c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
It was getting very clear then (and during this week Riseholme naturally thought of nothing else) that Lucia designed a longer residence in the garish metropolis than she had admitted. Since she chose to give no information on the subject, mere pride and scorn of vulgar curiosity forebade anyone to ask her, though of course it was quite proper (indeed a matter of duty) to probe the matter to the bottom by every other means in your power, and as these bits of evidence pieced themselves together, Riseholme began to take a very gloomy view of Lucia's real nature. On the whole it was felt that Mrs. Boucher, when she paused in her bath-chair as it was being wheeled round the green, nodding her head very emphatically, and bawling into Mrs. Antrobus's ear-trumpet, reflected public opinion."She's deserting Riseholme and all her friends," said Mrs. Boucher, "that's what she's doing. She means to cut a dash in London, and lead London by the nose. There'll be fashionable parties, you'll see, there'll be paragraphs, and then when the season's over she'll come back and swagger about them. For my part I shall take no interest in them. Perhaps she'll bring down some of her smart friends for a Saturday till Monday. There'll be Dukes and Duchesses at The Hurst. That's what she's meaning to do, I tell you, and I don't care who hears it."That was lucky, as anyone within the radius of a quarter of a mile could have heard it.
— E.F. Benson, Lucia in London
She's been, but she's coming back," he said. "I expect her every minute. Ah! there she is."This was rather stupid of Stephen. He ought to have guessed that Lucia's second appearance was officially intended to be her first. He grasped that when she squeezed her way through the crowd and greeted him as if they had not met before that morning."And dearest Adele," she said. "What a crush! Tell me quickly, where are the caricatures of Pepino and me? I'm dying to see them; and when I see them no doubt I shall wish I was dead."The light of Luciaphilism came into Adele's intelligent eyes...
— E.F. Benson, Lucia in London
This little colloquy in Adele's box was really the foundation of the secret society of the Luciaphils, and the membership of the Luciaphils began swiftly to increase. Aggie Sandeman was scarcely eligible, for complete goodwill towards Lucia was a sine qua non of membership, and there was in her mind a certain asperity when she thought that it was she who had given Lucia her gambit, and that already she was beginning to be relegated to second circles in Lucia's scale of social precedence. It was true that she had been asked to dine to meet Marcelle Periscope, but the party to meet Alf and his flute was clearly the smarter of the two. Adele, however, and Tony Limpsfield were real members, so too, when she came up a few days later, was Olga. Marcia Whitby was another who greedily followed her career, and such as these, whenever they met, gave eager news to each other about it. There was, of course, another camp, consisting of those whom Lucia bombarded with pleasant invitations, but who (at present) firmly refused them. They professed not to know her and not to take the slightest interest in her, which showed, as Adele said, a deplorable narrowness of mind. Types and striking characters like Lucia, who pursued undaunted and indefatigable their aim in life, were rare, and when they occurred should be studied with reverent affection...Sometimes one of the old and original members of the Luciaphils discovered others, and if when Lucia's name was mentioned an eager and a kindly light shone in their eyes, and they said in a hushed whisper "Did you hear who was there on Thursday?" they thus disclosed themselves as Luciaphils...All this was gradual, but the movement went steadily on, keeping pace with her astonishing career, for the days were few on which some gratifying achievement was not recorded in the veracious columns of Hermione.
— E.F. Benson, Lucia in London
On the doorstep Adele met Tony Limpsfield. She hurried him into her motor, and told the chauffeur not to drive on."News!" she said. "Lucia's going to have a lover.""No!" said Tony in the Riseholme manner"But I tell you she is. He's with her now.""They won't want me then," said Tony. "And yet she asked me to come at half-past five.""Nonsense, my dear. They will want you, both of them. . . . Oh Tony, don't you see? It's a stunt."Tony assumed the rapt expression of Luciaphils receiving intelligence."Tell me all about it," he said."I'm sure I'm right," said she. "Her poppet came in just now, and she held his hand as women do, and made him draw his chair up to her, and said he scolded her. I'm not sure that he knows yet. But I saw that he guessed something was up. I wonder if he's clever enough to do it properly. . . . I wish she had chosen you, Tony, you'd have done it perfectly. They have got--don't you understand?--to have the appearance of being lovers, everyone must think they are lovers, while all the time there's nothing at all of any sort in it. It's a stunt: it's a play: it's a glory.""But perhaps there is something in it," said Tony. "I really think I had better not go in.""Tony, trust me. Lucia has no more idea of keeping a real lover than of keeping a chimpanzee. She's as chaste as snow, a kiss would scorch her. Besides, she hasn't time. She asked Stephen there in order to show him to me, and to show him to you. It's the most wonderful plan; and it's wonderful of me to have understood it so quickly. You must go in: there's nothing private of any kind: indeed, she thirsts for publicity."Her confidence inspired confidence, and Tony was naturally consumed with curiosity. He got out, told Adele's chauffeur to drive on, and went upstairs. Stephen was no longer sitting in the chair next to Lucia, but on the sofa at the other side of the tea-table. This rather looked as if Adele was right: it was consistent anyhow with their being lovers in public, but certainly not lovers in private."Dear Lord Tony," said Lucia--this appellation was a halfway house between Lord Limpsfield and Tony, and she left out the "Lord" except to him--"how nice of you to drop in. You have just missed Adele. Stephen, you know Lord Limpsfield?"Lucia gave him his tea, and presently getting up, reseated herself negligently on the sofa beside Stephen. She was a shade too close at first, and edged slightly away."Wonderful play of Tchekov's the other day," she said. "Such a strange, unhappy atmosphere. We came out, didn't we, Stephen, feeling as if we had been in some remote dream. I saw you there, Lord Tony, with Adele who had been lunching with me."Tony knew that: was not that the birthday of the Luciaphils?
