You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn't want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named "Bush", "Dick", and "Colin." Need I say more?
Don’t do anything stupid.""Don’t worry," I whispered over the line, "I’m an expert on stupid.""You’re...""Like, I can spot stupidity, because I know it so well. The way an exterminator knows bugs really well, and can spot where they’ve been? I’m like that. A stupidinator.""Never say that word again," Prof said.
Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron,” Sebastian said approvingly. “Excellent choice.”“You have read this?” Alexei asked.“It’s not as good as Miss Davenport and the Dark Marquis, of course, but worlds better than Miss Sainsbury and the Mysterious Colonel.”Harry found himself rendered speechless.“I’m reading Miss Truesdale and the Silent Gentleman right now.”“Silent?” Harry echoed.“There is a noticeable lack of dialogue,” Sebastian confirmed.
Come here, let me share a bit of wisdom with you.Have you given much thought to our mortal condition?Probably not. Why would you? Well, listen.There's no one alivewho can say if he will be tomorrow.Our fate moves invisibly! A mystery.No one can teach it, no one can grasp it.Accept this! Cheer up! Have a drink!You can let the rest go. Am I making sense?I think so. How about a drink.Put on a garland. I'm surethe happy splash of wine will cure your mood.We're all mortal you know. Think mortal.Because my theory is, there's no such thing as life,
He shook his head. "The next time I hear a women going on about how neurotic men are, I'm going to remember this. You tell me you like my body, and what do I say? I say, thank you. Then I tell you I like yours and what do I hear? A long lists of grievances.
She threw up her hands. "All right. Why not?" Why not?" Sure." His arms fell to his sides. "That's it? I pour my heart out. I love you so much I've got freakin' tears in my eyes. And all I get in return is 'Why not'?" What did you expect? Am I supposed to fall all over you just because you've finally come to your senses?" Would it be too much to ask?"...He'd begun to glare at her again, his eyes growing stormier by the minute."When do you think you might be ready? To fall all over me, that is.
And then to Leo’s surprise, Catherine smiled at him. A sweet, natural, brilliant smile, the first she had ever given him. Leo felt his chest tighten, and he went hot all over, as if some euphoric drug had gone straight to his nervous system.It felt like … happiness.He remembered happiness from a long time ago. He didn’t want to feel it. And yet the giddy warmth kept washing over him for no reason whatsoever.“Thank you,” Catherine said, the smile still hovering on her lips. “That is kind of you, my lord. But I will never dance with you.”Which, of course, made it the goal of Leo’s life.
Now, this is where I draw the line! It's bad enough everybody in town's going to be thinkin' I'm sleeping with a depressed, lice-ridden, hemorrhoidal foreigner who likes to be tied up and might be pregnant, although-since she's just about cornered the market on condoms-I don't know how that could have happened. But I will not-you listen to me, Emma!-I absolutely will not have anybody thinkin' a woman of mine needs a vaginal moisturizer, do you hear me?
If you don't want to tear off the clothes of the person you're on a date with and jump into bed with them, then what's the point? I'd never date; instead, I'd have lots of good friends and hug them a lot and life would be easier and neater and uncomplicated.
Never mind that. What's going on with you and Heath?"Annabelle pulled a little wide-eyed innocence out of her rusty bag of college acting skills."What do you mean? Business.""Don't give me that. We've been friends too long."She switched to a furrowed brow. "He's my most important client. You know how much this means to me."Molly wasn't buying it. "I've seen the way you look at him. Like he was a slot machine with triple sevens tattooed on his forehead. If you fall in love with him, I swear I'll never speak toyou again." Annabelle nearly choked. She'd known Molly would be suspicious, but she hadn't expected an outright confrontation. "Are you nuts? Setting aside the fact that he treats me like a flunky, I'd never fall for a workaholic after what I've had to go through with my family." Falling in lust, however, was an entirely different matter."He has a calculator for a heart," Molly said. "I thought you liked him.
I noticed Xander had subtly adjusted his posture. He slouched slightly to the side, let his head hang, and then looked up through his bangs to gaze at something in the middle distance. Uber James Dean. Xander managed to pull it off as if he was looking at nothing, just having deep thoughts about the far away adventures he would be having if he wasn’t stuck waiting for a flowered suitcase at Hopkins International. I casually let my eyes slide across the room. There had to be cute girls somewhere close at hand. Otherwise Xander wouldn’t have broken out his middle distance gazing Tyrone Power eyes.
She was a ray of sunshine, a warm summer rain, a bright fire on a cold winter’s day, and now she could be dead because she had tried to save the man she loved.
Oh honey, someday a real man is going to make you see stars and you won't even be looking at the sky." Excerpt from Grace Willow's Last Minute Bride
You are enough to drive a saint to madness or a king to his knees.
You are enough to drive a saint to madness or a king to his kneesExcerpt from To Kiss a King by Grace WillowsComing this summer to Amazon Kindle and paperback.
When my mother passed away several years ago—well, wait a minute. Actually, she didn’t ‘pass away.’ She died. Something about that verb, ‘to pass away’ always sounds to me as if someone just drifted through the wallpaper. No, my mother did not pass away. She definitely died.
People who are not blessed with the ability to make others laugh compensate for that by saying (or trying to say) things that are profound.
Fashion doesn't make you perfect, but it makes you pretty.
Dresses won't worn out in the wardrobe, but that is not what dresses are designed for.
Dresses don't look beautiful on hangers.
It's time to shop high heels if your fiance kisses you on the forehead.
Hands can cook, hands can create, hands can kill. There is no better tool than our hands.
Take care of your costume and your confidence will take care of itself.
With right fashion, every female would be a flame.
Any girl with a grin never looks grim.
An old fashioned outfit is not a costume, it's a comedy.
Poetry is only the highest eloquence of passion, the most vivid form of expression that can be given to our conception of anything, whether pleasurable or painful, mean or dignified, delightful or distressing. It is the perfect coincidence of the image and the words with the feeling we have, and of which we cannot get rid in any other way, that gives an instant "satisfaction to the thought." This is equally the origin of wit and fancy, of comedy and tragedy, of the sublime and pathetic.
A lot of people come up here and they thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. He didn't help me a bit. If it was up to him, Cesar Millan would be up here with that damn dog. So all I can say is, 'suck it, Jesus! This award is my God now'!
Sam's phone buzzed. She fished it out of her pocket, checked the screen, and cursed. "I have to go.""You just got here.""Valkyrie business. Possible code three-eight-one: heroic death in progress.""You're making that up.""I'm not.""So...what, somebody thinks they're about to die and they text you 'Going down! Need Valkyrie ASAP!' followed by a bunch of sad-face emojis?
We needed a refrigerator for our new place and I've never bought a refrigerator my whole life. I went into the appliance store, there's like 900 of 'em lined up, there's a salesman there. What's this guy supposed to say about refrigerators? "Well you got this refrigerator here, This keeps all your food cold for 600...You've got this refrigerator, This keeps all your food cold for 800...Check this out, 1400, keeps all your food cold.
Over the road there was a church: a modern gray building, which constantly played a recording of church bells. Strange it was. Why no proper bells? I never went in but I bet it was a robot church for androids, where the Bible was in binary and their Jesus had laser eyes and metal claws.
I don't appreciate people who celebrate their dog's birthdays with "dog parties," and then invite their friends who don't even have dogs. I understand why people like dogs, and I think they definitely bring more to the table than cats or those godforsaken ferrets, but I don't think it's healthy for people to treat their dogs like they are real people.
We finally settled on Francis Ford Coppola's version of Dracula, which, unfortunately, Gabriel seemed to think was a comedy. I think it was the combination of Keanu Reeves's British accent and Gary Oldman's elderly Count Dracula hairstyle. They're just misleading.
Another thing I take issue with are people who take their dogs on "play dates," or even worse, people who choose to dress their dogs up in outfits better suited for homosexuals participating in a gay pride parade. Dog costumes are right up there with something else I find particularly offensive: sweater vests.
Says O'Sullivan to me, "Mr. Fay, I'll have a word wid yeh?" "Certainly," says I; "what can I do for you?" "Sell me your sea- boots, Mr. Fay," says O'Sullivan, polite as can be. "But what will you be wantin' of them?" says I. "'Twill be a great favour," says O'Sullivan. "But it's my only pair," says I; "and you have a pair of your own," says I. "Mr. Fay, I'll be needin' me own in bad weather," says O'Sullivan. "Besides," says I, "you have no money." "I'll pay for them when we pay off in Seattle," says O'Sullivan. "I'll not do it," says I; "besides, you're not tellin' me what you'll be doin' with them." "But I will tell yeh," says O'Sullivan; "I'm wantin' to throw 'em over the side." And with that I turns to walk away, but O'Sullivan says, very polite and seducin'-like, still a-stroppin' the razor, "Mr. Fay," says he, "will you kindly step this way an' have your throat cut?" And with that I knew my life was in danger, and I have come to make report to you, sir, that the man is a violent lunatic.
At least one way of measuring the freedom of any society is the amount of comedy that is permitted, and clearly a healthy society permits more satirical comment than a repressive, so that if comedy is to function in some way as a safety release then it must obviously deal with these taboo areas. This is part of the responsibility we accord our licensed jesters, that nothing be excused the searching light of comedy. If anything can survive the probe of humour it is clearly of value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are claiming special privileges which should not be granted.
The girl says "Oh uh-uh, wait a minute! Wait a minute! Just because I'm dressed this way does not make me a whore!" Which is true, Gentlemen, that is true. Just because they dress a certain way doesn't mean they are a certain way. Don't even forget it. But ladies, you must understand that is fucking confusing. It just is. Now that would be like me, Dave Chappelle, the comedian, walking down the street in a cop uniform. Somebody might run up on me saying, "Oh, thank God. Officer, help us! Come on. They're over here. Help us!" "Oh-hoh! Just because I'm dressed this way does not make me a police officer!" See what I mean? All right, ladies, fine. You are not a whore. But you are wearing a whore's uniform.
There are many other little refinements too, Mr. Bohlen. You'll see them all when you study the plans carefully. For example, there's a trick that nearly every writer uses, of inserting at least one long, obscure word into each story. This makes the reader think that the man is very wise and clever. So I have the machine do the same thing. There'll be a whole stack of long words stored away just for this purpose."Where?"In the 'word-memory' section," he said, epexegetically.
Ever since the robot was first invented, there have been people who swear up and down that this marks the first step towards the fall of man … To be fair, their arguments are backed with scientific fact taken from documentary films such as The Terminator, The Matrix, and RoboCop.
Staring at my smoldering hot date, her husband stands tall for the first time in a decade, adjusting his toupee while flashing a horrid green toothy grin that looks more like a Steven Hawkins muscle spasm. In his hands, a frightened beer bottle is choked with the steel grip of a sexually repressed Preacher.
After all, this was the place where I’d had my first meaningful conversation with a female, it was the site of a football’s first encounter with my groin, and above all, it was the location where I was first punched in the face by a bully. Somewhere out there, a tooth of mine lay deep within the soil.
Hey, he's not using a holster," I said, glancing at Alex's on the dresser. He laughed out loud. "Yeah, I guess he must want something shooting off. It'd be so great if these things were true to life - the next scene would show him at hospital like, clutching himself in agony."'Angel - L.A.Weatherly
The Brit's face shares a heritage with a junkyard butt-sniffing mutt. It's a hard-earned moonshine mug, dotted with a hairy mole that looks like a rat's been gnawing on it. His beard looks like a white sneeze. The teeth are jagged and out of alignment, having opened quarts at Jiffy Quick Lube for half a decade.
