“Shouldn’t someone give a pep talk or something?” Minho asked, pulling Thomas’s attention away from Alby.
“Go ahead,” Newt replied.
Minho nodded and faced the crowd. “Be careful,” he said dryly. “Don’t die.”
“Look at all the things that can go wrong for men. There’s the nothing-happening-at-all problem, the too-much-happening-too-soon problem, the dismal-droop-after-a-promising-beginning problem; there’s the size-doesn’t-matter-except-in-my-case problem, the failing-to-deliver-the-goods problem…and what do women have to worry about? A handful of cellulite? Join the club. A spot of I-wonder-how-I-rank? ”
“’How many dramas have you in France, sir?’ said Candide to the Abbé.
‘Five or six thousand.’
‘What a number!’ said Candide. ‘How many good?’
‘Fifteen or sixteen,’ replied the other.
‘What a number!’ said Martin.”
“Why should you think it so strange that in some countries there are monkeys which insinuate themselves into the good graces of the ladies; they are a fourth part human, as I am a fourth part Spaniard.”
Holmes and Watson are on a camping trip. In the middle of the night Holmes wakes up and gives Dr. Watson a nudge. “Watson” he says, “look up in the sky and tell me what you see.”
“I see millions of stars, Holmes,” says Watson.
“And what do you conclude from that, Watson?”
Watson thinks for a moment. “Well,” he says, “astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Meterologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Theologically, I see that God is all-powerful, and we are small and insignificant. Uh, what does it tell you, Holmes?”
“Watson, you idiot! Someone has stolen our tent!”
“I was deeply interested in the little family history which he detailed to me with all that candor which a Frenchman indulges whenever mere self is the theme.”
“Even though I laughed with them, it felt like I was watching the whole thing from somewhere else, like I was watching a movie about my life instead of living it.”
“Since stepping reluctantly into public life, I’ve been held up as the most powerful woman in the world and taken down as an “angry black woman.” I’ve wanted to ask my detractors which part of that phrase matters to them the most—is it “angry” or “black” or “woman”?”
″‘Are you her boyfriend?’
...
‘No, I’m her fiancé.’ Nate said.
‘We’ve been promised to each other since birth,’ Summer added.
‘Our wedding isn’t until March.‘”
″‘You should have Hugo throw you in the pool.’
The golem turned his head toward Seth, who shrugged.
‘Sure, that would be fun.’
Hugo nodded, grabbed Seth, and, with a motion like a hook shot, flung him skyward.
...
Her brother sailed nearly as high as the roof of the house before plummeting down and landing in the center of the deep end with an impressive splash.
Kendra ran to the side of the pool. By the time she arrived, Seth was boosting himself out of the waster, hair and clothes dripping. ‘That was the freakiest, awesomest moment in my life!’ Seth declared. ‘But next time, let me take off my shoes.‘”
″‘The entire preserve is in danger. Members of the Society of the Evening Star have taken over the house.’
...
He raised his eyebrows. ‘You’re saying there isn’t going to be a Welcome-Back-from-Your-Coma-Party?‘”
“I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this”, he begins. He doesn’t blush, and his eyes don’t dart away. Instead I find myself staring into a pair of oceans - one perfect, the other blemished by that tiny ripple. “You’re very attractive.”
“I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this”, he begins. He doesn’t blush, and his eyes don’t dart away. Instead I find myself staring into a pair of oceans - one perfect, the other blemished by that tiny ripple. “You’re very attractive.”
“I’ve been complimented on my appearance before. But never in his tone of voice. Of all the things he’s said, I don’t know why this catches me off guard. But it startles me so much that without thinking I blurt out, “I could say the same about you.” I pause. ‘In case you didn’t know.’ ”
“This is a way to kill a wife with kindness,
And thus I’ll curb her mad and headstrong humour.
He that knows better how to tame a shrew,
Now let him speak. ‘Tis charity to show.”
“The joke was that President Bush only declared war when the Starbucks was hit. You can mess with the U.N. all you want, but when you start interfering with the right to get caffeinated, someone has to pay.”
“The prime motive was the desire of a tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them.”
″‘Chinese people do many things,’ she said simply. ‘Chinese people do business, do medicine, do painting. Not lazy like American people. We do torture. Best torture.‘”
“Oh, and she inexplicably mails me a cactus every Valentine’s Day. And I’m like, ‘Thanks a heap, Coyote Ugly. This cactus-gram stings even worse than your abandonment.‘”
“Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?”
“What do you mean less than nothing? I don’t think there is any such thing as less than nothing. Nothing is absolutely the limit of nothingness. It’s the lowest you can go. It’s the end of the line. How can something be less than nothing? If there were something that was less than nothing, then nothing would not be nothing, it would be something - even though it’s just a very little bit of something. But if nothing is nothing, then nothing has nothing that is less than it is.”
“Everyone, at some point in their lives, wakes up in the middle of the night with the feeling that they are all alone in the world, and that nobody loves them now and that nobody will ever love them, and that they will never have a decent night’s sleep again and will spend their lives wandering blearily around a loveless landscape, hoping desperately that their circumstances will improve, but suspecting, in their heart of hearts, that they will remain unloved forever. The best thing to do in these circumstances is to wake somebody else up, so that they can feel this way, too.”