— E.F. Benson, Lucia in London
My dear countrymen, I hope that you will live to see the day when you learn to believe in other gods than a few movie whores and a couple of prize-fighters.
— Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen
We schoolmasters must temper discretion with deceit.
— Evelyn Waugh
Steffie took my hand and we walked past the fruit bins, an area that extended about forty-five yards along one wall. The bins were arranged diagonally and backed my mirrors that people accidentally punched when reaching for fruit in upper rows.
— Don DeLillo, White Noise
He was too smitten by his second wife and the sons she produced easily and regularly at eighteen-month intervals to bother too much about a daughter.
— Anita Nair, Ladies Coupé
...And of course they'll get their milk from us, because Gooch's milk in the village really can't be trusted. I do hope, Henry, the vicarage drains are all right if Martin is to go there, because the French are rather vague about drains.''Yes, but darling, they aren't bringing their drains with them'...
— Angela Thirkell, Wild Strawberries
What does Mrs Preston want to go abroad for?' asked Mr Leslie.'I think her doctor wanted her to, Father,' said Agnes.'Doctors!' said Mr Leslie, wiping the whole of the Royal College of Physicians off the face of the world with this withering remark.
— Angela Thirkell, Wild Strawberries
Have I not told youdinosaurs were past glorythey extinct big time.
— Ibnu Din Assingkiri
Are we looking at each other suspiciously when colour-blind cured.
— Ibnu Din Assingkiri
Many moral advances have taken the form of a shift in sensibilities that made an action seem more ridiculous than sinful, such as dueling, bullfighting, and jingoistic war. And many effective social critics, such as Swift, Johnson, Voltaire, Twain, Oscar Wilde, Bertrand Russell, Tom Lehrer, and George Carlin have been smart-ass comedians rather than thundering prophets. What in our psychology allows the joke to be mightier than the sword?Humor works by confronting an audience with an incongruity, which may be resolved by switching to another frame of reference. And in that alternative frame of reference, the butt of the joke occupies a lowly or undignified status. ...Humor with a political or moral agenda can stealthily challenge a relational model that is second nature to an audience by forcing them to see that it leads to consequences that the rest of their minds recognize as absur
— Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
Displaying vice to the mockery of men deals it a great blow. Men put up with admonition but are loath to be mocked. One might be willing to be wicked
—  one cannot bear to appear foolish.
Okay, you won our shitty little argument. Pass the world.
— Brian Spellman, Cartoonist's Book Camp
A question, doctor," he said. "Why doesn't the coyote take the money he spends on bird costumes and catapults and radioactive road runner food pellets and explosive missiles and simply go eat Chinese?" He smiled coolly. "Why doesn't the coyote simply go eat Chinese food?
— David Foster Wallace
I like to judge people and it was clear to me that Colin’s life has been about as exciting as a cluster headache. You can tell this just from his humour tumour which runs through every conversation you have with him. I got the impression that Colin had arrived at his early fifties resenting the fact that he’s spent his entire career worshiping at the altar of Dynasty PLC. But he is now so indoctrinated by the world of corporate banking that he’s forgotten how to express the real him. This is what a life working for large corporations does to people. The workplace is a place not to be you
—  it’s a place to be the corporate you. The you that doesn’t really exist. We all see this corporate you and pretend that it’s a normal part of life. But we know that something isn’t quite right. We know that the real you is slowly fading away like old wallpaper. The corporate you is a myth
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air
— Billy Collins
Why was the meeting between the Americans and the Russians so tensed?Because nobody knows what Vladimir Put In Barbara’s Bush! From 'Walk On By II
— Stephan Attia
In the meanwhile, just see how profitable the fruits of non-violence are in this life. You stay pure while someone else, someone like me and my Rajput clan, does the sinning and the killing. While you religiously refrain yourself from bloodying your hands, you lend vast sums of money to finance the mightiest armies at minuscule decimal point percentages which add up to monstrous sums of interest.
— Kiran Nagarkar
Later in the week Mr Knox's Annie bicycled over to see Stoker and ask her to waive the lien which she had on her sister's services, as they would be required for the weekend.'She's having dinner at half-past eight on Saturday,' said Annie, when seated with her sister and Stoker in the warm kitchen... Stoker was only too delighted to get a spy into the enemy's camp, and the kitchen had a long, delightful conversation about 'Madam', as Annie called Miss Grey, with a very poor imitation of her accent.