I glanced over and saw Wyatt glaring at me. Journey’s “Lovin’ Touchin’, Squeezin’” was playing on the radio.“What?” I asked.“You secretly hate me, don’t you.” He gestured toward the radio. “You can’t stand the thought of me taking a much needed nap and leaving you to drive without conversation. You’re torturing me with this sappy stuff.”“It’s Journey. I love this song.”Wyatt mumbled something under his breath, picked up the CD case, and started looking through it. He paused with a choked noise, his eyes growing huge.“You’re joking, Sam. Justin Bieber? What are you, a twelve-year old girl?”There’s gonna be one less lonely girl, I sang in my head. That was a great song. How could he not like that song? Still, I squirmed a bit in embarrassment.“A twelve-year old girl gave me that CD,” I lied. “For my birthday.”Wyatt snorted. “It’s a good thing you’re a terrible liar. Otherwise, I’d be horrified at the thought that a demon has been hanging out with a bunch of giggling pre-teens.”He continued to thumb through the CDs. “Air Supply Greatest Hits? No, no, I’m wrong here. It’s an Air Supply cover band in Spanish.” He waved the offending CD in my face. “Sam, what on earth are you thinking? How did you even get this thing?”“Some tenant left it behind,” I told him. “We evicted him, and there were all these CDs. Most were in Spanish, but I’ve got a Barry Manilow in there, too. That one’s in English.”Wyatt looked at me a moment, and with the fastest movement I’ve ever seen, rolled down the window and tossed the case of CDs out onto the highway. It barely hit the road before a semi plowed over it.I was pissed. “You asshole. I liked those CDs. I don’t come over to your house and trash your video games, or drive over your controllers. If you think that will make me listen to thatDubstep crap for the next two hours, then you better fucking think again.”“I’m sorry Sam, but it’s past time for a musical intervention here. You can’t keep listening to this stuff. It wasn’t even remotely good when it was popular, and it certainly hasn’t gained anything over time. You need to pull yourself together and try to expand your musical interests a bit. You’re on a downward spiral, and if you keep this up, you’ll find yourself friendless, living in a box in a back alley, stinking of your own excrement, and covered in track marks.”I looked at him in surprise. I had no idea Air Supply led to lack of bowel control and hard core drug usage. I wondered if it was something subliminal, a kind of compulsion programmed into the lyrics. Was Russell Hitchcock a sorcerer? He didn’t look that menacing to me, but sorcerers were pretty sneaky. Even so, I was sure Justin Bieber was okay. As soon as we hit a rest stop, I was ordering a replacement from my iPhone.
Maybe your aunt is funny in quiet moments with her friends because like many women her age, she was taught to not draw attention to herself. And maybe she also noticed how men of her generation weren't attracted to the women who spoke out of turn and uttered their own opinions out loud. And certainly these types of men weren't attracted to women who were funnier than them. Women have always been funny. They just weren't interested in sharing their jokes with you. Truth in point, my mom is hilarious. She has also been single since 1974.
How easily such a thing can become a mania, how the most normal and sensible of women once this passion to be thin is upon them, can lose completely their sense of balance and proportion and spend years dealing with this madness.
Um, thanks,” Jackson told her. “And your name is…?”“I’m Margaret, Margaret Van Der Graaf,” she answered with another eerie smile. Her teeth were so white that they looked bleached.“Van Der Graaf?” Jackson repeated, trying to stifle his laughter. He didn’t want to be rude to the only person in sight, to this kind-hearted stranger who was offering to help him, but… Van Der Graaf?“What are you laughing at?” Margaret asked with curiosity, flashing him a calculating gaze. “I like my name. If you’re going to be a jerk, then I won’t help you. You can stay out here on the street through the night for all I care.”“…Harsh,” said Jackson, giving her a quizzical glance back. There was something ‘off’ about her, something that Jackson couldn’t quite place, something that bordered on horrible loneliness and longing. “Who else lives here, Margaret Van Der Graaf?” He couldn’t resist saying her name aloud. Despite its hilarity, it had a nice ring to it. “Who else lives here?” he urged.“Me, myself and I,” said Margaret simply, snickering when she saw his horrified and annoyed expression
THAT'S IT!" Terminus cried. "That's AGAINST THE RULES!"Polybotes frowned, obviously confused that he was being told off by a statue. "What are you?" he growled. "Shut up!"He pushed the statue over and turned back to Percy."Now I'm MAD!" Terminus shrieked. "I'm strangling you. Feel that? Those are my hands around your neck, you big bully. Get over here! I'm going to head-butt you so hard--
I had never before been a special fan of that great comedian Phyllis Diller, but she utterly won my heart this week by sending me an envelope that, when opened, contained a torn-off square of brown-bag paper of the kind suitable for latrine duty in an ill-run correctional facility. Duly unfurled, it carried a handwritten salutation reading as follows:Money's scarceTimes are hardHere's your f******I could not possibly improve on the sentiment, but I don't think it ought to depend on the current austerities. Isn't Christmas a moral and aesthetic nightmare whether or not the days are prosperous?
Don Pedro - (...)'In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.'Benedick - The savage bull may, but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set them in my forehead, and let me be vildly painted; and in such great letters as they writes, 'Here is good horse for hire', let them signify under my sign, 'Here you may see Benedick the married man.
Detective Inspector Eccles sighed. He may ordinarily have met his sigh with the question of why the newly appointed Superintendent Dickinson was turning up to this late hour crime scene, he may also ordinarily question why his superior officer was dressed as Julius Caesar, in full tunic and green leafy wreath, yet ever since the new and youngest-ever-appointed superintendent had arrived at the Met it had been all too clear he was an officer who didn’t quite do things by the eBook.
Did you slip in some cheese? Did it make you hate cheese, which you had previously loved? Why not sue a cheese-maker? Sue him for all the cheese he's got, drive him out of the cheese-making business!Did you burn your face with an iron? Why not sue Prometheus, the god that invented fire? Or an Iron Age chieftain, for having the temerity to popularise the metal.
What's happened is somewhere, along the line, as a society, we confused the notion of 'home' with the possibility of 'an investment opportunity'. What kind of creature wants to live in an 'investment opportunity'? Only man.The fox has his den. The bee has his hive. The stoat, has, uh... his stoat-hole... but only man chooses to make his nest in an investment opportunity. Mmm, snuggled down in the lovely credit! All warm, in the mortgage payment, mmmmm...
With him big Phil from Notting Hill an old "face" from the sixties a pin up gangster with a "mars bar" weal scraping his left cheek and of course two "wag" slags in tow trussed up like French Poodles with "Bratz babe" stares and Gucci Handbags
Anyway, my writer gang: they kind of did their comedy apprenticeship with me and, during that period, when they were young and impressionable, I think I infected them with my pun virus. They grew to enjoy puns, think puns, just as much as me. The problem is people don't really like puns any more, so I worry I've rendered the poor fuckers virtually unemployable.
Well we certainly don't want to see that kind of thing,’ admonished Jeff Stelling. ‘Did it calm down?’‘No,’ shouted Kamara. ‘It got worse. The police were just getting involved when the chairman was hit by a pie thrown from the crowd.’‘Was he injured?’ asked Stelling, struggling to suppress a giggle.‘I don’t think so,’ laughed Kamara. ‘He sat down and started eating it!
Oh really?’ said Mayes raising a mocking eyebrow which put Rob in mind of a poor man’s Roger Moore. ‘And what on earth makes you think that you of all people would be allowed anywhere near our board meeting? Rob’s smile widened as he realised that he was about to have one of those golden bombshell moments of the type he’d been on the receiving end of all too frequently over the last few days. ‘Because Mr. Mayes, I’m your new chairman.
Jane turned and looked at Rob who was still staring into space with a crazed look on his face. ‘Are you listening to this?’ she said as she thumped him on the arm. Rob turned to her and broke into a broad grin. ‘Listening to what?’ he laughed. ‘I’m loaded. I don’t have to listen to anything!’‘Yes you do,’ said England calmly. ‘You have to listen very carefully.
Oh, well, I know that Libby." He rolls his eyes. "I've never met anyone more committed to, well, life that you are.""Really?" I swallow rather hard. "Even though I keep on screwing my life up?""Sweetheart, precisely because you keep screwing your life up! I mean look at you. You had the crappiest career eve in the world before you turned everything around and became this shit-hot jewellery designer. You set your head on fire with a cigarette and ended up being utterly adored by the guy who had to put you out... And I do adore you, by the way," he adds, in a nonchalant sort of way, "in case you ever had wondered. Oh, and then there's your love of life. Loads of girls would have just sunk...
The house in the story is based on my friend Tori's house in Kinsale, Ireland, which is obviously not actually haunted, and the sound of people upstairs moving wardrobes around when you are downstairs there and alone is probably just something that old houses do when they think they are unobserved.
Kaz reached into his coat pocket. "Here," he said and handed Jesper a slender book with an elaborate cover."Are we going to read to each other?""Just flip it open to the back."Jesper opened the book and peered at the last page, puzzled. "So?""Hold it up so we don't have to look at your ugly face.""My face has character. Besides - oh!""An excellent read, isn't it?""Who knew I had a taste for literature?
Yeah no shit, try asking random people about a bird owned by someone you don't know!” Javal countered “Well still you got it!” Javal acknowledged this with a small grin “Now what?” Javal asked Ingra scratched his head “Yeah...Well Dilmore suggested the idea....Not me.
The animals were happy as they had never conceived it possible to be. Every mouthful of food was an acute positive pleasure, now that it was truly their own food, produced by themselves and for themselves, not doled out to them by a grudging master. With the worthless parasitical human beings gone, there was more for everyone to eat. There was more leisure too, inexperienced though the animals were.
...Whenever someone says to me, 'Jerry Lewis says women aren't funny,' or 'Christopher Hitchens says women aren't funny,' or 'Rick Fenderman says women aren't funny... Do you have anything to say to that?'Yes. We don't fucking care if you like it.I don't say it out loud, of course, because Jerry Lewis is a great philanthropist, Hitchens is very sick, and the third guy I made up.
Friendship is constant in all other thingsSave in the office and affairs of love.Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues.Let every eye negotiate for itself,And trust no agent; for beauty is a witchAgainst whose charms faith melteth into blood.
Artist communities love to bullshit each other and glad-hand one another, and there's no room for the crippling honesty of comedy."I'm a painter" -- well... you don't...probably need to do that.. . . if you're painting something that doesn't exist, I understand that, I can appreciate- . . . but if your pain- 'oh, it's a barnyard scene in autumn'--well then just take a picture of a barn in autumn! It's way better than a painting! - Before Turning the Gun on Himself [2012]
Be careful not to appear obsessively intellectual. When intelligence fills up, it overflows a parody.
Through comedy, we can touch core societal beliefs and transform them completely. I believe we can get to the truth of some deep societal ideologies, and begin to transform them into a new understanding. Far too many promote hateful ideologies, and we must do much more to bring our cultures together, in love and peace.
The Ultimate Rule ought to be: 'If it sounds GOOD to you, it's bitchin'; if it sounds BAD to YOU, it's shitty. The more your musical experience, the easier it is to define for yourself what you like and what you don't like. American radio listeners, raised on a diet of _____ (fill in the blank), have experienced a musical universe so small they cannot begin to know what they like.
What do you mean? In Old Castle? I still live with my parents in case you haven’t noticed, Jack. Those two strangers – that man and woman sitting on my sofa – are actually my parents. Oh, you mean your place? Yes, let’s evict your parents…let’s place them neatly in a cardboard box and leave it by the rubbish bins!
Take care of your car in the garage, and the car will take care of you on the road.
Among all the machines, motorcar is my favorite machine.
I am so obsessed with the cars that sometimes I feel like my heart is not a muscle, it's an engine.
I love the wheels, I mean steering wheel.
No enemies had ever taken Ankh-Morpork. Well technically they had, quite often; the city welcomed free-spending barbarian invaders, but somehow the puzzled raiders found, after a few days, that they didn't own their horses any more, and within a couple of months they were just another minority group with its own graffiti and food shops.
Oooh, dinner and a show! How come you never take us to dinner and a show?"He smiled at Roxy. "I would spend the entire evening fending off the hordes of your admirers."She fanned herself and grinned back at him. "You gotta love all that suave debonairness!
A question that always makes me hazy is it me or are the others crazy'Albert Einstein
Right then, in a nutshell: this one hasn't a single bone of obedient-little-wife material in her heavenly body.''Hasn't she? Then what kind of bone does your expertise detect?'Fermin came closer, adopting a confidential tone. 'The passionate kind,' he said, raising his eyebrows with an air of mystery. 'And you can be sure I mean that as a compliment.
