“
Rejection is an opportunity for your selection.
”
”
Bernard Branson
“
I am an artist you know ... it is my right to be odd.
”
”
E.A. Bucchianeri (Brushstrokes of a Gadfly (Gadfly Saga, #1))
“
Weirdism is definitely the cornerstone of many an artist's career.
”
”
E.A. Bucchianeri (Brushstrokes of a Gadfly (Gadfly Saga, #1))
“
...it’s just another one of those things I don’t understand: everyone impresses upon you how unique you are, encouraging you to cultivate your individuality while at the same time trying to squish you and everyone else into the same ridiculous mould. It’s an artist’s right to rebel against the world’s stupidity.
”
”
E.A. Bucchianeri (Brushstrokes of a Gadfly (Gadfly Saga, #1))
“
Whenever I think of something but can't think of what it was I was thinking of, I can't stop thinking until I think I'm thinking of it again. I think I think too much.
”
”
Criss Jami (Killosophy)
“
I've seen women insist on cleaning everything in the house before they could sit down to write... and you know it's a funny thing about housecleaning... it never comes to an end. Perfect way to stop a woman. A woman must be careful to not allow over-responsibility (or over-respectabilty) to steal her necessary creative rests, riffs, and raptures. She simply must put her foot down and say no to half of what she believes she "should" be doing. Art is not meant to be created in stolen moments only.
”
”
Clarissa Pinkola Estés (Women Who Run With the Wolves)
“
I’m currently imagining a few creative ways of causing you extraordinary amounts of pain.”
Kingsley raised his chin. Mere inches separated their faces.
“Stop flirting. You know we don’t have time for that.
”
”
Tiffany Reisz (The Prince (The Original Sinners, #3))
“
... an artist should paint from the heart, and not always what people expect. Predictability often leads to the dullest work, in my opinion, and we have been bored stiff long enough I think.
”
”
E.A. Bucchianeri (Brushstrokes of a Gadfly (Gadfly Saga, #1))
“
I feel as though whenever I create something, my Mr. Hyde wakes up in the middle of the night and starts thrashing it. I sometimes love it the next morning, but other times it is an abomination.
”
”
Criss Jami (Killosophy)
“
Quite frankly, every single day that I do something creative, and show it to people, I'm nervous. Even this video, I'm like, 'You're too earnest, it's not funny enough, nobody likes you.' Um, well, I gotta do it, because unless I say something about the world I don't know if it's worth gettin' up in the morning.
...Was that depressing, or inspirational?
”
”
Felicia Day
“
Joey was surprised that plants could be used to clean water. Then, he had a funny thought. He imagined a dandelion standing at a sink while it washed Water just like his parents when they washed the dishes. He started to laugh.
”
”
Ellen J. Lewinberg (Joey and His Friend Water)
“
All problems with writing and performing come from fear. Fear of exposure, fear of weakness, fear of lack of talent, fear of looking like a fool for trying, for even thinking you could write in the first place. It's all fear. If we didn't have fear, imagine the creativity in the world. Fear holds us back every step of the way. A lot of studies say that despite all our fears in this country - death, war, guns, illness - our biggest fear is public speaking. What I am doing right now. And when people are asked to identify which kind of public speaking they are most afraid of, they check the improvisation box. So improvisation is the number-one fear in America. Forget a nuclear winter or an eight-point nine earthquake or another Hitler. It's improv. Which is funny, because aren't we just improvising all day long? Isn't our whole life just one long improvisation? What are we so scared of?
”
”
Lily King (Writers & Lovers)
“
When life gives you lemons ask it for sugar and water too. Otherwise your final product would be some acidic lemon juice!
”
”
priyavrat gupta
“
Remember, the village idiot was the spiritual man who built the ark and saved his family. Keep being you and never give up marching to the beat of your own drum!
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
I treat my thoughts like an old person treats their valuables: I cannot for the life of me proceed to throwing them out.
”
”
Criss Jami (Healology)
“
It wasn’t because you weren’t beautiful, talented, funny, creative or had everything in common. It was because some men prefer plain vanilla ice cream. It’s predictable and a safe choice. Confident and adventurous men prefer the complexity and layers of a sundae, even the ones sprinkled with a little bit of nuts on top.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
Start dating someone who is funny, someone who has what in high school you called a "really great sense of humor" and what now your creative writing class calls "self-contempt giving rise to comic form." Write down all of his jokes, but don't tell him you are doing this. Make up anagrams of his old girlfriend's name and name all of your socially handicapped characters with them. Tell him his old girlfriend is in all of your stories and then watch how funny he can be, see what a really great sense of humor he can have.
”
”
Lorrie Moore
“
After each of his books, the writer, for a while, feels once again that he can now die happy.
”
”
Criss Jami (Healology)
“
Are you Darah, Renee or Taylor? You look like a Taylor to me," he said, looking me up and down.
I wasn't at my best, considering I was dressed for moving heavy objects in a blue UMaine t-shirt and black soccer shorts, and I had my light brown hair in a haphazard bun against the back of my neck. His eyes raked up and down twice, and for some reason the way he assessed me made me blush and want to kick him in the balls at the same time.
"There must be a mistake," I said.
He adjusted his bag on his shoulder. "That's a creative name. What do you shorten it to? Missy?
”
”
Chelsea M. Cameron (My Favorite Mistake (My Favorite Mistake, #1))
“
If you've spent any time trolling the blogosphere, you've probably noticed a peculiar literary trend: the pervasive habit of writers inexplicably placing exclamation points at the end of otherwise unremarkable sentences. Sort of like this! This is done to suggest an ironic detachment from the writing of an expository sentence! It's supposed to signify that the writer is self-aware! And this is idiotic. It's the saddest kind of failure. F. Scott Fitzgerald believed inserting exclamation points was the literary equivalent of an author laughing at his own jokes, but that's not the case in the modern age; now, the exclamation point signifies creative confusion. All it illustrates is that even the writer can't tell if what they're creating is supposed to be meaningful, frivolous, or cruel. It's an attempt to insert humor where none exists, on the off chance that a potential reader will only be pleased if they suspect they're being entertained. Of course, the reader isn't really sure, either. They just want to know when they're supposed to pretend to be amused. All those extraneous exclamation points are like little splatters of canned laughter: They represent the "form of funny," which is more easily understood (and more easily constructed) than authentic funniness.
”
”
Chuck Klosterman (Eating the Dinosaur)
“
I mean really, how could an artistic individual stay grounded in the nitty-gritty of how many minutes per pound meat has to stay in the oven when trying to fathom the creative philosophy behind the greatest artistic minds of the world?
”
”
E.A. Bucchianeri (Brushstrokes of a Gadfly (Gadfly Saga, #1))
“
Hands can cook, hands can create, hands can kill. There is no better tool than our hands.
”
”
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
“
MFA in a Box is designed to help you to find the courage to put truth into words and to understand that writing is a life-and-death endeavor — but that nothing about a life-and-death endeavor keeps it from being laugh-out-loud funny.
