“
Gurathin turned to me. "So you don't have a governor module, but we could punish you by looking at you."
I looked at him. "Probably, right up until I remember I have guns built into my arms.
”
”
Martha Wells (All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1))
“
It was an emergency!" Seth blurted. "Read my lips - emergency reading - not some demented idea of fun. If I was starving, I would eat asparagus. If somebody held a gun to my head, I would watch a soap opera. And to save Fablehaven, I would read a book, okay, are you happy?"
You had best be careful, Seth," Grandma warned. "The love of reading can be contagious."
I just lost my appetite," he declared...
”
”
Brandon Mull
“
You can't kill us all, human.'
He was right. I raised the machine gun a little. 'True, but who's going to be first in line?
”
”
Laurell K. Hamilton (The Killing Dance (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #6))
“
What do you want, MacGuffin, a duel?”
“No.” Julian held out both hands, one palm flat, the other held over it in a fist. “Rock, paper, scissors. Two out of three.”
Ty rolled his eyes and held out his fist, apparently willing to play. Julian hit his palm three times, and Ty kept time with his fist in the air. But when Julian threw a paper, Ty reached into his jacket with his other hand and pulled his gun, aiming it at Julian.
“Ty!” Zane said in exasperation from the front seat.
“Glock, paper, scissors. I win.”
“You are an ass,” Julian muttered.
”
”
Abigail Roux (Armed & Dangerous (Cut & Run, #5))
“
Step one, accept she was a damn boss. Step two, hide all the knives, guns, and maybe the pillows, too.
”
”
J.J. McAvoy (Ruthless People (Ruthless People, #1))
“
Don't have to see," the pilot grunted. "Olga knows the way."
"Funny name for an aircraft," Grace commented. "Is it after your wife?"
"My gun."
Grace stared at him. "You named your plane after a gun?"
"It was a very good gun.
”
”
Gordon Korman (Vespers Rising (The 39 Clues, #11))
“
You have four guns."
"Someone must have stuck them on when I wasn't looking.
”
”
Brandon Sanderson (Skyward (Skyward, #1))
“
Simon whispered to me, “But is everything okay?”
“No,” Tori said. “I kidnapped her and forced her to escape with me. I’ve been using her as a human shield against those guys with guns, and I was just about to strangle her and leave her body here to throw them off my trail. But then you showed up and foiled my evil plans. Lucky for you, though. You get to rescue poor little Chloe again and win her undying gratitude.”
“Undying gratitude?” Simon looked at me. “Cool. Does that come with eternal servitude? If so, I like my eggs sunnyside up.”
I smiled. “I’ll remember that.”
***
“Oh, right. You must be starving.” Simon reached into his pockets. “I can offer one bruised apple and one brown banana. Convenience stores aren’t the place to buy fruit, as I keep telling someone.”
“Better than these. For you, anyway, Simon.” Derek passed a bar to Tori.
“Because you aren’t supposed to have those, are you?” I said. “Which reminds me…” I took out the insulin. “Derek said it’s your backup.”
“So my dark secret is out.”
“I didn’t know it was a secret.”
“Not really. Just not something I advertise.”
...
“Backup?” Tori said. “You mean he didn’t need that?”
“Apparently not,” I murmured.
Simon looked from her to me, confused, then understanding. “You guys thought…”
“That if you didn’t get your medicine in the next twenty-four hours, you’d be dead?” I said. “Not exactly, but close. You know, the old ‘upping the ante with a fatal disease that needs medication’ twist. Apparently, it still works.”
“Kind of a letdown, then, huh?”
“No kidding. Here we were, expecting to find you minutes from death. Look at you, not even gasping.”
“All right, then. Emergency medical situation, take two.”
He leaped to his feet, staggered, keeled over, then lifted his head weakly.
“Chloe? Is that you?” He coughed. “Do you have my insulin?”
I placed it in his outstretched hand.
“You saved my life,” he said. “How can I ever repay you?”
“Undying servitude sounds good. I like my eggs scrambled.”
He held up a piece of fruit. “Would you settle for a bruised apple?”
I laughed.
”
”
Kelley Armstrong (The Awakening (Darkest Powers, #2))
“
Who's stupid now, Jimbo?!
”
”
April Henry (Girl, Stolen (Girl, Stolen #1))
“
...and Jack, who felt like he was on the cusp of being able to read minds and thought it would be all right if Luce wrote him down for that. ("I sense that you're okay with that, am I right?" He made a gun out of his fingers and clicked his tongue.)
”
”
Lauren Kate (Torment (Fallen, #2))
“
Imagine this:
You’re driving.
The sky’s bright. You look great.
In a word, in a phrase, it’s a movie,
you’re the star.
so smile for the camera, it’s your big scene,
you know your lines.
I’m the director. I’m in a helicopter.
I have a megaphone and you play along,
because you want to die for love,
you always have.
Imagine this:
You’re pulling the car over. Somebody’s waiting.
You’re going to die
in your best friend’s arms.
And you play along because it’s funny, because it’s written down,
you’ve memorized it,
it’s all you know.
I say the phrases that keep it all going,
and everybody plays along.
Imagine:
Someone’s pulling a gun, and you’re jumping into the middle of it.
You didn’t think you’d feel this way.
There’s a gun in your hand.
It feels hot. It feels oily.
I’m the director
and i’m screaming at you,
I’m waving my arms in the sky,
and everyone’s watching, everyone’s
curious, everyone’s
holding their breath.
'Planet of Love
”
”
Richard Siken (Crush)
“
The amount of educational programming on television today is simply desensitizing. The only reason left to go to school is to see gun violence.
”
”
Bauvard (Some Inspiration for the Overenthusiastic)
“
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)
“
You were a well-respected agent, Michael, a rags-to-riches fairytale ending. Until you became disgraced. Now it appears your own organization wishes to be rid of you. Why is this?”
“My gun turned back into a pumpkin.
”
”
Nenia Campbell (Armed and Dangerous (The IMA, #2))
“
I said: "All right, talk, but do you mind putting the gun away? My wife doesn't care, but I'm pregnant and I don't want the child to be born with...
”
”
Dashiell Hammett (The Thin Man)
“
Then why do you have guns?"
"For shooting large and dangerous beasts who might be threatening my fungus specimens", M-Bot said. "Obviously.
”
”
Brandon Sanderson (Skyward (Skyward, #1))
“
I was shown into a room. A red room. Red wallpaper, red curtains, red carpet. They said it was a sitting-room, but I don’t know why they’d decided to confine its purpose just to sitting. Obviously, sitting was one of the things you could do in a room this size; but you could also stage operas, hold cycling races, and have an absolutely cracking game of frisbee, all at the same time, without having to move any of the furniture.
It could rain in a room this big.
”
”
Hugh Laurie (The Gun Seller)
“
You have to be kidding,' Turner exclaimed. 'He's a loaded weapon.'
'He's barely a squirt gun.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Hell Bent (Alex Stern, #2))
“
We should change the name of AR-15s to 'Marco Rubio' because they are so easy to buy
”
”
Sarah Chadwick
“
I think guns are just a symbolic substitute for male genitalia, and I’m okay in that respect.” “Fine. If they get in the house, you can whack them with your genitals.
”
”
J.A. Konrath (The List (The Konrath Dark Thriller Collective #1))
“
If you're afraid to leave the house unless you're armed, you don't need a gun, you need a psychiatrist.
”
”
Oliver Markus Malloy (Inside The Mind of an Introvert: Comics, Deep Thoughts and Quotable Quotes (Malloy Rocks Comics Book 1))
“
Nobody said anything while I opened the bag and took out the egg salad sandwich. It was one of those funny moments when a bit of normal human activity embarrasses everybody out of their bluster and hostility, and roles are momentarily laid aside.
”
”
Jonathan Lethem (Gun, With Occasional Music)
“
That’s the funny thing about guns; even untrained hands can feel powerful using them. But take that gun away and you’re left with nothing but a coward whose only skill is how to blindly pull a trigger.