— Angela Thirkell, High Rising
I can fly around the world in one night. I can wink and go up a chimney in a split second. I can be in 500 shopping malls on the same weekend. I can even fit enough gifts for the entire world into one tiny sleigh pulled by eight tiny reindeer, but I CANNOT FIX THIS CONFOUNDED COMPUTER!
— Bobbi A.  Chukran, Cattywampus Christmas
Life's a crapshoot, Sam. At least you filled the cheap seats.
— Robert Bruce Cormack
My only regret is that I don't have more to regret.
— Robert Bruce Cormack, You Can Lead a Horse to Water
One of the problems has to do with the speed of light and the difficulties involved in trying to exceed it. You can't. Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.
— Doughlas Adams
Ode to Douglas AdamsIn the solar system we inhabit, we live on a small planet we all call Earth. Okay, when I say small, I mean it’s small compared to say, oh, Jupiter. Earth is something like a dime compared to Jupiter’s beach ball. On this Earth is a fairly large country we all call The United States of America. Of course, when I say fairly large, it’s like the U.S. is a piece of broccoli next to China’s really large cauliflower. Now that I think of it, that may not be a good comparison as it depends on the restaurant you go to. At the place I was at last night it would be a good comparison as the cauliflower was larger than the broccoli. Not that I’d touch either. I had a hamburger with fries and somebody at the next table had those ghastly vegetables.From the Preface to "Sex and the American Male." I was saddened by the passing of Douglas Adams and wrote the preface to sound a little like his "Hitchhiker's..." books and to honor him. I hope he's smiling.
— Jay Williams
You are either on Wall Street or you’re a bum and there’s nothing in between.
— Katya G. Cohen, The American Spellbound
The first casualty of war is casual wear.
— Brian Spellman, Cartoonist's Book Camp
Have a little sociological beano. As you said - in sociology one can do anything and call it work.
— Malcolm Bradbury, Eating People is Wrong
The iron has entered my soul,' announced George Knox impressively. 'Let me tell you, my dear Laura, that when I lay here weak and ill, unable to raise a hand in my own defence, I begged for a nurse, a hireling who would do her day-labour as a machine, and not worry a sick, ageing man.But even this was denied. Miss Grey, all kindness and sympathy and, I must say, Laura, an infernal bore, insisted on nursing me herself. Degrading enough in any case but the worst you have not heard. Could I ask my secretary to shave me? No.As a matter of fact, I did, but she wouldn't, or couldn't. Imagine me, Laura, becoming more like a pard day by day prickly and revolting to myself, mortified beyond words to be seen in this this condition, but helpless.''Why didn't you get the gardener to do it? Or use a safety razor?''My dear Laura,' said George Knox in a hurt voice, 'you do not seem to realise how weak I was, how very weak. For two days my temperature had been over a hundred, and when the fever had left me I lay powerless, as a new-born babe, and the woman triumphed over me. She would not let me shave, she fed me on slops, she would not even give me clean pyjamas till the third day.
— Angela Thirkell, High Rising
Well, really, how would you like to make love with someone who kept twittering about his pure mystic modality and wanted to stick flowers in your navel?
— Malcolm Bradbury, Eating People is Wrong
I don't do 'black music,' I don't do 'white music'...I make fight music, for high school kids.
— Eminem
This was the geography around which my reality revolved: it did not occur to me, ever, that people were good or that a man was capable of change or that the world could be a better place through one’s taking pleasure in a feeling or a look or a gesture, of receiving another person’s love or kindness. Nothing was affirmative, the term “generosity of spirit” applied to nothing, was a cliche, was some kind of bad joke. Sex is mathematics. Individuality no longer an issue. What does intelligence signify? Define reason. Desire—meaningless. Intellect is not a cure. Justice is dead. Fear, recrimination, innocence, sympathy, guilt, waste, failure, grief, were things, emotions, that no one really felt anymore. Reflection is useless, the world is senseless. Evil is its only permanence. God is not alive. Love cannot be trusted. Surface, surface, surface was all that anyone found meaning in … this was civilization as I saw it, colossal and jagged …
— Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho
I mean emotionally, women are like Bruce Lee and we’re like Donald Duck. An’ I think a lotta guys are afraid of that.
— Jonathan Ashworth, Men & Women
Why, on to the castle, to kill the royal family, and claim the throne that isn't mine by right!
— Richard Curtis, The Black Adder
We, Seth, Emperor of Azania, Chief of the Chiefs of Sakuyu, Lord of Wanda and Tyrant of the Seas, Bachelor of the Arts of Oxford University, being in this the twenty-fourth year of our life, summoned by the wisdom of Almighty God and the unanimous voice of our people to the throne of our ancestors, do hereby proclaim...
— Evelyn Waugh, Black Mischief
High Maintenance; I don’t like to live in place that snows a lot, albeit I’d love to visit one. I won’t marry a super model, albeit date one.
— Yatin Patel
Can’t say what impresses me most about my followers – their good looks, their incredible intellects, or their immunity to cheap flattery.