”
”
John Rember (MFA in a Box)
“
Who the hell do you think you are?” your darkest interior voices will demand. “It’s funny you should ask,” you can reply. “I’ll tell you who I am: I am a child of God, just like anyone else. I am a constituent of this universe. I have invisible spirit benefactors who believe in me, and who labor
”
”
Elizabeth Gilbert (Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear)
“
A TV show comprises many departments—Costumes, Props, Talent, Graphics, Set Dressing, Transportation. Everyone in every department wants to show off their skills and contribute creatively to the show, which is a blessing. You’re grateful to work with people who are talented and enthusiastic about their jobs. You would think that as a producer, your job would be to churn up creativity, but mostly your job is to police enthusiasm. You may have an occasion where the script calls for a bran muffin on a white plate and the Props Department shows up with a bran cake in the shape of Santa Claus sitting on a silver platter that says “Welcome to Denmark.” “We just thought it would be funny.” And you have to find a polite way to explain that the character is Jewish, so her eating Santa’s face might have negative connotations, and the silver tray, while beautiful, is giving a weird glare on camera and maybe let’s go with the bran muffin on the white plate. And then sometimes Actors have what they call “ideas.” Usually it involves them talking more, or, in the case of more experienced actors, sitting more. When Actors have ideas it’s very important to get to the core reason behind their idea.
”
”
Tina Fey (Bossypants)
“
The only way to move forward creatively is to allow yourself to be judged.
”
”
Nell Scovell (Just the Funny Parts: ... And a Few Hard Truths About Sneaking Into the Hollywood Boys' Club)
“
I like it when people give me attention! I like being interesting! And these are all things that our societal narrative attaches to sex,” Selena says. For allos, sex is so natural an explanation for behavior that other reasons, such as wanting to dress creatively for its own sake and wanting to be seen just to be seen, can be hard to fathom. “I’m like ‘I want you to stare at me, but I don’t want you to fuck me, and they have nothing to do with each other,’” Selena continues. “And then allos are so funny because they just insist that those have everything to do with each other.
”
”
Angela Chen (Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex)
“
You might not get the apology you deserve. You might not get answers to explain the actions of others. You might not get truth that makes sense to you. You might not get people to understand what you went through because of them. You might not get communication. You might not get maturity. You might not get mercy or even common decency. You might not get respect or the chance to explain your side of the story. However, you do get to choose how people treat you. God loves you enough to bring people into your life who won't hurt you, abuse you, betray you, lie and gossip about you, psycho analyse you, break your heart or make you an option or choice. He will bring people into your life that will love you, respect you, fight for you, show gratitude for your love and want to be a part of your life mission. The best part of this is you don't have to convince them of your worth. They want to be there. They know your value. They know your struggles. They are in touch with their own faults and understand you struggle just like everyone else. They won't hold you to a greater standard then they do themselves. They care about you and don't want to see you cry, feel discouraged or give up on this life. When you know the power of who you are and what you have to accomplish you will scratch your head in disbelief that you allowed other people to dictate who you are based on little knowledge of what God knows about you and your life purpose. Letting go isn't about accepting defeat or acknowledging you were wrong. Sometimes letting go is realizing that God has something better in store for you.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
life is creative fun & adventure
”
”
Carrie Mortleman (Hellie the Hovercraft Elephant)
“
You making jokes about my illness? Not funny. Me making jokes about my illness? Funny.
”
”
Carla Ulbrich (How Can You NOT Laugh at a Time Like This?: Reclaim Your Health with Humor, Creativity, and Grit)
“
It's been so long since I last had sex that I sometimes go to my local coffee shop just to hear someone scream my name.
”
”
Kevin Molesworth (The Rudman Conjecture on Quantum Entanglement)
“
The first problem of any kind of even limited success is the unshakable conviction that you are getting away with something, and that at any moment now they will discover you. It's Imposter Syndrome, something my wife Amanda christened The Fraud Police.
In my case, I was convinced that there would be a knock on the door, and a man with a clipboard (I don't know why he carried a clipboard, in my head, but he did) would be there, to tell me it was all over, and they had caught up with me, and now I would have to go and get a real job, one that didn't consist of making things up and writing them down, and reading books I wanted to read.
”
”
Neil Gaiman (Make Good Art)
“
When I write, it feels like there are two little creatures that sit on each of my shoulders. One whispers, "You can do this. You've got what it takes." The other sounds like my mother-in-law.
”
”
Carla H. Krueger
“
Here’s what I like about God: Trees are crooked, mountains are lumpy, a lot of his creatures are funny-looking, and he made it all anyway. He didn’t let the aardvark convince him he had no business designing creatures. He didn’t make a puffer fish and get discouraged. No, the maker made things—and still does. European film directors often enjoy creative careers, during which their films mature from the manifestos of angry young men to the rueful wisdom of great works by creative masters. Is an afternoon siesta the secret? Is their vita just a little more dolce? We’ve taken espresso to our American hearts, but we haven’t quite taken to the “break” in our coffee breaks. Worried about playing the fool, we forget how to simply play. We try to make our creativity linear and goal oriented. We want our “work” to lead somewhere. We forget that diversions do more than merely divert us.
”
”
Julia Cameron (Walking in This World (Artist's Way))
“
All the world’s a stage. Creative work is a kind of theater. The stage is your studio, your desk, or your workstation. The costume is your outfit—your painting pants, your business suit, or that funny hat that helps you think. The props are your materials, your tools, and your medium. The script is just plain old time. An hour here, or an hour there—just time measured out for things to happen.
”
”
Austin Kleon (Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative)
“
The creative process is a love story that never ends. The ideas are like suitors competing for your attention. You may have relationships, with multiple ideas, at once. You may devote yourself completely to one idea, for a awhile, but the affairs will never end. There will always be more ideas to romance and more concepts to develop. And all for that wonderful moment when you get to gaze at the complete creation and hold perfection in your arms, for one blissful moment... before your inner-critic starts tearing it to shreds.
”
”
Jaeda DeWalt
“
Na Arean sat alone in space as a cloud that floats in nothingness. He slept not, for there was no sleep; he hungered not, for as yet there was no hunger. So he remained for a great while, until a thought came to his mind. He said to himself, "I will make a thing.
”
”
Carl Sagan (Cosmos)
“
There are two irreconcilable ideas of God. There′s the Unknowable Creative Principle---one believes in That. And there′s the Sum of altruism in man---naturally one believes in That...The sublime poem of the Christ life was man′s attempt to join those two irreconcilable conceptions of God. And since the Sum of human altruism was as much a part of the Unknowable Creative Principle as anything else in Nature and the Universe, a worse link might have been chosen after all! Funny---how one went through life without seeing it in that sort of way!