”
”
Jennifer Wilson (Rising (New World #1))
“
They came close. Oh they came close. Was all set to put a gun in my mouth and pull the trigger. But there was a computer glitch. Isnt that something? A stupid glitch and I had to wait a few days and then I saw the errors of my ways, saw so clearly that I was killing the wrong person. Its not me that needs killing, its them. Funny how things can change in the wink of an eye.
”
”
Hubert Selby Jr. (Waiting Period)
“
Brooke?" he finally found the sense to ask. "What are you doing here?"
"I need a gun."
This was not how his dream was supposed to go.
”
”
Shannon K. Butcher (The Mammoth Book of Special Ops Romance)
“
Maybe I shouldn't scare off my date so quickly by shooting guns and telling stories about vomit, but, hey, the sooner he knows the real me, the better.
”
”
Vicki Lesage (Confessions of a Paris Party Girl)
“
I love my ex so much I printed out all his pictures. After all, I need him for target practice. And I just love customised toilet paper and doormats. My only regret is that those items don't bear his autograph.
”
”
Natalya Vorobyova
“
You are from Belfast; are you sure that was your first time holding a gun?
”
”
Neil Walker (Drug Gang (Drug Gang, #1))
“
Owning a gun proves "In God we trust" is a lie. If you actually trusted in God, you wouldn't feel like you need a gun.
”
”
Oliver Markus Malloy (Inside The Mind of an Introvert: Comics, Deep Thoughts and Quotable Quotes (Malloy Rocks Comics Book 1))
“
[...] and as I walked, I tried to see the funny side. It wasn't easy, and I'm still not sure that I managed it properly, but it's just something I like to do when things aren't going well. Because what does it mean, to say that things aren't going well? Compared to what? You can say: compared to how things were going a couple of hours ago, or a couple of years ago. But that's not the point. If two cars are speeding towards a brick wall with no brakes, and one car hits the wall moments before the other, you can't spend those moments saying that the second car is much better off than the first.
”
”
Hugh Laurie (The Gun Seller)
“
How do you know they are Hunters?" Lucien asked.
"They had guns and knives strapped to their bodies, and I saw the mark of infinity on one of their wrists." Branding themselves was foolish, if you asked him. Like putting a neon sign around their necks that read 'Shoot here'.
”
”
Gena Showalter (The Darkest Night (Lords of the Underworld, #1))
“
Well, Alexander thought, any minute now, one of the girls he had carelessly discarded was going to come by the barracks with a gun and blow his brains out and on his tombstone the epitaph would read, "Here lies Alexander, who couldn't remember the name of any girl he had fucked.
”
”
Paullina Simons (Tatiana and Alexander (The Bronze Horseman, #2))
“
Tentacles is my term — the Tentacles are the evil tasks that invade my life. Like, for example, my American History class last week, which necessitated me writing a paper on the weapons of the Revolutionary war, which necessitated me traveling to the Metropolitan Museum to check out some of the old guns, which necessitated me getting the subway, which necessitated me being away from my cell phone and email for 45 minutes, which meant that I didn’t get to respond to a mass mail sent out by my teacher asking who needed extra credit, which meant other kids snapped up the extra credit, which meant I wasn’t going to get a 98 in the class, which meant I wasn’t anywhere close to a 98.6 average (body temperature, that’s what you needed to get), which meant I wasn’t going to get into a Good College, which meant I wasn’t going to have a Good Job, which meant I wasn’t going to have health insurance, which meant I’d have to pay tremendous amounts of money for the shrinks and drugs my brain needed, which meant I wasn’t going to have enough money to pay for a Good Lifestyle, which meant I’d feel ashamed, which meant I’d get depressed, and that was the big one because I knew what that did to me: it made it so I wouldn’t get out of bed, which led to the ultimate thing — homelessness. If you can’t get out of bed for long enough, people come and take your bed away.
”
”
Ned Vizzini (It's Kind of a Funny Story)
“
Tom, you’re with me. Bring the tranq gun, we don’t want to kill her, but if she so much as looks funny in my direction, you’re going to send her off to play with the magical pastel bunnies in the Shouldn’t-Have-Fucking-Done-That Meadow.
”
”
Mira Grant (Please Do Not Taunt the Octopus (Newsflesh Trilogy, #3.4))
“
Money, Gun and Lie can solve almost all the problems.
”
”
Amit Kalantri
“
Can you just kill me? Carry me out in a box?” I looked up at her. “Do you even have a gun?”“What kind of bodyguard would I be if I needed a gun to kill someone?” Becca smiled
”
”
Nichole Chase
“
Like the NRA says, it's better to have a machine gun and not need it than to need a machine gun and not have it.
”
”
John Sandford (Outrage (The Singular Menace, #2))
“
We came here unarmed." Donegan said cheerfully, and Gracious looked at him.
"You're unarmed?" he asked, surprised.
"Yes," Donegan said. "Aren't you?"
"Well I suppose so. Apart from my gun."
Donegan glared at him. "What? Why did you bring a gun? I told you to come unarmed."
"I thought you were joking."
"Why would I be joking?"
"I don't know, I thought that's what made it funny.
”
”
Derek Landy
“
Funny, he wasn't handsome, not in a Mr. Perfect kind of way, at least. The guy had a nose that had clearly been busted once or three times, and his hazel eyes were too shrewd and too exhausted to be classified as attractive. But he was like a cocked gun: He has a steely intelligence and a dangerous power about him that you respected. Because the combination was a flat-out killer, literally
”
”
J.R. Ward
“
We already have the Wooden Pillar, the Steel Pillar and the Plastic Pillar. In a moment we will have the Golden Bail....'
No, you won't.'
We will,' stated the robot simply.
No, you won't. It makes my ship work.'
In a moment,' repeated the robot patiently, 'we will have the Golden Bail....'
You will not,' said Zaphod.
And then we must go,' said the robot, in all seriousness, 'to a party.'
Oh,' said Zaphod, startled, 'can I come?'
No,' said the robot, 'we are going to shoot you.'
Oh, yeah?' said Zaphod, waggling his gun.
Yes,' said the robot, and they shot him.
Zaphod was so surprised that they had to shoot him again before he fell down. (85-86)
”
”
Douglas Adams (Life, the Universe and Everything (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #3))
“
Morelli was wearing a blazer over a black knit shirt, He took a seat, and his jacket swung wide, exposing the gun at his hip.
"Nice piece!" Grandma said. "What is it? Is that a forty-five?"
"It's a nine- millimeter."
"Don't suppose you'd let me see it," Grandma said. "I'd sure like to get the feel of a gun like that."
"No!" said everyone in unison.
"I shot a chicken once," Grandma explained to Morelli. "It was an accident."
"Where did you shoot it?" he finally asked.
"In the gumpy," Grandma said. "Shot it clear off.
”
”
Janet Evanovich
“
We don’t live far away, I’ll hold her on my lap. Dominic has Bronagh.”
I heard male grumbling then a quick, “I call shot gun.”
It was Kane who spoke.
“The fuck?” Damien snapped. “Why do I have to sit between lover boys and the drunken sisters?
”
”
L.A. Casey (Ryder (Slater Brothers, #4))
“
New Rule: Gun-control people have to stop pressuring Starbucks to ban guns. I want my gun nuts overcaffeinated, twitchy, and accident-prone. That way, the problem will take care of itself. Plus, if just one gun nut kills just one pseudo-intellectual writing a screenplay-slash-graphic-novel on his iPad, natural selection is doing its job.
”
”
Bill Maher (The New New Rules: A Funny Look At How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass)
“
Several months ago there was a somewhat, in some people's eyes, relatively normal Cal--or by and large normal--the best he was able to be as half Auphe. Occasionally he did lose his shit, attacked and ate deer while on road trips through the woods, created massive holes in between dimensions to shove through malevolently murderous pucks, and once in a while ripped out an Auphe's throat with his teeth. He also opened a gate or two to save his friends, blew up an antihealer from the inside out to save the world, cleaned his guns while watching porn, and generally was a smart-ass to everyone.