— David Burge
Some people say he engineered his own arrest to gain an insight into modern methods of policing for a thriller he had planned. But you know what happens to artistic rats in prison: they have their rectums stretched, and not by overindulgence in Michelin-star food; they have their columns examined, and not by internet humorists or a qualified medical practitioner. I’m sure Rat knew this, too. Although he likes to accumulate a wide general knowledge, he would rather have a narrow rectum. A colon comes in handy here, before examples: two dots on top of one other, like the cowboys who copulate on Brokeback Mountain, on a slope so far away you need binoculars to see them properly. In prison there are too many insights and examples. Rat would never risk it.
— Graham Spaid, tireless:
Olga was better, in the sun, where he could see every pore in her skin. Get closer. Feel her next to him. It was all he wanted in the world. It was the last thing in the world that he could do.
— Graham Spaid, tireless:
The sexual contact before this?“It was the first time.”The woman looked at Rat again, harder. The silence was more painful than the words. What she had just heard went beyond plain immorality. It was ridiculous.
— Graham Spaid, tireless:
The chairs - turned towards one another in groups of twos and threes - seemed like the seats of ghosts in close conversation with one another. There were sets of two chairs - very close to one another - in the far corners of the room, which spoke of recent whispered flirtations, over cold game pie and iced champagne; there were sets of three and four chairs, that recalled pleasant animated discussions over the latest scandals; there were chairs straight up in a row that still looked starchy, critical, acid, like antiquated dowagers; there were a few isolated, single chairs, close to the table, that spoke of gourmands intent on the most recherche dishes, and others overturned on the floor, that spoke volumes on the subject of my Lord Grenville's cellars.
— Emmuska Orczy, SCARLET PIMPERNEL VOL. 1 The Scarlet Pimpernel I Will Repay The Elusive Pimpernel
The expected battle hadn’t taken place, yet something else had. Images of the entertainment which had just gone down were already coming back into Rat’s head. It had been wonderful to watch, unbelievably wonderful, the enactment of several plays at once on a single stage, and Rat was sorry it was over, but in a way it was even better to relive it now in the privacy of his mind. He hadn’t believed the boy-doctor and that stuff about the condom being used or warm, but he had gone along with it and the emotion which it powered. Everybody had. The emotion was the most important thing. He wondered how he could ever put such a chaotic, hilarious, sad thing down on paper, organise it into scenes or verses and fix his own pewiod at the end. He could never do it justice. He would never get that emotion back.
— Graham Spaid, tireless:
…he’d assumed their relationship would go on forever. It was going on now, but in another way, like the rearrangement of the stars, which were all still in the sky, just burning in unexpected places.
— Graham Spaid, tireless:
We just move on, don’t we, with traitors still amongst us? But there was one thought that wouldn’t go away. If I loved him, I would forgive him.
— Graham Spaid, tireless:
Oh, those hateful sods will never make it to Heaven. They’re all on an express elevator to the gay spit-roast dungeon in Hell. Within five minutes of kicking the bucket, they’ll have demon balls swollen with fiery spunk slapping off their shapeless chins.
— Michael   Logan, Wannabes
But this bus was a bit too full. The driver only appeared to control the glass and metal around him. In reality, he was at the nose of a travelling paroxysm.
— Graham Spaid
My main regret in life is that there is no MacArthur Fellowship awarded in the field of Panda Satire.
— Anne Belov, The Book of Wu
Pay attention,” Gareth said to Moxie. “If it comes down to a choice of gettin’ captured or killed by Saxons or brigands, dead is less bad,
— Hank Quense, Moxie's Problem
Women, when they kill themselves, choose far more romantic methods - like slashing their wrists or taking an overdose of sleeping pills.Abandoned princesses and Hollywood actresses have provided numerous examples of this.
— Paulo Coelho
And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches. Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the treesin the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.
— Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Every student should know that statues are meant for sitting. If we're to endure their terrible old faces leering at us, the least they can do is offer shade or a comfortable perch." Nigel Bristow to Max McDaniels
— Henry H. Neff
My mother was, for the most part, delighted with my brother and regarded him with the bemused curiosity of a brood hen discovering she has hatched a completely different species. 'I think it was very nice of Paul to give me this vase,' she once said, arranging a bouquet of wildflowers into the skull-shaped bong my brother had left on the kitchen table. 'It's nontraditional, but that's the Rooster's way. He's a free spirit, and we're lucky to have him.
— David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day
So you've been gone a couple days,' Alison said. 'Hmm, what'd you miss...A celebrity did drugs. Politicians disagreed. A different celebrity wore a bikini that revealed a bodily imperfection. A team won a sporting event, but another team lost.' I smiled. 'You can't go disappearing on everybody like this, Hazel. You miss too much.
— John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
An oyster has hardly any more reasoning power than a scientist has; and so it it is reasonably certain that this one jumped to the conclusion that the nineteen million years was a preparation for him; but that would be just like an oyster, which is the most conceited animal there is, except man. And anyway, this one could not know, at that early date, that he was only an incident in a scheme, and that there was some more in the scheme yet.
— Mark Twain, What Is Man?