The male tax?”“Yeah. The tax that men have to pay for not having to menstruate every month. Or risk getting pregnant. Or deal with the physically stronger sex in a macho world… Women have to put up with all that stuff, so the least we men can do is pay the male tax and get the tab.
All children in those small-town, unhurried days had a vast inner life going on in the movies. Children were allowed to go without chaperone in the afternoons. My sense of making fictional comedy undoubtedly first caught its spark from the antic pantomime of the silent screen, and from having a kindred soul to laugh with.
Don't you remember what your grandfather used to say? That thing about pots and people?""That pots were like people," Alex replied flatly, thinking back to his grandfather carrying a tray of wet freshly thrown clay pots across the studio in ancient Athens. "He said you couldn't tell how well they'd turn out until they'd been fired in the kiln.""Well then?""Well then, what?" muttered Alex. "Some pots shatter in the heat, Aries. I should know. I was the one who had to sweep them up every evening. Sometimes it's better not to go near the fire.""Well, that's the spirit I must say!" huffed Aries. "Thank you very much!
It always pisses me off when I’m calling in to some Morning Zoo radio show to promote God-only-knows what—probably this book, so get ready, I’m comin’—when the DJ actually tries to convince me that there are as many female comics as male ones. Cue hypermasculine Morning Zoo Hacky McGee voice: “So Kath, I don’t know what you chicks are always complaining about.” To which I respond: “Really? Why don’t you call your local comedy club and ask for the Saturday night lineup? I guarantee you the male to female ratio is going to be about nine to one. You dick-wad.
Allegedly, allegedly I say, the R.G.A. were extremely miffed of portrait painted of their monarch, King Tingaling XX, by Master. Portrait apparently, as it’s yet t’be unveiled, depicts King Tingaling XX in rather compromisin’ position with a pineapple, a wad of cash and his favourite pig, Buttercup.
Misery comes to miser; joy comes to wiser. (A Very Hot Cup of Tea, Empathy)Juvenile invites, youth tries, adult applies, and the old man dies. (A Straw Man, Empathy)In everyone, there lives a superhero. (The Medicine Man, Empathy)Faith is the strongest word in any dictionary. (The Wisdom Beard, Empathy)I’ve entered into your feelings; it’s your turn now. (Empathy)
Why didn't you talk about whether women are funny or not?I just felt that by commenting on that in any real way, it would be tacit approval of it as a legitimate debate, which it isn't. It would be the same as addressing the issue of 'Should dogs and cats be able to care for our children? They're in the house anyway.' I try not to make it a habit to seriously discuss nonsensical hot-button issues.
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Yes. They are the words that finally turned me into the hermit I have now become. It was quite sudden. I saw them, and I knew what I had to do."The sign read:"Hold stick near center of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion.""It seemed to me," said Wonko the Sane, "that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane.
Don't you ever think that maybe the reason behind why heroes are so dedicated to saving people is because they want to finish them off in the end? I mean, in that case, the villains should be the heroes and the heroes should be the villains so that the hero-villains won't be mistaken with the villain-heroes and the villains can be friends with the heroes. And the entire villain-hero and hero-villain world can be one big happy family. With me stuck in the middle.
Finally, we entered Chetaube County, my imaginary birthplace, where the names of the little winding roads and minuscule mountain communities never failed to inspire me: Yardscrabble, Big Log, Upper, Middle and Lower Pigsty, Chicken Scratch, Cooterville, Felchville, Dust Rag, Dough Bag, Uranus Ridge, Big Bottom, Hooter Holler, Quickskillet, Buck Wallow, Possum Strut ... We always say a picture speaks a thousand words, but isn’t the opposite equally true?
You know when you send a text message to someone and you don't get a response right away, you feel depressed? You send a text message to someone you really like and you get a response right away you feel happy? You feel happy, the body, it creates the chemical dopamine, the dopamine, it goes through your blood and you become addicted to that dopamine rush, and you associate that dopamine rush with the happy feeling of receiving the text, and that's why you got people sending 3,000 fucking text messages a day, right, we're not even paying attention to what we're saying anymore it's just like a, like a morphine drip, right, it's like a dopamine drip! HAPPY BUTTONS! HAPPY BUTTONS! HAPPY BUTTONS! TIME TO PLAY WITH THE HAPPY BUTTONS!
It is better to doubt that a concept is stupidly flying under your head than profoundly flying over your head.
Live a life abundant in love and rich in spirit, these are the seeds of a fulfilling existence. Be the safe harbor you seek in the world. Follow your dreams, not your fear. Go into the New Year with an open mind and hopeful heart. Don't let the chains of unforgiveness weigh you down. Life is too short to live in a prison of past hurts. The futures is yours for the taking and creating. Life is bittersweet, when we can let darkness and light co-exist as illumination, we can live in true happiness. When we live life at its best, it is a symphony of feelings, of high and low notes, of tragedy and comedy, love and loss, magic and the sublime. It can be quite a spectacular journey when we fully embrace and accept it.
What’s SQ?” asked Evan.“Sexual Quotient.”“What’s that?”“Basically, it’s your odds of getting laid. Everyone has an SQ. just like everyone has an IQ.”“I’ve never heard that term before.”“That’s because I made it up.”“That figures. Finally applying your actuarial skills to what really matters, eh?
So...Now that we got that over with, let's get back to love at first sight, Evan said. Not infatuation at first sight...Love. With a capital L, he clarified.Love? Heeb asked, playfully pretending not to know the concept.Yeah. The real thing. The conviction that if you had this one woman, all other women would become irrelevant. You'd never again be unhappy And you'd give up anything to have her and keep her.You've experienced that?Only once. And I haven't stopped thinking about it ever since.Tell me more.Sometimes I think that I still chase women just to forget about her. Because I know I can never have her. But I can't seem to forget about her, no matter what girl I'm chasing...No one can possibly compare....Who is she?Delilah, Evan said wistfully.Delilah?, asked Heeb, intriguedDelilah Nakova, Evan replied, with a hint of awe and reverence in his voice.
Do you always drink from a glass?" she finally exploded. Gavriel shook his head. "Over my lifetime, I have fed in nearly every way imaginable. Drinking from a glass is tame is comparison." Meryn started to grin. "Would you drink from a man?" Gavriel nodded. "Would you drink in a van?" she asked, her eyes dancing. "I don't see why not," he replied. Elizabeth stared as Meryn continued. "Would you drink from an actor?" Again, Gavriel nodded. Laughing, Elizabeth shook her head at Meryn. "Would you drink on a tractor?" Meryn could barely get the words out she was laughing so hard. Gavriel frowned. "Maybe from a farmer if the need were dire.
Didn’t even have to argue with her. She just told me she loved me and offered the back of her neck.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “How many pups you got with Janie Mae now, Bubba Ray . . . and still she’s as unmarked as a newborn babe. So which Smith has control of his female now, boy?
Rosy ferried the drinks back to the table, slid the Guinness his way. “You said you have a show. Is it a comedy?”“No, but you will laugh, I hope, after hearing my qualifications.” His eyes glittered. “I do magic, with a twist. The twist is, my clothes are the first thing to disappear.”Rosy gaped.“Yes. I do magic… naked. I not only have a big ego.” Marek wiggled his middle finger. “I have a big wand.
...Daisy doesn't even go to his funeral, Nick and Jordan part ways, and Daisy ends up sticking with racist Tom... you can tell Fitzgerald never took the time to look up at clouds during sunset, because there's no silver lining at the end of that book, let me tell you. I do see why Nikki likes the novel, as it's written so well. But her liking it makes me worry now that Nikki really doesn't believe in silver linings, because she says The Great Gatsby is the greatest novel ever written by an American, and yet it ends so sadly. One thing's for sure, Nikki is going to be very proud of me when I tell her I finally read her favorite book. -Silver Linings Playbook, p. 9
The problem is, these days you have to listen to too many parts of your body. Sometimes I go with my gut feeling, some say go with what your heart says - it's only a matter of time before my appendix will have an opinion. This is probably why there are so many helplines these days. No one knows who to bloody listen to!
[With comedy and wanting to make people laugh,] when you're a child, all you want is ANY kind of laugh. You get them to laugh, and great! - you've succeeded. And then it's "How FAST can I get them to laugh?" "How LONG can I get them to laugh?", "How HARD can I get them to laugh?". And then it becomes: "Can I laugh at something that makes them uncomfortable?", "Can I get them to laugh at something that challenges their beliefs?
And suddenly, lying in bed, I became aware of every inch of my body and I apologised to it, quietly. I apologised for bring so ungrateful for so long. Then I thanked my arms, hands and fingers for always trying so hard. I thanked my legs and feet for holding me up all the time. I thanked my brain for working so amazingly well and conjuring up thoughts and dreams and sentences and images and crazy poems. And I thanked all my organs for working together and giving me life. It had taken four and a half billion years for me to be here. Right now. In this universe. And in that moment, I felt totally overwhelmed at being alive. There could be nothing but there was everything. I didn't want to waste a single second more worrying about trivialities. Worrying that I'd never match up to an ideal that didn't even exist. Nobody is normal. We are all different. I had to make sure that every moment I had left on this planet counted.
If God’s suggesting that I am expected to do good and also obligated to manufacture a genuine desire for it, this boat’s sunk, still sitting on the trailer in the driveway. A stack of things need to happen before I desire to be good…
When men were ready to marry, look out. Their evolution busted out all over. They nabbed the closest female hanging out near their caves, anyone who looked like she would clean his woolly mammoth tunics down by the creek, keep his fires burning, bear his children, and tote his brood around on a fur-clad hip.
When men were ready to marry, look out. Their evolution busted out all over. They nabbed the closest female hanging out near their caves, anyone who looked like she would clean his wooly mammoth tunics down by the creek, keep his fires burning, bear his children, and tote his brood around on a fur-clad hip.--Ellie Overton
I started to crawl off; then I remembered my leftover pizza, and I peeled off the salami, pepperoni, and anchovies and placed them on the CD tray (whicn no one used these days with flash drives around)on Boone's computer. I hit the close button and watched the smelly part of my delicious dinner slide away. Boone would have a great time wondering 'where's that smell coming from?
She had her own barometer for knowing when a man was getting too close: as soon as he felt comfortable enough to help himself to something in her refrigerator, he was history....Filching leftover was simply too domestic for her to stomach. A man might as well say, "I'm hungry and I'm taking your food, woman." First he'd be foraging for food in the fridge, next he'd be expecting her to cook for him, replace buttons on his shirt, and give up her job to have babies that looked like him.
Everything about the man spoke of virility--his quick reaction, his calm control now that danger had passed. And she'd never seen a man wield a gun in real life--it was kind of a turn-on to know that he'd protected her. Of course he had protected everyone, but he _had_ sort of singled her out by heaving her to the floor.
Calling a book "Young Adult" is just a fancy way of saying the book is censored. People used to say they like to read books about romance, true crime, comedy, horror or science fiction. But these days people simply say they like to read "Young Adult" books. As if that were a topic. But that's the thing: Young Adult is not a topic, it's a level of censorship. Saying "I like Young Adult books" is just another way of saying "I like books that have been dumbed down for children. I like books with no big words and no difficult abstract concepts. Nothing that will strain my brain." People like to brag that they used to start reading at an early age, as if that were a badge of honor, a sign of intelligence. Nobody brags about when they started to watch TV. But books are being dumbed down so much these days, it's really not a sign of great intelligence when you're a grown up and you struggle your way through Green Eggs and Ham.