”
”
John Galsworthy (The Forsyte Saga (The Forsyte Chronicles, #1-3))
“
All trademarks, company names, registered names, products, characters, mottos, logos, jingles and catchphrases used or cited in this work are the property of their respective owners and have only been mentioned and or used as cultural references to enhance the narrative and in no way were used to disparage or harm the owners and their companies. It is the author's sincerest wish the owners of the cited trademarks, company names, etc. appreciate the success they have achieved in making their products household names and appreciate the free plug.
”
”
E.A. Bucchianeri (Brushstrokes of a Gadfly (Gadfly Saga, #1))
“
Overnight, punk had become as stupid as everything else. This wonderful vital force that was articulated by the music was really about corrupting every form—it was about advocating kids to not wait to be told what to do, but make life up for themselves, it was about trying to get people to use their imaginations again, it was about not being perfect, it was about saying it was okay to be amateurish and funny, that real creativity came out of making a mess, it was about working with what you got in front of you and turning everything embarrassing, awful, and stupid in your life to your advantage.
”
”
Legs McNeil (Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk)
“
It’s a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
”
”
Julia Cameron (The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity)
“
being funny is actually all about thinking "what if ?" in a creative way.
”
”
shashankbisht
“
Look under your bed and you will know the greatest thief in your room.
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”
ABC
“
I enjoy poetry where I can talk as bizarre as I please, but theology or philosophy, I always respect the truth by taking it a step further.
”
”
Criss Jami (Healology)
“
My plan to conquer your world and the rest of the transdimensional multiverse is tomfoolery, but it is certainly not delusion.
”
”
Aaron Kyle Andresen (How Dad Found Himself in the Padded Room: A Bipolar Father's Gift For The World (The Padded Room Trilogy Book 1))
“
I long for the day when someone loves me as much as women in commercials love yogurt.
”
”
Kevin Molesworth (The Rudman Conjecture on Quantum Entanglement)
“
If being lazy was an Olympic sport, I would totally win the bronze.
”
”
Kevin Molesworth (The Rudman Conjecture on Quantum Entanglement)
“
Wonderful. I'm stranded with the least creative Ramblers.
”
”
M.L. LeGette (The Orphan and the Thief)
“
Fiction can do that: can make a space for reflecting, for generating novel ways of responding and reacting to lies and guns and walls alike. The mere act of cracking open a book, Smith thinks, is creative in itself, capable of inculcating kindness and agility in the reader. ‘Art is one of the prime ways we have of opening ourselves and going beyond ourselves. That’s what art is, it’s the product of the human being in the world and imagination, all coming together. The irrepressibility of the life in the works, regardless of the times, the histories, the life stories, it’s like being given the world, its darks and lights. At which point we can go about the darks and lights with our imagination energised”
- Olivia Laing, Funny Weather
”
”
Olivia Laing (Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency)
“
The dust made Lily cough. She buried her face in the crook of her arm to muffle the noise. But behind all that wood, they probably could play the 1812 Overture with real cannons and nobody would hear them.
”
”
Ellie McDonald (Danger After Dark (Creative Girls Club Mystery Series, #2))
“
LIZZ WINSTEAD Instead of Jon playing a character—the news anchor, one of the derelicts in a derelict world of media—Jon made a creative decision to take the show in the direction of the correspondents presenting the idiocy, and then Jon is the person who calls out the idiocy with the eloquence that the viewer wishes they had. And he did it in a way that’s not condescending, it’s not smug. It’s funny, it’s emotional, it’s calling out bullshit. So Jon became the voice of the audience.
”
”
Chris Smith (The Daily Show (The Audiobook): An Oral History as Told by Jon Stewart, the Correspondents, Staff and Guests)
“
I have a funny relationship with sleep.. It arrives without ever letting me be aware of its arrival. And goes by not letting me notice the nudge it gives me to be awake....Yet, I know it had been there...Morning freshness tells me about its useful presence..
”
”
Ramesh Sood
“
You-the-organism are energy efficient and looking for love to sustain you. You learn that your energy doesn’t bounce back uncomfortably if you adapt your behavior to match your parents’ beliefs and unconscious body postures. You copy them and stop trying to express yourself when you can’t get through. You won’t be expansively creative if you’re punished for it. You stop being affectionate if it makes your parents uncomfortable and rigid. You stop radiating warmly from your chest or eyes if your mother’s eyes are unresponsive or your father’s heart is hard. You learn to be silent because your mother is more relaxed then, or walk like your father because it validates him, or act funny because the moments of laughter feel better than the absences created by your workaholic parents.
”
”
Penney Peirce (Frequency: The Power of Personal Vibration (Transformation Series))
“
Despite all their surface diversity, most jokes and funny incidents have the following logical structure: Typically you lead the listener along a garden path of expectation, slowly building up tension. At the very end, you introduce an unexpected twist that entails a complete reinterpretation of all the preceding data, and moreover, it's critical that the new interpretation, though wholly unexpected, makes as much "sense" of the entire set of facts as did the originally "expected" interpretation.
In this regard, jokes have much in common with scientific creativity, with what Thomas Kuhn calls a "paradigm shift" in response to a single "anomaly." (It's probably not coincidence that many of the most creative scientists have a great sense of humor.) Of course, the anomaly in the joke is the traditional punch line and the joke is "funny" only if the listener gets the punch line by seeing in a flash of insight how a completely new interpretation of the same set of facts can incorporate the anomalous ending.
The longer and more tortuous the garden path of expectation, the "funnier" the punch line when finally delivered.
”
”
V.S. Ramachandran
“
It wasn’t until high school, when I took my first creative writing class, that I began to sense trouble. I realized, with shock, that I wasn’t good at creative writing. I was good at grammar and arguing, at remembering things people said, and at making stressful situations seem funny. But it turned out these weren’t the skills you needed in order to invent quirky people and give them arcs of desire. I already had my hands full writing about the people I actually knew, and all the things they said. That was what I needed writing for. Now I had to invent extra people and think of things for them to say?
”
”
Elif Batuman (Either/Or)
“
And so what?” I asked. “So what if they know I’m gay? Why, exactly, does that mean you can’t be seen with me? Am I contagious? Because I guess that’d explain a lot.” As far as explanations went, that’d win an award for creativity. Sorry, I stopped texting you because my precise strain of “gay” was only temporary. Kind of like salmonella.
”
”
Sophie Gonzales
“
Your sub-personalities can tell you what work is left unfinished, what you have to do to resolve recurring patterns. They will tell you what you need to do to learn a specific lesson. If you’re willing to listen you will find your sub-personalities are funny, resourceful, honest, and forgiving - the wisest people in the universe when it comes to yourself. This is because they’re giving you answers that come from within you.