The woman spoke with a heavy western North Carolina accent, which I used to discredit her authority. Here was a person for whom the word 'pen' had two syllables. He people undoubtedly drank from clay jugs and hollered for Paw when the vittles were ready-- so who was she to advise me on anything?
— David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day
Incidentally, it’s easy to write prescriptions, but difficult to come to an understanding with people.
— Franz Kafka, A Country Doctor
She said when a boy and a girl dog copulate, the head of the boy's penis swells and the vaginal muscles of the girl constrict. Even after sex, both dogs remain locked together, helpless and miserable for a brief period of time.The Mommy said this same scenario described most marriages.
— Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
As long as there is life, my dear friends, laughter will be the weapon of we who mock it even as we struggle to understand it.
— George Herman, A Comedy of Murders
It [being very rich] used to worry me, and I thought it wrong to have so many beautiful things when others had nothing. Now I realize that it is possible for the rich to sin by coveting the privileges of the poor. The poor have always been the favourites of God and his saints, but I believe that is is one of the special achievements of Grace to sanctify the whole of life, riches included.
— Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder
The doctors agreed: He was going crazy...they didn't think it had anything to do with the war. They were sure Billy was going to pieces because his father had thrown him into the deep end of the Y.M.C.A swimming pool when he was a little boy, and had then taken him to the rim of the Grand Canyon.
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Slaughterhouse-Five
If you live your life with passion, every second will become an adventure.
— Marie Guillaume, Mr. Wolf V. the Three Pigs: Mr. Wolf Goes to Court
It doesn't matter whether they mean it or not. That's why they make little kids pledge allegiance even before they know what 'pledge' and 'allegiance' mean.
— Joseph Heller, Catch-22
The world is an asylum where the inmates keep the warders in their place.
— George Herman, A Comedy of Murders
Does it stand, but not straight enough? Is there a bend in the tool? Leaning left like the Marxist-Leninist Party? To the right, like the Jan Sangh fascists? Or wobbling mindlessly in the middle, like the Congress Party? Fear not, for it can be straightened! Does it refuse to harden even with rubbing and massage? Then try my ointment, and it will become hard as the government's heart! All your troubles will vanish with this amazing ointment made from the organs of these wild animals! Capable of turning all men into engine-drivers! Punctual as the trains in the Emergency! Back and forth you will shunt with piston power every night! The railways will want to harness your energy! Apply this ointment once a day, and your wife will be proud of you! Apply it twice a day, and she will have to share you with the whole block!
— Rohinton Mistry
Now that Mohtarma Veena Malik has embraced Burqa, she should be sent to negotiate with Maulana Burqa, dare I say.
— @SaroorIjaz, Saroor Ijaz
I want to blow your mind away, Pakistan. With love Yours destructively, TTP
— @SaroorIjaz
Ball tempering is common in Cricket. Rigging is common in Elections. Whats the big deal? — Najumi Sethi
— @SaroorIjaz
During the Cold War of the 1950s, American spies were issued eyeglasses with thick, clunky frames. If captured, they were trained to casually chew the curved earpieces, where fatal doses of cyanide were cast inside the plastic. It's these same horn-rimmed suicide glasses, the wrangler says, that inspired the look of Buddy Holly and Elvis Costello. All those young hipsters wearing death on their nose.
— Chuck Palahniuk, Snuff
Behind every preventable threat to the future of the human race lurks a boy in a man's body with both hands buried deep in the cookie jar set aside for future generations.
— Daniel Prokop, Leaving Neverland: Why Little Boys Shouldn't Run Big Corporations
Hell was full so i came BACK .......
— jayesh barche
That's not a religion, that's Pokemon.
— Stephen Colbert, I Am America
A satirist that criticizes religion is seen as a satanist.
— Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I guess if you get too close, the twinkling stops; they don’t look like stars anymore.
— Graham Spaid, tireless:
Divorce is a marital welfare. It's just couples asking society to bail them out because they didn't do enough research before they got married. How is that our fault? Don't drag down my country's statistics just because you ran off and got hitched before you ever saw each other in a bad mood.
— Stephen Colbert, I Am America
I wouldn't dignify it with the name immoral.
— Graham Spaid, tireless:
You know what people are doing on the other side of the world, what’s happening on another planet, but not what’s going on inside the person next to you.
— Graham Spaid, tireless:
Were the stars against him? A woman's fingers are quicker in the sky and shine more brightly.
— Graham Spaid, tireless:
We put our flags in soil when we arrive, as if it now belongs to us and we know where we are.
— Graham Spaid, tireless:
The world is indeed a cold, hard stone.
— Graham Spaid, tireless:
A nose is ordinarily naked. A nose isn’t nipple, although there are similarities.
— Graham Spaid, tireless:
The emotion was the most important thing.
— Graham Spaid, tireless:
The Crusaders lead to the Knights Templar; the Knights Templar lead to the Masons; and the Masons lead to the Shriners, a secret society that controls world government, toys with our banking system, and single-handedly keeps the fez industry afloat.
— Stephen Colbert, I Am America
Here’s a 165-year old but still fitting comment on public officials who are so sure they’re right that they’ll drive over a cliff rather than compromise: “Always to be right, always to trample forward, and never to doubt – are not these the great qualities with which dullness takes the lead in the world?” William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair: a Novel without a Hero (1848).The author’s middle name really was “Makepeace.” As the quote shows, he disliked those who would not.