Normal.
”
”
Rob Thurman (Doubletake (Cal Leandros, #7))
“
It's always funny that you can try and try again to steal all your critics' ammo, predict their responses, but no matter what, they'll still have a water gun stashed somewhere.
”
”
Criss Jami (Killosophy)
“
If guns kill people,” Ivy moved next to her uncle and stared down Kip, “Then pens misspell words, cars cause accidents, and forks make people gain weight.
”
”
Denise Swanson (Tart of Darkness (Chef-to-Go Mystery, #1))
“
Don’t worry, Eve, whatever we end up doing, I’m not leaving you. Not until I teach you how to fire a gun, anyway.” Jake snorted loudly. Avery lifted his head and gave him a dirty look. “Do you think that’s funny? Eve needs to know how to protect herself.” His smile twisted. “A woman with a gun is a bad idea, boy. You’d be putting all our lives at risk.” “Only your life,” I muttered under my breath. From the way his lips twitched further, I knew he had heard me.
”
”
Karina Halle (Donners of the Dead)
“
What happened?" Wyatt asked Crystal, and stood back so the two of them could come inside out of the oppressive heat.
"Why are you asking her?" Reed thumped past him. "I'm the one on crutches."
"She'll tell me the truth," Wyatt said. "You'll just give me some bullshit story that will end with 'You should see the other guy'."
"You wound me, bro" [Reed]
"He tore his ACL the day before yesterday trying to do a stunt on a skateboard." [Crystal]
"Mendoza dared him." [Luke Colter]
"No one held a gun to the fool's head" [Mendoza]
”
”
Cindy Gerard (Risk No Secrets (Black Ops Inc., #5))
“
If armed terrorists had tried to hijack any of the flights I’ve been on lately, we passengers would have swiftly beaten them to death with those hard rolls you get with your in-flight meal. Funny, isn’t it? The airlines go to all that trouble to keep you from taking a gun on board, then they just hand you a dinner toll you could kill a musk ox with.
”
”
Dave Barry (Dave Barry's Greatest Hits)
“
Have you ever noticed that all of the stuff on the posters of what you can’t bring into the airport terminal is pretty much exactly the same stuff that would come in really handy if a zombie apocalypse broke out? Swords, guns, grenades, meat cleavers, fire, disinfectant, booze, chain saws: these are all things I’d want on me if there were a zombie epidemic in Terminal B. Basically, if we get attacked inside the airport we’re all fucked, so maybe people are just scared because they’ve been disarmed. Even the phrasing of where you’re headed (the “terminal”) is another word for “approaching immediate death.
”
”
Jenny Lawson (Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things)
“
New Rule: Since Glenn Beck is clearly onto us, liberals must launch our plan for socialist domination immediately. Listen closely, comrades, I've received word from General Soros and our partners in the UN--Operation Streisand is a go. Markos Moulitsas, you and your Daily Kos-controlled army of gay Mexican day laborers will join with Michael Moore's Prius tank division north of Branson, where you will seize the guns of everyone who doesn't blame America first, forcing them into the FEMA concentration camps. That's where ACORN and I will re-educate them as atheists and declare victory in the war on Christmas.
”
”
Bill Maher (The New New Rules: A Funny Look At How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass)
“
You'll want something mid-range. A 5.56 all right?"
"I suppose."
"AR-15?"
"Ugh. AR-15? I'd rather not have my gun break down on me every second week." Besides, every wannabe and their dog had an M16 or M4 variant these days.
"G7."
"Not accurate enough."
"FAL?"
"A 7.62? Maybe," I said. "Though I hate the triggers."
"As picky as a woman with her shoes," Abraham grumbled.
"Hey," I said. "That's insulting." I knew plenty of women who were pickier with their guns than they were with their shoes.
”
”
Brandon Sanderson (Firefight (The Reckoners, #2))
“
I grin at her enthusiasm. “Did you like the little gun-finger I flashed you after that goal? All for you, baby.”
She grins back. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but you were actually pointing at the old guy a few seats over. He totally freaked out and started shouting to everyone that you scored that goal for him, and then I heard him ask his wife if maybe you knew that he was just diagnosed with diabetes, so I didn’t have the heart to tell him who the goal was really for.”
I break down in laughter. “Why is nothing ever simple with us?”
“Hey,” she protests. “We’re more interesting this way.”
I can’t argue with that.
”
”
Elle Kennedy
“
The gun was lying next to the sprinkler, under a bush, about seventy-five feet - or halfway - up the steep hill. Steven had watched "Dragnet" on TV; he knew how guns should be handled. Picking it up very carefully by the top of the barrel, so as not to eradicate prints, Steven took the gun back to his house and showed it to his father, Bernard Weiss. The senior Weiss took one look and called LAPD.
Officer Micheal Watson, on patrol in the area, responded to the radio call. More than a year later Steven would be asked to describe the incident from the witness stand:
Q. "Did you show him [Watson] the gun?"
A. "Yes."
Q. "Did he touch the gun?"
A. "Yes."
Q. "How did he touch it?"
A. "With both hands, all over the gun."
So much for "Dragnet.
”
”
Vincent Bugliosi (Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders)
“
Ebony." he yelled. "Thou must kill Vampire Potter!"
I thought about Vampire and his sexah eyes and his gothic black hair and how his face looks just like Joel Madden. I remembered that Draco had said I didn't understand, so I thought, what if Draco went out with Vampire before I went out with him and they broke up?
"No, Voldemort!" I shouted back.
Voldemort gave me a gun. "No! Please!" I begged.
"Thou must!" he yelled. "If thou does not, then I shall kill thy beloved Draco!"
"How did you know?" I asked in a surprised way.
Voldemort got a dude-ur-so-retarded look on his face. "I hath telekinesis." he answered cruelly. "And if you doth not kill Vampire, then thou know what will happen to Draco!" he shouted. Then he flew away angrily on his broomstick.
”
”
Tara Gilesbie (My Immortal)
“
Nothing is a masterpiece - a real masterpiece - till it's about two hundred years old. A picture is like a tree or a church, you've got to let it grow into a masterpiece. Same with a poem or a new religion. They begin as a lot of funny words. Nobody knows whether they're all nonsense or a gift from heaven. And the only people who think anything of 'em are a lot of cranks or crackpots, or poor devils who don't know enough to know anything. Look at Christianity. Just a lot of floating seeds to start with, all sorts of seeds. It was a long time before one of them grew into a tree big enough to kill the rest and keep the rain off. And it's only when the tree has been cut into planks and built into a house and the house has got pretty old and about fifty generations of ordinary lumpheads who don't know a work of art from a public convenience, have been knocking nails in the kitchen beams to hang hams on, and screwing hooks in the walls for whips and guns and photographs and calendars and measuring the children on the window frames and chopping out a new cupboard under the stairs to keep the cheese and murdering their wives in the back room and burying them under the cellar flags, that it begins even to feel like a religion. And when the whole place is full of dry rot and ghosts and old bones and the shelves are breaking down with old wormy books that no one could read if they tried, and the attic floors are bulging through the servants' ceilings with old trunks and top-boots and gasoliers and dressmaker's dummies and ball frocks and dolls-houses and pony saddles and blunderbusses and parrot cages and uniforms and love letters and jugs without handles and bridal pots decorated with forget-me-nots and a piece out at the bottom, that it grows into a real old faith, a masterpiece which people can really get something out of, each for himself. And then, of course, everybody keeps on saying that it ought to be pulled down at once, because it's an insanitary nuisance.