Kato and the Fountain of Wrinkles – where wrinkles meet Tinseltown. For famous pug actor Kato Rhyan, acting isn't about fame, it's a part of him buried deep within his soul; and he's not about to let anything stand in his way of becoming the first animal to win an Oscar for Best Actor, even if it means taking on a role that requires a wrinkly dog's worst nightmare -- Botox injections. Dr. Carrington looked as though the wind had been knocked out of her. “Why would anyone ever want to go back to wrinkles?” she stammered.“Well, obviously, we only agreed to do this because of the role. His face needs to be smooth for the fur extensions. But come on, you didn’t really expect him to want to stay wrinkle-free. Honestly, he’s a pug. They’re supposed to be wrinkly.”“I mean, I know it can be done, but no one has ever asked me to do it before. Plus, I have a reputation to uphold. This is Beverly Hills. The last thing I need is the reputation that I can’t keep my wrinkles straight.” Rhys Ella, Kato and the Fountain of Wrinkles, 2014.
Since he didn’t seem to understand the situation, I felt it my duty to enlighten him. “Wrong. You started this stupid rumor and half the school probably believes it’s true. Now you have to stick around and pretend to be my boyfriend to convince everyone I don’t have sex with random guys. Not to mention the fact that if you’d kept your mouth shut about getting laid, you wouldn’t be in this situation.”He raised a brow. “So you’re my punishment?
So, how’d you get the tattoo?” she said.“Drunken frat boys don’t say no to things their drunken frat brothers are telling them to do.”“That almost sounds like an admission of weakness from the invulnerable Andrew Sheffield.”“Not weakness. Stupidity, maybe. That, I’ll cop to.”“I can’t believe the man behind such a successful business is stupid.”“You’d be surprised. Just as there are different kinds of intelligence, there are different kinds of stupid.
You barbarians!' he yelled. 'I'll sue the council for every penny it's got! I'll have you hung, drawn and quartered! And whipped! And boiled...until...until...until...until you've had enough.'Ford was running after him. Very very fast.'And then I will do it again!' yelled Arthur, 'And when I've finished I will take all the little bits, and I will jump on them!
It faintly irritated him that Zaphod had to impose some ludicrous fantasy on to the scene to make it work for him. All this Margrathea nonsense seemed juvenile. Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?
She points to where he went and looks to the neutral Baumen. “He—he did that to me on purpose! He’s insane. Literally, insane!”The munchkin just shrugs. “Welcome aboard!” and returns unconcerned to his work.
We’re so self-important. Everybody’s going to save something now. “Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails.” And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. Save the planet, we don’t even know how to take care of ourselves yet. I’m tired of this shit. I’m tired of f-ing Earth Day. I’m tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is that there aren’t enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world safe for Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don’t give a shit about the planet. Not in the abstract they don’t. You know what they’re interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They’re worried that some day in the future they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn’t impress me.The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles … hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages … And we think some plastic bags and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet isn’t going anywhere. WE are!We’re going away. Pack your shit, folks. We’re going away. And we won’t leave much of a trace, either. Maybe a little Styrofoam … The planet’ll be here and we’ll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet’ll shake us off like a bad case of fleas.The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, ’cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed. And if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn’t share our prejudice toward plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, “Why are we here?” Plastic… asshole.
I seek to sensitize and clarify the essential elements of my soul. I will leave striving for the flags of fame and fortune behind and go where the soul beckons without fearing the decisive outcome. I will travel in a world without boundaries and embrace danger and awe. I will stand as a witness to comedy, beauty, and tragedy and apply the principles of artistic and ascetic forms of awareness to overcome the inherent frustration of enduring a fundamentally painful human existence.
Where did the stereotypical image of the reclusive author in a bathrobe and slippers, indulging in vices and spending hours before a typewriter, even come from? I don't know about you, but most writers don't have the luxury of doing any of this. Otherwise we'd have no life experience and nothing to write about, anyway.
Oh, God," Lori said without looking at me, "what are they thinking, leaving the two of us alone out here on the dock together? We might TALK or something.""That would be awful," I said. "I might give you a hickey."She laughed, still watching for Cameron's start instead of looking at me. "Just by talking to me?""I can talk really dirty. You'd be surprised.
A smaller rocket cut across the sky, trailing smoke. It exploded in a red heart."Awwwww!" said the crowd."Upside down," said Sean.The heart was, indeed, upside down. It grew and grew, upside down, until it's lights trailed and faded.A bigger rocket exploded in bright golden sparks, and then came another red heart."Upside down," said all the boys.Three explosions layered on top of one another, gold, blue, pink. Then still another red heart exploded, growing and growing before it faded."Upside down," said everyone in the boat but me.My own heart expanded for Adam.I whispered, "I know what he meant.
Adam ” Lori called loudly enough for me to hear her but not so loud that her voice would carry up to my mom in the marina office- or to her dad who might be listening from their screened porch facing the water. “I came over to get some tips from the boys about teaching Tammy and Rachel to board. Of course I did not come over here to see you. How could you think such a thing That would be disobedient.” I held up the wax. “For my own disobedience I have to buff the boat. Then I’m going for a jog.” She tilted her head. Probably her eyes widened but I couldn’t see them behind her sunglasses. I hated not being able to see her eyes. She asked “In this heat?” I didn’t mind jogging in the heat. The heat was a big friendly animal that liked to wrestle and only occasionally sat on me until I lost my breath. Anyway she was missing the point. I repeated carefully ”I am GOING for a JOG.” “I HEARD you the FIRST time ” she said. “It’s late afternoon in the middle of June. It’s ninety-five degrees out here.” “He means he’s GOING for a JOG” Rachel and Tammy said at the same time. “He’s GOING for a JOG.”Lori still didn’t get it. Normally her blondeness was one of the things I loved about her. At the moment not so much. Exasperated Cameron told her “Adam wants you to go for a jog too.” She said “Oh ” “If you two airheads have to hook up secretly for very long ” Sean said “you’re not going to make it.
Think like a middle-aged man with OCD, a dead wife, and a teenage daughter.Think like a woman with three teenage sons who once ran a golf cart into the side of their granddad's house.""Cameron and Sean shouldn't have let me drive," Adam said in his own defense. "I was seven.""You shouldn't have ASKED to drive. You were seven.
I'm not stalking her," I insisted."I'm making sure she's safe. Besides, how could you stalk Lori McGillicuddy?She'd see you and come out to your truck and say, "Hi, I'm Lori. Are you my stalker? It's so neat to meet you! While you're stuck here watching my every move, can I bring you anything? Sweet tea?
He sighed, then said, "So basically, you're stalking her.""I am NOT stalking her." I insisted."That's where you come in. If I followed her by myself, someone who did not understand the situation and did not realize that I am so responsible-"McGillicuddy snorted."- might mistake what I am doing for stalking.However, her big brother is with me. Therefore we are protecting her.
Stubble or what?" Eyes still closed he chuckled. "I'm not shaving until our parents let us date again." He kissed my cheek. "What if it takes... a... while?" I asked struggling to talk. He'd made his way down to my neck. His tongue circled there slowly. "There are only six or seven weeks until August football practice starts right?" "Hm." His mouth moved up my neck toward my ear. Oh. "Will you be able to stuff your beard into your helmet?" I croaked. In answer he put his lips on my ear. I forgot the next joke I'd planned to make and lost myself in Adam.
You make terrible, terrible plans." "Hey, " I protested. "One of my plans caught you didn't it?" "Yeah, but you meant to catch Sean." He took his hand off my shoulder. I waved his concerns away, along with a cloud of gnats that had found us in the forest. "You're getting lost in the details. Keep the big picture in mind.
Adam thinks that you two are in an argument."My body zinged into alert mode. My mind didn't know what Mrs. Vader meant, but my body already did. Even Sean glanced over at her with a cautious look."He does?" I asked faintly."A bad one," she confirmed."How could we be in a bad argument without me even knowing about it?
Oof!" Adam caught me all right, with the side of his head. I could tell by the feel of his skull on my foot as I kicked him. He grabbed me the best he could anyway, and we half landed, half fell in the pine needles.He lay facedown on the ground. I flopped him over on his back to make sure he was alive. If he had a concussion, we'd have to call the ambulance, which meant we'd get caught and he'd get sent to military school.On the bright side, maybe the military school would not take him if he had brain damage."I'm so sorry.""Worth it," he grunted. He rolled onto his feet like a ninja and grabbed my hand. "Hurry, before they release the hounds.
Maybe a holiday miracle will change Mearth’s awful behavior,” Mandy suggested with optimism.“The only holiday miracle around here is that Mearth hasn’t murdered us both yet,” said Alecto, lighting another cigarette, his hands shaking erratically. He looked exhausted and terrified, his gray eyes soulless.“Do you know what Mearth likes, Alecto?” Mandy questioned.“Vegetables, she likes celery a lot, and lettuce,” Alecto responded in a quiet monotone. “I don’t know what else she likes. I’ve never asked her.”“Well, she has to like something… doesn’t everyone?”“Not her, Mandy Valems.
I don't like this.""I know you don't, my little spaetzel. But I am too worn out to run from both the police and your murderous twin, and Damian's looking peaky, plus Christian did apologize for trying to kill us earlier.""I wasn't talking about that. It's your lamentable habit of using completely unsuitable love names for me that gives me grief," Adrian groused. "I am not a lambypie, nor am I a spaetzel.
I ground my teeth. "Just when I thought I was getting a handle on this whole Dark One/demon lord/imp thing, you go and throw knockers into the mix. I'm going to have to request that you stop, Adrian. I'm about at my limit of how many impossible things I can believe before breakfast."He flashed a heart-stoppingly roguish grin at me, his dimples just about bringing me to my knees. "Your middle name wouldn't be Alice, would it?" he asked."No, it's Diane, and you're no White Rabbit, so let's just stop pretending we're in Wonderland, OK?"He laughed and pointed across the tiny square at our destination. I watched him for a moment, seeing a glimpse of the charming, charismatic man he must have been before the demon lord cursed him and leeched away all the softer emotions.
We have had this discussion before. You are my son. I love you. I will always love you. But I also love Nell, and if you give her the chance and stop rejecting her advances, she will take you into her heart as well.""Oh, yeah, like he's going to allow me to do that," I muttered
Aryans?" I asked, thinking I must have heard the word incorrectly.Christian and Allie nodded."Aryans as in white supremacist, those sorts of Aryans?""Yes," Christian said."Neo-Nazis?" My mind was having a hard time grasping the idea of a power-hungry vampire leading an army of Hitler's Youth. "Skinheads and their ilk?""Hasi, what is it you find so unbelievable?" Adrian asked, a smile in his voice."Oh, I don't know. I guess I just expected that any army Saer raised would be… you know… the evil undead." Everyone just looked at me. "Oh, yeah, I guess you're right. Neo-Nazis are more or less the evil undead. Right. So we have Saer about to attack at any moment with a bunch of goose-stepping Nazis. Great. Anyone here do a really good Winston Churchill impression?
In the center of the room Sarra the demon hung upside down by one leg, its arms bound behind its back, its suit scuffed-looking. Beneath it, crawling around an intricately scribed circle, a woman with short, curly red hair drew binding symbols with a gold stick.She looked up as I fanned away the smoke that was billowing up from the crack in the tile. "You're a Summoner. Hullo. I'm Noelle. Did you know that you have mismatched eyes?"I walked around the demon. It glared at me. "Yes, I know. Why do you have Sarra strung up by one leg?"She drew another symbol. It flared bright green as soon as the stick lifted from the circle. "It was getting a bit stroppy with me. The Hanged Man always teaches them a few manners. It's retaliating with the smoke. Are those spirits I saw yours, then?""Yes, they are. There are four others as well. I hate to be a bother, but I'm in a bit of a hurry, what with Christian being held by this one's master and all, so if you could possibly just give me the abbreviated version of what's going on here, I'll be on my way to rescue him."She leaned back on her heels and sucked the tip of her gold stick. "Asmodeus, eh?"The demon snarled. A chunk of ceiling fell behind me. We both ignored it. It just never does to give a demon the satisfaction of knowing it's startled you."It's a nasty bag of tricks, but I heard through the demonic grapevine that it was weakened and searching for a suitable sacrifice to regain its power," she added."Well, it can't have Christian; he's mine. Back to the demon, if you don't mind…"She looked up at Sarra, still sucking the stick. "It's a pretty specimen, isn't it? I like the hair gel. Nice touch. The mustache is a bit much, though, don't you think? Makes it look so smarmy.""Um…""I'm destroying it, so I suppose it really doesn't matter."I blinked and avoided two wine bottles as they flew out of a rack when the demon hissed at the Guardian.
