German Funny Quotes

There have been two great narcotics in European civilisation: Christianity and alcohol.

[Clover] secretly hitched a ride with a nice German couple and their new baby...Clover appeared to the baby, so as to be a delightful, soothing surprise. Well, the child did like Clover. In fact, she held him and cooed. When the parents turned around to look at her and saw their child holding a furry, living creature, they needlessly panicked.

That streetside tree is obscuring the air. Cut it down. Haul it in for questioning. There are secrets within that foliage. You might want to separate the branches in different rooms and apply some elementary game theory.” “Question a plant?” “Trees have a will too, just like people. We have to know it’s purpose. Read Schopenhauer.” “Schopenwho?” “He was the only authentic German. You might like him. Being a police officer, you’re undoubtedly familiar with the need to put an end to the lives of the perverse when sex crimes go too far. Now just generalize that necessity to every human being.

The literal mind is baffled by the ironic one, demanding explanations that only intensify the joke. A vintage example, and one that really did occur, is that of P.G. Wodehouse, captured by accident during the German invasion of France in 1940. Josef Goebbels’s propaganda bureaucrats asked him to broadcast on Berlin radio, which he incautiously agreed to do, and his first transmission began: Young men starting out in life often ask me—“How do you become an internee?” Well, there are various ways. My own method was to acquire a villa in northern France and wait for the German army to come along. This is probably the simplest plan. You buy the villa and the German army does the rest. Somebody—it would be nice to know who, I hope it was Goebbels—must have vetted this and decided to let it go out as a good advertisement for German broad-mindedness. The “funny” thing is that the broadcast landed Wodehouse in an infinity of trouble with the British authorities, representing a nation that prides itself above all on a sense of humor.

Rudy is a mutt; my father says he’s a cross between a chihuahua and a German shepherd, which must’ve been some wild dog sex.

In my mind, she was Lebkuchen Spice—ironic, Germanic, sexy, and off beat. And, mein Gott, the girl could bake a damn fine cookie … to the point that I wanted to answer her What do you want for Christmas? with a simple More cookies, please! But no. She warned me not to be a smart-ass, and while that answer was totally sincere, I was afraid she would think I was joking or, worse, kissing up. It was a hard question, especially if I had to batten down the sarcasm. I mean, there was the beauty pageant answer of world peace, although I’d probably have to render it in the beauty pageant spelling of world peas. I could play the boo-hoo orphan card and wish for my whole family to be together, but that was the last thing I wanted, especially at this late date.

When historians in the future ask a really old version of me about this pandemic, I’m gonna tell them that Trump’s MAGA minions were the only ones who had no idea what was happening, while the rest of America stared into the abyss.

Trump is a 12-year-old little asshole stuck in the body of a 70-year-old dumbfuck.

Coronavirus needs a better name. Something bad ass, like the Black Plague. I'm thinking Airborne Aids. Or Flying Herpes.

Funny people, the Germans. When you got them in a bunch they were all Nazis (they had to be), but when you got the little people by themselves and worked on them for a while they didn't have any morale underneath. Inside they seemed naked and defenceless.

It seems that along the Rhine front the French broadcast some recordings which the Germans say constituted a personal insult to the Führer. “The French did not realize,” says the DNB with that complete lack of humour which makes the Germans so funny,

It’s a funny language, German. For one thing, everybody shouts it.

Henry Kissinger How I'm missing yer You're the Doctor of my dreams With your crinkly hair and your glassy stare And your Machiavellian schemes I know they say that you are very vain And short and fat and pushy But at least you're not insane Henry Kissinger How I'm missing yer And wishing you were here Henry Kissinger How I'm missing yer You're so chubby and so neat With your funny clothes and your squishy nose You're like a German parakeet All right so people say that you don't care But you've got nicer legs than Hitler And bigger tits than Cher Henry Kissinger How I'm missing yer And wishing you were here

Adolf introduces Fascism to Germany, spreads war throughout Europe, murders millions in concentration camps—but he's a strict vegetarian and loves his dog. Tossing in a touching scene with his German shepherd Blondie and a dish of lentils won't make Hitler's character 'balanced.' Hitler's character isn't balanced.

This [discovery of a cell-free yeast extract] will make him famous, even though he has no talent for chemistry. {Comment on German scientist Eduard Buchner who later ironically won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this discovery}

Groin' is a funny word," Babe said quietly. "I don't know the German for it, but I'm sure you do." He began to talk more quickly then, because he could tell Szell was starting to die. "Oh, maybe you didn't see it in the papers, but they've made this fabulous theological discovery, do you know what they've found? People don't go to heaven or hell, they all go to one spot first, sort of a way station, and that's were things happen, because, you probably won't believe this, but some people on this earth have been known to do bad things to other people, innocent people, and at this way station, the innocent people wait, and then when their savager comes, they get to exact a little portion of revenge. God says revenge is good for the soul. Do you know who's waiting for you, Mr. Szell? All the Jews. They're all there, and you know what else? They've all got drills, like you used on me - remember how you said how wonderful it was, anyone could learn that, how to use them? Well, they have and they're waiting, and I don't know about you, but I think it's gonna be terrific." Szell was almost dead now, but Babe just had time to get it in. Have a swell eternity," Babe said...

For me that's the only way of understanding a particular term that everyone here bandies about quite happily, but which clearly can't be quite that straight forward because it doesn't exist in many languages, only in Italian and Spanish, as far as I know, but then again, I don't know that many languages. Perhaps in German too, although I can't be sure: el enamoramiento--the state of falling or being in love, or perhaps infatuation. I'm referring to the noun, the concept; the adjective, the condition, are admittedly more familiar, at least in French, although not in English, but there are words that approximate that meaning ... We find a lot of people funny, people who amuse and charm us and inspire affection and even tenderness, or who please us, captivate us, and can even make us momentarily mad, we enjoy their body and their company or both those things, as is the case for me with you and as I've experienced before with other women, on other occasions, although only a few. Some become essential to us, the force of habit is very strong and ends up replacing or even supplanting almost everything else. It can supplant love, for example, but not that state of being in love, it's important to distinguish between the two things, they're easily confused, but they're not the same ... It's very rare to have a weakness, a genuine weakness for someone, and for that someone to provoke in us that feeling of weakness.