”
”
Joyce Cary (The Horse's Mouth)
“
One day about a month ago, I really hit bottom. You know, I just felt that in a Godless universe, I didn't want to go on living. Now I happen to own this rifle, which I loaded, believe it or not, and pressed it to my forehead. And I remember thinking, at the time, I'm gonna kill myself. Then I thought, what if I'm wrong? What if there is a God? I mean, after all, nobody really knows that. But then I thought, no, you know, maybe is not good enough. I want certainty or nothing. And I remember very clearly, the clock was ticking, and I was sitting there frozen with the gun to my head, debating whether to shoot.
[The gun fires accidentally, shattering a mirror] All of a sudden, the gun went off. I had been so tense my finger had squeezed the trigger inadvertently. But I was perspiring so much the gun had slid off my forehead and missed me. And suddenly neighbors were, were pounding on the door, and, and I don't know, the whole scene was just pandemonium. And, uh, you know, I-I-I ran to the door, I-I didn't know what to say. You know, I was-I was embarrassed and confused and my-my-my mind was r-r-racing a mile a minute. And I-I just knew one thing.
I-I-I had to get out of that house, I had to just get out in the fresh air and-and clear my head. And I remember very clearly, I walked the streets. I walked and I walked. I-I didn't know what was going through my mind. It all seemed so violent and un-unreal to me. And I wandered for a long time on the Upper West Side, you know, and-and it must have been hours. You know, my-my feet hurt, my head was-was pounding, and-and I had to sit down. I went into a movie house. I-I didn't know what was playing or anything.
I just, I just needed a moment to gather my thoughts and, and be logical and put the world back into rational perspective. And I went upstairs to the balcony, and I sat down, and, you know, the movie was a-a-a film that I'd seen many times in my life since I was a kid, and-and I always, uh, loved it. And, you know, I'm-I'm watching these people up on the screen and I started getting hooked on the film, you know. And I started to feel, how can you even think of killing yourself. I mean isn't it so stupid? I mean, l-look at all the people up there on the screen. You know, they're real funny, and-and what if the worst is true.
What if there's no God, and you only go around once and that's it. Well, you know, don't you want to be part of the experience? You know, what the hell, it's-it's not all a drag. And I'm thinkin' to myself, geez, I should stop ruining my life - searching for answers I'm never gonna get, and just enjoy it while it lasts. And, you know, after, who knows? I mean, you know, maybe there is something. Nobody really knows. I know, I know maybe is a very slim reed to hang your whole life on, but that's the best we have. And then, I started to sit back, and I actually began to enjoy myself.
”
”
Woody Allen
“
Because what does it mean, to say that things aren't going well? Compared to what? You can say: compared to how things were going a couple of hours ago, or a couple of years ago. But that's not the point. If two cars are speeding towards a brick wall with no brakes, and one car hits the wall moments before the other, you can't spend those moments saying the second car is much better off than the first. Death and disaster are at our shoulders every second of our lives, trying to get at us. Missing, a lot of the time. A lot of miles on the motorway without a front wheel blow-out. A lot of viruses that slither through our bodies without snagging. A lot of pianos that fall a minute after we've passed. Or a month, it makes no difference. So unless we're going to get down on our knees and give thanks every time disaster misses, it makes no sense to moan when it strikes. Us, or anyone else. Because we're not comparing it with anything. And anyway, we're all dead, or never born, and the whole thing really is a dream
There, you see. That's a funny side.
”
”
Hugh Laurie (The Gun Seller)
“
I am a pacifist, but be aware that I also carry a gun.
”
”
M.F. Moonzajer (LOVE, HATRED AND MADNESS)
“
Why ban guns? Let's give everyone a rocket launcher! What could possibly go wrong?
”
”
Oliver Markus Malloy (Inside The Mind of an Introvert: Comics, Deep Thoughts and Quotable Quotes (Malloy Rocks Comics Book 1))
“
Money! Father Rudden had tried everything to raise funds to repair the church, he even went to the bank. 'Don't be a fool, Father!' said the manager, 'Put that gun down.' Money!
”
”
Spike Milligan (Puckoon)
“
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)
“
Things I Used to Get Hit For: Talking back. Being smart. Acting stupid. Not listening. Not answering the first time. Not doing what I’m told. Not doing it the second time I’m told. Running, jumping, yelling, laughing, falling down, skipping stairs, lying in the snow, rolling in the grass, playing in the dirt, walking in mud, not wiping my feet, not taking my shoes off. Sliding down the banister, acting like a wild Indian in the hallway. Making a mess and leaving it. Pissing my pants, just a little. Peeing the bed, hardly at all. Sleeping with a butter knife under my pillow.
Shitting the bed because I was sick and it just ran out of me, but still my fault because I’m old enough to know better. Saying shit instead of crap or poop or number two. Not knowing better. Knowing something and doing it wrong anyway. Lying. Not confessing the truth even when I don’t know it. Telling white lies, even little ones, because fibbing isn’t fooling and not the least bit funny. Laughing at anything that’s not funny, especially cripples and retards. Covering up my white lies with more lies, black lies. Not coming the exact second I’m called. Getting out of bed too early, sometimes before the birds, and turning on the TV, which is one reason the picture tube died. Wearing out the cheap plastic hole on the channel selector by turning it so fast it sounds like a machine gun. Playing flip-and-catch with the TV’s volume button then losing it down the hole next to the radiator pipe. Vomiting. Gagging like I’m going to vomit. Saying puke instead of vomit. Throwing up anyplace but in the toilet or in a designated throw-up bucket. Using scissors on my hair. Cutting Kelly’s doll’s hair really short. Pinching Kelly. Punching Kelly even though she kicked me first. Tickling her too hard. Taking food without asking. Eating sugar from the sugar bowl. Not sharing. Not remembering to say please and thank you. Mumbling like an idiot. Using the emergency flashlight to read a comic book in bed because batteries don’t grow on trees. Splashing in puddles, even the puddles I don’t see until it’s too late. Giving my mother’s good rhinestone earrings to the teacher for Valentine’s Day. Splashing in the bathtub and getting the floor wet. Using the good towels. Leaving the good towels on the floor, though sometimes they fall all by themselves. Eating crackers in bed. Staining my shirt, tearing the knee in my pants, ruining my good clothes. Not changing into old clothes that don’t fit the minute I get home. Wasting food. Not eating everything on my plate. Hiding lumpy mashed potatoes and butternut squash and rubbery string beans or any food I don’t like under the vinyl seat cushions Mom bought for the wooden kitchen chairs. Leaving the butter dish out in summer and ruining the tablecloth. Making bubbles in my milk. Using a straw like a pee shooter. Throwing tooth picks at my sister. Wasting toothpicks and glue making junky little things that no one wants. School papers. Notes from the teacher. Report cards. Whispering in church. Sleeping in church. Notes from the assistant principal. Being late for anything. Walking out of Woolworth’s eating a candy bar I didn’t pay for. Riding my bike in the street. Leaving my bike out in the rain. Getting my bike stolen while visiting Grandpa Rudy at the hospital because I didn’t put a lock on it. Not washing my feet. Spitting. Getting a nosebleed in church. Embarrassing my mother in any way, anywhere, anytime, especially in public. Being a jerk. Acting shy. Being impolite. Forgetting what good manners are for. Being alive in all the wrong places with all the wrong people at all the wrong times.
”
”
Bob Thurber (Paperboy: A Dysfunctional Novel)
“
One of Victor’s friends had a pet called “Terry the Truth Cat.” When she was little and her father thought she was lying he would pick up the cat and say, “You kids tell me the truth or Terry gets it.” I guess it was supposed to help with honesty but it seems pretty fucked up. Plus, I don’t think I could threaten a cat. Maybe we could get Terry the Truth Turtle and threaten him with a fake gun. We’d be trying to get our daughter, Hailey, to tell the truth and he’d just hide his head in his shell like, “I’m not part of this. I’m not with you guys.” But I don’t like guns so maybe we could hold it over a pot of boiling
”
”
Jenny Lawson (Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things)
“
We drove in silence for a while.