”
”
Debbie Ford (The Dark Side of the Light Chasers: Reclaiming Your Power, Creativity, Brilliance, and Dreams)
“
I BELIEVE THAT we know much more about God than we admit that we know, than perhaps we altogether know that we know. God speaks to us, I would say, much more often than we realize or than we choose to realize. Before the sun sets every evening, he speaks to each of us in an intensely personal and unmistakable way. His message is not written out in starlight, which in the long run would make no difference; rather it is written out for each of us in the humdrum, helter-skelter events of each day; it is a message that in the long run might just make all the difference. Who knows what he will say to me today or to you today or into the midst of what kind of unlikely moment he will choose to say it. Not knowing is what makes today a holy mystery as every day is a holy mystery. But I believe that there are some things that by and large God is always saying to each of us. Each of us, for instance, carries around inside himself, I believe, a certain emptiness—a sense that something is missing, a restlessness, the deep feeling that somehow all is not right inside his skin. Psychologists sometimes call it anxiety, theologians sometimes call it estrangement, but whatever you call it, I doubt that there are many who do not recognize the experience itself, especially no one of our age, which has been variously termed the age of anxiety, the lost generation, the beat generation, the lonely crowd. Part of the inner world of everyone is this sense of emptiness, unease, incompleteness, and I believe that this in itself is a word from God, that this is the sound that God’s voice makes in a world that has explained him away. In such a world, I suspect that maybe God speaks to us most clearly through his silence, his absence, so that we know him best through our missing him. But he also speaks to us about ourselves, about what he wants us to do and what he wants us to become; and this is the area where I believe that we know so much more about him than we admit even to ourselves, where people hear God speak even if they do not believe in him. A face comes toward us down the street. Do we raise our eyes or do we keep them lowered, passing by in silence? Somebody says something about somebody else, and what he says happens to be not only cruel but also funny, and everybody laughs. Do we laugh too, or do we speak the truth? When a friend has hurt us, do we take pleasure in hating him, because hate has its pleasures as well as love, or do we try to build back some flimsy little bridge? Sometimes when we are alone, thoughts come swarming into our heads like bees—some of them destructive, ugly, self-defeating thoughts, some of them creative and glad. Which thoughts do we choose to think then, as much as we have the choice? Will we be brave today or a coward today? Not in some big way probably but in some little foolish way, yet brave still. Will we be honest today or a liar? Just some little pint-sized honesty, but honest still. Will we be a friend or cold as ice today? All the absurd little meetings, decisions, inner skirmishes that go to make up our days. It all adds up to very little, and yet it all adds up to very much. Our days are full of nonsense, and yet not, because it is precisely into the nonsense of our days that God speaks to us words of great significance—not words that are written in the stars but words that are written into the raw stuff and nonsense of our days, which are not nonsense just because God speaks into the midst of them. And the words that he says, to each of us differently, are be brave…be merciful…feed my lambs…press on toward the goal.
”
”
Frederick Buechner (Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechne)
“
She insisted that they focus their energies on raising a little girl who was, by nature, a tangle of mischief and motion and curiosity. Each day, Luna’s ability to break rules in new and creative ways was an astonishment to all who knew her. She tried to ride the goats, tried to roll boulders down the mountain and into the side of the barn (for decoration, she explained), tried to teach the chickens to fly, and once almost drowned in the swamp. (Glerk saved her. Thank goodness.) She gave ale to the geese to see if it made them walk funny (it did) and put peppercorns in the goat’s feed to see if it would make them jump (they didn’t jump; they just destroyed the fence). Every day she goaded Fyrian into making atrocious choices or she played tricks on the poor dragon, making him cry. She climbed, hid, built, broke, wrote on the walls, and spoiled dresses when they had only just been finished. Her hair ratted, her nose smudged, and she left handprints wherever she went.
”
”
Kelly Barnhill (The Girl Who Drank the Moon)
“
Funny how you never hear novelists or painters say they work in the 'creative industries', but only squalid little advertising people. How could this be? (.....)
If you listen to advertisers, you'd think they're the fucking Oracle and that for a fee they'll slip you the Answer. They are obsessed with being seen as 'creative', but what they do seems rather to be 'parasitical' : pinching cultural innovations and using them to persuade people that they want stuff. So there's a dilemma for us all to think 'creatively' about.
”
”
Steve Lowe (The Best of Is It Just Me or Is Everything Shit?)
“
When I was a kid watching comedians on TV and listening to their records they were the only ones that could make it all seem okay. They seemed to cut through the bullshit and disarm fears and horror by being clever and funny. I don't think I could have survived my childhood without watching stand-up comics. When I started doing comedy I didn't understand show business. I just wanted to be a comedian. Now, after twenty-five years of doing stand-up and the last two years of having long conversations with over two hundred comics I can honestly say they are some of the most thoughtful, philosophical, open-minded, sensitive, insightful, talented, self-centred, neurotic, compulsive, angry, fucked-up, sweet, creative people in the world.
”
”
Marc Maron
“
I'm curious,' he said casually. The amber in his green eyes was glowing. Perhaps not all traces of that beast-warrior were gone. 'Are you ever going to use that knife you stole from my table?'
I stiffened. 'How did you know?'
Beneath the mask, I could have sworn his brows were raised. 'I was trained to notice those things. But I could smell the fear on you, more than anything.'
I grumbled. 'I thought no one noticed.'
He gave me a crooked smile, more genuine than all the faked smiles and flattery he'd given me before. 'Regardless of the Treaty, if you were to stand a chance at escaping my kind, you'll need to think more creatively than stealing dinner knives. But with your affinity for eavesdropping, maybe you'll someday learn something valuable.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1))
“
I like to say the idea of Phantasma came to me all at once, hitting me like a ton of bricks one cloudy afternoon in November 2021, but truly, my experience with obsessive-compulsive disorder has been building to this story for a very long time. During the process of brainstorming the sort of adult romance I wanted to debut with, I was going through a period where my obsessive-compulsive tendencies were flaring up more than usual and the voices in my head were getting a little too bold. To my friends, these compulsions were alarming little anecdotes over lunch—‘that sounds like a horror movie’ one of them said (affectionately)—which is funny because, to me, someone who has lived with OCD my entire life, it was just another day of being unfazed by the increasingly creative scenarios my mind likes to conjure. OCD has such a wide range of symptoms that it makes every person’s experience with it different. Unfortunately, it has also become a commonly misused term conflated with the idea of being overly neat and clean, when in reality a lot of people with OCD have much darker symptoms. In my experience this has made explaining the real effects of OCD very hard as well as making it more difficult for people to regard the condition seriously. It’s so important to me to convey, with the utmost sincerity, that I know people are not doing this to be malicious! Because of the misuse of the term, however, some of the ways this disorder is shown in this book may come off as exaggerated or dramatic—but the details of Ophelia’s OCD are drawn directly from experiences that I, or someone I know who shares my condition, have had first-hand. And it’s still only a fraction of the symptoms we live with daily. Ophelia’s story is a love letter to my journey of getting comfortable being in my own head (as well as my adoration for Gothic aesthetics and hot ghosts). And while her experience with OCD, my experience with OCD, might look a lot different to someone else’s, I hope that the same message rings clear: struggling with your mental health does not make you unworthy of love. And I hope the people you surround yourself with are the sort of people who know that, too.