— William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
U.S. Presedent Barack Sadam Husene Obame sit in the darkened Oval Ofice at 2 a.m. wearing hes traditienel Kenyan roabe.He take one last bite of the Chicago style deep dish pizza that he has flown to him every day on the Amerecan tax payer's dime and wipe the grease off his mouth with the U.S. consititutien.He get up and walk to desk, where he keeps the Kenyan black magic crystle ball. Its black glow iluminate his face."Eeny, meeny, miney, mo — which basic U.S. freedoms are next to go?" he say aloud to no one and every one at the same time.Then he flash that trade mark Bary Obame million doller grin as a crack of lightning sound in the distence.
— Seinfeld 2000, The Apple Store
A spirit of satirical frivolity so dominated Britain in the 1960s that one critic feared the country "would sink giggling into the sea.
— John O'Sullivan
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a family is defined as two or more people living together who are related by birth, marriage or adoption. In other words, the U.S. Census Bureau is run by radical leftists. Why do you think there's a whole category for the unemployed?
— Stephen Colbert, I Am America
Elane scan the room and takeing in the white antiseptec decor of Buzzfeed office in Soho. Her eyes land on a wall decoratien, a glareing yellow butten about the size of a parasol. It read simply: LOL. It seem to mock her. Honestly? Elane just dosent fit in here. No one here is under 30 and to Elane it is almost like nobody speaking Englesh. Everything is "HTML 5" this and "Keven Ware sports injery" that and "Game Of Throans recap" this and "Downten Abby parady tumblr" that. She have no idea what any of that mean. She open her face book and feal deep pit of emptynes as she click thru the profiles of her 17 face book frends.
— Seinfeld 2000, The Apple Store
It's not Americans I find annoying; it's Americanism: a social disease of the postindustrial world that must inevitably infect each of the mercantile nations in turn, and is called 'American' only because your nation is the most advanced case of the malady, much as one speaks of Spanish flu, or Japanese Type-B encephalitis. It's symptoms are a loss of work ethic, a shrinking of inner resources, and a constant need for external stimulation, followed by spiritual decay and moral narcosis. You can recognize the victim by his constant efforts to get in touch with himself, to believe his spiritual feebleness is an interesting psychological warp, to construe his fleeing from responsibility as evidence that he and his life are uniquely open to new experiences. In the later stages, the sufferer is reduced to seeking that most trivial of human activities: fun.
— Trevanian, Shibumi
You wanna know why the world is f**ked? This is why, this is exactly why…right here. Get a pen, write this down, this is important…The world is f**ked up because I eat WonderBread preserved with formaldehyde that lasts three weeks and will never grow mold as long as it’s kept in its magic silver bag. The world is f**ked up because I know my cans of tuna have mercury in it. The world is f**ked up because I know my flake light tuna and WonderBread are poisonous, yet I still eat them!
— Shannon Lyndsy, Celebrating Death
No one washes their hands after they piss unless they’re in a public place. If I’m at the airport, or a restaurant, and someone else is there, I’ll soap up for the sake of civilization, but it’s only for show, I don’t really care if I have ultraviolet traces of urine or feces on my hands. But, if I see someone walk oudda the men’s without soaping up I’ll think he’s deranged, borderline psychotic. At least pretend that washing your hands matters. You know, for the sake of civilization.
— Shannon Lyndsy, Celebrating Death
Human contacts have been so highly valued in the past only because reading was not a common accomplishment and because books were scarce and difficult to reproduce...As reading becomes more and more habitual and widespread, an ever-increasing number of people will discover that books will give them all the pleasures of social life and none of its intolerable tedium.
— Aldous Huxley, Crome Yellow
Everything you’re telling me was just a story, and now it’s real.
— Kathy Bryson, Feeling Lucky
I believe in Supreme Being, a Creator, whoever he may be, it's of no importance to me, who put us here on earth to do our duty as citizens and fathers; but I don't need to go to church and kiss silver platters and dig into my pocket to fatten up a lot of humbugs who eat better than you or I do! Because he can be worshiped just as well in a wood, a field, or even just gazing at the ethereal vault, like the ancients.
— Gustave Flaubert
By educating me at home, my parents were able to give me individualized attention without the usual distractions that kids in regular school experience, like dating and friendship. Not to mention that traditional school can be dangerous. I’ve heard about kids catching the flu and chicken pox, even Judaism.And how about those poor kids lugging all those heavy books to and from school every day? My books never went anywhere, just like me. I felt so bad when I’d see kids on my street giggling and chasing each other around with those awkward backpacks.
— Colin Nissan
Ken steepled his fingers and gazed thoughtfully up at the ceiling. 'Dwarves have done very well for us in primetime.
— Melissa Jo Peltier, Reality Boulevard
Not again, Draper," Frank sighed. "You're not going to stop us from crossing. You and I know that the one thing the Government does even more poorly than provide healthcare is secure its borders.