“Can I have a gun?” I asked.
“No!”
“Just a little one? For my handbag? It’ll give me some street cred with the client.”
“No! No! No!”
His clenched fists pounded the steering wheel with each word.
- heller 1
”
”
j d nixon
“
What?"
"Nothing." He laughed."You were really hungry."
"I don't need to defend my eating to anyone.And just so you know,when I'm done with this,I plan to eat three whole cookies."
"Whoa." He held up his hands."Now you're pulling out the big guns."
"I don't mess around.
”
”
Tristi Pinkston (Turning Pages)
“
When you are a kid, playing with the other kids on your street, and everyone is fighting over who they are going to be, you have to call dibs early, as soon as you see one another, pretty much as soon as you step outside your house, even if you're halfway down the block. First dibs gets Hans Solo. Everyone knows that. You don't even have to say it. If you are first, you are Han Solo, period, end of story...I was never totally sure why everyone wanted to be Han Solo. Maybe it was because he wasn't born into it, like Luke, with the birthright and the natural talent for the Force and the premade story. Solo had to make his own story. He was a freelance protagonist, a relatively ordinary guy who got to the major leagues by being quick with a gun and a joke. He was, basically, a hero because he was funny.
”
”
Charles Yu (How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe)
“
Son of a bitch!" Cash erupted. "He's wearing Nate's guns."
Reese had been too occupied gazing into those eyes to notice the oddity of a gun belt strapped around a naked waist. Cash was right. Those were Nate's pretty pearl pistols. Reese had never liked those guns. He liked them even less now.
"Sullivan, ask him where he got those," Cash demanded.
"What gave you the idea I can speak Comanche?" "Because you are one?"
"You're a jackass, but I don't expect you to talk to a donkey."
"This is no time to be funny, breed."
"Then quit trying so hard.
”
”
Lori Handeland (Nate (Rock Creek Six, #5))
“
Kenji goes suddenly still.
At the creak of the door Kenji’s eyebrows shoot up; a soft click and his eyes widen; a muted rustle of movement and suddenly the barrel of a gun is pressed against the back of his head. Kenji stares at me, his lips making no sound as he mouths the word psychopath over and over again.
The psychopath in question winks at me from where he’s standing, smiling like he couldn’t possibly be holding a gun to the head of our mutual friend. I manage to suppress a laugh.
“Go on,” Warner says, still smiling. “Please tell me exactly how she’s failed you as a leader.”
“Hey—“ Kenji’s arms fly up in mock surrender. “I never said she failed at anything, okay? And you are clearly over-react—“
Warner knocks Kenji on the side of the head with the weapon. “Idiot.”
Kenji spins around. Yanks the gun out of Warner’s hand. “What the hell is wrong with you, man? I thought we were cool.”
“We were,” Warner says icily. “Until you touched my hair.”
“You asked me to give you a haircut—“
“I said nothing of the sort! I asked you to trim the edges!”
“And that’s what I did.”
“This,” Warner says, spinning around so I might inspect the damage, “is not trimming the edges, you incompetent moron—“
I gasp. The back of Warner’s head is a jagged mess of uneven hair; entire chunks have been buzzed off.
Kenji cringes as he looks over his handiwork. Clears his throat. “Well,” he says, shoving his hand in his pockets. “I mean—whatever, man, beauty is subjective—“
Warner aims another gun at him.
“Hey!” Kenji shouts. “I am not here for this abusive relationship, okay?” He points to Warner. “I did not sign up for this shit!”
Warner glares at him and Kenji retreats, backing out of the room before Warner has another chance to react; and then, just as I let out a sign of relief, Kenji pops his head back into the doorway and says
“I think the cut looks cute, actually”
and Warner slams the door in his face.
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (Restore Me (Shatter Me, #4))
“
Sittin’ in a café in dark glasses sippin’ coffee dunkin’ doughnuts while it’s sunny thinking guns guns guns and I’ve got pockets full of bullets and a suitcase full of money and a fuckin’ awful headache and a police rifle that fires dummies and I’m listening to Barney because she really wants to tell me all the fifty million reasons why she’s feelin’ fuckin’ funny and she wants to kill her mummy and she wants me to kill her daddy but there really is no logic to the way we’re spending Sunday because we don’t know where we’re going and we’ve been drinking since last Monday and Booga’s sharpening sticks and he’s looking like a monkey and I’m waiting for my tank and I know it will look chumly because Dobson is my man and he’s part of my fuckin’ family and when I see him next I’m gonna buy him half a shandy.
”
”
Alan C. Martin (Tank Girl Armadillo!: A Novel)
“
You know, you spend your childhood watching TV, assuming that at some point in the future everything you see there will one day happen to you: that you too will win a Formula One race, hop a train, foil a group of terrorists, tell someone 'Give me the gun', etc. Then you start secondary school, and suddenly everyone's asking you about your career plans and your long-term goals, and by goals they don't mean the kind you are planning to score in the FA Cup. Gradually the awful truth dawns on you: that Santa Claus was just the tip of the iceberg — that your future will not be the rollercoaster ride you'd imagined, that the world occupied by your parents, the world of washing the dishes, going to the dentist, weekend trips to the DIY superstore to buy floor-tiles, is actually largely what people mean when they speak of 'life'. Now, with every day that passes, another door seems to close, the one marked PROFESSIONAL STUNTMAN, or FIGHT EVIL ROBOT, until as the weeks go by and the doors — GET BITTEN BY SNAKE, SAVE WORLD FROM ASTEROID, DISMANTLE BOMB WITH SECONDS TO SPARE — keep closing, you begin to hear the sound as a good thing, and start closing some yourself, even ones that didn't necessarily need to be closed.
”
”
Paul Murray (Skippy Dies)
“
I think it’s funny. There was a time when men were afraid that somebody would reveal some secret of theirs that was unknown to their fellows. Nowadays, they’re afraid that somebody will name what everybody knows. Have you practical people ever thought that that’s all it would take to blast your whole, big, complex structure, with all your laws and guns—just somebody naming the exact nature of what you’re doing?
”
”
Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)
“
Sirens blasted, breaking the silence and spinning me around. The shrill sound was all too familiar, and I snapped into action. Vicious excitement replaced the restlessness, and I knew just how screwed up that was, but right then? Oh yeah, I could use a fight. Yesterday in the quad had been child’s play.
Grabbing the Glock loaded with titanium bullets, I hooked it into the holster and fit it around my thigh. I snatched the daggers off the dresser and headed out the door, not even bothering with grabbing a shirt.
I came to a complete stop as Josie’s door swung open.
What in the holy fuck were Alex and Josie doing together? For just a few seconds, the three of us were literally frozen, staring at each other as the sirens blared overhead.
And then Alex broke the silence.
“Really?” she said dryly, eyeing me with a smirk. “You’re going to fight with the awesomeness of your six-pack as a weapon?”
I arched a brow. “Yeah, you know, I was going to test out the whole abs of steel theory thing. The gun attached to my thigh and the daggers in my hands are just props. Mainly for show. Don’t want to take away from the gloriousness that is my body, though.”
Her smirk flipped into a grin. “Whatever.” She started forward. Up ahead, a tall figure stepped out in the hall, and light glinted off the titanium daggers in his hands. Aiden. Of course their room had to be close to mine.
Of. Course.
”
”
Jennifer L. Armentrout (The Power (Titan, #2))
“
Addiction has ruined so much of my life it’s not funny. It’s ruined relationships. It’s ruined the day-to-day process of being me. I have a friend who doesn’t have any money, lives in a rent-controlled apartment. Never made it as an actor, has diabetes, is constantly worried about money, doesn’t work. And I would trade places with him in a second. In fact, I would give up all the money, all the fame, all the stuff, to live in a rent-controlled apartment—I’d trade being worried about money all the time to not have this disease, this addiction.