“Oh come, now, you don’t mean to let on that you like it?”
The brush continued to move.
“Like it? Well I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?”
That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth—stepped back to note the effect—added a touch here and there—criticized the effect again—Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said:
“Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little.”
“Say, Becky, was you ever engaged?”
“What’s that?”
“Why, engaged to be married.”
“No.”
“Would you like to?”
“I reckon so. I don’t know. What is it like?”
“Like? Why it ain’t like anything. You only just tell a boy you won’t ever have anybody but him, ever ever ever, and then you kiss and that’s all. Anybody can do it.”
“When we were little,” the Mock Turtle went on at last, more calmly, though still sobbing a little now and then,” we went to school in the sea. The master was an old Turtle—we used to call him Tortoise—”
“Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn’t one?” asked Alice.
“We called him Tortoise because he taught us,” said the Mock Turtle angrily. “Really you are very dull!”
“And how many hours a day did you do lessons?” said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject.
“Ten hours the first day,” said the Mock Turtle: “nine the next, and so on.”
“What a curious plan!” exclaimed Alice.
“That’s the reason they’re called lessons,” the Gryphon remarked: “because they lessen from day to day.”
“What a long time whoever lives here is answering this door.” And he knocked again.
“But Pooh,” said Piglet, “it’s your own house!”
“Oh!” Said Pooh. “So it is,” he said. “Well, let’s go in.”
“You see, there’s different kinds of dead: there’s sort of dead, mostly dead, and all dead. This fella here, he’s only sort of dead, which means there’s still a memory inside, there’s still bits of brain. You apply a little pressure here, a little more there, sometimes you get results.”
“Time will mellow it, make it a moment for laughter. But now it was not funny, now I did not laugh. It was not the future, it was the present. It was too vivid and too real.”
“Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer.”
“And I have one of those very loud, stupid laughs. I mean if I ever sat behind myself in a movie or something, I’d probably lean over and tell myself to please shut up.”
“I’m not really putting this very well. My point is this: This book contains precisely zero Important Life Lessons, or Little-Known Facts About Love, or sappy tear-jerking Moments When We Knew We Had Left Our Childhood Behind for Good, or whatever. And, unlike most books in which a girl gets cancer, there are definitely no sugary paradoxical single-sentence-paragraphs that you’re supposed to think are deep because they’re in italics. Do you know what I’m talking about? I’m talking about sentences like this:
The cancer had taken her eyeballs, yet she saw the world with more clarity than ever before.
Barf. Forget it. For me personally, things are in no way more meaningful because I got to know Rachel before she died. If anything, things are less meaningful. All right?”
“The Ordinary Princess hardly ever had anyone to talk to, so she had made friends with the forest creatures and talked to them. It tended to make conversation rather one-sided, but that was sometimes an advantage. At least they could not answer back!”
“Disclaimer: While Pastafarianism is the only religion based on empirical evidence, it should also be noted that this is a faith-based book. Attentive readers will note numerous holes and contradictions throughout the text; they will even find blatant lies and exaggerations. These have been placed there to test the reader’s faith.”
“The Flying Spaghetti Monster made the platypus because, unlike scientists, He has a sense of humor. It’s an unlikely sign from God--and until someone can prove me wrong, that’s my theory.”
“Today Plato is nearly forgotten. His beliefs include the notion that people who govern should be intelligent, rational, self-controlled, and in love with wisdom, an idea that has long been discredited.”
“It appears that a college education has been given an artificially high price tag in order to leave students with little money left over for the basic requirements of living. Burdened by poverty, students are induced to drink cheap beer and eat past--in short, they are forced to act like Pirates and Pastafarians--and we can only conclude that this is some part of His greater plan to spread FSMism.”
“What we’re told of Pirates in history books today is blatantly wrong. Thieves and outcasts they were not--these were His Chosen People, the ones who listened and followed His divine plan, whatever it was.”
“Try us for thirty days and if you don’t like us, your God will most likely take you back.
This is an important detail in spreading His Word. If it works for infomercials, it will definitely work for religion. The God-back guarantee should always be offered up front.”
“We are not saying that Evolution can’t exist, only that it is guided by His Noodly Appendage. And our Spaghedeity is extremely modest. For some reason, He went through a great deal of trouble to make us believe that Evolution is true--masking the prominent role of Pirates in our origins, making monkeys seem more important than they really are, generally keeping behind the scenes and out of the spotlight.”
“It’s an accepted fact that there are an uncanny amount of Ramen noodles and dried pastas on college campuses, which provide cheap nutrition for students, thus allowing them to afford more beer. This point yet another finger at the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s influence. Clearly, He is at work in our institutions of higher learning, and this can only bode well for the country’s future.”
“With more people on earth today, there are fewer Noodly Appendages to go around, so we each receive less touching--pushing down toward the earth--and thus, with less force downward, we’re taller.”
“College costs money--a lot. Yet education in itself is not of much value. For example, we can look to the general public’s almost complete disregard for anything that educated people have to say about global warming, shrinking oil reserves, pollution, or the threat of nuclear annihilation. But if this is true, why does something as worthless as a college diploma cost so much money?”
