Yet another quote

“On at least four of the 16 occasions between April and July that I went to Guy's for my venesections I was accosted outside the McDonald's on St Thomas Street by the same young man. He was well-spoken if shabbily dressed, and had the limp-scrape gait and the paradoxical features – at once sharply etched and poorly registered – of the street junky. Each time he asked me for change and each time I asked him if he had a drug problem. The first time he denied this I told him: "Sorry, I only give money to people who have a drug problem." So, predictably, he back-pedalled: "No, no, I do have an 'abit …" Addiction being such a great leveller, it planes away even the ability to detect irony. Then I zeroed in for the kill. "I'm sorry again, but I don't give money to liars." And he desperately rejoined: "I juss don't like to admit it straight up. Y'know what people are like …" Finally, I relented and gave him a pound coin or two, before subjecting him – in the time-honoured Sally Army way – to a homily in return for his handout.” 

- English Novelist Will Self

“I know that David Tennant's Hamlet isn't till July. And lots of people are going to be doing Dr Who in Hamlet jokes, so this is just me getting it out of the way early, to avoid the rush...
"To be, or not to be, that is the question. Weeelll.... More of A question really. Not THE question. Because, well, I mean, there are billions and billions of questions out there, and well, when I say billions, I mean, when you add in the answers, not just the questions, weeelll, you're looking at numbers that are positively astronomical and... for that matter the other question is what you lot are doing on this planet in the first place, and er, did anyone try just pushing this little red button?”
― Neil Gaiman

All is discovered.

There is a tradition to the effect that Noel Coward once sent identical notes to the twenty most prominent men in London, saying, ‘All is discovered. Escape while you can.’

All twenty abruptly left town.

– Paul C. Sherr, The Short Story and the Oral Tradition, 1970

Connoísseur, n.

An old wine-bibber was smashed in a railway collision, and some wine was poured on his lips to revive him. "Pauillac, 1873," he murmured and died.

~The Devil's Dictionary

A martyr is a man who cares so much for something outside him, that he forgets his own personal life. A suicide is a man who cares little for anything outside him, that he wants to see the last of everything.


~GK Chesteron

Floss

"One of my students wrote a story about a nun who got a piece of dental floss stuck between her lower left molars, and who couldn’t get it out all day long. I thought that was wonderful. The story dealt with issues a lot more important than dental floss, but what kept readers going was anxiety about when the dental floss would finally be removed. Nobody could read that story without fishing around in his mouth with a finger. Now, there’s an admirable practical joke for you. When you exclude plot, when you exclude anyone’s wanting anything, you exclude the reader, which is a mean-spirited thing to do." 

 --Vonnegut

"When I was in college, there were certain words you couldn't say in front of a girl. Now you can say them, but you can't say 'girl'."

~Tom Lehrer

And then I'll start into the jellybeans

You know what the first thing I'm going to do once I get my braces off next week is?

Eat a whole bushel of apples.

Mysteriously Unsilent

        Celery is not a thing to share with any man. Alone in your country inn you may call for the celery; but if you are wise you will see that no other traveler wanders into the room. Take warning from one who has learnt a lesson. One day I lunched alone at an inn, finishing with cheese and celery. Another traveler came in and lunched too. We did not speak--I was busy with my celery. From the other end of the table he reached across for the cheese. That was all right! it was the public cheese. But he also reached across for the celery--my private celery for which I owed. Foolishly--you know how one does--I had left the sweetest and crispest shoots till the last, tantalizing myself pleasantly with the thought of them. Horror! to see them snatched from me by a stranger. He realized later what he had done and apologized, but of what good is an apology in such circumstances? Yet at least the tragedy was not without its value. Now one remembers to lock the door.

~AA Milne




I found that today while taking a practice test for AP English, and I liked it so much that I tracked it down afterwards.

A few quotes

I like quotes. Not just the good ones. I like the ones that are purposefully bad as well. They get the same point across, but they force you to think about them a bit more. Here are a couple as examples.

"Never judge a book by its content."

"Life: it goes away if you close your eyes."