He had to witness how a ginger German with a v-neck that almost went as low as his navel drew all the attention to himself.

It's funny, isn't it," Miss Woolf whispered in Ursula's ear, "how much German music we listen to. Great beauty transcends all. Perhaps after the war it will heal all too.

One thing I've noticed about the Germans: They seem very fond of pigs.

Am Anfang war Gott? It may have been true, but it was not germane.

Ich habe keine Probleme mit Ausländern", sagt Peter. "Ich kenne nicht mal welche." "Nun ja", sagt die Frau lächelnd, "keine Ausländer zu kennen hält ja die wenigsten Leute davon ab, Probleme mit Ausländern zu haben.

IN my early days there were stories about funny refugees murdering the English language. A refugee woman goes to the greengrocer to buy red oranges (I mean red inside), very popular on the Continent and called blood oranges. ‘I want two pounds of bloody oranges.’ ‘What sort of oranges, dear?’ asked the greengrocer, a little puzzled. ‘Bloody oranges.’ ‘Hm...’ He thinks. ‘I see. For juice?’ ‘Yes, we are.’ Another story dates from two years later. By that time the paterfamilias — the orange-buying lady’s husband — has become terribly, terribly English. He meets an old friend in Regents Park, and instead of talking to him in good German, softly, he greets him in English, loudly. ‘Hallo, Weinstock.... Lovely day, isn’t it? Spring in the air.’ ‘Why should I?

It was astonishing how loudly one laughed at tales of gruesome things, of war’s brutality-I with the rest of them. I think at the bottom of it was a sense of the ironical contrast between the normal ways of civilian life and this hark-back to the caveman code. It made all our old philosophy of life monstrously ridiculous. It played the “hat trick” with the gentility of modern manners. Men who had been brought up to Christian virtues, who had prattled their little prayers at mothers’ knees, who had grown up to a love of poetry, painting, music, the gentle arts, over-sensitized to the subtleties of half-tones, delicate scales of emotion, fastidious in their choice of words, in their sense of beauty, found themselves compelled to live and act like ape-men; and it was abominably funny. They laughed at the most frightful episodes, which revealed this contrast between civilized ethics and the old beast law. The more revolting it was the more, sometimes, they shouted with laughter, especially in reminiscence, when the tale was told in the gilded salon of a French chateau, or at a mess-table. It was, I think, the laughter of mortals at the trick which had been played on them by an ironical fate. They had been taught to believe that the whole object of life was to reach out to beauty and love, and that mankind, in its progress to perfection, had killed the beast instinct, cruelty, blood-lust, the primitive, savage law of survival by tooth and claw and club and ax. All poetry, all art, all religion had preached this gospel and this promise. Now that ideal had broken like a china vase dashed to hard ground. The contrast between That and This was devastating. It was, in an enormous world-shaking way, like a highly dignified man in a silk hat, morning coat, creased trousers, spats, and patent boots suddenly slipping on a piece of orange-peel and sitting, all of a heap, with silk hat flying, in a filthy gutter. The war-time humor of the soul roared with mirth at the sight of all that dignity and elegance despoiled. So we laughed merrily, I remember, when a military chaplain (Eton, Christ Church, and Christian service) described how an English sergeant stood round the traverse of a German trench, in a night raid, and as the Germans came his way, thinking to escape, he cleft one skull after another with a steel-studded bludgeon a weapon which he had made with loving craftsmanship on the model of Blunderbore’s club in the pictures of a fairy-tale. So we laughed at the adventures of a young barrister (a brilliant fellow in the Oxford “Union”) whose pleasure it was to creep out o’ nights into No Man’s Land and lie doggo in a shell-hole close to the enemy’s barbed wire, until presently, after an hour’s waiting or two, a German soldier would crawl out to fetch in a corpse. The English barrister lay with his rifle ready. Where there had been one corpse there were two. Each night he made a notch on his rifle three notches one night to check the number of his victims. Then he came back to breakfast in his dugout with a hearty appetite.

I arched a brow. “Something funny?” Her mouth formed a tight line. “Nope.” I approached her. “You sure?” Her gaze flicked to mine, then away. “Uh-huh.” “Okay, then.” I turned and headed over to grab the last of our things. “It’s just . . .” Eilish began and then trailed off. “Yes?” She shook her head and finally let her giggles flow free. I couldn’t help smiling, too, even though I wasn’t entirely sure an inconvenient hard-on warranted so much laughter. It was infectious all the same. She gestured to the retreating group of tourists. “I studied German at school, so I can pick out certain words. One of the women commented about you to her friend.” I smirked. “Oh yeah? What did she say?” She dabbed the wetness from the corners of her eyes. “Something along the lines of a bratwurst big enough to feed an army.” My smirk died. “I wish I hadn’t asked.” “Really? I thought men enjoyed compliments about that . . . particular area.” “They do. But armies are generally made up of a bunch of blokes.” I arched a brow meaningfully. A loud burst of laughter escaped her, and she clamped her hand over mouth. God, she was too fucking adorable. She sucked in a breath, finally calming down from her fit of giggles. “You’re too much, Bryan Leech.” “That’s what the German ladies think anyway,” I deadpanned, my smirk returning. Eilish burst into laughter all over again.

