Chickenology Encyclopedia

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Why did the chicken cross the road?
Why do chickens cross roads?
The most comprehensive listing on the Web (or so it should be).

M

Douglas MacArthur:

• He promised to return.
• Old chickens never die, they just cross the road.

Macbeth:

• To have turned back were as tedious as to go o'er.

John D. MacDonald:

• In any emotional dilemma, the thing a chicken must do is the one that's the hardest.

Machiavelli:

• So that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a chicken which has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road, but also with fear, for whom among them has the strength to contend with such a paragon of avian virtue? In such a manner is the princely chicken's dominion maintained.
• The point is that the chicken crossed the road. Who cares why? The end of crossing the road justifies whatever motive there was.

Shirley MacLaine:

• After I was hatched from an egg in 1703, I recall having to cross the road.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi:

• To find a place to practice his mantra in solitude.

Mahavira:

• The chicken is sacred. It crosses to free its soul and live happily and peacefully.

Justice Mahon:

• (Conducted the Erebus Enquiry into the AirNZ crash inopt Mt Erebus in Antartica Renowned for calling the airlines testimony "an orchestrated litany of lies".): It has been this roads misfortune to be crossed by an orchastrated litany of chickens. The truth is the most probable cause was a malevolent trick of the poultry light.

Ken Mair (New Zealand):

• Birds are the true indigenous inhabitants of New Zealand and as such are the true owners of all land. It is none of your business what the chicken does on it's land. (Barmy Maori Activist. No actual platform but a lot of anger.)

Nelson Mandela:

• It's a totally different road that the black chicken is crossing now.

Charles Manson:

• It was Helter Skelter.

Manu:

• The chicken who attempts to cross the road is a Chandalas and must be treated as a pariah. Have no contact with it.

Marcel Marceau:

• ...

Imelda Marcos:

• She needed a new pair of shoes.

Bob Marley:

• Could the chicken be loved?

Christopher Marlowe:

• He sold his soul to the devil.

Marvin (the paranoid android):

• "Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and you ask me why the chicken crossed the road? I could tell you, but I really don't think it's worth while."
• Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and what do they ask me? Why did the chicken cross the road? As if their pathetic cerebellums could even comprehend my answer. Chickens, don't talk to me about chickens... they're SO depressing.

Chico Marx:

• Why a duck? Why-a-no chicken?
• It couldn't. It was a rubber chicken.

Groucho Marx:

• Chicken? What's all this talk about chicken? Why, I had an uncle who thought he was a chicken. My aunt almost divorced him, but we needed the eggs.
• This morning I shot a chicken in my pyjamas -- and lemme tell ya, that chicken ran out of my pyjamas in a second!
• You try to cross over there a chicken, and you'll find out why a duck. It's deep water, that's viaduct.
• Chicken. You said the secret word and have won $100.00.
• The club on that side of the road wanted him to join.

Harpo Marx:

• Honk! Honk! Honk!

Karl Marx:

• It was a historical inevitability.
• To escape the bourgeois middle-class struggle.
• To obtain the opiate of the masses.
• She was driven by the lash of economic necessity.

Anthony Mason:

• There were some young chicks over there.

Jackie Mason:

• Whaddaya want, it should just stand there?

Perry Mason:

• Cross the road you say? But how can you be sure? No one else would have known the chicken crossed the road except for the real killer!

Cotton Mather:

• She is a witch in league with the devil, who must be Bar-B-Qued on the stake.

Brett Maverick:

• As my pappy used to say, "If someone wants to bet you that that chicken will cross the road to lay an egg, warm up the skillet to make an omlette."

Darth Maul (Star Wars):

• At last the chicken can reveal itself.

Capt. Jack Maynard (Babylon 5):

• "It lost the lock-on signal from the curb."

Colin McCahon (New Zealand):

• IT WAS.

Senator Joseph McCarthy:

• He was a Rhode Island Red conspiring against the U. S. of A.
• Why, that's the most unheard-of thing I've ever heard of.

Dr. McCoy (Star Trek):

• How should I know? Damnit Jim, I'm a Doctor not an ornithologist!

J.A. McCulloch:

• She's making a run for the bar with the flashing Budweiser sign.

Mark McGwire:

• To get steroids. But it legal and therefore all right.

Katherine McKinnon:

• Because, in this patriarchal state, for the last four centuries, men have applied their principles of justice in determining how chickens should be cared for, their language has demeaned the identity of the chicken, their technology and trucks have decided how and where chickens will be distributed, their science has become the basis for what chickens eat, their sense of humor has provided the framework for this joke, their art and film have given us our perception of chicken life, their lust for flesh has has made the chicken the most consumed animal in the US, and their legal system has left the chicken with no other recourse.

Don McLain:

• This will be the day that I die!

Marshall McLuhan:

• The Road is the Medium.  The chicken is the Message!

Margaret Mead:

• It is a pubertal rite of passage, a manifestation of coming of age.

Herman Melville:

• Aye, aye! and I'll chase the great White Chicken across the road, and round the horn, and round the norway maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up.