What I find predictable is crazy people's ability to predict that unpredictable people can be predicted by their consistent unpredictable behavior, thus making all crazy people predictable when the world says they are unpredictable. Therefore, I must be “right” because I can predict crazy because I have been trained in the unpredictable nature of consistent craziness because I am crazy.
Maxwell D. Kalist is a receiving teller at a city bank, Orwell and Finch, where he runs an efficient department of twenty two clerks and twelve junior clerks. He carries a leather-bound vade mecum everywhere with him – a handbook of the most widely contravened banking rules. He works humourlessly (on the surface of it) in a private, perfectly square office on the third floor of a restored grain exchange midway along the Eastern flank of Květniv’s busy, modern central plaza. Behind his oblong slate desk and black leather swivel chair is an intimidating, three-storey wall made almost entirely of bevelled, glare-reducing grey glass in art-deco style; one hundred and thirty six rectangles of gleam stacked together in a dangerously heavy collage.
Each day of the week, Kalist indulges himself in a different, secret ritual. On Mondays, he wears cologne. On Tuesdays, he eats meat for lunch. On Wednesdays, he places a bet after work. On Thursdays, he smokes one cigarette (but claims he’s not a smoker). On Fridays, he treats himself to his favourite pastime: horse practice – he grew up with horses and likes to try and emulate their distinctive whinnies, snorts, neighs, snuffles, sighs, grunts, fluttering nostrils, the occasional aggressive outburst and the especially beautiful nicker of a mare to her foal. And, on Saturdays, lest we forget, Maxwell D. Kalist drinks wine from a chalice.
Olive was way beyond hearing anything, but her chin was set and she was determined to help the pilot so that he would not be too afraid before they hit the earth. She smiled and nodded again. At the end of each stunt he looked back, and each time she encouraged him. Afterward he said over and over, "She's the goddamest woman I ever saw. I tore up the rule book and she wanted more. Good Christ, what a pilot she would have made!
Ash nodded. “Look for Oberon or Mab,” he said grimly, scanning the battlefield. “They’ll likely be on opposite sides of the river. Try not to engage anything, Goodfellow. We don’t want a fight — we just want to get the scepter to the queen.”“Don’t kid yourself, Prince.” Puck grinned and drew his daggers, pointing to Ash with the tip. “You’re a traitor, Meghan’s the Summer princess, and I’m Robin Goodfellow. I’m sure the ranks of Unseelie will just let us waltz right through.
Not enough info makes for a lot of dead cats.""Dead cats?""You know, 'Curiosity killed the cat.' And I have enough curiosity to start a feline genocide.""Feline genocide?""Yeah. If you don't explain Apollo, the cat kingdom will crumble. Cats all over the world will suddenly plop down in unmoving masses of fur, their food will dry up in smelly chunks of fish, and when people call, 'Here, kitty kitty kitty,' no cats will come running; they'll just-" Walter suddenly stopped."What's wrong?" Ashley asked.Walter stared straight ahead. "I just realized . . . if all those things happened, no one would notice the difference." ~Walter~
Are you all right?” he asked Olivia. His heart was still racing with terror that she’d been hurt. “I heard a woman scream.”“Ah, that would have been me,” Sebastian said.Harry looked down on his cousin, face frozen in disbelief. “You made that noise?”“It hurt,” Sebastian bit off.Harry fought not to laugh. “You scream like a leettle girl.
He looked like every glossy frat boy in every nerd movie ever made, like every popular town boy who’d ever looked right through her in high school, like every rotten rich kid who’d ever belonged where she hadn’t.My mama warned me about guys like you.He turned to her as if he’d heard her and took off his sunglasses, and she went down the steps to meet him, wiping her sweaty palms on her dust-smeared khaki shorts. “Hi, I’m Sophie Dempsey,” she said, flashing the Dempsey gotta-love-me grin as she held out her hot, grimy hand, and after a moment he took it.His hand was clean and cool and dry, and her heart pounded harder as she looked into his remote, gray eyes.“Hello, Sophie Dempsey,” her worst nightmare said. “Welcome to Temptation.
I was just thinking... isn't it lucky that we decided to become co-editors? If one takes a blow to the head, the other can fill in. If the other's lung spontaneoulsy collapses, the one can fill in. It's a perfect system once you think about it."~Will Landsman
He stopped to rest at a cart selling nuts and candy, bought himself some Jelly Belly's, flirted just enought with the Mexican cutie working there to convince her pull out the banana-flavored one. Although he liked his Jelly Belly's mixed up, he didn't like banana, but, since it took too much effort to pull them out himself, he generally tried to talk someone else into doing it. If that didn't work, he just ate 'em.- Kenny Traveler
[Comedies], in the ancient world, were regarded as of a higher rank than tragedy, of a deeper truth, of a more difficult realization, of a sounder structure, and of a revelation more complete. The happy ending of the fairy tale, the myth, and the divine comedy of the soul, is to be read, not as a contradiction, but as a transcendence of the universal tragedy of man.... Tragedy is the shattering of the forms and of our attachments to the forms; comedy, the wild and careless, inexhaustible joy of life invincible.
He stares at me, and then leans back in his chair. "He's ill, Jacob."I say nothing. "He's a paragon schnitzophonic.""He's what?!""Paragon schnitzophonic," repeats Uncle Al. "You mean paranoid schizophrenic?""Sure. Whatever. But the bottom line is he's mad as a hatter...
Adieu, Lord Dain,” she answered without turning her head. “Have a pleasant evening with your cows.”Cows?She was merely trying to provoke him, Dain told himself. The remark was a pathetic attempt at a setdown. To take offense was to admit he’d felt the sting. He told himself to laugh and return to his… cows.
Because I'm on the phone, Mom!""Fooling around with your friends again! Who is that?""Ahmadinejad.""Oh, my goodness! What is he saying?""That he wants to see Jeezy at the Beacon tonight. Putin's going too. He scalped a ticket from Kim Jong Il. All tha gangstas are going.""Don't be so fresh, young man!""Gotta go," he says to me. "Enemy forces have dropped a Momshell.""Fall back, solider. Over and out.
I am going to kill you," he hissed.She gulped. "Don't you want to lecture me first?"He stared at her with a heavy dose of stupefaction."I take that back," he said with precisely clippedwords. "First I am going to strangle you, and then I am going to kill you.""Here?" she asked doubtfully, looking around. "Won't my dead body look suspicious in the morning?
My father hired you to protect me," Ahmed said, "not to go off chasing men." Grandma leaned forward, keeping her eye on the Taurus. "We think this guy killed Fred." "Who's Fred?" "My uncle," I told him. "He's married to Mabel." "Ah so you're avenging a murder in the family. This is a good thing.
Sir Eustace was with Royce and Stefan looking over some maps when he was informed by the guard that the ladies were asking for him. "Is there no end to her arrogance!" Royce bit out, referring to Jenny. "She even sends her guards on errands, and what's more, they run to do her bidding." Checking his tirade, he said shortly, "I assume it was the blue-eyed one with the dirty face who sent you?"Sir Lionel chuckled and shook his head. "I saw two clean faces, Royce, but the one who talked to me had greenish eyes, not blue.""Ah, I see," Royce said sarcastically, "it wasn't Arrogance that sent you trotting away from your post, it was Beauty. What does she want?
I don't advise a haircut, man. All hairdressers are in the employment of the government. Hairs are your aerials. They pick up signals from the cosmos, and transmit them directly into the brain. This is the reason bald-headed men are uptight.
Haley and I would talk for hours about which member of 'N Sync we'd want to marry. After long deliberation, the answer was always J. C. Chasez. JoeyFatone's last name was going to be “Fat One” no matter how great he was, and even though they didn't know at theirage that Lance Bass was gay outright, they sensed he'd make a better good friend and confidante. As for Justin Timberlake, well, JT was the coolest and hottest, but too flashy, so we couldn't trust him to be faithful. J. C. Chasez was the smart compromise.
Perriwickturned to Penelope as he set the tray down on a table. "If I might be so bold, my lady-""Perriwick!" Blake roared. "If I hear the phrase 'if I might be so bold' one more time, as God is mywitness, I'm going to toss you into the channel!""Oh dear," Penelope said. "Perhaps he does have the fever, after all.Perriwick , what do you think?"The butler reached for Blake's forehead, only to have his hand nearly bitten off. "Touch me and die,"Blake snarled.
Author's WarningIf you're buying this book as a gift for your grandma or a kid, you should be aware that it contains cusswords as well as tasteful depictions of cannibalism and people in their forties having sex. Don't blame me. I told you.
Well, possibly," I said, feeling my lips twitch again. "But maybe first you would tell us why you chose to manifest yourself in the form of Shirley Temple as last seen on the 'Good Ship Lollipop'?"The demon twirled around, its big pink sash fluttering as it smoothed down its dress and frilly little petticoat. "My grotesque form isn't making you sick with fright?"We both shook our heads, Noelle with a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. "Shirley Temple at her pinnacle was frightening," I finally told it, "but not in the sense I think you mean.
Sebastian,” Katarina said, turning to her nephew. “You’ve grown.” “It happens,” Sebastian quipped, flashing her his usual lopsided grin.“Goodness,” she said with smile, “you’ll be a danger to the ladies soon.”Harry very nearly rolled his eyes. Sebastian had already made conquests of nearly all the girls in the village near Hesslewhite. He must give off some sort of scent, because the females positively fell at his feet.It would have been appalling, except that the girls couldn’t all dance with Sebastian. And Harry was more than happy to be the nearest man standing when the smoke cleared.
Pamela, I’m in love with you. Yeah, it’s that bad. You’re so beautiful to me. Shut up! Lemme tell you. Let me. Every time I look at your face or even remember it, it wrecks me - and the way you are with me - and you’re just fun and you shit all over me and you make fun of me and you’re real. I don’t have enough time in any day to think about you enough. I feel like I’m going to live a thousand years cause that’s how long it’s gonna take me to have one thought about you which is that I’m crazy about you, Pamela. I don’t wanna be with anybody else. I don’t. I really don’t. I don’t think about women anymore. I think about you. I had a dream the other night that you and I were on a train. We were on this train and you were holding my hand. That’s the whole dream. You were holding my hand and I felt you holding my hand. I woke up and I couldn’t believe it wasn’t real. I’m sick in love with you, Pamela. It’s like a condition. It’s like polio. I feel like I’m gonna die if I can’t be with you. And I can’t be with you. So I’m gonna die - and I don’t care cause I was brought into existence to know you and that’s enough. The idea that you would want me back it’s like greedy.
DEATH. . .And now you are here to fight for this woman.You know her promise is given.She has to die or her husband won't go free.APOLLORelax, I'm not breaking any laws.DEATHWhy the bow, if you're breaking no laws?APOLLOI always carry a bow, it's my trademark.
It is the custom on the stage: in all good, murderous melodramas: to present the tragic and the comic scenes, in as regular alternation, as the layers of red and white in a side of streaky, well-cured bacon. The hero sinks upon his straw bed, weighed down by fetters and misfortunes; and, in the next scene, his faithful but unconscious squire regales the audience with a comic song. We behold, with throbbing bosoms, the heroine in the grasp of a proud and ruthless baron: her virtue and her life alike in danger; drawing forth a dagger to preserve the one at the cost of the other; and, just as our expectations are wrought up to the highest pitch, a whistle is heard: and we are straightway transported to the great hall of the castle: where a grey-headed seneschal sings a funny chorus with a funnier body of vassals, who are free of all sorts of places from church vaults to palaces, and roam about in company, carolling perpetually.Such changes appear absurd; but they are not so unnatural as they would seem at first sight. The transitions in real life from well-spread boards to death-beds, and from mourning weeds to holiday garments, are not a whit less startling; only, there, we are busy actors, instead of passive lookers-on; which makes a vast difference. The actors in the mimic life of the theatre, are blind to violent transitions and abrupt impulses of passion or feeling, which, presented before the eyes of mere spectators, are at once condemned as outrageous and preposterous.
is there any I could get a glass of water?"[waiter]There is no way... I toss and turn many a night trying to think up some way some how I could get glasses of water to costomers but I keep coming up empty..... Legend has it there was a waiter here many years ago... who had figured out a way to do just that but he is long gone and with him the secret. It had something to do with a glass rack and a faucet but no one has been able to put the pieces together so I must say no there is no way. HOW I WISH THERE WAS A WAY!!!