”
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Kaylie Smith (Phantasma (Wicked Games, #1))
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Dex unlocked the front door and bent over to pick up the mail on the floor, Sloane found himself distracted. It was the first time he’d thought about anything sexual. Now he couldn’t stop thinking about it. About Dex lying under him gasping and moaning, begging for Sloane to fuck him. God, he missed that. “Fuck!” Dex spun around, his eyes wide. “What is it? What’s wrong?” “We can’t have sex,” Sloane whined. Dex stared at him before bursting into laughter. “Is that what you’re worried about? Not having sex?” Sloane glared at Dex as his partner helped him inside and closed the door behind them. “I don’t see what’s so funny. This is a serious situation.” The sinful look on Dex’s face was enough to have Sloane swallowing hard. It was followed by Dex slipping his arms around Sloane, his hand migrating south to Sloane’s ass where he gave it a squeeze. When Dex spoke, his voice was low and husky. “Do you really think not being able to have sex is going to stop me from finding ways to make you purr? To drive you absolutely fucking crazy? You think I don’t know how to get creative?” Sloane licked his bottom lip. “Well, when you put it like that….
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Charlie Cochet (Rise & Fall (THIRDS, #4))
“
People, especially those in charge, rarely invite you into their offices and give freely of their time. Instead, you have to do something unique, compelling, even funny or a bit daring, to earn it. Even if you happen to be an exceptionally well-rounded person who possesses all of the scrappy qualities discussed so far, it’s still important to be prepared, dig deep, do the prep work, and think on your feet. Harry Gordon Selfridge, who founded the London-based department store Selfridges, knew the value of doing his homework. Selfridge, an American from Chicago, traveled to London in 1906 with the hope of building his “dream store.” He did just that in 1909, and more than a century later, his stores continue to serve customers in London, Manchester, and Birmingham. Selfridges’ success and staying power is rooted in the scrappy efforts of Harry Selfridge himself, a creative marketer who exhibited “a revolutionary understanding of publicity and the theatre of retail,” as he is described on the Selfridges’ Web site. His department store was known for creating events to attract special clientele, engaging shoppers in a way other retailers had never done before, catering to the holidays, adapting to cultural trends, and changing with the times and political movements such as the suffragists. Selfridge was noted to have said, “People will sit up and take notice of you if you will sit up and take notice of what makes them sit up and take notice.” How do you get people to take notice? How do you stand out in a positive way in order to make things happen? The curiosity and imagination Selfridge employed to successfully build his retail stores can be just as valuable for you to embrace in your circumstances. Perhaps you have landed a meeting, interview, or a quick coffee date with a key decision maker at a company that has sparked your interest. To maximize the impression you’re going to make, you have to know your audience. That means you must respectfully learn what you can about the person, their industry, or the culture of their organization. In fact, it pays to become familiar not only with the person’s current position but also their background, philosophies, triumphs, failures, and major breakthroughs. With that information in hand, you are less likely to waste the precious time you have and more likely to engage in genuine and meaningful conversation.
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Terri L. Sjodin (Scrappy: A Little Book About Choosing to Play Big)
“
God speaks to us, I would say, much more often than we realize or than we choose to realize. Before the sun sets every evening, he speaks to each of us in an intensely personal and unmistakable way. His message is not written out in starlight, which in the long run would make no difference; rather it is written out for each of us in the humdrum, helter-skelter events of each day; it is a message that in the long run might just make all the difference. Who knows what he will say to me today or to you today or into the midst of what kind of unlikely moment he will choose to say it. Not knowing is what makes today a holy mystery as every day is a holy mystery. But I believe that there are some things that by and large God is always saying to each of us. Each of us, for instance, carries around inside himself, I believe, a certain emptiness—a sense that something is missing, a restlessness, the deep feeling that somehow all is not right inside his skin. Psychologists sometimes call it anxiety, theologians sometimes call it estrangement, but whatever you call it, I doubt that there are many who do not recognize the experience itself, especially no one of our age, which has been variously termed the age of anxiety, the lost generation, the beat generation, the lonely crowd. Part of the inner world of everyone is this sense of emptiness, unease, incompleteness, and I believe that this in itself is a word from God, that this is the sound that God’s voice makes in a world that has explained him away. In such a world, I suspect that maybe God speaks to us most clearly through his silence, his absence, so that we know him best through our missing him. But he also speaks to us about ourselves, about what he wants us to do and what he wants us to become; and this is the area where I believe that we know so much more about him than we admit even to ourselves, where people hear God speak even if they do not believe in him. A face comes toward us down the street. Do we raise our eyes or do we keep them lowered, passing by in silence? Somebody says something about somebody else, and what he says happens to be not only cruel but also funny, and everybody laughs. Do we laugh too, or do we speak the truth? When a friend has hurt us, do we take pleasure in hating him, because hate has its pleasures as well as love, or do we try to build back some flimsy little bridge? Sometimes when we are alone, thoughts come swarming into our heads like bees—some of them destructive, ugly, self-defeating thoughts, some of them creative and glad. Which thoughts do we choose to think then, as much as we have the choice? Will we be brave today or a coward today? Not in some big way probably but in some little foolish way, yet brave still. Will we be honest today or a liar? Just some little pint-sized honesty, but honest still. Will we be a friend or cold as ice today? All the absurd little meetings, decisions, inner skirmishes that go to make up our days. It all adds up to very little, and yet it all adds up to very much. Our days are full of nonsense, and yet not, because it is precisely into the nonsense of our days that God speaks to us words of great significance—not words that are written in the stars but words that are written into the raw stuff and nonsense of our days, which are not nonsense just because God speaks into the midst of them. And the words that he says, to each of us differently, are be brave…be merciful…feed my lambs…press on toward the goal.
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Frederick Buechner (Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechne)
“
It’s so funny you should say this, because if you were one of my students, you’d be wearing your pain like a badge of honor. This generation doesn’t hide anything from anyone. My class talks a lot about their traumas. And how their traumas inform their games. They, honest to God, think their traumas are the most interesting thing about them. I sound like I’m making fun, and I am a little, but I don’t mean to be. They’re so different from us, really. Their standards are higher; they call bullshit on so much of the sexism and racism that I, at least, just lived with. But that’s also made them kind of, well, humorless. I hate people who talk about generational differences like it’s an actual thing, and here I am, doing it. It doesn’t make sense. How alike were you to anyone we grew up with, you know?” “If their traumas are the most interesting things about them, how do they get over any of it?” Sam asked. “I don’t think they do. Or maybe they don’t have to, I don’t know.” Sadie paused. “Since I’ve been teaching, I keep thinking about how lucky we were,” she said. “We were lucky to be born when we were.” “How so?” “Well, if we’d been born a little bit earlier, we wouldn’t have been able to make our games so easily. Access to computers would have been harder. We would have been part of the generation who was putting floppy disks in Ziploc bags and driving the games to stores. And if we’d been born a little bit later, there would have been even greater access to the internet and certain tools, but honestly, the games got so much more complicated; the industry got so professional. We couldn’t have done as much as we did on our own. We could never have made a game that we could sell to a company like Opus on the resources we had. We wouldn’t have made Ichigo Japanese, because we would have worried about the fact that we weren’t Japanese. And I think, because of the internet, we would have been overwhelmed by how many people were trying to do the exact same things we were. We had so much freedom—creatively, technically. No one was watching us, and we weren’t even watching ourselves. What we had was our impossibly high standards, and your completely theoretical conviction that we could make a great game.
