Hiring Funny Quotes

Jesper knocked his head against the hull and cast his eyes heavenward. “Fine. But if Pekka Rollins kills us all, I’m going to get Wylan’s ghost to teach my ghost how to play the flute just so that I can annoy the hell out of your ghost.” Brekker’s lips quirked. “I’ll just hire Matthias’ ghost to kick your ghost’s ass.” “My ghost won’t associate with your ghost,” Matthias said primly, and then wondered if the sea air was rotting his brain.

Arjuro made a scoffing sound. ‘You think Lumatere will invade because of you? Are you that important?’ Froi looked away. ‘Isaboe would invade if you kidnapped a servant, let alone a friend.’ ‘Isaboe? We’re on first-name terms with the Queen of Lumatere, are we?’ Gargarin asked. Froi found himself bristling. ‘What? Do you think I’m some cutthroat for hire who they found hanging around the palace walls with the words “I want to kill a Charynite King” tattooed on my arse?

Dear America, I suppose we should introduce ourselves: We're South Louisiana...You probably already know that we talk funny and listen to strange music and eat things you'd probably hire an exterminator to get out of your yard. We dance even if there's no radio. We drink at funerals. We talk too much and laugh too loud and live too large and, frankly,we're suspicious of others who don't.

Mr. Morrow, IOI owns this network..." "Of course they do!" Morrow shouted gleefully. 'The own practically everything! Including you, pretty boy! I mean did they tattoo a UPC code on your ass when they hired you to sit there and spout their corporate propaganda?

It's like when you're on hold and a recorded voice comes on telling you how much the company values you as a customer. Really? Then maybe you should hire some more support people so I don't have to wait thirty minutes to get help.

The notion originated with Daisy’s suggestion that we hire five bath-rooms and take cold baths, and then assumed more tangible form as “a place to have a mint julep.” Each of us said over and over that it was a “crazy idea.”—we all talked at once to a baffled clerk and thought, or pretended to think, that we were being very funny...

I just hired two BearPaw Duck Farm customer service reps, Tom and Arnold, and together they're pretty funny, like Tom Arnold. I tell a lot of True Lies, but this isn't one of them.

She just shot your dad and then invited him to your wedding. It’s kind of funny.

Hiring a talented teacher or coach is the closest the rich can get to buying their children talent.

I'm a terrible person. I should have stayed in college. I should have gone skydiving while I had the chance. I should have gone swimming with dolphins. I should have seen The Spice Girls perform on their reunion tour!

Ah, like how Sharon Parker’s bra kind of found its way into your locker?” He leaned in, resting his elbows on the table. “Are you going to constantly bring these things up the entire time we’re dating?” “Sorry. Just using my prior knowledge to try and gauge what kind of fake boyfriend you’re going to make.” “Well, if your bitterness is any indication of the kind of fake girlfriend you’re going to be, I won’t hold my breath for you to fake put out.