Patriotism July 4 ALL “ISMS” RUN OUT IN the end, and good riddance to most of them. Patriotism for example. If patriots are people who stand by their country right or wrong, Germans who stood by Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich should be adequate proof that we’ve had enough of them. If patriots are people who believe not only that anything they consider unpatriotic is wrong but that anything they consider wrong is unpatriotic, the late Senator Joseph McCarthy and his backers should be enough to make us avoid them like the plague. If patriots are people who believe things like “Better Dead Than Red,” they should be shown films of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively, and then be taken off to the funny farm. The only patriots worth their salt are the ones who love their country enough to see that in a nuclear age it is not going to survive unless the world survives. True patriots are no longer champions of Democracy, Communism, or anything like that but champions of the Human Race. It is not the Homeland that they feel called on to defend at any cost but the planet Earth as Home. If in the interests of making sure we don’t blow ourselves off the map once and for all, we end up relinquishing a measure of national sovereignty to some international body, so much the worse for national sovereignty. There is only one Sovereignty that matters ultimately, and it is of another sort altogether.

and was very anxious about it. ‘There’s nothing to be scared about,’ he said confidently. ‘Just give it to them from the shoulder; tell them to buy their Liberty Bonds; don’t try to be funny.’ ‘Don’t worry!’ I said ironically. Very soon I heard my introduction, so I bounded on to the platform in Fairbanksian style and without a pause let fly a verbal machine-gun barrage, hardly taking a breath: ‘The Germans are at your door! We’ve got to stop them! And we will stop them if you buy Liberty Bonds! Remember, each bond you buy will save a soldier’s life – a mother’s son! – will bring this war to an early victory!

The military authorities were concerned that soldiers going home on leave would demoralize the home population with horror stories of the Ostfront. ‘You are under military law,’ ran the forceful reminder, ‘and you are still subject to punishment. Don’t speak about weapons, tactics or losses. Don’t speak about bad rations or injustice. The intelligence service of the enemy is ready to exploit it.’ One soldier, or more likely a group, produced their own version of instructions, entitled ‘Notes for Those Going on Leave.’ Their attempt to be funny reveals a great deal about the brutalizing affects of the Ostfront. ‘You must remember that you are entering a National Socialist country whose living conditions are very different to those to which you have been accustomed. You must be tactful with the inhabitants, adapting to their customs and refrain from the habits which you have come to love so much. Food: Do not rip up the parquet or other kinds of floor, because potatoes are kept in a different place. Curfew: If you forget your key, try to open the door with the round-shaped object. Only in cases of extreme urgency use a grenade. Defense Against Partisans: It is not necessary to ask civilians the password and open fire upon receiving an unsatisfactory answer. Defense Against Animals: Dogs with mines attached to them are a special feature of the Soviet Union. German dogs in the worst cases bite, but they do not explode. Shooting every dog you see, although recommended in the Soviet Union, might create a bad impression. Relations with the Civil Population: In Germany just because someone is wearing women’s clothes does not necessarily mean that she is a partisan. But in spite of this, they are dangerous for anyone on leave from the front. General: When on leave back to the Fatherland take care not to talk about the paradise existence in the Soviet Union in case everybody wants to come here and spoil our idyllic comfort.

New Rule: If you're going to have a rally where hundreds of thousands of people show up, you may as well go ahead and make it about something. With all due respect to my friends Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, it seems that if you truly wanted to come down on the side of restoring sanity and reason, you'd side with the sane and the reasonable--and not try to pretend the insanity is equally distributed in both parties. Keith Olbermann is right when he says he's not the equivalent of Glenn Beck. One reports facts; the other one is very close to playing with his poop. And the big mistake of modern media has been this notion of balance for balance's sake, that the left is just as violent and cruel as the right, that unions are just as powerful as corporations, that reverse racism is just as damaging as racism. There's a difference between a mad man and a madman. Now, getting more than two hundred thousand people to come to a liberal rally is a great achievement that gave me hope, and what I really loved about it was that it was twice the size of the Glenn Beck crowd on the Mall in August--although it weight the same. But the message of the rally as I heard it was that if the media would just top giving voice to the crazies on both sides, then maybe we could restore sanity. It was all nonpartisan, and urged cooperation with the moderates on the other side. Forgetting that Obama tried that, and found our there are no moderates on the other side. When Jon announced his rally, he said that the national conversation is "dominated" by people on the right who believe Obama's a socialist, and by people on the left who believe 9/11 was an inside job. But I can't name any Democratic leaders who think 9/11 was an inside job. But Republican leaders who think Obama's socialist? All of them. McCain, Boehner, Cantor, Palin...all of them. It's now official Republican dogma, like "Tax cuts pay for themselves" and "Gay men just haven't met the right woman." As another example of both sides using overheated rhetoric, Jon cited the right equating Obama with Hitler, and the left calling Bush a war criminal. Except thinking Obama is like Hitler is utterly unfounded--but thinking Bush is a war criminal? That's the opinion of Major General Anthony Taguba, who headed the Army's investigation into Abu Ghraib. Republicans keep staking out a position that is farther and farther right, and then demand Democrats meet them in the middle. Which now is not the middle anymore. That's the reason health-care reform is so watered down--it's Bob Dole's old plan from 1994. Same thing with cap and trade--it was the first President Bush's plan to deal with carbon emissions. Now the Republican plan for climate change is to claim it's a hoax. But it's not--I know because I've lived in L.A. since '83, and there's been a change in the city: I can see it now. All of us who live out here have had that experience: "Oh, look, there's a mountain there." Governments, led my liberal Democrats, passed laws that changed the air I breathe. For the better. I'm for them, and not the party that is plotting to abolish the EPA. I don't need to pretend both sides have a point here, and I don't care what left or right commentators say about it, I can only what climate scientists say about it. Two opposing sides don't necessarily have two compelling arguments. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke on that mall in the capital, and he didn't say, "Remember, folks, those southern sheriffs with the fire hoses and the German shepherds, they have a point, too." No, he said, "I have a dream. They have a nightmare. This isn't Team Edward and Team Jacob." Liberals, like the ones on that field, must stand up and be counted, and not pretend we're as mean or greedy or shortsighted or just plain batshit at them. And if that's too polarizing for you, and you still want to reach across the aisle and hold hands and sing with someone on the right, try church.