Quiet, everybody! Quiet! Well, Sir, we've been getting along pretty good for quite a while now, and we're certainly much obliged. Remember, all we ask is to just go along and be happy in our own sort of way. Of course we want to keep our health but as far as anything else is concerned, we'll leave it to You. Thank You.
Take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. and yet... and yet you act as if there is some ideal order in the world, as if there is some... some rightness in the universe by which it may be judged.
Here comes Mamma Vauquerr, fair as a starrr; and strung up like a bunch of carrots. Aren't we suffocating ourselves a wee bit?' he asked, placing a hand on the top of her corset. 'A bit of a crush in the vestibule, here, Mamma! If we start crying, there'll be an explosion. Never mind, I'll be there to collect the bits--just like an antiquary.''Now, there's the language of true French gallantry,' murmured Madame Vauquer in an aside to Madame Couture.
I understand the, um, difficulty the French expatriates might have, especially after projects in Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. My heart goes out to you all.’ Katrina wished she could control that stupid smile that was aching to spread on her face as Luc Gautier became bright red. ‘But this is Chennai . . . South India. Not even your largest glass manufacturing facility with 1,000-tonne capacity per day will save you from being slapped.
I know for a fact that I would be awful if I was built like Serena Williams or Jennifer Lopez... If I had a body remotely close to what they have, I would be a terror. My ass would cause me to do really inappropriate and rude things. I'd be so ridiculous that people would be able to pick my labia out of a lineup. I'd wear zero clothes any- and everywhere, every day. I'd show up at church rocking a denim thong and a cropped T-shirt and have the nerve to sit right next to the head usher and dare her to say anything to me. And if anyone did say something to me, I'd tell them, "Jesus blessed me in many ways, and I am just showing off His works. HALLELUJAH." People would be disgusted and appalled by me and I wouldn't care. All insults would bounce off my ample backside. To whom much is given, much is required, and I'd require that my much would be given nary an inch of fabric. I'd hire a band whose sole job would be to follow me around and play theme music for my yansh, based on the mood I was in... I might opt to walk backwards into any room I entered, because why not?... I might also declare my booty its own limited liability corporation, assigning myself as CEO and chairman of the Donk. My jeans would be tax-deductible business expenses, and I would add my ass to my LinkedIn profile's Skills section. Everyone would throw hate ration in my dancery, and I wouldn't even see it, protected as I would be by the throne I sat atop.
The body consists of three parts: the brainium, the borax and the abominable cavity. The brainium contains the brain. The borax contains the heart and lungs and the abominable cavity contains the bowels of which there are five: a, e, i, o, u.
Hello and welcome to this collection of calls put together specifically to embarrass the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Now you’ll hear us tackle the very pillars of science: physics, chemistry, fluid dynamics and, of course, cream rinse.
One of the comics said he thought I was talented but wouldn't ever make it as a stand-up. It hurt. Looking back now, I can see clearly how experienced comics get bitter. It's a tough business, and often things don't work out the way you think they will. But rage and jealousy comics can feel for others' success is a highly toxic waste of time.
It’s traumatizing to think that a best friend could become just a friend. That’s because there is virtually no difference between an acquaintance and a friend. But the gulf between a friend and a best friend is enormous and profound. And if I look at it that way, I think I can see the value of a wedding. If you’re my best friend and the only way I get to have dinner with you is by traveling thousands of miles, selecting a chicken or fish option, and wearing a dress in the same shade of lavender as six other girls, I will do that. I won't love it. But I love you.
Well, I’m heading home,” Ibaraki announced as they were leaving the restaurant.“Oh, yeah? About time,” Yuichi commented.Ibaraki: “Man, you’re so cold. Aren’t you picking up my love beams?”“Sorry, Yu, but I’m not into BL! I hope you’ll consider a pure and true hetero relationship!” Mutsuko said cheerfully.Yuichi took a conspicuous step back.Ibaraki: "Huh? Hey, don’t take that seriously!
How is it you can talk so nicely?' Alice said, hoping to get it into a better temper by a compliment. 'I've been in many gardens before, but none of the flowers could talk.''Put your hand down, and feel the ground,' said the Tiger-lily. 'Then you'll know why.'Alice did so. 'It's very hard,' she said, 'but I don't see what that has to do with it.''In most gardens,' the Tiger-lily said, 'they make the beds too soft - so that the flowers are always asleep.
Aren't you sometimes frightened at being planted out here, with nobody to take care of you?''There's the tree in the middle,' said the Rose:'what else is it good for?''But what could it do, if any danger came?' Alice asked.'It could bark,' said the Rose.
At any rate I'd better be getting out of the wood, for really its coming on very dark. Do you think it's going to rain?'Tweedledum spread a large umbrella over himself and his brother, and looked up into it.'No, I don't think it is,' he said: 'at least - not under here. Nohow.''But it may rain outside?''It may - if it chooses,' said Tweedledee: 'we've got no objection. Contrariwise.
And Tria this is Vilenthe.” Tria just stares before collapsing onto the floor Ingra looks down “She'll be fine.” Vilenthe scowls “She has seen me before. Many years ago before I was selected for the 11th Tournament, she must've forgotten about that but we have met before.
Theater owners dodged construction costs, cutting corners and employing nonunion labor. Shoddy methods caused the death of vaudeville comedian Rube Dickinson in Kansas City. Booked at a brand-new venue, Dickinson stepped outside to have a smoke and was standing underneath the large wooden marquee advertising him when it collapsed. As the marquee caved, so too did his head—killed under the weight of his own name.
The Mob essentially created the term 'stand-up comic'—according to eighty-six-year-old comedian Dick Curtis: 'The Outfit used to manage fighters. A stand-up fighter is a guy that is a puncher. A stand-up guy was a guy who was tough and you could depend on. The Outfit managed fighters and they managed clubs that booked comics, so the term found its way into the lexicon of nightclubs. A guy who just stood there and punched jokes—joke, joke, joke—he was a stand-up comic.
So nice to be stuck up here again, wouldn't you agree Agres.” “Not really no.” Agres replied “Day three is it” Agres nodded they where huddled up behind a rock as the cold wind blew around their small fire “I didn't really miss being stuck up here did you?” “I bet Tria, you'd rather be stuck in a swamp again wouldn't you?”“Actually I'd gladly take being stuck in a swamp over being stranded on a cold mountain any day. You hear that Dilmore!
Seventy-five percent of the time when I'm ordering my "almond milk matcha latte with no sugar added, lukewarm, please," I'll be recognized by an employee. And yes, my order is a pin in the ass, but I'm determined to enjoy the liquid indulgences of modern life. Might as well take advantage of it all before the zombie apocalypse. I have no practical skills; I'm fully aware that I'll be one of the first ones "turned." Instead of learning motorcycle repair or something else disaster-scenario useful, I'll order the drink I want until I become a shambling corpse.AND I WON'T BE DEFENSIVE ABOUT IT, OKAY?
When the occasional stranger approaches me at a party to say, "Hey, you're Felicia Day. Let's talk about that comic book you were tweeting about last week!" it's the greatest thing in the world. Because it saves me from having to stand in the corner awkwardly, drinking all the Sprite, and then leaving after ten minutes without saying good-bye to my host.
No small part of the club's audience consisted of would-be comics, as well as the leading comics of the day. In fact, there were so many gagsters around that it was difficult to know who was part of the act and who was just sitting in.
I still ask myself why did you watched the film Paranormal Activity the all parts or the film "The VIsit" 2015. Both were home made and not big deal even stupid, you even watch football + you play one game over and over and over, you play stupid games + you watch stupid stuff and after all you still ask yourself why you are stupid. The answer is somewhere here, search it!
Tiberius sparred, “Mr. Monogamy doesn’t find my shenanigans funny? Oh thank god, if you did I’d have to chuck it all and join a monastery.” Thorne sparred, “You’d never be able to stop talking long enough.” Frost laughed, “He’d light on fire as soon as he stepped through the gate.” “Right alongside of you,” Tiberius said, patting Frost’s shoulder. “Touché,” Frost chuckled. “You do have me there.
Laughter is the only free emotion - the only one that can't be compelled. We can be made to fear. We can even be made to believe we're in love because, if we're kept dependent and isolated for long enough, we bond in order to survive. But laughter explodes like an aha! It comes when the punch line changes everything that has gone before, when two opposites collide and make a third and when we suddenly see a new reality...laughter is an orgasm of the mind.
You know... the word "homeless", gives you this very negative image. A filthy raggedy hobo... it's no good. It's too demeaning of a word if you ask me. It's just not politically correct enough... If it were up to me, I'd rather we be called "residentially challenged
Invalidating a woman’s life choices by saying things like, “Oh, but you’ll regret it if you don’t have kids,” or, “I didn’t think I wanted kids either until I had one,” is like me going to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and telling the newly sober that eventually when they grow old, they’ll want to take the edge off with a little gin and tonic and that if they could only just be mature enough to control themselves, they could go on a fun wine-tasting tour in the Napa Valley.
I had no idea that marriage was only supposed to be between two people who wanted to get between the sheets and make more people. What ever happened to marrying for love— or to get on your partner’s health insurance policy, or for presents? No one was going to buy two people in their thirties a four-slice toaster if we just continued to live in sin.
DESDEMONA: I hope my noble lord esteems me honest.OTHELLO: Oh, ay, as summer flies are in the shambles,That quicken even with blowing. O thou weed,Who art so lovely fair and smell’st so sweetThat the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst ne'er been born!DESDEMONA: Alas, what ignorant sin have I committed?OTHELLO: Was this fair paper, this most goodly book,Made to write “whore” upon?
If you knew how many hidden depths I had your pretty eyes would pop right out of your winsome face. Not literally of course - that would be disgusting. I wouldn’t envy the man who had to clean up a pair of popped eyes, especially given the state of this deck. I’m not sure we even have any cleaning products that work for popped eyes, although I suppose a general viscera cleaner would do the trick.
I watched 60 Minutes...and they showed this woman, she's in every kind of..thing like that. 'This woman', they say, 'she lost her first four children--died from malnutrition--and, now, she's afraid that her new six-month-old newborn twins will suffer the same fate'. ... Who's going to step in and say...'kick her in the cunt 'til it doesn't work', 'that woman is a sociopath! that is a sick human being!'. ... How much of a sociopath do you need to be? That is the slow ritual torture-murder of children, one after another! At what point does cause-and-effect not kick in? How many bulb-headed skeletons have to go stiff in your arms?! ... 'what? this one's not working... oh, well let's try again', one after another. At what point do you not go 'I think this is bad'? ... How many kids are you going to fuckin' kill, lady? ... If you impregnate someone under those conditions, they should abort the parents! that's sick!
Tears streamed down my face. I was so happy I wanted to shout it from the rooftop. But at the same time I knew that that afternoon's downpour would have made the slate tiles so slippery that achieving any kind of purchase would have been impossible.
I try to never miss the Zumba class since I believe comedy is a great way to start your week....It was great fun, although I had to hold myself back from turning it into a giant mosh pit slam dance. Last time I did that they kicked me out for a month. Today I enjoyed watching an 80 year old lady - with a cane no less - shimmy, her boobs flying like weapons around her waist.
There's something about courting the darkness that makes some people see the truth in raw, twisted ways, as though they were shining a black light on life to illuminate the absurdity of it all. Comics tell you a truth you can only see from the underside of the psyche. At its best, comedy is prophesy and societal dream interpretation. At its worst it's just dick jokes.