New Rule: Now that liberals have taken back the word "liberal," they also have to take back the word "elite." By now you've heard the constant right-wing attacks on the "elite media," and the "liberal elite." Who may or may not be part of the "Washington elite." A subset of the "East Coast elite." Which is overly influenced by the "Hollywood elite." So basically, unless you're a shit-kicker from Kansas, you're with the terrorists. If you played a drinking game where you did a shot every time Rush Limbaugh attacked someone for being "elite," you'd be almost as wasted as Rush Limbaugh. I don't get it: In other fields--outside of government--elite is a good thing, like an elite fighting force. Tiger Woods is an elite golfer. If I need brain surgery, I'd like an elite doctor. But in politics, elite is bad--the elite aren't down-to-earth and accessible like you and me and President Shit-for-Brains. Which is fine, except that whenever there's a Bush administration scandal, it always traces back to some incompetent political hack appointment, and you think to yourself, "Where are they getting these screwups from?" Well, now we know: from Pat Robertson. I'm not kidding. Take Monica Goodling, who before she resigned last week because she's smack in the middle of the U.S. attorneys scandal, was the third-ranking official in the Justice Department of the United States. She's thirty-three, and though she never even worked as a prosecutor, was tasked with overseeing the job performance of all ninety-three U.S. attorneys. How do you get to the top that fast? Harvard? Princeton? No, Goodling did her undergraduate work at Messiah College--you know, home of the "Fighting Christies"--and then went on to attend Pat Robertson's law school. Yes, Pat Robertson, the man who said the presence of gay people at Disney World would cause "earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor," has a law school. And what kid wouldn't want to attend? It's three years, and you have to read only one book. U.S. News & World Report, which does the definitive ranking of colleges, lists Regent as a tier-four school, which is the lowest score it gives. It's not a hard school to get into. You have to renounce Satan and draw a pirate on a matchbook. This is for the people who couldn't get into the University of Phoenix. Now, would you care to guess how many graduates of this televangelist diploma mill work in the Bush administration? On hundred fifty. And you wonder why things are so messed up? We're talking about a top Justice Department official who went to a college founded by a TV host. Would you send your daughter to Maury Povich U? And if you did, would you expect her to get a job at the White House? In two hundred years, we've gone from "we the people" to "up with people." From the best and brightest to dumb and dumber. And where better to find people dumb enough to believe in George Bush than Pat Robertson's law school? The problem here in America isn't that the country is being run by elites. It's that it's being run by a bunch of hayseeds. And by the way, the lawyer Monica Goodling hired to keep her ass out of jail went to a real law school.

Kylee laughed. "Nothing with you is normal. But speaking of abnormal, I saw this movie where these two girls liked the same boy, and one girl was a werewolf, and the other was a dragon, although she didn't know it yet, and it turned out the boy was a killer of, like, magical creatures, so both girls died and he took the head cheerleader to prom." "That sounds like a stupid movie," I said. "It actually was. But the boy had this shirt off a lot. I guess hunting magical creatures is great for stomach muscles.

Mr. Morrow, IOI owns this network.…” “Of course they do!” Morrow shouted gleefully. “They own practically everything! Including you, pretty boy! I mean, did they tattoo a UPC code on your ass when they hired you to sit there and spout their corporate propaganda?” ― Ernest Cline, Ready Player One

Get yourself killed?" she asked with raised eyebrows, reminding me that Donnie had remained silent as I'd predicted. "Nope. Help funny little carnival clowns who are in trouble. Also, his wife hired me. If I don't bring her some kind of explanation, she might not pass the word about how awesome a P.I. I am.

Phoebe Hurty hired me to write copy for ads about teen aged clothes. I had to wear the clothes I praised. That was part of the job. And I became friends with her two sons, who were my age. I was over at their house all the time. She would talk bawdily to me and her sons, and our girlfriends when we brought them around. She was funny. She was liberating. She taught us to be impolite in conversation not only about sexual matters, but about American history and famous heroes, about the distribution of wealth, about school, about everything. I now make my living being impolite. I am clumsy at it. I keep trying to imitate the impoliteness which was so graceful in Phoebe Hurty. I think now that grace was easier for her than it is for me because of the mood of the Great Depression. She believed what so many Americans believed then: that the nation would be happy and just and rational when prosperity came. I never hear that word anymore: Prosperity. It used to be a synonym for Paradise. And Phoebe Hurty was able to believe that the impoliteness she recommended would give shape to an American paradise. Now her sort of impoliteness is in fashion. But nobody believes anymore in a new American paradise. I sure miss Phoebe Hurty.

Thinking about what might happen if we ran completely out of money—laying off all the employees that I’d so carefully selected and hired, losing all my investors’ money, jeopardizing all the customers who trusted us with their business—made it difficult to concentrate on the possibilities. Marc Andreessen attempted to cheer me up with a not-so-funny-at-the-time joke: Marc: “Do you know the best thing about startups?” Ben: “What?” Marc: “You only ever experience two emotions: euphoria and terror. And I find that lack of sleep enhances them both.