The beauty isn’t in the jewel itself, but in the way the light shines through it. Emmy, on the other hand, was a cutie, with a thick mop of curls just like Little Orphan Annie in the funny papers, and we all loved her. “I’m happy they’ve fed you,” Mrs. Frost said. “You have a very busy day ahead.” I reached out to tickle Emmy. She stepped back, giggling. I looked up at her mother and shook my head sadly. “Mr. Volz told me. I’m working Bledsoe’s hayfields.” “You were going to work for Mr. Bledsoe. I’ve managed to get your assignment changed. You’ll be working for me today. You and Albert and Moses. My garden and orchard need seeing to. Mr. Brickman just gave me approval to use all three of you. Finish your breakfast and we’ll be off.” I gulped down what was left and took my bowl to the kitchen, where I explained to Mr. Volz what was up. He followed me back to the table. “You got Brickman to change his mind?” the German said, clearly impressed. “A little flutter of the eyelashes, Mr. Volz, and that man melts like butter on a griddle.” Which might have been true if she’d been a beauty. I

We were working on the idea about dogs’ Internet searches, and first we debated whether the sketch should feature real dogs or Henrietta and Viv in dog costumes (because cast members were always, unfailingly, trying to get more air time, we quickly went with the latter). Then we discussed where it should take place (the computer cluster in a public library, but, even though all this mattered for was the establishing shot, we got stalled on whether that library should be New York’s famous Main Branch building on Fifth Avenue, with the lion statues in front, a generic suburban library in Kansas City, or a generic suburban library in Jacksonville, Florida, which was where Viv was from). Then we really got stalled on the breeds of dogs. Out of loyalty to my stepfather and Sugar, I wanted at least one to be a beagle. Viv said that it would work best if one was really big and one was really little, and Henrietta said she was fine with any big dog except a German Shepherd because she’d been bitten by her neighbor’s German Shepherd in third grade. After forty minutes we’d decided on a St. Bernard and a Chihuahua—I eventually conceded that Chihuahuas were funnier than beagles. We decided to go with the Florida location for the establishing shot because the lions in front of the New York Main Branch could preempt or diminish the appearance of the St. Bernard. Then we’d arrived at the fun part, which was the search terms. With her mouth full of beef kebab, Viv said, “Am I adopted?” With my mouth full of spanakopita, I said, “Am I a good girl?” With her mouth full of falafel, Henrietta said, “Am I five or thirty-five?” “Why is thunder scary?” I said. “Discreet crotch-sniffing techniques,” Henrietta said. “Cheap mani-pedis in my area,” Viv said. “Oh, and cheapest self-driving car.” “Best hamburgers near me,” I said. “What is halitosis,” Henrietta said. “Halitosis what to do,” I said. “Where do humans pee,” Viv said. “Taco Bell Chihuahua male or female,” I said. “Target bull terrier married,” Viv said. “Lassie plastic surgery,” Henrietta said. “Funny cat videos,” I said. “Corgis embarrassing themselves YouTube,” Viv said. “YouTube little dog scares away big dog,” I said. “Doghub two poodles and one corgi,” Henrietta said. “Waxing my tail,” I said. “Is my tail a normal size,” Viv said.

I have an antipathy to dogs, not because they are faithful, but because they are shameless. Because they carry on their love affairs on the street.” Again that crimson flush overspread her features. “Cats are more cultured about such things—if I may use that much misused word. There are insects that mate only in the darkest nights, in the most forsaken corners, so that no forester has ever succeeded in observing them. I've always held that there will come a time when we will speak of the barbarous practices of this century, or the last ten centuries, as if they were a fairy-tale. Just think how tremendously funny it must strike any sensitive person when two people, having conceived a certain desire to go to bed with one another, set a special date for the event. They inform certain public institutions, the State, the Church. They tell their friends and relations, their own parents, their own brothers and sisters. On the day which is to end in that night, they gather everybody they know about them, let themselves be observed by persons who stuff themselves and drink until they are sick, listen to suggestive songs and suggestive speeches—and yet do not get sick themselves. I've always had a feeling that marriage as it is practiced today would be fit punishment for a hardened criminal. It is such a cruel, such an exquisite torture. Metta, my child, oblige me and if you ever decide to marry, do it when you desire and not on some appointed day. Do it in utter secrecy so that no living soul can suspect the possibility of such a thing....

And immediately we rushed like horses, wild with the knowledge of this song, and bolted into a startingly loud harmony: 'Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves; Britons, never-never-ne-verr shall be slaves!' and singing, I saw the kings and the queens in the room with us, laughing in a funny way, and smiling and happy with us. The headmaster was soaked in glee. And I imagined all the glories of Britannia, who, or what or which, had brought us out of the ships crossing over from the terrible seas from Africa, and had placed us on this island, and had given us such good headmasters and assistant masters, and such a nice vicar to teach us how to pray to God - and he had come from England; and such nice white people who lived on the island with us, and who gave us jobs watering their gardens and taking out their garbage, most of which we found delicious enough to eat...all through the ages, all through the years of history; from the Tudors on the wall, down through the Stuarts also on the wall, all through the Elizabethans and including those men and women singing in their hearts with us, hanging dead and distant on our schoolroom walls; Britannia, who, or what or which, had ruled the waves all these hundreds of years, all these thousands and millions of years, and kept us on the island, happy - the island of Barbados (Britannia the Second), free from all invasions. Not even the mighty Germans; not even the Russians whom our headmaster said were dressed in red, had dared to come within submarine distance of our island! Britannia who saw to it that all Britons (we on the island were, beyond doubt, little black Britons, just like the white big Britons up in Britannialand. The headmaster told us so!) - never-never-ne-verr, shall be slaves!