— Randy Quarles, Olsen's Nation
A leprechaun did not just kill off my car in a hailstorm.
— Kathy Bryson, Feeling Lucky
Grabbing someone’s ass doesn’t count as capturing them!
— Kathy Bryson, Feeling Lucky
Oh, you’re hardly one to talk. Look where ogling a man got you.
— Kathy Bryson, Feeling Lucky
You didn’t make her sue you, even if you did punch her at that wedding.
— Kathy Bryson, Feeling Lucky
Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is utterly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake it for the genuine article.
— Nathan Poe
Are you trying to seduce me or trick me?
— Kathy Bryson, Feeling Lucky
No one ever said you can’t have world dominance and a little romance too.
— Kathy Bryson, Feeling Lucky
LEARN FROM THE MASTERS: Mark Twain once said, “Show, don’t tell.” This is an incredibly important lesson for writers to remember; never get such a giant head that you feel entitled to throw around obscure phrases like “Show, don’t tell.” Thanks for nothing, Mr. Cryptic.
— Colin Nissan
It was never just about the money.
— Kathy Bryson, Feeling Lucky
Don’t pinch that guy’s ass. He’s a leprechaun.
— Kathy Bryson, Feeling Lucky
She caught you. Therefore she gets your treasure.
— Kathy Bryson, Feeling Lucky
Murder is only killing in the wrong place.
— Pat Barker, The Ghost Road
Libations are for the gods. Cocktails are for mere mortals.
— Jonathan Kieran, Rowan Blaize and the Hand of Djin Rummy
Fifteen years ago, this would have been insider trading, but that quaint concept had disappeared a decade or two ago when so many brokers were doing it that it was impossible to jail them all. Now it was called smart trading.
— Max Barry, Jennifer Government
I turned on Fox News and jumped when I saw that they had one of those things in their studio. "Are you people crazy?" I screamed at the television. "Get out of there. Somebody shoot it!" Then I realized I was watching Special Report and had mistaken Charles Krauthammer for a zombie.
— Ian  McClellan, Zombie Apocalypse 2012: A Political Horror Story
Today’s generation didn’t want to watch ancient actors reciting the same tired lines. They wanted to see themselves reflected onscreen –rude, raw, entitled. These kids needed to believe that they themselves were only one daring, controversial act away from being up on that screen themselves. 
— Melissa Jo Peltier, Reality Boulevard
Well, fame is a drug and when you take it away from an addict, things can get ugly.
— Melissa Jo Peltier, Reality Boulevard
When the conversation turns too quickly to films,I see it as a sign of weakness.
— Herman Koch
Provided that nothing like useful knowledge could be gained from them, provided they were all story and no reflection, she had never any objection to books at all.
— Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
The only grown-up other than Jacob who ever came into his schoolroom was Eli Willard.School was in session one day when the Connecticut itinerant reappeared after long absence, bringing Jacob's glass and other merchandise. Jacob seized him and presented him to the class. 'Boys and girls, this specimen here is a Peddler. You don't see them very often. They migrate, like the geese flying over. This one comes maybe once a year, like Christmas. But he ain't dependable, like Christmas. He's dependable like rainfall. A Peddler is a feller who has got things you ain't got, and he'll give 'em to ye, and then after you're glad you got 'em he'll tell ye how much cash money you owe him fer 'em. If you ain't got cash money, he'll give credit, and collect the next time he comes 'round, and meantime you work hard to git the money someway so's ye kin pay him off. Look at his eyes. Notice how they are kinder shiftly-like. Now, class, the first question is: why is this feller's eyes shiftly-like?
— Donald Harington, The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks
He has a very nice face and style, really," said Mrs. Kenwigs."He certainly has," added Miss Petowker. "There's something in his appearance quite--dear, dear, what's the word again?""What word?" inquired Mr. Lillyvick."Why--dear me, how stupid I am!" replied Miss Petowker, hesitating. "What do you call it when lords break off doorknockers, and beat policemen, and play at coaches with other people's money, and all that sort of thing?""Aristocratic?" suggested the collector."Ah! Aristocratic," replied Miss Petowker; "something very aristocratic about him, isn't there?"The gentlemen held their peace, and smiled at each other, as who should say, "Well! there's no accounting for tastes;" but the ladies resolved unanimously that Nicholas had an aristocratic air, and nobody caring to dispute the position, it was established triumphantly.
— Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby
terrorism n.Violence for political purposes or the politically motivated threat of violence which, either intentionally or unintentionally, challenges the state's monopoly on political violence.
— Leslie Starr O'Hara, The Doublespeak Dictionary: Your Guide to the Euphemisms, Dysphemisms, and Other Linguistic Contrivances of the State
conservative n.A person who possesses an underdeveloped taste for tyranny.liberal n.A person who believes in liberty, but only for the state.
— Leslie Starr O'Hara, The Doublespeak Dictionary: Your Guide to the Euphemisms, Dysphemisms, and Other Linguistic Contrivances of the State
preemptive strike n.A blow or punch delivered by military aircraft to a target who is suspected of being adverse to one's plot for world domination.
