“I see dead people.” (The famous quote that gets reincarnated regularly.)

THE MEMORABLE MOVIE QUOTE: “I see dead people.”        Haley Joel Osment (playing the psychic young boy Cole Sear)          His famous line in the film The Sixth Sense (1999)        The boy reveals his ability to see dead people to child psychologist Malcolm Crowe, played by Bruce Willis, in a spooky scene that immortalized the soon widely-parodied phrase. When Crowe asks if he means dead people in graves or coffins, the boy shakes his head ‘no’ and explains: “Walking around like regular people. They don’t see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don’t know they’re dead...They’re everywhere.”

PAUL KRUGMAN’S ‘I SEE BLIND POLITICIANS’ VARIATION: “Mitt Romney doesn’t see dead people...The reality, to which Mr. Romney is somehow blind, is that many people in America really do die every year because they don’t have health insurance…The Romney-Ryan position on health care is that many millions of Americans must be denied health insurance…At the same time, of course, Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan are proposing trillions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy. So a literal description of their plan is that they want to expose many Americans to financial insecurity, and let some of them die, so that a handful of already wealthy people can have a higher after-tax income.”        Paul Krugman        American economics professor and political columnist        In his October 14, 2012 op-ed column in the New York Times, titled “Death by Ideology”

THE ‘KRUGMAN’S A DEAF, DUMB & BLIND IDIOT’ COUNTERQUOTE: “I’m assuming Paul Krugman DOES see dead people both the present and future deceased which makes him not only delusional but a delusional with the gift of clairvoyance. I won’t attempt to demean you with a rhetorical question: you’re not a doctor and while you may have a working knowledge of the future of healthcare in this country, to put it in its least offensive form, you’re deaf, dumb, and blind to the realities of the practice of medicine on a national scale.”         Huffington Post reader “grkorbel”         In a comment he posted about Paul Krugman’s “Death by Ideology” op-ed

THE COMPLETE IDIOT’S VERSION: “Bogus psychics and mediums…like TV’s ‘Miss Cleo’…might tell you, ‘I see dead people,’ but in reality, all they’re seeing is dollar signs.”        Duane Swierczynski        American writer and editor        In his book The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Frauds, Scams, and Cons

THE JUST PLAIN DUMB VERSION: “I see dumb people…They’re everywhere.”        A popular humorous variation used on t-shirts, posters and thousands of Internet posts

THE NATTY DREADLOCKS VERSION: “I see DREAD people”       Punning T-shirt and poster slogan that uses a term associated with dreadlocked Rastafarians, like Bob Marley

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Comments? Questions? Corrections? Post them on the Famous Quotations Facebook page.

Related reading and stuff…