The Terrible People People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they really don't want it, And I wish I could afford to gather all such people into a gloomy castle on the Danube and hire half a dozen capable Draculas to haunt it. I don't mind their having a lot of money, and I don't care how they employ it, But I do think that they damn well ought to admit they enjoy it. But no, they insist on being stealthy About the pleasures of being wealthy, And the possession of a handsome annuity Makes them think that to say how hard it is to make both ends meet is their bounden duity. You cannot conceive of an occasion Which will find them without some suitable evasion. Yes indeed, with arguments they are very fecund; Their first point is that money isn't everything, and that they have no money anyhow is their second. Some people's money is merited, And other people's is inherited, But wherever it comes from, They talk about it as if it were something you got pink gums from. Perhaps indeed the possession of wealth is constantly distressing, But I should be quite willing to assume every curse of wealth if I could at the same time assume every blessing. The only incurable troubles of the rich are the troubles that money can't cure, Which is a kind of trouble that is even more troublesome if you are poor. Certainly there are lots of things in life that money won't buy, but it's very funny -- Have you ever tried to buy them without money?

SPIEGEL: You have a lot of respect for the Dalai Lama, you even rewrote some Buddhist writings for him. Are you a religious person? Cleese: I certainly don't think much of organized religion. I am not committed to anything except the vague feeling that there is something more going on than the materialist reductionist people think. I think you can reduce suffering a little bit, like the Buddhists say, that is one of the few things I take seriously. But the idea that you can run this planet in a rational and kind way -- I think it's not possible. There will always be these sociopaths at the top -- selfish people, power-seekers who want to spend their whole lives seeking it. Robin Skynner, the psychiatrist that I wrote two books with, said to me that you could begin to enjoy life when you realized how bad the planet is, how hopeless everything is. I reached that point these last two or three years when I saw that our existence here is absolutely hopeless. I see the rich people have got a stranglehold on us. If somebody had said that to me when I was 20, I would have regarded him as a left-wing loony. SPIEGEL: You may not have been a left-wing loony, but you were happy to attack and ridicule the church. The "Life of Brian," the story of a young man in Judea who isn't Jesus Christ, but is nevertheless followed like a savior and crucified afterwards, was regarded as blasphemy when it was released in 1979. Cleese: Well there was a small number of people in country towns, all very conservative, who got upset and said, "You can't show the film." So people hired a coach and drove 15 miles to the next town and went to see the film there. But a lot of Christians said, "We got it, we know that the joke is not about religion, but about the way people follow religion." If Jesus saw the Spanish Inquisition I think he would have said, "What are you doing there?" SPIEGEL: These days Muslims and Islam are risky subjects. Do you think they are good issues for satire? Cleese: For sure. In 1982, Graham Chapman and I wrote a number of scenes for "The Meaning of Life" movie which had an ayatollah in them. This ayatollah was raging against all the evil inventions of the West, you know, like toilet paper. These scenes were never included in the film, although I thought they were much better than many other scenes that were included. And that's why I didn't do any more Python films: I didn't want to be outvoted any longer. But I wouldn't have made fun of the prophet. SPIEGEL: Why not? Cleese: How could you? How could you make fun of Jesus or Saint Francis of Assisi? They were wonderful human beings. People are only funny when they behave inappropriately, when they've been taken over by some egotistical emotion which they can't control and they become less human. SPIEGEL: Is there a difference between making fun of our side, so to speak, the Western, Christian side, and Islam? Cleese: There shouldn't be a difference. [SPIEGEL Interview with John Cleese: 'Satire Makes People Think' - 2015]