And not only do I have the disease, but I also have it bad. I have it as bad as you can have it, in fact. It’s backs-to-the-wall time all the time. It’s going to kill me (I guess something has to). Robert Downey Jr., talking about his own addiction, once said, “It’s like I have a gun in my mouth with my finger on the trigger, and I like the taste of the metal.” I got it; I understand that.
”
”
Matthew Perry (Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing)
“
My Fellow Non-American Blacks: In America, You Are Black, Baby Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I’m Jamaican or I’m Ghanaian. America doesn’t care. So what if you weren’t “black” in your country? You’re in America now. We all have our moments of initiation into the Society of Former Negroes. Mine was in a class in undergrad when I was asked to give the black perspective, only I had no idea what that was. So I just made something up. And admit it—you say “I’m not black” only because you know black is at the bottom of America’s race ladder. And you want none of that. Don’t deny now. What if being black had all the privileges of being white? Would you still say “Don’t call me black, I’m from Trinidad”? I didn’t think so. So you’re black, baby. And here’s the deal with becoming black: You must show that you are offended when such words as “watermelon” or “tar baby” are used in jokes, even if you don’t know what the hell is being talked about—and since you are a Non-American Black, the chances are that you won’t know. (In undergrad a white classmate asks if I like watermelon, I say yes, and another classmate says, Oh my God that is so racist, and I’m confused. “Wait, how?”) You must nod back when a black person nods at you in a heavily white area. It is called the black nod. It is a way for black people to say “You are not alone, I am here too.” In describing black women you admire, always use the word “STRONG” because that is what black women are supposed to be in America. If you are a woman, please do not speak your mind as you are used to doing in your country. Because in America, strong-minded black women are SCARY. And if you are a man, be hyper-mellow, never get too excited, or somebody will worry that you’re about to pull a gun. When you watch television and hear that a “racist slur” was used, you must immediately become offended. Even though you are thinking “But why won’t they tell me exactly what was said?” Even though you would like to be able to decide for yourself how offended to be, or whether to be offended at all, you must nevertheless be very offended. When a crime is reported, pray that it was not committed by a black person, and if it turns out to have been committed by a black person, stay well away from the crime area for weeks, or you might be stopped for fitting the profile. If a black cashier gives poor service to the non-black person in front of you, compliment that person’s shoes or something, to make up for the bad service, because you’re just as guilty for the cashier’s crimes. If you are in an Ivy League college and a Young Republican tells you that you got in only because of Affirmative Action, do not whip out your perfect grades from high school. Instead, gently point out that the biggest beneficiaries of Affirmative Action are white women. If you go to eat in a restaurant, please tip generously. Otherwise the next black person who comes in will get awful service, because waiters groan when they get a black table. You see, black people have a gene that makes them not tip, so please overpower that gene. If you’re telling a non-black person about something racist that happened to you, make sure you are not bitter. Don’t complain. Be forgiving. If possible, make it funny. Most of all, do not be angry. Black people are not supposed to be angry about racism. Otherwise you get no sympathy. This applies only for white liberals, by the way. Don’t even bother telling a white conservative about anything racist that happened to you. Because the conservative will tell you that YOU are the real racist and your mouth will hang open in confusion.
”
”
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Americanah)
“
Once upon a time, a prince asked a beautiful princess, “Will you marry me?” The princess said, “No.” And so the prince lived happily ever after and rode motorcycles and hunted and raced cars and drank whiskey and beer and Patron tequila and smoked Marlboro reds and never paid child support or alimony and ate what he wanted and kept his house and guns and never got cheated on while he was at work and all his friends and family thought he was friggin’ cool as hell and had tons of money in the bank and left the toilet seat up. The end. Very funny and very true… if you’re a boy.
”
”
Brian Tome (Five Marks of a Man: The Simple Code That Separates Men From Boys)
“
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!
”
”
Charlie Chaplin (My Autobiography)
“
I didn’t want to hear this. “What the hell are you talking about?” “Necromancer with a chaser of werewolf; a drink to make any vampire giddy.” He giggled. Jean-Claude never giggled. I ignored him, if you can ignore an intoxicated vampire. “Jason, can you stand?” “I think so.” His voice was thick, heavy but not sleepy, more the languor after sex. Maybe I was glad my bite had hurt. “Larry?” Larry walked over to us, glancing at Magnus, gun naked in his hand. He didn’t look happy. “Can we trust him?” “We’re going to,” I said. “Help me stand up, and let’s get out of here before fangface busts a gut.” Jean-Claude was doubled over with laughter. He seemed to think “fangface” was outrageously funny. Ye gods. Larry
”
”
Laurell K. Hamilton (Bloody Bones (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #5))
“
I didn't want to push her.
But I wanted to see her progress.
Not for me. Not because I wanted to bring her with me everywhere I went or that I wouldn't be content with seeing her at my place when I came home.
But for her. Because she deserved to have a life that didn't make her feel like she was constantly trapped, like she was surrounded by wolves that would consume her if she tried to step even a foot outside of her comfort zone.
See, the funny thing about comfort zones was, sometimes it was a gun. Sometimes it was a keepsake. Sometimes it was an entire apartment. But sometimes, oh sometimes, it could be a person.
And I was going to try like hell to prove to her that I could be that for her, that I would always be a safe place to land, that I could take her hand and lead her out and show her that those mother fucking wolves cowered down before me and they could never hurt her again.
”
”
Jessica Gadziala (Ryan (Mallick Brothers, #2))
“
She murmured, “Keeping me alive…intact…just so I can work their damned stele and get Cohort blood…all over my hands. Gun to your neck…blood on my hands…saints against God.”
“Don’t talk,” said Crown roughly. “You’re spouting nonsense.”
“You haven’t talked sense in months.” She burbled with coughing again. “You’re the one facing the dark night of the soul, Princess.”
“Love that melodrama. Is there Eighth somewhere in your family tree?”
“Gave yourself up… gave all of us up…for what? Propaganda and a leash…promise of salvation without understanding the sin. Hect and the hideous Sixth House mechanism…and now they are taken too. For what? Our lives? Is this living, Corona?”
“You’ve never lived a single day in your life,” said Corona bitterly. “It’d be against regulations.”
The Captain said, “Name and rank: Captain Judith Deuteros. House…Second,” and Crown scrubbed at her face with her hand, little licks of hair escaping from their elastic and curling over her forehead like light. The Captain broke off and said, “You think you’re walking the tightrope with fast talking and your face…steeled myself to the talking long ago. But you’re slipping, Princess…can’t save you from that…Hect, my hands are too filthy to save you…”
It was funny to think of anyone wanting to save Camilla. The Captain’s eyes passed restlessly to Nona. Sweat was beading on her temples. The Captain focused, and said hoarsely, “Ninth, where is the mercy of the Tomb? Where is your sword in the coffin? Who are your masters now, and who do you master? Where is my cavalier, Reverend Daughter? Where is yours?”
Her voice rose. “Because I saw her—in the waves—she was there in the grey water—I saw them all—they hurt me—where is my hunger? I eat and eat and eat without surcease, my green thing, my green-and-breathing thing…
”
”
Tamsyn Muir (Nona the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #3))
“
Freydis lifted a hand and rubbed briefly at the spot on her chin where the gun’s muzzle had left a mild indentation. Then she said, to Murphy, “Are you seeing anyone?”
Murphy blinked.
“Mortals make the best lovers by far,” Freydis explained. “And this job means I’m basically sexually frustrated around the clock. But it’s hard to find mortals I respect.”
Murphy’s cheeks turned bright pink. “Um.”
Freydis frowned slightly and glanced from Murphy to me and back. “I don’t mind sharing.”
“I’m . . . I’m Catholic,” Murphy said.
Freydis’s eyes shone with a wicked sparkle. “I don’t mind conflicted, either.”
Murphy gave me a somewhat desperate glance.