”
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Gabrielle Zevin (Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow)
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ACT I Dear Diary, I have been carrying you around for a while now, but I didn’t write anything before now. You see, I didn’t like killing that cow to get its leather, but I had to. Because I wanted to make a diary and write into it, of course. Why did I want to write into a diary? Well, it’s a long story. A lot has happened over the last year and I have wanted to write it all down for a while, but yesterday was too crazy not to document! I’m going to tell you everything. So where should we begin? Let’s begin from the beginning. I kind of really want to begin from the middle, though. It’s when things got very interesting. But never mind that, I’ll come to it in a bit. First of all, my name is Herobrine. That’s a weird name, some people say. I’m kinda fond of it, but that’s just me I suppose. Nobody really talks to me anyway. People just refer to me as “Him”. Who gave me the name Herobrine? I gave it to myself, of course! Back in the day, I used to be called Jack, but it was such a run-of-the-mill name, so I changed it. Oh hey, while we’re at the topic of names, how about I give you a name, Diary? Yeah, I’m gonna give you a name. I’ll call you… umm, how does Doris sound? Nah, very plain. I must come up with a more creative name. Angela sounds cool, but I don’t think you’ll like that. Come on, give me some time. I’m not used to coming up with awesome names on the fly! Yes, I got it! I’ll call you Moony, because I created you under a full moon. Of course, that’s such a perfect name! I am truly a genius. I wish people would start appreciating my intellect. Oh, right. The story, right, my bad. So Moony, when it all started, I was a miner. Yep, just like 70% of the people in Scotland. And it was a dull job, I have to say. Most of the times, I mined for coal and iron ore. Those two resources were in great need at my place, that’s why so many people were miners. We had some farmers, builders, and merchants, but that was basically it. No jewelers, no booksellers, no restaurants, nothing. My gosh, that place was boring! I had always been fascinated by the idea of building. It seemed like so much fun, creating new things from other things. What’s not to like? I wanted to build, too. So I started. It was part-time at first, and I only did it when nobody was around. Whenever I got some free time on my hands, I spent it building stuff. I would dig out small caves and build little horse stables and make boats and all. It was so much fun! So I decided to take it to the next level and left my job as a miner. They weren’t paying me well, anyway. I traveled far and wide, looking for places to build and finding new materials. I’m quite the adrenaline junkie, I soon realized, always looking for an adventure.
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Funny Comics (Herobrine's Diary 1: It Ain't Easy Being Mean (Herobrine Books))
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Soak blanket in gravy and make a delicious brick wrap. Serve in All Gravy Room at the Mandrake Hotel.
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Christoph Fischer
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When it comes to a wedding, all women are artists and the least shading out of synch with their creative thought can make or break their magnum opus. It makes it worse when one of them is actually an artist.
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E.A. Bucchianeri (Vocation of a Gadfly (Gadfly Saga, #2))
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It's when you get to know the magic equations then you understand the meaning of abracadabra
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Kayode Seyi Tayo
“
Each day, Luna's ability to break rules in new and creative ways was an astonishment to all who knew her. She tried to ride the goats, tried to roll boulders down the mountain and into the side of the barn (for decoration, she explained), tried to teach the chickens to fly, and once almost drowned in the swamp. (Glerk saved her. Thank goodness.) She gave ale to the geese to see if it made them walk funny (it did) and put peppercorns in the goat's feed to see if it would make them jump (they didn't jump; they just destroyed the fence). Every day she goaded Fyrian into making atrocious choices or she played tricks on the poor dragon, making him cry. She climbed, hid, built, broke, wrote on the walls, and spoiled dresses when they had only just been finished. Her hair ratted, her nose smudged, and she left handprints wherever she went
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Kelly Barnhill (The Girl Who Drank the Moon)
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The first step in trying to get into a positive state of mind should be to smile and think of a funny thought. Another
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Matt Morris (Do Talk To Strangers: A Creative, Sexy, and Fun Way To Have Emotionally Stimulating Conversations With Anyone)
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Smile. Be happy with yourself–wherever you are. Think of something that makes you smile or something funny that will put you into a happy state of mind.
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Matt Morris (Do Talk To Strangers: A Creative, Sexy, and Fun Way To Have Emotionally Stimulating Conversations With Anyone)
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were distracted by something and lost train of your thought because you weren’t in the present moment. Maybe you just couldn’t think of anything interesting, funny, or entertaining to say.
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Matt Morris (Do Talk To Strangers: A Creative, Sexy, and Fun Way To Have Emotionally Stimulating Conversations With Anyone)
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They trigger creativity, because they make us so vulnerable and open our heart to become its large self. Buddhist philosopher Joanna Macy says that when your heart breaks, the universe can pour through. That is how it is. When the universe pours through, so, too, does the creativity of the universe. How many comedians are funny in spite of and because of deep tragedies in their life, which have opened their souls up to the ultimate paradoxes of living? Humor and paradox are often the only ways to respond to life’s sorrows with grace. Humor, too, seems built into the fabric of the universe, so filled with paradox and surprise and uncanny combinations.
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Matthew Fox (Creativity)
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It’s funny that when you decide you want to do creative work—journalism or music or films or whatever—nobody tells you how much of your time you’ll be spending simply hunting for something worth writing about.
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John Biewen (Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound (Documentary Arts and Culture, Published in association with the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University))
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I was now inclined to believe that ideas also have wit, because what had transpired between Ann and me was not only phenomenal, but also curiously and charmingly funny.
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Elizabeth Gilbert (Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear)
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How close to the moon does the tooth fairy soar
with her arms so full she can hold no more?
Could the tiny bright stars that hang in the sky
be the teeth that fell down as she flew by?
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Denise Barry (What Does the Tooth Fairy Do with Our Teeth?)
