But you would travel all the time anyway.

Prof: [Tells class approximately how much a senior manager in a public accounting firm earns annually]
Student: Is that what they make? Cool.
Prof: Well, it would be more if you lived in Manhattan, but you wouldn't be able to keep any of it. You could live in a loft with eight other people.

Hope you weren't counting on that for your retirement.

Prof: I use (my Social Security) to finance my daughter's education. ... I don't know how anyone could live off it. My daughter lives off it. Of course, I've been paying in since the dawn of time.

Let me guess your political affiliation....

Prof (re: Obama's plan to impose FICA tax on all earned income rather than just the first $95k): Yeah, you're gonna have five trillion dollars! And the rest of us are gonna be walking around in our underwear because that's all we can afford to buy! Mr. Obama may have gone to Harvard, but he apparently walked in the wrong gate or something.

(Disclaimer: I'm not familiar at all with Obama's plan--all I know of it comes from our 2-minute discussion in class today. I apologize if this post misrepresents it or him at all.)

And we most likely forgot to read it.

Prof (beginning class on a recent Monday morning): To be honest, I can't remember exactly what I assigned last Friday.

Do we get to try them out?

I don't think this is a mis-translation. I'm pretty sure I have heard of "restroom tours" here in Korea where they take you on a tour of different toilets.

Well, when you put it like that...

A note from my Federal Income Tax case book, regarding the case of a company that tried to deduct payments to a Christian Science minister who served as a "consultant" to the company founder/chairman of the board:

The court notes that Rev. Halverstadt did not provide specific answers to business questions. In fact, Christian Science ministers are not supposed to give direct advice....
Have you ever been in a situation in which you paid substantial sums to discuss things with someone who asked many questions and rarely provided answers? How much tuition are you paying now? Mr. Amend didn't get concrete answers; neither do you. How dumb was he? How dumb are you?

But the light is so pretty...

Prof: [in the middle of expounding on the advantages of different inventory methods] …and we’re all watching this fly that’s buzzing around.

Student: [mesmerized] It’s really big.

Fun with idioms

Prof: That was a red herring… The idea of a red fish being dragged along a trail always grosses me out.

Primary sources

Prof: Let’s just assume that the life expectancy for a woman in the United States is 78 years and 10 months… because that’s what Parade said last week. Why ever go beyond Parade, I mean, really?

A long and rich tradition

Prof: One of the best professors I ever had couldn’t do arithmetic on a blackboard. In front of a hundred angry eyes he would just choke. I have carried on his legacy faithfully.

In case you had any illusions

Prof: I’m going to give you two different answers for this. One of them is going to be useful on an exam. The other one is going to be useful in real life. It is always important to keep those two things separate.

Trusts & Estates Lite

My mind was wondering in Trusts & Estates this morning and when it came back, the prof was saying:

Prof: Or they spend money on that skinny half-crap whatever it is they sell… Friends don’t let friends buy Starbucks.

Apparently I didn't miss too much?

Any other lessons?

[Class discussion of lessons that can be learned from "The Parable of the Sadhu"]

Student 1: Don't go hiking.
Student 2: Especially not naked.

Ah, tenure.

Student: Why is the speaker today mandatory?
Prof: [laughs]
Student: We put him on the spot.
Prof: [chuckles] I'm very rarely on the spot, because the university can do so little about me ... unless I run around naked or something. ... They're really better off just leaving me alone.

Partisan ancestors

Prof, explaining a table of consanguinity and the parantella system of inheritance: Everyone to the left beats everyone to the right. Remember that during elections.

We can't just let the auditors catch it?

[Class discussion on the proper accounting treatment of a hypothetical transaction. Someone suggests a not-quite-ethical solution.]
Student (criticizing the suggestion): But that's why we have auditors.
Prof: And ethics, and long-term vision....

Is long-windedness the only qualification?

Student (role-playing a CEO): Not to belabor the point--
Prof: You'd make a good CEO.

Glad you're retaining that knowledge.

Student: We just talked about this in another class, actually.
Prof: I hope the answer is the same.
Student: I don't remember.

Would you care to elaborate?

Prof (after we'd reviewed the fact that PBO stands for Projected Benefit Obligation): Does anyone remember what the PBO is?
Student: Isn't it, like, a projection?

(In defense of that student, s/he did elaborate on that point.)

How do you really feel about Puerto Rico?

Prof (re: tax complications): [U.S.] possessions are ... sort of like having a little bug in your house. ... Not a nice bug, like a cricket, but a semi-obnoxious bug.

Is that so?

Scene: High School Speech classroom. The students are playing Taboo. The word is "broom".

Samuel: Friend of mop.

Distant relation

Student: Couldn’t you just credit equipment or fixtures instead of expenses?

Prof: Is your name Worldcom?

Things to repeat on the Bar Exam

Prof: The will was drafted in Nebraska, which, as some of you are aware, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Texas.

Prof: And if that sounds like Greek to you, it would sound very different in Greek.

Prof: Marla dies with a $400,000 estate… Good for her. It’s always nice when people die with wealth.

Tastes Like Chicken?

Teacher: [Another teacher] thinks you boys are so cute!

Girl: What does she think about us?

Teacher: She thinks the girls are sweet.

Boy: What!?!?! Did she taste?