing with Larry – whats wrong here?

— Ann Sanfedele

It probably means that one of us is developing good taste, or someone's taste is degrading. I'll let you calculate the chances of my taste improving.

— Larry Colen

Not a big parade by Santa Claus standards.

— Dave Brooks

Other years:
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