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The health of your body has a direct impact on the health of your brain. In fact, there are only three degrees of separation between sitting too much and dementia. You sit for long periods of time. Your body goes into hibernation mode, depressing your metabolism and increasing your blood pressure, blood sugar, and weight.7 Your high blood pressure damages your heart and its vessels. The small vessels that feed your brain get blocked, putting you at risk of small vessel disease. Without adequate blood supply, the brain’s white matter starves to death.8 White matter acts like a telephone wire that connects brain regions so they can talk to each other. When your white matter is damaged, the communication between those brain regions breaks down just like it did in that telephone game we played as kids; in the end, the message is all mixed up and everyone is confused. It was funny back then, but it’s not funny now. The white matter damage shows up like bright lights on your brain scan called white matter hyperintensities. The scary part is that your brain could be lit up like a Christmas tree but clinically silent, meaning that you may have no noticeable symptoms until it’s too
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Jennifer Heisz (Move The Body, Heal The Mind: Overcome Anxiety, Depression, and Dementia and Improve Focus, Creativity, and Sleep)
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So and so spent days crafting something beautiful, and you just farted on the page
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Mr. B
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What the fuck? Understanding slammed into me like a Mack truck. These were directed at me. They had to be. Catherine had written her scathing opinion of me on the bottom of my daily schedules, then precisely cut them off and saved them in an envelope. There must have been over a hundred. One for each day she’d worked for me. Holy shit. That little… My head fell back as laughter rolled out of me. Thick, rumbling laughter from deep in my chest traveled down my limbs through my veins. I knew it. All these months, I knew Catherine had been biting her tongue. It had always been there, right in front of me, but she’d cut it off. Every time she’d wanted to tell me my cyborg was showing or ask me if I was human, she’d stop herself and save it for her morning ritual. Christ, this woman. She was something else. I should have fired her for putting me through weeks of being driven insane by paper length, but this was too funny to be angry over. My little prim and pressed Catherine Warner was an undercover firecracker. I’d always known it, but seeing the undeniable proof was wholly gratifying. Her insults were so creative and cutting I couldn’t stop myself from reading more. P.S. Rocks have more emotions than you do.
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Julia Wolf (P.S. You're Intolerable (The Harder They Fall, #3))
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Possessing a creative mind, after all, is something like having a border collie as a pet: It needs to work, or else it will cause you an outrageous amount of trouble.
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Elizabeth Gilbert (Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear)
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Hawking’s insistence on scientific laws hides the desire to transform the current scientific laws into the ultimate and absolute knowledge of everything, physical and metaphysical, of this world and the outer world. According to him, we are on the verge of declaring, with almost absolute certainty, that we have solved the whole enigma of existence and gone down to nearly the deepest end of science and scientific laws. Although he expressed many ideas in a simple, popular, and often funny way, there is a little bit of unjustifiable scientific conceit (to call it that way) behind some statements.
If we were to imagine the creative force capable of creating the Universe, this creative force would be out of time or eternal. The Eternal Being is not contingent or affected by the boundaries of the physical world. The no-boundary proposal is accurate in that there are no boundaries we can apply to the Eternal Being. Still, the Universe, as the Being with its beginning, is bounded by time. The first point of the Universe is its first limit; it would have no limits if it were a timeless Being. Even if there were a series of births and rebirths, these would still be limited creations or recreations of something eternal that creates or recreates itself through the creation of universes. The creative power of the Eternal Being is the ultimate force that keeps the Eternal Being alive. The only way for the Eternal Being to exist with meaning is through its creative power to rejuvenate itself in new ways and myriad forms constantly. The Creator is its creation, and the creation creates the creator in a deeper sense. Without creating, the Universal Being loses its purpose and becomes meaningless. Meaning is only possible in plurality. The World, or Universe, gives the Universal Being meaning and purpose. The world is its salvation.
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Dejan Stojanovic (ABSOLUTE (THE WORLD IN NOWHERENESS))
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The comedian toys with our rational minds and brings about a "momentary fusion between two habitually incompatible matrices." The punch line comes a surprise but makes perfect sense. The sudden click of logic makes a joke funny; humor is reasonable. Someone without a strongly developed sense of logic is unlikely to have a good sense of humor either.
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Éric Weiner (The Geography of Genius: A Search for the World's Most Creative Places from Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley)
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Remy had moved to England to spend his time avoiding having his head removed by the rest of his countrymen, while drinking himself into a steady oblivion. Unfortunately, he’d met a lovely young lady whom he proceeded to cheat on. She caught him and punished him. Witches have funny ideas when it comes to punishment. They tend to be creative. Her coven decided that if Remy was going to behave like an animal, they’d turn him into one. The idea was, according to Remy, they were going to turn him into a red fox, hand him over to a huntsman so he could be torn apart by their hounds at some point in the near future. The spell didn’t exactly work. The twelve members of the coven were using magic well beyond their capabilities and it ended up killing all of them and feeding their souls into Remy. Remy kept his intellect, his human nature and personality, while adding the life force of twelve young women to his newly changed body. Remy was now part man, part red fox. He was about three and a half feet tall, and covered in the fur of a red fox, from his fox muzzle to the tip of his bushy tail. He walked upright on legs that were more human in shape than animal, and had fingers, although each of them was tipped with a sharp claw. And he could talk, which allowed him to express his pissed-off-with-the-world nature on a regular basis.
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Steve McHugh (Lies Ripped Open (Hellequin Chronicles #5))
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HUMOR IS POWER." ~ Karyn Buxman, RN, neurohumorist __________________ Chapter 1 What’s NOT So Funny About Nursing? 12 hour shifts . . . Doctors with attitude . . . Cranky co-workers . . . Frequent flyers . . . Non-compliant patients . . . Frustrated administrators . . . Antibiotic-resistant superbugs . . . Healthcare reform . . . Disorganized supply closets . . . Dwindling budgets . . . Increasing workloads . . . Bad hospital coffee.
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Karyn Buxman (What's So Funny About... Nursing?: A Creative Approach to Celebrating Your Profession)
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And yet, humor, done well, is one of an organization’s most valuable human resources. Not only is it free, it dissolves silos, builds rapport, increases morale, and opens the mind to creativity. It’s why Isaac Asimov said, “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ but ‘That’s funny.
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Mitch Ditkoff (Storytelling at Work: How Moments of Truth on the Job Reveal the Real Business of Life)
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Without creativity, nobody gives a shit. The world is full of dull opinions, almost-funny banter, and dreary monographs.
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Bob Hoffman (Marketers Are From Mars, Consumers Are From New Jersey)
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Many experiments show that when people are put into a good mood (e.g., by giving them candy or showing them a funny movie), they are more creative. For example, they are better at inventing diverse and unusual ways for getting a candle to burn without dripping, or at finding more obscure and remote associations between words and ideas.22 People in good moods are “more cognitively flexible —more able to make associations, to see dimensions, and to see potential relationships among stimuli—than are persons in a neutral state.”23 In other words, they generate more varied ideas and combinations of those ideas, which are crucial aspects of creative work.
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Robert I. Sutton (Weird Ideas That Work: 11 1/2 Practices for Promoting, Managing, and Sustaining Innovation)
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PLAY IS MORE POWERFUL THAN LOVE.” ~ Patch Adams, MD
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Karyn Buxman (What's So Funny About... Nursing?: A Creative Approach to Celebrating Your Profession)
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It’s funny. Before Milo came along, I worried how I’d keep my business ticking over while tending a newborn. Turns out it wasn’t that difficult – or maybe I just stopped caring so much about work; web design was never my creative calling. And when you stare into the slumbering face of a tiny creature so new to the world, it’s amazing how everything else fades. Either way, my life was the perfect balance. I could stay home with my baby, with just enough work to keep my tired brain ticking and feel like something other than a human milk machine. Everyone said how lucky I was.