H. C. Mencken:

• There's no underestimating the intelligence of the American chicken.

Gregor Mendel:

• To get various strains of roads.
• It was dominant.

Mercury Energy (Auckland's Electricity company. Responsible for the 2 week blackout):

• If the chicken has the power to cross the road it should expect to lose it. If it has already lost it it should not expect it to return for at least 2 weeks.

Uzi Meshullam:

• The chicken was abducted from it's true Yemenite owners, and it was crossing the road in an attempt to find it's way home. And I'll kill anyone who says otherwise.

Friedrich Mesmer:

• It had been suggested when she was under hypnosis.

MIB (The Men in Black):

• You did not see any crossing.  You will forget everything or you will be killed.
• No object is more mistaken for a chicken than the planet Venus. You never saw a chicken. <flash>

Joe Miller:

• That was no chicken, that was my wife.

John Stuart Mills:

• It was a utilitarian function. She had tasks that were better performed on the other side.

Les Mills. (Millionaire Gym Owner and Mayor of Auckland):

• The chicken has made a choice, which was not genetically determined, and we would all live better together if the chicken stopped trying to blame society for the choice the chicken made for itself.

A.A. Milne:

• While it crossed, it was humming a song about honey.
• I imagine that if I thought very hard I should come up with a reason. (also applicable to Winnie the Pooh).

Slobodan Milosevic:

• It was on its way to Greater Serbia.
• For ethnic cleansing.
• Finally it understood that bombs are falling on this side.

John Milton:

• To justify the ways of God to men.
• To look for the pair of dice she lost.

Mishima:

• For the beauty of it. The chicken's extension of its sinuous legs sent shivers of a dark despair into the souls not only of the silently waiting hens but also the roosters, who felt a sudden sexual desire for their exquisite comrade. The dark courage of the chicken was as beautiful a drops of dew upon jade at midnight, struck by a partial moon, its light filtered through clouds. One of the deeply aroused roosters could stand the intensity of its moment no more and bit off the head of the beautiful courageous chicken-hero, whose wine blood was deliciously drunken by the road, and he died.

Walter Mitty:

• Staring out into space, he saw himself rescuing the flock from slaughter, never hearing the approaching truck.

August Ferdinand Moebius:

• To get to the other...um...err

Mohammed:

• It is the mother of all chickens.
• It is not for the chicken to cross the road but for the road to come  to the chicken.
• To take an eye for an eye, a comb for a comb.

Londo Mollari (Babylon 5):

• I feel like I'm being nibbled to death by chickens!

Romeo Montague:

• What's in a name? That which we call a chicken, by any other name would cross the same.

Indigo Montoya:

• It too pursues a man with six fingers on his left hand.
• Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. The chicken killed my father. It must prepare to die.

Sun Myung Moon:

• Go thee to the airport and proclaim the chicken crosses with my blessing.

Morden (Babylon 5):

• It was what the chicken wanted.

Sir Thomas More:

• No where.
• For the good life and pleasure of all chickens.

Tukoroirangi Morgan (MP for New Zealand First and general):

• The chicken's mana entitled it to cross the road whenever it wanted and wherever it wanted. The chicken is not required to provide a reason for its actions. It's time the rednecks stopped chicken-bashing.

Michael Moriarity:

• To annoy Janet Reno.

Mork:

• Na-Nu, Na-Nu. To find my eggshell.

Jim Morrison:

• To break on through to the other side, I am the chicken king.

Temuera Morrison (New Zealand Actor):

• So it wouldn't be in Guatemala any more.

Samuel Morse:

• She had an appointment. She wanted to be there on the dot so she had to dash.

Morton:

• There was a fork in the road so what could he do?

Moses:

• And God came down from the Heavens, and He said unto the Chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road." And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.
• Know ye that it is unclean to eat the chicken that has crossed the road, and that the chicken that crosseth the road doth so for its own preservation.
• Know ye that it is unclean to eat the chicken that has crossed the road part-way and becometh unclean, though it resemble in its flatness the bread which is unleavened or the blintz which is unfilled, and that the chicken that crosseth the road doth so for its own preservation.
• And the Lord said: "Thou shalt cross the road."

Motti:

• I want two chickens! And three bottles of wine!!

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:

• How delightful 'tis to wander, by the breath of evening fann'd.

Harvey Mudd (Star Trek):

• Chicken? I don't remember any chicken. No no no, there's been a terrible misunderstanding.

Bill Mulder:

• I have told you that I don't remember any chicken.

Fox Mulder:

• You saw it cross the road with your own eyes. How many more chickens have to cross the road before you believe it?

Rupert Murdoch:

• We have launched a new channel devoted entirely to chicken crossings which will rival any channel run by Ted Turner.

Murphy:

• The chicken had a bad day.
• The more the chicken wants to cross the road the more likely traffic gets heavier.
  Continuation:  When the chicken finally gives it up traffic stops instantaneously.
• The chicken will invariably cross the road at the worst possible time and the worst possible place.

Roger Murtaugh:

• I'm too old for this chicken-shit!

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