What's in the papers then, Son?" he asked with the curtness of a father. "Nothing much, Dad," his son answered. "I saw that those newts have got up as far as Dresden, though." "Germanys had it then," Mr. Povondra asserted. "They're funny people you know, those Germans. They're well educated, but they're funny. I knew a German once, chauffeur he was for some factory; and he wasn't half coarse, this German. Mind you, he kept the car in good condition, I'll say that for him. And now look, Germanys disappearing from the map of the world," Mr. Povondra ruminated. "And all that fuss they used to make! Terrible, it was: everything for the army and everything for the soldiers. But not even they were any match for these newts. And I know about these newts, you know that, don't you. Remember when I took you out to show you one of them when you were only so high?" "Watch out, Dad," said his son, "you've got a bite." "That's only a tiddler," the old man grumbled as he twitched on his rod. Even Germany now, he thought to himself. No-one even bats an eyelid at it these days. What a song and dance they used to make at first whenever these newts flooded anywhere! Even if it was only Mesopotamia or China, the papers were full of it. Not like that now, Mr. Povondra contemplated sadly, staring out at his rod. You get used to anything, I suppose. At least they're not here, though; but I wish the prices weren't so high! Think what they charge for coffee these days! I suppose that's what you have to expect if they go and flood Brazil. If part of the world disappears underwater it has its effect in the shops. The float on Mr. Povondra's line danced about on the ripples of the water. How much of the world is it they've flooded so far then?, the old man considered. There's Egypt and India and China - they've even gone into Russia; and that was a big country, that was, Russia! When you think, all the way up from the Black Sea as far the Arctic Circle - all water! You can't say they haven't taken a lot of our land from us! And their only going slowly .. "Up as far as Dresden then, you say?" the old man spoke up. "Ten miles short of Dresden. That means almost the whole of Saxony will soon be under water." "I went there once with Mr. Bondy," Father Povondra told him. "Ever so rich, they were there, Frank. The food wasn't much good though. Nice people, though. Much better than the Prussians. No comparison.

You never asked. How would I like you to kill it? You are a captain in the Red Army, for goodness’ sake. What do they teach you there?” “How to kill human beings. Not mice.” She barely touched her food. “Well, throw a grenade at it. Use your rifle. I don’t know. But do something.” Alexander shook his head. “You went out into the streets of Leningrad while the Germans were throwing five-hundred-kilo bombs that blew arms and legs off the women standing ahead of you in line, you stood fearless in front of cannibals, you jumped off a moving train to go and find your brother, but you are afraid of mice?” “Now you got it,” Tatiana said defiantly. “It doesn’t make sense,” Alexander said. “If a person is fearless in the big things—” “You’re wrong. Again. Are you done with your questions? Anything else you want to ask? Or add?” “Just one thing.” Alexander kept his face serious. “It looks like,” he said slowly, his voice calm, “we’ve found three uses for that too-high potato countertop I built yesterday.” And he burst out laughing. “Go ahead, laugh,” Tatiana said. “Go ahead. I’m here for your amusement.” Her eyes twinkled. Putting his own plate on the bench, Alexander took the plate out of her hands and brought her to him to stand between his legs. Reluctantly she came. “Tania, do you have any idea how funny you are?” He kissed her chest, looking up at her. “I adore you.” “If you really adored me,” she said, trying to twist herself out of his arms, unsuccessfully, “you wouldn’t be sitting here idly flirting when you could be militarizing that cabin.” Alexander stood up. “Just to point out,” he said, “it’s not called flirting once you’ve made love to the girl.” After Alexander went inside, a smiling Tatiana sat on the bench and finished her food. In a few minutes he emerged from the cabin holding his rifle in one hand, his pistol in the other, and a bayonet attachment between his teeth. The dead mouse was swinging at the end of the bayonet. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “How did I do?” Tatiana failed to keep a straight face. “All right, all right,” she said, chortling. “You didn’t have to bring out the spoils of war.” “Ah, but I know you wouldn’t believe in a dead mouse unless you saw it with your own eyes.” “Will you stop quoting me back to me? Shura, you tell me, I will believe it,” said Tatiana. “Now, go on, get out of here with that thing.” “One last question.” “Oh, no,” said Tatiana, covering her face, trying not to laugh. “Do you think this dead mouse is worth the price of a…killed mouse?” “Will you just go?” Tatiana heard his boisterous laughter all the way to the woods and back.

I, a half naked German, was about to be discovered by her cruel Viking dad in his own bedroom, having smudged his daughter just hours ago. Full of gratitude I contemplated that I would at least not die a virgin.

He laughed, but in the way people do who want to prove they get the joke. The Dutch do this a lot. They appear to live in terror of being mistaken for Germans, and to compensate by finding a funny side to life where none exists. Tell a Dutchman that your dog just died, and he will pretend that you have just made some impossibly witty remark.

Did you hear the Bob Hope show the other night?” she called. “He told this really funny joke, the one where this German major is interviewing some Martians. The Martians can’t provide racial documentation about their grandparents being Aryan, you know. So the German major reports back to Berlin that Mars is populated by Jews.

The good thing about the aristocracy – German or English – was that they were easily traced, Mirabelle thought.

still remember how bravely we learned to read the new daily newspaper "Radianska Bukovina" (Red Bukovina), just trying to make out the headlines and slowly braving to comprehend the articles. By the beginning of September, barely two months from the occupation, we delved into the study of the History of the Party, meaning the communist party, according to the direction of the Stalin line, the official party line. The teacher was faced with an unusual task, namely, teaching a class, at a university, where practically nobody understood him or the textbook. After every few sentences he stopped to ask: Sie verstehen, Genossen? (Do you understand, comrades?) This was the extent of his knowledge of German. Most of us just picked up single words and wrote them down in the improvised dictionary. It was unusual, but not funny at all.