The Prince stood beside the timpanist to count his rests for him and see that he came in in the right place. I suppressed all the trumpet passages which were clearly beyond the players' grasp. The solitary trombone was left to his own devices; but as he wisely confined himself to the notes with which he was thoroughly familiar, such as A flat, D and F, and was careful to avoid all others, his success in the role was almost entirely a silent one.
Adams dealt him so sound a Compliment over his Face with his Fist, that the Blood immediately gushed out of his Nose in a Stream. The Host being unwilling to be outdone in Courtesy, especially by a Person of Adams's Figure, returned the Favour with so much Gratitude, that the Parson's Nostrils likewise began to look a little redder than usual.
The first rule of improvisation is AGREE. Always agree and SAY YES. When you're improvising, this means you are required to agree with whatever your partner has created. So if we're improvising and I say, 'Freeze, I have a gun,' and you say, 'That's not a gun. It's your finger. You're pointing your finger at me,' our improvised scene has ground to a halt. But if I say, 'Freeze, I have a gun!' and you say, 'The gun I gave you for Christmas! You bastard!' then we have started a scene because we have AGREED that my finger is in fact a Christmas gun.
The second rule of improvisation is not only to say yes, but YES, AND. You are supposed to agree and then _add something of your own._ If I start a scene with 'I can't believe it's so hot in here,' and you just say, 'Yeah...' we're kind of at a stand-still. But if I say, 'I can't believe it's so hot in here,' and you say, 'What did you expect? We're in hell.' Or if I say, 'I can't believe it's so hot in here,' and you say, 'Yes, this can't be good for the wax figures.' Or if I say, 'I can't believe it's so hot in here,' and you say, 'I told you we shouldn't have crawled into this dog's mouth,' now we're getting somewhere.
Hey Circe, how come your horoscope predictions are never that a hot girl is gonna fall madly in love with me forever and ever?”“Uh, cause you're a dork Seth!” She taunted.“Oh yeah,” Seth said happily smiling at her. “That explains the devastating loneliness and constant abuse by alpha males…
My dad used to tell me that laughter was like a cough or a sneeze - the body's way of trying to expel something. But instead of some phlegm in your throat, or some dust up your nose, a laugh happened when something really true got into your brain. Something so true that your system just couldn't stand it.
When I was in eighth grade, I used a self-timing camera to take nude pictures of myself in various stages of erection. I then exchanged my biology teacher’s slides with the images. The teacher, in a state of panic, kept rapidly pressing the ‘next’ button. It was like a pornographic flip-book. That was the last straw in a very heavy pile of straws. I was expelled, and I ended up transferring mid-year from boarding school to a public school near home.
Ain't nothing going to eat you while Bubba's around." Caleb laughed. "They might toy with him for a bit but he won't let any past." Caleb to Nick."Is something wrong?" Nick to Bubba"Nah... I just..." Bubba nervous."Please, God, Bubba, tell me you're not about to ask me out, are you?" Nick to Bubba.Bubba made a rude sound at him. "Hell, nah. I'd date Mark first, provided he took a bath so I wouldn't have to fumigate my truck or store.""But," Bubba continued, "now that you mention it... that is what I wanted to ask you about.""Dating Mark? Really?" Nick to Bubba.'Cause the kid with a brand-new license was such an expert on going out with others.
The effort really to see and really to represent is no idle business in face of the constant force that makes for muddlement. The great thing is indeed that the muddled state too is one of the very sharpest of the realities, that it also has color and form and character, has often in fact a broad and rich comicality.
Now Vegas, while you were asleep your classmates and I were discussing time manipulation. What are your thoughts on the subject?”“Well,” Vegas turned to the class, his captive audience and smiled, “if you can manipulate time so this bell would hurry up and ring, I'd think it’s fabuloso.” The class snickered again, but not everyone since someone else had made a similar joke just several minutes prior. Naturally, Vegas hadn't been able to hear it over the sound of his own snoring.
What are you doing?” Nine Eleven asked, noticing Seth trying to look around him. He followed Seth's gaze. “Oh.”He turned back around and handed Seth a wry smile. “So what are you going to do about her, Seth? Create a love spell that will bend her to your will and make her your sex slave?”“Is that how you get dates?” Seth asked.
I'm not into those kind of rivalries. I remember standing out in front of Stratford, minding my own business. Carload of about eighty kids would pull up: 'STRATFORD SUCKS!' Am I supposed to run after these guys? I'd just stand there, you know. They'd back up. 'STRATFORD SUCKS! ...STRATFORD SUCKS!' I'd say, 'I know. I go there. You're wasting gas, man.
CREONTA: Rope! My rope! Hang those two thieves by the neck until they are dead.THE ROPE: Alack, but vile and ill-natured female! Upon wherein did thine affections tarry when I didst but lie here and rot for many a year? Nay, but those fellows tooketh care to remove the wetness that didst plagueth me of late and hath laid me upon the cool ground to revel in a state of dryness. Nay, I wouldst not delay them in their noble course for all thine base and bestial howling.CREONTA: Then, you, dearest donkey, precious beast of burden, tear those two apart and eat their flesh!DONKEY: Nay, but alas for many a season didst you but keep the food of the tummy from me and my mouth when it was that I required it of you. These fine gentlemen of fortune didst but give me carrots of which to partake which I did most verily and forthsoothe with merriment. I havest decided that thou dost suck most verily and no longer will I layth the smackth down in thine name but will rather let such gentlemen as these go free of themselves. TRUFFALDINO: [To the audience.] Well, what do you know? Fakespeare!
She forks up a little nibble and wedges it in her mouth. "Yum," she croaks.Mrs. Wong looks pleased. "It's made with tofu."I can't resist. "Free-range tofu?"My mother looks over at me sharply. Mrs. Wong takes the bait. "Now, Cassidy, tofu isn't an animal," she chides. "It's soy bean curd. Soy bean curd doesn't need to roam free."On the floor below me, Emma lets out a little snort. I nudge her again with my foot. We're both grinning at the thought of a corral somewhere with little cubes of tofu wandering around. "Home, home on the range," I sing to her under my breath. "Where the deer and the tofu roam free...
A few people have ventured to imitate Shakespeare's tragedy. But no audacious spirit has dreamed or dared to imitate Shakespeare's comedy. No one has made any real attempt to recover the loves and the laughter of Elizabethan England. The low dark arches, the low strong pillars upon which Shakespeare's temple rests we can all explore and handle. We can all get into his mere tragedy; we can all explore his dungeon and penetrate into his coal-cellar, but we stretch our hands and crane our necks in vain towards that height where the tall turrets of his levity are tossed towards the sky. Perhaps it is right that this should be so; properly understood, comedy is an even grander thing than tragedy.
Says here there's a reward," Mr. Hooks said.Tallie blinked, then remembered Keith had added that tidbit for incentive. She opened her purse and scrutinized the contents of her slim wallet--twelve dollars and a book of stamps. She handed over the ten and the stamps, then tossed in a free drink coupon from Starbucks. "Thanks." Then she turned and fled.
QUINCEFrancis Flute, the bellows-mender.FLUTEHere, Peter Quince.QUINCEFlute, you must take Thisby on you.FLUTEWhat is Thisby? a wandering knight?QUINCEIt is the lady that Pyramus must love.FLUTENay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming.
Either to die the death or to abjureFor ever the society of men.Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires;Know of your youth, examine well your blood,Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,You can endure the livery of a nun,For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd,To live a barren sister all your life,Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood,To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd,Than that which withering on the virgin thornGrows, lives and dies in single blessedness.
You know, you can always do a three some.”“A three some?” I frowned. “No.”He shrugged. “Just a thought.”“Yeah, a dumb one,” I spat.“Hey! I didn’t call your idea to re-wallpaper the kitchen a dumb idea!”“You have a problem with the new paper?” I demanded.“Pop, please, it’s hideous,” Trick said.
Before we left home, my hair had already started to fall apart. I decided to pull it into a bun high on my head and attach one of those fake hair things that look like a nest of cute curls. I slapped a tiara on my head and was good to go. I had my weave, my girdle, and my tiara. I was ready to party!
under the gold standard, a free banking system stands as the protector of an economy's stability and balanced growth... The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit... In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation
I found myself surrounded by really old veterans wearing hats that said, "Retired Marine - SEMPER FI." These hats didn't appear to fit on their heads, but instead seemed to hover over them.At one point, I mistakenly tried to take the last box of crackers that a veteran also wanted. He started yelling, "I ran away from home at seventeen, lied about my age, and joined the Corps! I fought in World War II, Korea, and NAM! I have no cartilage in my right knee! It's bone-on-bone, but every morning I run six miles! I did not sacrifice my knee for this country to come here today and have you disrespect me at the commissary. Oooh-RAH!"I dropped the crackers and walked away.
During our visit, we noticed she was mixing up words. She started referring to Muslims as Mormons. After 9/11, she told Jon and me how it was important for America to stop the radical Mormons because they had perpetrated the attacks on the Twin Towers.There was no way we could convince her of the difference. We'd just smile and not. "That's right, Grandma, all the Mormons got together on September 11th and ran their bicycles into the Twin Towers!
The girdle went from just under my breasts to the top of my knees. It cinched me in pretty tight. In fact, it was so tight that when I sat in it and farted, the farts would slide up my back, shoot out the top of the girdle, and make my hair fly off the back of my beck.
No,” he said after a pause, “the true art of the gods is the comic. The comic is a condescension of the divine to the world of man; it is the sublime vision, which cannot be studied, but must ever be celestially granted. In the comic the gods see their own being reflected as in a mirror, and while the tragic poet is bound by strict laws, they will allow the comic artist a freedom as unlimited as their own. They do not even withhold their own existence from his sports. Jove may favor Lucianos of Samosata. As long as your mockery is in true godly taste you may mock at the gods and still remain a sound devotee. But in pitying, or condoling with your god, you deny and annihilate him, and such is the most horrible of atheisms.
SIMPSONS BLUFFER'S RULE #2The competent bluffer should always refer to the performers who play The Simpsons as 'the voice talent' never 'actors'.For extra effect, drop their first names... This implies some tacit familiarity and your bluffee will simply melt before your eyes like the witch in The Wizard of Oz
I notice being noticed immediately – I’m a freeway goddess! In the past five minutes of gridlock, I have been checked out by a bald man in convertible Mustang, a cowboy in an F-150, and a body-builder in a Lincoln Navigator. Watch out road warriors! I don’t want to be responsible for any accidents. If only I had a car decal that advertised: Available – if you meet my eligibility criteria!
I sneak quietly up the stairs and toward my door. It’s not very late, but I don’t want to arouse Cyclops Eye next door. I’ve stopped looking as I walk past, but it’s difficult not to notice her window open just a few inches and her sitting right next to it, ready at a moment’s notice to give me her big one-eyed look. Maybe I should get her a monocle for Christmas, so she can make more of a statement.
I took a couple steps away from him and stopped in front of a framed colored poster of Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable from the movie Gone with the Wind. I studied the pair, Gable with his mysterious mustache and Leigh in her red ball gown. I’d become a fan of the classic, partially because of my mother’s suggestion that I looked a lot like a younger Vivien Leigh, with my dark wavy hair and sea green eyes. And as usual, I’d believed her for a little while.
I got home a little after seven, but didn’t feel hungry. Instead, I crawled into my pajamas and pulled out my Jimmy Stewart movie It’s a Wonderful Life. I fixed myself a cup of herbal tea and settled in for the night. Normally, I’d save such a classic movie for the holidays, when I tended to feel sorry for myself, but today’s need felt urgent. If Jimmy was able to accept that he had a wonderful life, maybe I could, too.
I could feel the spring in my step as I walked up one flight of stairs from the parking garage into the company’s lobby. Although I wore my old blue suit, a remnant of all my previous job interviews, I felt the day had new possibilities. After all, I was interviewing at a company that made something I loved – movies!
OTHER lives may find their happiest moments infiltrated with tragedy, and their proudest touched with comedy. This had almost invariably been true of mine. My proudest hour found me, the newly elected president of the United Nations, perched atop three thick New York City telephone books given me in lieu of a cushion that I might see and be seen by the delegates below the podium.