“Scientists tell us that we share 95 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees, and yet we share 99.9 percent of our DNA with Pirates. I ask you, who is the more likely common ancestor?”
“The other possibility is that there are witches out there, hiding somewhere, plotting their revenge, liberally applying fireproofing compounds to themselves. And someday they may reappear and start causing trouble. And then what will our high and mighty scientists do? Throw calculator at them? Witches eat calculators.”
“The universe appears to be expanding, much like cooked pasta, as illustrated by observed light from distant galaxies shifting toward the Marinara Spectrum. Some scientists cite this as support for His preference for red sauce, but they are most likely idiots.”
“While I agree that I’ve never seen a kiwi bird fly, I disagree with the statement that they can’t fly. How do we know? Couldn’t it just be that they choose not to? You’ll never see me running, but there’s a good chance I could.”
“But the hawk was the second most precious thing. I was sorry to lose it, and if you make me another one, I promise not to get taken captive by bandits and have to use it to save my life.”
“Life has three rules: Paradox, Humor, and Change.
- Paradox: Life is a mystery; don’t waste your time trying to figure it out.
- Humor: Keep a sense of humor, especially about yourself. It is a strength beyond all measure
- Change: Know that nothing ever stays the same.”
″‘If you ever find you need help again, you know, if you’re in trouble, need a hand out of a tight corner...’
‘Yeah?’
‘Please don’t hesitate to get lost.’”
″‘Marvin,” he said, “just get this elevator go up will you? We’ve got to get to Zarniwoop.’
‘Why?’ asked Marvin dolefully.
‘I don’t know,’ said Zaphod, ‘but when I find him, he’d better have a very good reason for me wanting to see him.‘”
“An ugly woman would ruin me, the disease would be sure to strike in and kill me at the sight of her. I think a pretty physician, with engaging manners, would coax a fellow to live through almost anything.”
“I had a dream about you. We were fishing in the Utah desert. You caught a dinosaur, but due to Federal regulations, we had to release the bones so Ted Kennedy could drive back to the cemetery, drunk. ”
“When Uncle Stan rose in the morning, he somehow managed to wake the entire household. No
one complained, as he was the breadwinner in the family, and in any case he was cheaper and more
reliable than an alarm clock.”
“Positive humor is one of our most valuable tools for strengthening family bonds. But humor that belittles can be extremely damaging within the family. Children take sarcasm and humorous exaggeration at face value.”
“On the way home, we sang with special enthusiasm,
On top of old Smoky, two thousand feet tall,
I shot my old teacher with a big booger ball.
I shot her with glory, I shot her with pride.
How could I miss her? She’s thirty feet wide.”
“Exercise II.
Write a diary, imagining that you are trying to make an old person jealous. I have written an example to get you started:
Dear Diary,
I spent the morning admiring my skin elasticity.
God alive, I feel supple.”
“Thursday morning. I usually let my Mum wake me up but today I have set my alarm for seven. Even from under my duvet, I can hear it bleating on the other side of my room. I hid it inside my plastic crate for faulty joysticks so that I would have to get out of bed, walk across the room, yank it out of the box by its lead and, only then, jab the snooze button. This was a tactical manoeuvre by my previous self. He can be very cruel.”
″‘Yes, anything that’s lying on the ground,’ said Pippi.
A little further on, an old man lay sleeping on the lawn in front of his house.
‘That’s lying on the ground,’ said Pippi, ‘and we’ve found him. We’ll take him!‘”
A great example of an image where the wolves display both terror and humor is in the image of the wolves being shown in creepy shadows as they are watching television and are laughing their heads off.
“But my favorite was How Papa Got His Glass EYe. He’s always tell it different-- sometimes scary, sometimes sad, and once I laughed so hard I fell off his lap.”
“I experienced failure and learned to buck up so I could rally those who’d put their trust in me. I suffered rejections and insults often enough to stop fearing them. In other words, I grew up—and got my sense of humor back.”
“Miranda and Punka always raced to the flower garden, shaking their heads as though they had gotten a drop of water on them, and hid from the noisy man.”
“Today was Punka’s birthday. She was one year old. Claudia had given her a dish of cream to celebrate, and now Miranda was washing her face. Miranda was telling Punka that she was goind to have some more kittens soon, any day now.”
Little Spook and the little Prince were playing together when they heard a terrible noise. They went to find Little Spook’s parents who revealed that the noise came from Little Spook’s brand-new baby sister. And that sister can make some noises!
Spook’s baby sister who is very good at mimicking the noises she hears. From this point on, spreads are split with the little sister making a wonderful variety of noises which are displayed on the recto. These are sweet little stories that would even work now.
“Come_read about these mighty creatures: some are silly, some are mild, some are gentle, some are wild. Come_ read about these beasts of yore in this wondrous world of Dinosaur.”
“Clothes for every dinosaur. No matter shape or size. We have a wide selection. You won’t believe your eyes. Shirts with room for spikes. Pants with holes for tales. Brontosaurus turtlenecks. They’re all on sale!