The Train Ride When traveling in Germany recently, I was surprised to find that my language, English, was not as widely spoken as I thought it would be.  Most people, I found, spoke in their native language. One day I was riding on a train when the ticket inspector came up to me and asked to see my ticket.  I showed it to him and he smiled and said something in German. I smiled and nodded back to show I was interested in what he was saying.  He waived his arms around like a windmill as he spoke.  I thought he was so nice but did not understand a single word. When he left a woman sitting in a compartment nearby leaned over and spoke to me.   She asked if I spoke German.  I told her I did not. “Oh,” she smiled.  “So that explains why you didn’t seem at all bothered when he explained you were on the wrong train.

I think I'll accept the challenge to battle. I can choose the terms, right? And I don't have the faintest idea how to 'prevent' a revolution. Besides, as far as I know, revolutions can get out of hand. Remember the German revolution, with the guillotine?" Derna smirked. "German revolution? Guillotine? The guillotine was used in the French revolution. Nice try, little brother." "I'm actually impressed he knew what a guillotine was," commented Armen, deadpan. I glared at the two of them. Typical big sisters. They'd just ruined my chance to show off my knowledge.

We told each other every funny story we could think of. One of them stays in my mind. A German citizen wants to commit suicide. He tries to hang himself, but the rope is of such a poor quality that it breaks. He tries to drown himself, but the percentage of wood in the fabric of his pants is so high that he floats on the surface like a raft. Finally he starves to death from eating official government rations.

Across the Reich, the Gestapo recorded increased the activity of anti-state elements. It’s kind of a helpless protest by those wretches against our celebration of victory. They organize bomb attacks against representatives of the Reich or against the civilian German population. We’ve also noticed murder-suicides. Eighty-seven civilians killed have been reported during the last week. From the Protectorate of Bohmen und Mahren, the destruction of Peter Brezovsky’s long-sought military cell was announced. From Ostmark…” “Enough,” Beck interrupted him, “I’m interested only in Brezovsky.” That name caused him discomfort. In his mind, he returned to the Bohemian Forest in 1996. It was in a different dimension, before he had used time travel. At the time, Peter Brezovsky was the only man who had passed through the Time Gate. He’d offered him a position by his side during the building of the Great German Reich. He’d refused. Too bad, he could have used a man like him. These dummies weren’t eager enough to fulfill his instructions. He also remembered Werner Dietrich, who had died in the slaughter during an inspection in the Protectorate. “… in the sector 144-5. It was a temporary base of the group. There were apparently targeted explosions of the surrounding buildings,” the man continued. “This area interests me. I want to know everything that’s happening there. Go on,” he ordered the man. He was flattered at the leader’s sudden interest. Raising his head proudly, he stretched his neck even more and continued, “For your entertainment, Herr Führer, our two settlers, living in this area from 1960, on June the twenty first, met two suspect men dressed in leather like savages. The event, of course, was reported to the local department of the Gestapo. It’s funny because during the questioning of one of Brezovsky’s men we learnt an interesting story related to these men.” He relaxed a little. The atmosphere in the room was less strained, too. He smiled slightly, feeling self-importance. “In 1942, a certain woman from the Bohemian Forest made a whacky prophecy. Wait a minute.” He reached into the jacket and pulled out a little notebook. “I wrote it down, it’ll certainly amuse you. Those Slavic dogs don’t know what to do, and so they take refuge in similar nonsense.” He opened the notebook and began to read, “Government of darkness will come. After half a century of the Devil’s reign, on midsummer’s day, on the spot where he came from, two men will appear in flashes. These two warriors will end the dominance of the despot and will return natural order to the world.” During the reading, men began to smile and now some of them were even laughing aloud. “Stop it, idiots!” screamed Beck furiously. In anger, he sprang from behind his desk and severely hit the closest man’s laughing face. A deathly hush filled the room. Nobody understood what had happened. What could make the Führer so angry? This was the first time he had hit somebody in public. Beck wasn’t as angry as it might look. He was scared to death. This he had been afraid of since he had passed through the Time Gate. Since that moment, he knew this time would come one day. That someone would use the Time Gate and destroy everything he’d built. That couldn’t happen! Never! “Do you have these men?” he asked threateningly. Reich Gestapo Commander regretted he’d spoken about it. He wished he’d bitten his tongue. This innocent episode had caused the Führer’s unexpected reaction. His mouth went dry. Beck looked terrifying. “Herr Führer,” he spoke quietly, “unfortunately…” “Aloud!” yelled Beck. “Unfortunately we don’t, Herr Führer. But they probably died during the action of the Gestapo against Brezovsky. His body, as well as the newcomers, wasn’t found. The explosion probably blew them up,” he said quickly. “The explosion probably blew them up,” Beck parodied him viciously, “and that was enough for you, right?

Trump is so evil, the 7 deadly sins are his 7 favorite hobbies.

If I can be any gender I want to be, can I also be any race I want to be? Can I be a white guy today and a black woman tomorrow? Or is that racist?

I wasn’t afraid of the Germans, not me,” an old bag would whine, “I went straight up to them and said, ‘This house belongs to the mother of a French officer’—and they didn’t say a word.” And another woman would say, “Bullets were flying all around me, but it’s funny, I wasn’t scared, not a bit.” It was understood that everyone would embellish their tales with terrifying scenes. As for Charles, he would simply reply, “That’s odd. Everything seemed quite normal to me. There were a lot of people on the road, but that’s all.” He imagined their surprise and smiled, feeling smug. He needed to feel smug. When he thought about his apartment in Paris, his heart broke.

Yeah, I had a dog growing up, too. Big dog—Spike, no kidding. He was almost a perfect animal. But he let my sisters dress him up. That used to make me sick, I’m telling you. The way he let himself be humiliated like that.” Ian shot him a look and a big grin. He was picturing a German shepherd in a tutu and a disgruntled teenage boy. A laugh shot out of him. “It wasn’t funny,” Jack said. “I bet it was,” Ian said.