I know exactly what Clarissa is talking about. We have all been concerned about Brenda for a few weeks now. Most days she’s fine, but on the odd occasion, she’s behaving totally out of character. “I’m going to go now, I will leave you in peace,” she says about to hang up.“Clarissa?” I ask, making sure she’s still on the line.“I’m still here,” she says confirming.“It’s best to be honest with people, right?” I know that if my dear friend, one of my oldest friends is to offer me advice when I need it, then I should listen to what she has to say. I know that by asking her opinion, she will always tell me the truth. She will always steer me in the right direction and she would never lie to me.“Always,” she simply replies. “Goodnight sweetheart, see you in the morning.
Being an authorized user generates more of a risk than a reward. You are putting your credit in the hands of others. The previous statement implies their mistakes, now becomes yours! - The Credit Repair Book: The Credit Repair Company's Secret Weapon.
The people who establish the laws, acts, and regulations already did the tedious work; the rest of the process is just putting the “Credit Acts into Action.” - The Credit Repair Book: The Credit Repair Company's Secret Weapon.
The human race has the capacity to render itself extinct unless alternatives are found to the patterns of intraspecific warfare that have dominated civilized history. Ours has long been a predatory species. Living, for humans, depends upon the ability to kill as clearly as it does for lions or wolves. But lions and wolves, like almost all predatory species, normally limit their killing to prey animals, and they are equipped with elaborate ritual precautions to prevent the destruction of their own kind. Humans appear to be unique among predators in their enthusiasm to destroy members of their own species. Perhaps this unusual behavior can be attributed to some genetic deficiency which may lead humans ultimately to join the rest of nature's failures in the biological graveyard of extinction. Or perhaps our willingness to kill ourselves, like so many of our other problems, is something we have devised by misusing our enlarged brains.
Mr. Acme comments that the new foodservice professionals in the cafeteria are two-headed carnival escapees and probably also wanted convicts. He expresses his deep conviction that the names they gave him are aliases and promises that if he finds one more cat whisker in his chicken almandine, he will hand them over to the police, whom, he is sure, will be glad to have them back.
The next afternoon I left work to find that my car had been broken into and ransacked — but that not one thing had been stolen. I was so insulted that I left a note on the window that read:Dear Scumbag Thieves,If you go to the trouble of tossing my car, you could at least steal a lousy pair of sunglasses.The next day I discovered a gift card lying on the driver’s seat with this message:Here’s $500. It’s the best we can do until the holidays.P.S. Get some decent tires, why don’t you. We couldn’t sell these desperate maypops if we did steal them.
Everyone says it's wrong, 'drinking and driving', don't they. I can tell you two things that are far more dangerous than 'drinking and driving': 1. 'drinking'; 2. 'driving'.Do you know how many people were killed last year in Britain as a direct result of alcohol abuse?--thirty-five-thousand!Do you know how many people were killed as a direct result of driving a car?--twenty-two-thousand!Do you know how many people were killed as a direct result of drinking _and_ driving?--five-hundred! ::pauses::I'm not taking any fuckin' chances!::swigs his beer::
I’m making a list of when it’s acceptable for a pirate to cry. […] So far I’ve got: one - when holding a seagull covered in oil. Two - when singing a shanty that reminds him of orphans. Three - when confronted with the unremitting loneliness of the human condition. Four - chops. I’ve just written the word ‘chops’. Not really sure where I was going with that one. Any ideas?
Comedy is hard work. People expect you to be funny 24/7. So if you're not constantly cracking up your friends, it can hurt you professionally. They may not read your book or come to your show. 'She's a comedian? She's not that funny!' It's unfair 'cause when cardio surgeon friends say they cut chests open and hold hearts in their hands, everyone just takes their word for it.
Modern-Day Parenting is no joke. For starters, no one takes you seriously unless you have a fancy parenting style. Tiger Mom, Helicopter Mom, Organic Mom and on and on. I've decided to go with L-Board Mom. I may look like I don't know what I'm doing but you want to keep safe distance 'cause you know I can hurt you and get away with it.
I have a phonetic fetish. All I want is to find a man whose last name ends in 'Vrski' and marry him. Try saying VRSKI. Oh, don't be a tight-ass. SAY IT. Don't you love the purring sound it makes in your mouth? It's the kind of name I love waking up to every morning - 'Good morning, BlahBlahVrski', the kind I can brag about on Facebook - 'Judy Balan has now changed her name to Judy SomethingVrski' and the kind I can scream in a fit of passion - 'Ohhhhh Vrrrrssskkkkiiiii!
Who decided it's a phobia in the first place? What if I just don't want to get married ever. Just like I don't want to live in Jharkhand ever. Somehow I can say that as loud as I want and as many times as I want, yet nobody will ask me to see the shrink about my Jharkhand phobia. Why?
And finally, I get to meet the Breakup Coach" Ryan says before we can be introduced. "I'm a big fan of your work" he says with mock admiration as I turn around. I decide I like his voice. It's not a deep Charlton Heston-like voice, but it has just the right amount of husky in it.
I blame Chennai. Pointless neighbourhood gossip travels faster than tsunami alerts around here. I know that aunties are a universal problem but this city is particularly aunty dominated. And by that, I mean, even many of our twenty-somethings act like aunties. Forgive the rant. Maybe I've lived here too long (and have therefore outgrown it) but I sincerely believe that Chennai has no business being called a metro. I mean, if a thirty-year-old single woman living alone while her parents are in the same city, is still such hot news, then maybe we need to graciously give up our metro status to someone more deserving. And since we have no qualms about lagging so far behind the times, maybe we should call ourselves retro.
here’s why I take comedies seriously: they present and celebrate the world in which we survive our own and others’ mistakes, follies, transgressions, and deep sins. However lightly, dimly, or bleakly, comedies revel in our survival—in the delaying of death and the staying of the curse. Comedies tell the story of ruined folk somehow avoiding ruin.
If I had been born in the 1700′s, presumably children had a bigger vocabulary than I had which means I wouldn’t have been able to recite fairy tales to kids because I’m not smart enough.You know…?I’d have to be like…..uh:In time passed, though not long ago, there lived three pigs in stature, little in number, three, who being of an age both entitled and inspired to seek their fortune did set about to do thusly.When they had traveled a distance, pig numbered first spake saying, “Harken Brethren, head this impetuous realm! Tarry me far from hearth and home I fear we shall fair *snort* not well!” And so being collectively agreed, but individually impaled, the diminutive swine sought each to erect himself an abode.....
Aye lass,” nodded Gizurr, “you are quite the beauty for sure. I’d certainly offer to buy you a beer or two if I ever met you in a pub and that’s a fact.”Ragni tutted and elbowed Gizurr in the ribs, “Have some respect, she looks young enough to be your daughter.”“Well she isn’t is she?” snorted Gizurr, “She’s been trapped here for over two thousand years, made to think that she’s an ugly old bird and fooled by some arse wipe into protecting a lump of rock that is perfectly capable of looking after itself.”Ragni pursed his lips and nodded slowly in agreement.
Percy, you are dismissed from my service.""Me? Why, my lord?""Why? Because, Percy, far from being a fit consort for a prince of the realm, you would bore the leggings off a village idiot. You ride a horse rather less well than another horse would. Your brain would make a grain of sand look large and ungainly, and the part of you that can't be mentioned, I am reliably informed by women around the court, wouldn't be worth mentioning even if it could be. If you put on a floppy hat and a funny codpiece, you might just get by as a fool, but since you wouldn't know a joke if it got up and gave you a haircut, I doubt it. That's why you're dismissed." "Oh, I see." "And as for you, Baldrick..." "Yes." "You're out, too.
The verdict of this court is that the accused are guilty of witchcraft. The maximum penalty the law allows is to be burned to death.However, in view of your previous good background I am disposed to be lenient. I therefore sentence you to be burned alive.
Next door to the Bensons is Emmet Frag, a retired pacemaker who is credited with inventing the notion of happiness. He’s currently working on a method for categorising ducks based on their singing voice. He’s also the owner of the world’s largest collection of tenor geese.
He had also spent a day and a half without sleep trying to start an online petition to bring back the advert for Nationwide Building Society which said Dunroamin, twice, but half the through the second day of the campaign he had realised that it was an anachronism and the internet was about fourteen years away from mass consumption, so he stopped and went to sleep.
Oh yeah, well I suddenly realises that she’d only been with my boyfriend at the Co-op Christmas do when I were eighteen. So I grabs her head and I stuck it through a display of them Muller’s rices and I told her. That’s for shagging Kevin Cooper you stupid fucking cunt.
This particular event had been somewhat more raucous than usual as Derek Jameson had just lost an arm wrestle with Ann Diamond. The match was the second semi-final of the morning after Belinda Carlisle had been pipped at the post by Rusty Lee. Carlisle had caused some consternation after, upset at losing and forfeiting the chance to compete for the first prize of a quarter of midget gems, she had spat port in Lee’s handbag. Carlisle had been asked to leave and, after a brief tussle, had been ejected from the building whilst screaming and spitting in Simon Parkin’s face.
Eunice had deposited St John upon the balcony of the first-floor apartment of former Liberal MP, The Rt. Hon. Leonard Cossins, the disgraced Lord Mayor of Mitchell-Baines who had been removed from office having been caught administering counterfeit buttercup syrup to the local yeomanry whilst on a hunting trip to Stoke-Poges.
Next door but one is Quinlan Broddle, a Viceroy with a fear of gardens. So much so that he sold his garden to Virgin Atlantic and his erstwhile front lawn is now a runway where miniature helicopters and packets of crisps undertake sorties to 1940’s Dresden where they have made several dozen unsuccessful attempts to rescue the Quaker Oats man, who is being held captive by the SS on the basis that his hair looks like ice cream.
On the other side of St John’s house is a fake egg timer who can’t maintain an erection. He shares the property with a glossy beef burger called Tom, who has been painted by a seven year old magistrate in order to be entered for this year’s Miss East Lancashire competition. Next door to them is a Dundee cake with a lisp.
...his knees were held together by the skin-tight trousers, which consequently narrowed the aperture through which great quantities of malodorous, rancid dreck were shortly to emerge with great force. St John knew that this was likely to prove troublesome. Although his mid-morning bab was usually undertaken in a more perfunctory manner, he would still have been mindful enough to ensure that his trousers were well below the knee before he commenced the disagreeable act, but in his current predicament, he was in no state to dally.
St John had been sitting in the back garden twizzling a pencil, on the end of which a russet deposit was impaled, which had been left on the lawn by Marmaduke, next door’s ginger cat. His father had wandered in to the garden and seen St John mesmerised by the twirling mahogany baton. “What are you doing son?” he asked.“Toasting a witch”, St John replied.
HARV appeared in front of me, arms crossed, head tilted. “You really should read your e-mails from Randy more carefully,” he lectured.“I skim them,” I protested.“Well, if you skimmed them more carefully you would know that prolonged exposure to stealth mode may lead to side effects.”“I can handle . . .”“Impotence.” HARV smiled.“Oh,” I said.“Randy hasn’t really tested it on humans. It’s extra tough to get volunteers for those types of experiments,” HARV said. “Though he has computer simulated it and the results tend to support this conclusion.”“Let’s try to limit our use of stealth mode from now on,” I said.
Twoa said, obviously still in my brain. "It was my pheromones," she said defensively. I looked up at her; she was sniffing herself. She looked down at me. "Okay, maybe it wasn’t ALL the pheromones," she admitted. "Nobody makes a good deodorant for superheroes.
Suddenly, however, the dastardly department of my personality presented two plans, one of which involved dynamite, mustache wax, some rope, and train tracks . . . which I rejected due to financial investment.
Would you like some sacred chocolate?' a girl asked, appearing suddenly at Lara's side. 'They've very special chocolates,' she said, pushing a plate of the goods in Lara's direction. 'They're raw and sweetened with Stevia.'Stevia, huh? Lara grabbed a chocolate truffle and popped it into her mouth, winking at the girl. She hoped the 'stevia' would kick in soon, because frankly, it looked like these women were having a better time than she'd had in ages.