— Leslie Starr O'Hara, The Doublespeak Dictionary: Your Guide to the Euphemisms, Dysphemisms, and Other Linguistic Contrivances of the State
Her heart was broken perhaps, but it was a small inexpensive organ of local manufacture. In a wider and grander way she felt things had been simplified.
— Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One
The Boy will not be a failure. Mythili knows.She has seen the generations before.The boy will make it.As his father has said,he does not have the option of failure.He will crack atleast one entrance exam,and he will one day have a nice house in a suburb of San Francisco,or in a suburb of a suburb of San Francisco.He will find a cute Tamil Brahmin wife and make her produce two sweet children.He will drive a Toyota Corolla to work.And there,in the conference room of his office,he will tell his small team,with his hands stretched wide in a managerial way,'We must think out of the box
— Manu Joseph, The Illicit Happiness of Other People
Now, as I understand it, the bards were feared. They were respected, but more than that they were feared. If you were just some magician, if you'd pissed off some witch, then what's she gonna do, she's gonna put a curse on you, and what's gonna happen? Your hens are gonna lay funny, your milk's gonna go sour, maybe one of your kids is gonna get a hare-lip or something like that — no big deal. You piss off a bard, and forget about putting a curse on you, he might put a satire on you. And if he was a skilful bard, he puts a satire on you, it destroys you in the eyes of your community, it shows you up as ridiculous, lame, pathetic, worthless, in the eyes of your community, in the eyes of your family, in the eyes of your children, in the eyes of yourself, and if it's a particularly good bard, and he's written a particularly good satire, then three hundred years after you're dead, people are still gonna be laughing, at what a twat you were.
— Alan Moore
Besides,” said Mr Norrell, “I really have no desire to write reviews of other people's books. Modern publications upon magic are the most pernicious things in the world, full of misinformation and wrong opinions.” “Then sir, you may say so. The ruder you are, the more the editors will be delighted.” “But it is my own opinions which I wish to make better known, not other people's.” “Ah, but, sir,” said Lascelles, “it is precisely by passing judgements upon other people's work and pointing out their errors that readers can be made to understand your own opinions better. It is the easiest thing in the world to turn a review to one's own ends. One only need mention the book once or twice and for the rest of the article one may develop one's theme just as one chuses. It is, I assure you, what every body else does.” “Hmm,” said Mr Norrell thoughtfully, “you may be right. But, no. It would seem as if I were lending support to what ought never to have been published in the first place.
— Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Man is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight
— Mark Twain, The Higher Animals: A Mark Twain Bestiary
In Russia, drunks are our kindest people. Our kindest people are also the most drunk.
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky
At Columbus Circle, a juggler wearing a trench cloak and top hat, who is usually at this location afternoons and who calls himself Stretch Man, performs in front of a small, uninterested crowd; though I smell prey, and he seems worthy of my wrath, I move on in search of a less dorky target. Though if he’d been a mime, odds are he’d already be dead.
— Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho
Back in our apartment, lights out, The Professor emerged from beneath the bed." - from "The Professor Spends the Night," in issue 4 of Literary Orphans
— Joseph Patrick Pascale
We were putting into these gomers our fear of death, but who knew if they feared death? Perhaps they welcomed death like a dear long-lost cousin, grown old but still known, coming to visit, relieving the loneliness, the failing of the senses, the fury of the half-blind looking into the mirror and not recognizing who is looking back, a dear friend, a dear reliever, a healer who would be with them for an eternity, the same eternity as the long ago, before birth.
— Samuel Shem, The House of God
There is no point in poverty if it does not make a rich man, observing it, feel better.
— Tom Morrison
He said science was going to discover the basic secret of life some day,' the bartender put in. He scratched his head and frowned. 'Didn't I read in the paper the other day where they'd finally found out what it was?''I missed that,' I murmured. ' I saw that,' said Sandra. 'About two days ago.''That's right,' said the bartender.'What is the secret of life?' I asked.'I forget,' said Sandra.'Protein,' the bartender declared. 'They found out something about protein.''Yeah,' said Sandra, 'that's it.
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Cat's Cradle
Going into the Republican Party National Convention, in all objective truth, our non‑winning front‑runners are the sorriest collection of stuffed shirts, empty suits, self‑gratulatory ignorami, and outright wig‑flipped ding‑dongs in the history of the Republic.
— John Barnes, Raise the Gipper!
... they only trusted the wisdom of people brighter and more worldly than themselves when it was expressed in the vocabulary and style of rural idiots. In his guise as Brazenydol, he had once had a contract with DARPA to teach a team of physicists the basic terminology of tractor pulls so that they could give an acceptable explanation of omniwavelength stealth to a Congressional committee that didn’t understand tractor pulls, either.
— John Barnes, Raise the Gipper!
I was just trying to demonstrate to the students of Rowland University that Rowland University was not infinite. It had taken me a long time to figure out what the problem was, but one day I realized that the students at Rowland University thought that Rowland University was infinite. Infinite bookstore. Infinite fraternities and sororities. Infinite sports teams. Infinite snack shop. Infinite Homecoming. Infinite graduation. Infinite prospects.
— Jon Woodson