One funny thing happened after the book came out; My brother Shad called me and said, 'I want to apologize. I just read the book. You did have a German general surrender to you!

A drunken but exceedingly depressed German clown from Munich entertained the public.

leaders.’ Nebe snorted and went back round his desk. ‘You’re going to have to watch your mouth, Bernie,’ he said, half-amused. ‘Get to the funny bit.’ ‘Well, it’s this. A number of recent reports, complaints if you like, made to Kripo by those related to institutionalized people leads me to suspect that some sort of mercy-killing is already being unofficially practised.’ I leant forward and grasped the bridge of my nose. ‘Do you ever get headaches? I get headaches. It’s smell that really sets them off. Paint smells pretty bad. So does formaldehyde in the mortuary. But the worst are those rotten pissing places you get where the dozers and rum-sweats sleep rough. That’s a smell I can recall in my worst nightmares. You know, Arthur, I thought I knew every bad smell there was in this city. But that’s last month’s shit fried with last year’s eggs.’ Nebe pulled open a drawer and took out a bottle and two glasses. He said nothing as he poured a couple of large ones. I threw it back and waited for the fiery spirit to seek out what was left of my heart and stomach. I nodded and let him pour me another. I said: ‘Just when you thought that things couldn’t get any worse, you find out that they’ve always been a lot worse than you thought they were. And then they get worse.’ I drained the second glass and then surveyed its empty shape. ‘Thanks for telling me straight, Arthur.’ I dragged myself to my feet. ‘And thanks for the warmer.’ ‘Please keep me informed about your suspect,’ he said. ‘You might consider letting a couple of your men work a friend-and-foe shift on him. No rough stuff, just a bit of the old-fashioned psychological pressure. You know the sort of thing I mean. Incidentally, how are you getting on with your team? Everything working out there? No resentments, or anything like that?’ I could have sat down again and given him a list of

CHRIS CAFFERY:  I'd have to say that everybody's favorite old Scorpions song as a guitar player is "The Sails of Charon." That song is the one that you heard and you were like, "What the heck is this?!" Because it was trippy, it was different. The funny thing is if you ever look at the old interviews that Yngwie Malmsteen did, he never credited Uli - until recently. He used to say, "Oh, I did not know who Uli Roth was." And it's like, "Bullshit you didn't! You stole everything you ever did from him and Blackmore!" [Laughs]

We take the original plays of William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, and Markus gives them . . . well, the necessary polish.” “Aren’t the plays good enough by themselves?” Barbara asked. “Well, for the general public they’re sometimes just too difficult and dry, so we cut out the long monologues and concentrate on the funny parts and, above all, the bloody passages. Many of the pieces have not yet been translated into German, and Markus takes care of that, as well.” “I butcher Shakespeare’s plays by turning them into bloody spectacles for the masses,” Markus sighed in despair. “Carefully constructed pentameter, beautiful images—for that the world clearly has no taste nowadays. The more blood, the better. But I myself have written original pieces that—” “Yes, yes,” Malcolm interrupted, “that would be enough to make Shakespeare cry, I know—or simply put him to sleep. I’m afraid you’re boring the ladies, Markus. Just like your plays. We can’t afford experiments. After all, I have a whole troupe to feed,” he said, clapping his hands. “But now it’s time to get back to building the stage. Will you excuse us?” He bowed to Magdalena and Barbara and stomped off toward the stage, but not without first casting a final, reproachful look at his two actors. “Old slave driver,” Markus mumbled and followed him, while Matheo paused a moment and winked at Barbara. “Then can we look forward to seeing you again at tomorrow’s performance? We’ll save a few seats for you up in the gallery. Ciao, signorine.” “Ciao,” Barbara said, batting her eyelashes as Matheo, in one single, flowing movement, jumped back onto the stage. Magdalena grinned at her sister. “Ciao?” she asked. “Is that the way a Schongau hangman’s daughter says good-bye, or are you an Italian contessa addressing her prince just before their wedding?

Oliver paused. “American Indians or Indian Indians?” “The ones from your country, the ones you all killed.” His hand slid down between her thighs. “I’m sure I certainly didn’t kill a single Indian. But I can’t say I personally know any, either.” Zoya looked into her glass of wine. “But it’s funny, don’t you think? The way you Americans killed them. I read about it in a book once. How you would make treaties, yes? And then you would break the treaties so they would get upset and make war, and so you would kill them, and then there were new treaties? And you kept going and going, the same trick, over and again, until there weren’t any more Indians.” “Well, they’re not all dead,” Oliver said, shaking his head. “But, of course, it was appalling.” “Yes, a tragedy, but rather clever too, no?” she said. “You almost made it appear to be an accident. Sloppy and offhand, like spilling red wine on a rug. It was the same way Stalin killed, a few here, a million there, a few sips of vodka in between. That is the way to do it. Now, Nazis, they were serious and efficient about it, so German and well organized, that it could not be ignored. If they were more like you perhaps they would have gotten away with killing all those Jews. But the Germans were simply too obvious and clear in their purpose.