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Leah Mercer (Who We Were Before)
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Refining the relationship between exaggeration and realism in humor can be related to stretching a rubber band. Imagine the unstretched band is the realism, and exaggeration stretches the band. When the rubber band is stretched to capacity, several things happen at once. Stretching alters the shape of the band; exaggeration changes the perception of reality. The rubber band can be stretched a little (understatement) or a lot (overstatement). Just as tension increases in a rubber band that it is stretched, exaggeration increases tension in the audience—up to the breaking point. When you pluck a rubber band, it makes a sound. The pitch of this sound gets higher as you stretch the rubber band further. This sound can be compared to emotion in an audience. The more you stretch the rubber band, the greater the emotion in the audience. Finding the proper balance between realism and exaggeration is the ultimate test of a comedy writer’s skill. Humor only comes when the exaggeration is logical. Simply being ludicrous or audacious is not a skill. It’s amateur. Many novice stand-up comedians struggle with exaggeration. They’ll start with some realistic premise—the way women dress, picking up men in a singles bar, outsmarting the police, or advertising slogans—but then they’ll shift into fifth gear in a wild display of ludicrous fantasy that’s not well connected to the initial premise. Their material has limited success because they make the same mistake repeatedly: They disrupt the equal balance of realism and exaggeration. Outrageous doesn’t mean creative.
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Mark Shatz (Comedy Writing Secrets: The Best-Selling Guide to Writing Funny and Getting Paid for It)
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Of what use is my going to church every day and still come home and remain the same? Of what use is my attending the mosques and the next day I enter the mall with knives and start slaughtering people in the name of religion.
God is a God of variety. He was not stupid creating all of us different with our uniqueness.
His creating us different shows the level of His creativity. He didn't make you white to hate black or vice versa. He made it so that we can cherish and love each other irrespective of our differences just as He loved us with all our flaws and our short comings.
Can we forgive those who have offended us? Yes and some will say no but never forget that you are not worthy but God still forgives you even till the last hour of your life.
If God can love us against all our atrocities why can't we learn to love one another.
Take a look around you, you can only see sad faces. Was that really God's intention for us on earth? Absolutely not. But we have remoulded God's creativity to suit our taste and lifestyles and now we are reaping the fruit of our labour. You should not expect to reap love when you sowed the seed of hatred. What a man sows that he reaps. We sowed on weapons of war and we are yielding war in return. We have sowed on weapons of destruction so why are we asking for peace.
If you ask me....I will say let's go back to our source. He has never lost any battle. I am a living witness.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
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This is the part of film acting that I was only too happy to leave behind, the part that became more agonizing as time went on. Yet you have to go through those terrifying times if you are ever to have the magic ones, the times when it all works—and to be truthful, those I have missed. There were perhaps only eight or nine of them out of forty-five films, but they were the times when I stepped into my light and my muse was with me, all my channels were open, the creative flow coursed through my body, and I became. Whether the scene was sad or funny, tragic or triumphant, never mattered. When it worked it was like being enveloped in love and light, as I danced the intricate dance between technique and emotion, fully inside the scene while simultaneously a separate part of me observed and enjoyed the unfolding. Ah, but just because it has happened once doesn’t mean it will again! Each time is starting new, raw; it’s a crapshoot—you just never know. Which is why this profession is so great for the heart—and so hard on the nerves. I always assumed that the more you did something the easier it would get, but in the case of my career I found the opposite to be true. Every year the work seemed to get harder and my fear more paralyzing. Once, on the set of Old Gringo, I watched Gregory Peck late in his career doing a long, very difficult scene over and over again all day long. I saw that he too was scared. I went up to him afterward and hugged him and told him how beautiful and transparent he had been. “But, Greg,” I asked, “why do we do this to ourselves? Especially you. You’ve had a long and incredible career. You could easily retire. Why are you still willing to be scared?” Greg sat for a moment, rubbing his chin. Then he said, “Well, Jane, maybe it’s like my friend Walter Matthau says. His biggest thrill in life is to be gambling and losing a bit more than he can afford and then have one chance to win it all back. That’s what you live for—that moment. The crapshoot. If it’s easy, what’s the point?
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Jane Fonda (My Life So Far)
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There are always messages, even enigmas to be searched, mysteries to be solved in all of my books. I like to puzzle readers, but I do not make so to the point of being so complex that they will lose interest in the plot. And that for me is the essence of every great literature around the world, and that’s been so for ages.
(....)Some were inpired by real life characters, some other books I wrote are hybrid fiction/non-fiction, so I pretty much get inspired by people who have lived, and even who are still breathing among us… so don’t get discouraged if I didn’t mention your personality traits yet. I might even have your name over my books, I must some day…
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Ana Claudia Antunes (One Hundred One World Accounts in One Hundred One Word Count)
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How to tell a funny story Funny stories are some of the most popular stories, because they bring laughter and humor into the conversation. Here are some ways you can tell a funny story. ● Relate embarrassing stories. ● Don’t try too hard. It is ironic how a person can be funnier when they are not really trying to be. Also, try too hard and your audience may find it annoying and irrelevant. ● Keep the story personal. People tend to respond to people who try to humbly relate their stories. The more honest you are, the better. ● Keep it short. Short stories tend to be the funniest. ● Use a particular emotional attitude. You can choose a particular characteristic or attitude, like annoyed or excited, and try to live it. You can also sarcastically use the opposite emotion of what you are trying to convey. ● Don’t worry about what other people might say as you tell your story. Funny stories should sound spontaneous and natural.
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Matt Morris (Do Talk To Strangers: A Creative, Sexy, and Fun Way To Have Emotionally Stimulating Conversations With Anyone)
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The majority of boys think the highest form of creativity is weeing a pattern into snow.
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Beth Garrod (Super Awkward)
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Humour. Something funny can be a huge help with your visualising. This doesn’t mean you have to be the funniest person in the room, it means use what’s funny to you. When I meet someone called John, for example, I immediately picture him sitting on a toilet. For me that’s funny, for others it may not be—but it is memorable. I believe comedians are often super-creative beings because they find ways to communicate a point and to make it entertaining and unique. If you want to exercise your creativity, why not learn more about comedy?
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Tansel Ali (How to Learn Almost Anything in 48 Hours)
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Graphicforest - Logo design gig Cosminmala - Multiple business designs gig Bnn_marketing - Whiteboard gig Youngceaser - SEO backlink gig Dtongsports - Radio podcast gig Twistedweb123 - Website improvement gig Om2000_cuet - WordPress problem/solution gig Esalaah - Creative beatbox gig Funny gigs for FUN and crazy ideas: Welshbloke - Happy Birthday in Welsh gig Thegsaad - Video claiming to make love to your friend's mother gig Mr_marcus - Juggling chainsaws and knives gig
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Ian Georgeson (A Five Dollar Business Plan)