Huh. I’d officially seen everything now. Murphy asking for a rescue. From monsters and madmen, she’d never cried uncle.
It had taken a redhead.
“Business first, maybe?” I suggested.
“We could all die tonight,” Freydis said. “But as you wish.
”
”
Jim Butcher (Peace Talks (The Dresden Files, #16))
“
The sky’s bright. You look great. In a word, in a phrase, it’s a movie, you’re the star.
So smile for the camera, it’s your big scene, you know your lines.
I’m the director. I’m in a helicopter. I have a megaphone and you play along, because you want to die for love, you always have.
Imagine this: You’re pulling the car over. Somebody’s waiting. You’re going to die
in your best friend’s arms. And you play along because it’s funny, because it’s written down,
you’ve memorized it, it’s all you know. I say the phrases that keep it all going, and everybody plays along.
Imagine: Someone’s pulling a gun, and you’re jumping into the middle of it. You didn’t think you’d feel this way. There’s a gun in your hand. It feels hot. It feels oily.
I’m the director and i’m screaming at you, I’m waving my arms in the sky, and everyone’s watching, everyone’s curious, everyone’s holding their breath.
- 'Planet of Love
”
”
Richard Silken
“
It was after the catastrophe, when they shot the president and machine-gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency. They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time. Keep calm, they said on television. Everything is under control. I was stunned. Everyone was, I know that. It was hard to believe. The entire government, gone like that. How did they get in, how did it happen? That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn't even an enemy you could put your finger on. Look out, said Moira to me, over the phone. Here it comes. Here what comes? I said. You wait, she said. They've been building up to this. It's you and me up against the wall, baby. She was quoting an expression of my mother's, but she wasn't intending to be funny. Things
”
”
Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1))
“
Nobody rides you like you ride yourself, they say. But we get more than our share of help. These people and vegetarians and so forth that are all about being fair to the races and the gays, I am down with that. I agree. But would it cross any mind to be fair to us? No, it would not. How do I know? TV. The comedy channel is so funny it can make you want to go unlock the gun cabinet and kill yourself. Do they really think that along with being brainless and having sex with animals, we don’t even have cable? There’s this thing that happens, let’s say at school where a bunch of guys are in the bathroom, at the urinal, laughing about some dork that made an anus of himself in gym. You’re all basically nice guys, right? You know right from wrong, and would not in a million years be brutal to the poor guy’s face. And then it happens: the dork was in the shitter. He comes out of the stall with this look. He heard everything. And you realize you’re not really that nice of a guy. This is what I would say if I could, to all smart people of the world with their dumb hillbilly jokes: We are right here in the stall. We can actually hear you.
”
”
Barbara Kingsolver (Demon Copperhead)
“
It was after the catastrophe, when they shot the president and machine-gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency. They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time. Keep calm, they said on television. Everything is under control. I was stunned. Everyone was, I know that. It was hard to believe. The entire government, gone like that. How did they get in, how did it happen? That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn’t even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn’t even an enemy you could put your finger on. Look out, said Moira to me, over the phone. Here it comes. Here what comes? I said. You wait, she said. They’ve been building up to this. It’s you and me up against the wall, baby. She was quoting an expression of my mother’s, but she wasn’t intending to be funny. Things continued in that state of suspended animation for weeks, although some things did happen. Newspapers were censored and some were closed down, for security reasons they said. The roadblocks began to appear, and Identipasses. Everyone approved of that, since it was obvious you couldn’t be too careful. They said that new elections would be held, but that it would take some time to prepare for them. The thing to do, they said, was to continue on as usual.
”
”
Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale)
“
I was sitting down hanging with the fellas them just for the girls, because really and truly this was bugging me. How could these fellas have the finest girls in the community, and they don’t work, they don’t have any money. Anytime something has to be purchased they would say, ‘Man, Scrooge, throw the blow; buy this and buy that.’
So we were sitting on a car one day. They were out to a disco the night before and this fella got chopped or stabbed. I didn’t know anything about it until the fellas came around looking for KC the next day. These fellas just yuck out their guns and started busting shots, and everybody just break off running for their lives. Afterwards I mumbled to myself that these are some crazy fellas. They just came shooting for no reason. The funny thing about it is this: guns were not even that common on the streets then. We’re talking around 1987, 1988. I believe the fella who fired those shots at us, goes by the nickname Dog and he lives in the US now.
I said to Ada, ‘What kind of thing this is? I mean, these fellas came and just started shooting.’
That sent a whole new way of thinking in my mind. Prior to that, I was just a person going to work, coming home, and chilling. I just happened to be sitting there one day. They didn’t know me and they didn’t care who I was. I never used to even be with KC and them. I just happened to be there that day. If I had known that those fellas were crazy like that, to come shooting at whoever they saw, I wouldn’t have been there hanging with KC and them. After that, my whole mindset changed. It was either shoot or be shot. Scrooge, former leader of the Rebellion Raiders street gang that once boasted of having some ten thousand members.
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Drexel Deal (The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father (The Fight of My Life is Wrapped in My Father Book 1))
“
We could hide,” she said.
“They’d find us,” Harry told her.
“Well, we could find a place—I don’t know, a cave or something—where we could hold them off with your gun.”
“And hope that the FBI finds us before they go back to their car and get a grenade thrower out of the trunk?”
Allie was silent for a moment, just pushing forward, using both hands to scramble up the ever-steepening hill. “So what exactly are our options?”
“We keep moving."
“That’s it?” Her anger wasn’t far from the surface, and it bubbled up again. “Do you screw up all your cases this way, or is there just something about me that brings out this incompetent side of you?”
“I didn’t set this up,” he told her for the four thousandth time. “If I did, there would have been backup. Believe me.”
“I’m done believing you. I believed you twice—and you know that old saying? ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.’ I’m making up a third part to that saying. Fool me three times, just shoot me now.”
Harry laughed. It was the wrong thing to do.
“You think this is funny? We’re probably going to die, and you think this is funny?” She was furious. “You said I’d be safe here, and I trusted you. I did more than trust you, I slept with you, over and over again! Oh, God, the whole time you were probably laughing and—”
“Allie, you gotta believe me—I didn’t set this up. George did. George knew about that letter I got from the lawyers. He probably figured out there were court records with Shaun and Em’s names and address on it. And this snafu stinks of Nicole Fenster, too. But I swear to you, I didn’t know. There’s no way in hell I would’ve set you up. And I didn’t mean to sleep with you. I mean, it wasn’t something I planned and . . .”
Yeah, and that wasn’t exactly helping. Making it sound as if the lovemaking they’d shared had been some kind of an accident, like Whoops, golly, how’d my penis get in there?
”
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Suzanne Brockmann (Bodyguard)
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A splash of light snuck beneath the a dressing room door. He heard a groan. A shuffle. A bump. A heavy sigh.
"Uh, too tight."
He walked toward the back, stopping outside the dressing room. The door was cracked a fraction. He rested a shoulder against the wall, and glanced inside. Grace as Catwoman blew his mind. A feline fantasy.
The three-way mirror tripled his pleasure. He viewed her from every angle. Hot, sleek, fierce. The lady could fight Batman in her skintight black leather catsuit and come out the winner.
After a moment she scrunched her nose, slapped her palms against her thighs. Stuck out her tongue at her reflection in the mirrors. He saw what had her so frustrated. Sympathized with her disappointment. Her costume didn't fit. The front zipper hadn't fully cleared her cleavage, which was deep and visible. She wore no bra. She gave a little hop, and her breasts bounced. Full and plump. He felt a tug at his groin. Superhero lust.
He cleared his throat and made his presence known. She caught his image in the corner of the glass, and reached for the fitting room chair, positioning it between them.
Like that would keep him from her. He should've looked away, but couldn't. He sensed her embarrassment. Her panic. Flight? She had nowhere to go. He blocked the door. He wasn't leaving until they'd talked.
"Archibald's going to love your costume," he initiated.