the white tents. 17. Two views of The Wild West in Paris, igo5. Colonel Cody, a Hawkeye by birth, is personally lionized by the Parisians, and his unique exhibition, so full of historical and dramatic interest, made a wonderful impression upon the susceptible French public. The twenty lessons I took in French, at the Berlitz School of Languages, London, only gave me a faint idea of what the language was like, but as I was required to make my lectures and announcements in French, I had my speeches translated, and was coached in their delivery by Monsieur Corthesy, editeur, le journal de Londres. Well, I got along pretty fair, considering that I did not know the meaning of half the words I was saying. Anyway it amused them, so I was satisfied. I honestly believe that more people came in the side show in Paris to hear and laugh at my "rotten" French than anything else, and when I found that a certain word or expression excited their risibilities, I never changed it. I can look back now and see where some of my own literal translations were very funny. Colonel Cody's exhibition is unique in many ways, and might justly be termed a polyglot school, no less than twelve distinct languages being spoken in the camp, viz.: Japanese, Russian, French, Arabic, Greek, Hungarian, German, Italian, Spanish, Holland, Flemish, Chinese, Sioux and English. Being in such close contact every day, we were bound to get some idea of each other's tongue, and all acquire a fair idea of English. Colonel Cody is, therefore, entitled to considerable credit for disseminating English, and thus preserving the entente cordiale between nations. 18. Entrance to the Wild West, Champs de Mars, Paris, Igo5. The first place of public interest that we visited in Paris was the Jardin des Plantes (botanical and zoological garden) and le Musee d'Histoire Naturelle. The zoological collection would suffer in comparison with several in America I might mention, but the Natural History Museum is very complete, and is, to my notion, the most artistically arranged of any museum I have visited. Le Palais du Trocadero, which was in sight of our grounds and facing the

Those who knew him will be sorry to hear that he was killed last week, on the Western Front." He was a little pale when he sat down afterward, aware that he had done something unusual. He had consulted nobody about it, anyhow; no one else could be blamed. Later, outside the Chapel, he heard an argument:— "On the Western Front, Chips said. Does that mean he was fighting for the Germans?" "I suppose it does." "Seems funny, then, to read his name out with all the others. After all, he was an ENEMY." "Oh, just one of Chips's ideas, I expect. The old boy still has 'em.

when Arnold Schoenberg replied to a student who had dreamed of composing a “soaring melody,” that the proper word, surely, was “snoring.” Such puns could be funny, cruel, and tone-deaf (in seven nations and twelve tones), comments of exasperation as often as they were attempts at endearment.

In 1984, I had another conversation that had underscored this point to me. Herb Okun, the deputy US ambassador to the UN, had come to his post after serving as US ambassador to communist East Germany. “What’s it like there, Herb?” I had asked him. “Oh, nothing much,” Herb answered. “They live in dilapidated housing, drive funny little Trabants, drink vodka all day while watching eight hours of West German television.” “What!” I asked in disbelief. “What did you just say?” “They watch eight hours of West German television every day and then drink themselves to sleep,” he repeated. “You mean to tell me that watching eight hours a day of West German television doesn’t have any effect on them?” I asked incredulously. “None that I can see,” Okun answered. “Herb,” I said, “that can’t be. It’s just a question of time until the cracks will appear.” The conversation made me recall an engineering course I took at MIT. We loaded a small model bridge with steadily increasing loads and photographed the process. The bridge held fine, until it suddenly collapsed. Yet upon closer examination of the film we could see tiny cracks propagating in the structure well before the fall.

Hitler might have said, We just want Germany for Germans! Stalin would have said, We want to purge the selfish from Soviet society, so all of us can share. Mao might have justified his persecution and starvation of millions by saying, We must purge ourselves of the thought criminals so we can take that Great Leap Forward. It’s funny how the perfect world for so many of these tyrants begins with getting rid of the people they don’t like.

Honey, can you tell me how we got from making babies on the dining table to the German economy? Because...I'm confused.

You can always reason with a German. You can always reason with a barnyard animal, too, for all the good it does.

And I’m not kidding when I say “craziness.” The University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, has come out with a study that compares traders with psychopaths. The study reviewed the results from an existing study comparing 24 psychopaths in German high-security hospitals with a control group of 27 “normal” people. The funny thing is, this control group of “normal” people turned out to be traders. Stock guys, currency and commodity traders, and derivative types happened to be the normal control group that was stacked up against the high-security, barbed-wire-enclosed psychopaths. In the end, the performance of the trading group was actually worse than that of the psychopaths. The study indicated that traders, “Have a penchant for immense destruction,” and that their mindset would lead them to the logical conclusion of “beating one of the neighbor’s expensive cars with a baseball bat with the sole objective of owning the most beautiful car in the neighborhood.” In other words, traders are nuts. Indeed if you look up the textbook definition of a psychopath, here are some of the tidbits you’ll uncover: antisocial behavior, poor judgment and failure to learn from experience, inability to see oneself as others do, inexplicable impulsiveness … sounds like a typical trader who is struggling against the market and can’t figure out why.

Comment, Mademoiselle? Vous appellés cela betrügen? Corriger la fortune, l'enchainer sous ses doits, etre sûr de son fait, das nenn die Deutsch betrügen? betrügen! O, was ist die deutsch Sprak für ein arm Sprak! für ein plump Sprak!

It was weird, ’cause there we were in Italy listening to people singing in German. The music was nice, though, and there was this guy dressed up like a parrot. If you’d asked me a year ago to guess what opera was like, I’d never have guessed it had guys dressed as parrots. I might’ve wanted to go and see some sooner if I’d known. It was a sweet story, ’cause he met this girl who was dressed as a parrot too, and they got off together.

Der König sass mit seinem Vetter allein bei einer Beratung. In diese Kemenate drangen nun die wagemutigen Ritter ein. Kurz entschlossen zückten sie ihre Schwerter und beendeten darin recht unfreundlich dieses Gespräch.

Who needs a love life when you've got the Life of the Mind?

My husband and son are at the movies, and the hellhounds, appropriately named Duvel (Duch/Belgian dialect for ''devil'') and Hexe (German for ''witch''), are in the backyard for the evening. Only the cat, Vegas (I know, right? Totally doesn't fit the theme, but she came with the name) is running around the house, She gives the newcomers a bored look before heading to the bedroom to get white fur all over my pillow. What grows on Vegas does not stay on Vegas.

I am three-quarters Irish and one-quarter German, which makes me a very meticulous drunk. My father’s side was half Irish, half German, my mother is full Irish. Come to think of it, I don’t know of any German comedians. Most Germans don’t have a sense of humor. They are very literal. Someone once said that more funny things are said at a cocktail party in Paris than in an entire year in Germany.