She didn't find him funny. Her gaze narrowed behind the molded cat-eye mask with attached ears. Her fingers clenched in her elbow-length gloves. Inspired by the movie The Dark Knight, she'd added a whip and a gun holster. Her thigh-high stiletto boots were killer, adding five inches to her height. Her image would stick with him forever.
She backed against the center mirror, and nervously fingered the open flaps over her breasts. A yank on the zipper broke the tab. The metal teeth parted, and the gap widened, revealing the round inner curves of her breasts. A hint of her nipples. Dusky pink. All the way down to the dent of her navel.
”
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Kate Angell (The Cottage on Pumpkin and Vine)
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What you don’t understand is, it’s like somebody walks up to you and says, I have a battleship I can’t use, would you like to have a battleship. And you say, yes yes, I’ve never had a battleship, I’ve always wanted one. And he says, it has four sixteen-inch guns forward, and a catapult for launching scout planes. And you say, I’ve always wanted to launch scout planes. And he says, it’s yours, and then you have this battleship. And then you have to paint it, because it’s rusting, and clean it, because it’s dirty, and anchor it somewhere, because the Police Department wants you to get it off the streets. And the crew is crying, and there are silverfish in the chartroom and a funny knocking noise in Fire Control, water rising in the No. 2 hold, and the chaplain can’t find the Palestrina tapes for the Sunday service. And you can’t get anybody to sit with it. And finally you discover that what you have here is this great, big, pink-and-blue rockabye battleship.
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Donald Barthelme (Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts)
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Grabbing a cop's gun from his holster during a traffic stop is not a funny way to break the tension.
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Steve LaMantia (i.e., me)
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I just think that there is a funny spirit around that’s partly to do with political correctness, partly to do with a kind of misguided idea that you protect the underprivileged by ring-fencing their ideas, which I think is a dangerous path and, in many ways, could increase the hostility towards the people you are trying to protect … and it’s partly fear. If people weren’t using machine guns to express their dislike of things, then I think people would be a lot more willing to create work that other people don’t like. And if we are going to be limited by what people like and if not liking something is a legitimate reason for saying that that thing should be stopped, then everybody will stop everything.
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Salman Rushdie
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A doctor invented the Gatling gun after noting that it was more common for soldiers to die from the disease in war than by gunshot wounds.
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Bill O'Neill (The Big Book of Random Facts: 1000 Interesting Facts And Trivia (Interesting Trivia and Funny Facts 1))
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Seriously, man. How did you fuck up this bad?"
Atticus's eyes bulged behind his glasses, his face contorting. "My fucking gun jammed. I had to improvise."
Adam gaped at him. "And your first thought was a hatchet?"
Atticus snorted, his voice full of derision when he said "It's a meat cleaver, you miscreant.
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Onley James (Unhinged (Necessary Evils, #1))
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A few microbes are more sensitive to heat than our own bodies are. By raising our body temperature, we in effect try to bake the germs to death before we get baked ourselves.
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”
Guns, Germs, and Steel
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She paused, giving Paz a quizzical appraisal, “Also, bunny and heavy armor, that’s both cute and hilarious."
“I’m coming with you!“ Paz told her.
Moon blinked, but took it in her stride. “Fine, you’ll be one more thing for the guns to aim at that isn’t me, same questions slightly louder.
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M.R. Carey (Echo of Worlds (Pandominion, #2))
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What happens to a billiard ball, say, if you shoot it through a wormhole at its slightly younger self, trying to deflect it off course? A physicist at the Russian Space Institute in Moscow named Igor Novikov worked out the math that would govern a trans-temporal, suicidal (or at least self-inhibiting) billiards game (a sort of cross between billiards and Russian roulette), and he discovered something remarkably reassuring: physical law would actually prevent the billiard ball from inhibiting its past self. In fact, a principle of self-consistency would govern a wormhole-riddled universe. Even if an object could enter a wormhole at some time point B and emerge earlier, at some time point A, it could never actually interfere with its own entry into the wormhole at that later time point B.7 Two of Thorne’s students checked and found that Novikov was right: a time-traveling billiard ball cannot take the place of its younger self.8 (According to physicist Nick Herbert, it is analogous to the exclusion principle discovered by Wolfgang Pauli, which prevents any two electrons from occupying the same states simultaneously—a principle that ultimately makes the world built of tiny probabilistic particles solid.9) More recently, the physicist Seth Lloyd designed and actually conducted such an experiment using a photon and what he called a quantum gun—essentially shooting the photon a few billionths of a second back in time to interfere with its past self. He discovered he couldn’t. “No matter how hard the time-traveler tries, she finds her grandfather is a tough guy to kill.”10 This does not mean that time travel is impossible. Quite the contrary. It means that the time-traveling object encounters and interacts with its earlier self in precisely such a way that its later entry into the wormhole is facilitated rather than impeded. In other words, all possible paths of a billiard ball entering a wormhole would, upon exiting the wormhole earlier, nudge itself into the mouth of the wormhole later, thus completing the causal tautology, or what physicists call the closed-timelike curve. These days, quantum physicists like Lloyd use the idiom of postselection, a kind of informational-causal Darwinism that ensures that the only information that survives its journey into the past is information that does not foreclose its origins in the future. It’s not like there’s a Causality Police stepping in now and again to prevent grandfather paradoxes from occurring, or that time travelers need to step gingerly in the past to avoid disturbing things (a common trope in time-travel stories)—although they may in fact find that funny paranormal experiences impede them in ways they hadn’t expected. Guns might misfire at a crucial moment, for instance. (There’s nothing keeping you from trying to kill your grandfather.) But mainly, it is that time travelers from the future who survive their journey into the past are the ones whose actions somehow lead to the identical future from which they will have been sent back. Time loops, in other words.
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Eric Wargo (Precognitive Dreamwork and the Long Self: Interpreting Messages from Your Future (A Sacred Planet Book))
“
...and as I walked, I tried to see the funny side.
It wasn’t easy, and I’m still not sure that I managed it properly, but it’s just something I like to do when things aren’t going well. Because what does it mean, to say that things aren’t going well? Compared to what? You can say: compared to how things were going a couple of hours ago, or a couple of years ago. But that’s not the point. If two cars are speeding towards a brick wall with no brakes, and one car hits the wall moments before the other, you can’t spend those moments saying that the second car is much better off than the first.
Death and disaster are at our shoulders every second of our lives, trying to get at us. Missing, a lot of the time. A lot of miles on the motorway without a front wheel blow-out. A lot of viruses that slither through our bodies without snagging. A lot of pianos that fall a minute after we’ve passed. Or a month, it makes no difference.
So unless we’re going to get down on our knees and give thanks every time disaster misses, it makes no sense to moan when it strikes. Us, or anyone else. Because we’re not comparing it with anything.
And anyway, we’re all dead, or never born, and the whole thing really is a dream.
There, you see. That’s a funny side.
”
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Hugh Laurie (The Gun Seller)
“
Funny, he didn’t seem to make such jokes when she was carrying her gun." Dakota on Diego
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Julia DeBarrioz (Cazadora (Dakota del Toro, #1))
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Two hunters were out there in the jungle looking to make a kill. Suddenly, one of them fell on the ground and he looked breathless. His eyes were rolled back in his head and he was literally looking panic stricken. His friend took out his cell phone hurriedly and called 911. He screamed on the phone, “I think my friend is dead. What should I do? We are out in a jungle!” The operator from the other end, in a very calm tone, said, “Okay, don’t panic sir. First we will need to make sure that he is dead.” There is silence on the line and then a sound of a gun fire is heard. The guy then came back on the phone. “Okay, done, now what do I need to do?
”
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Kevin Murphy (Jokes : Best Jokes 2016 (Jokes, Funny Jokes, Funny Books, Best jokes, Jokes for Kids and Adults))
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The moon is my gun so if shoot I would break your stars
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Mien