New Rule: Democrats must get in touch with their inner asshole. I refer to the case of Van Jones, the man the Obama administration hired to find jobs for Americans in the new green industries. Seems like a smart thing to do in a recession, but Van Jones got fired because he got caught on tape saying Republicans are assholes. And they call it news! Now, I know I'm supposed to be all reinjected with yes-we-can-fever after the big health-care speech, and it was a great speech--when Black Elvis gets jiggy with his teleprompter, there is none better. But here's the thing: Muhammad Ali also had a way with words, but it helped enormously that he could also punch guys in the face. It bothers me that Obama didn't say a word in defense of Jones and basically fired him when Glenn Beck told him to. Just like dropped "end-of-life counseling" from health-care reform because Sarah Palin said it meant "death panels" on her Facebook page. Crazy morons make up things for Obama to do, and he does it. Same thing with the speech to schools this week, where the president attempted merely to tell children to work hard and wash their hands, and Cracker Nation reacted as if he was trying to hire the Black Panthers to hand out grenades in homeroom. Of course, the White House immediately capitulated. "No students will be forced to view the speech" a White House spokesperson assured a panicked nation. Isn't that like admitting that the president might be doing something unseemly? What a bunch of cowards. If the White House had any balls, they'd say, "He's giving a speech on the importance of staying in school, and if you jackasses don't show it to every damn kid, we're cutting off your federal education funding tomorrow." The Democrats just never learn: Americans don't really care which side of an issue you're on as long as you don't act like pussies When Van Jones called the Republicans assholes, he was paying them a compliment. He was talking about how they can get things done even when they're in the minority, as opposed to the Democrats , who can't seem to get anything done even when they control both houses of Congress, the presidency, and Bruce Springsteen. I love Obama's civility, his desire to work with his enemies; it's positively Christlike. In college, he was probably the guy at the dorm parties who made sure the stoners shared their pot with the jocks. But we don't need that guy now. We need an asshole. Mr. President, there are some people who are never going to like you. That's why they voted for the old guy and Carrie's mom. You're not going to win them over. Stand up for the seventy percent of Americans who aren't crazy. And speaking of that seventy percent, when are we going to actually show up in all this? Tomorrow Glenn Beck's army of zombie retirees descending on Washington. It's the Million Moron March, although they won't get a million, of course, because many will be confused and drive to Washington state--but they will make news. Because people who take to the streets always do. They're at the town hall screaming at the congressman; we're on the couch screaming at the TV. Especially in this age of Twitters and blogs and Snuggies, it's a statement to just leave the house. But leave the house we must, because this is our last best shot for a long time to get the sort of serious health-care reform that would make the United States the envy of several African nations.

And then there’s that thing I do with photo frames. I buy them. I display them around my home. The thing I never seem to get around to doing is filling them with photos of real-life people I know and love. In fact, if you come to my house, glance at a sofa table, and see a framed photo of an attractive person with cover-girl looks on par with Christie Brinkley’s, then turn to me and say, “Who’s this?” there’s a chance that I will answer, “Oh, that’s my mom” or “that’s my daughter.” There’s also a good chance I’ll shrug my shoulders and confess I have absolutely no earthly idea. That’s because you’ll be looking at a photo of some anonymous model hired by the company that sells the frames.

Mia paused by the door and faced me. “Don’t worry, Cameron. I survived the ‘which university did you attend,’ question from your dad.” I merely arched my brows in interest despite my heart rate taking off. “What did you tell them?” “The truth. That I’m your sex slave and was initially hired at Enthrall—” “Not funny.” She grinned. “I’m more than capable of protecting you.” “There was no mention of Chrysalis?” “No, but I did sign your mom up for a session at Enthrall.” “Humor’s not your strong point.” My blood pressure spiked and my head felt twice the size. “Where are my PJs?” “You’re wearing them.” “I know that.” I bit the inside of my cheek. “Can I get you anything?” “A time machine.” She gave a salute. “I’m on it, boss.

He laughed often but assured me it wasn’t at me. “You just have a way of saying things; you make not particularly funny things sound hilarious.

It’s funny. My own mother was a housewife all her life. And yet it’s turned out that I’ve hired a lot of women for top jobs, and they’ve been among my best people. Often, in fact, they are far more effective than the men around them.

She nodded, but her expression slowly turned funny. “Before I forget, why didn’t you tell me about Tall, Silver, and Handsome?” I burst out laughing. “He is handsome, huh?” She whispered, “How old is he?” “I think early forties.” Yuki whistled. “What is he? Six-four? Two-forty?” “Why are you so creepy? You’re always measuring people.” “I have to when we’re hiring bodyguards. Bigger isn’t always better… but most of the time it is.” It was my turn to wiggle my eyebrows at her. “I wish. I mess with him all the time, and I don’t think he likes me much unless he’s in a good mood.” My friend frowned. “How could he not like you? If I was sexually attracted to women, I would be attracted to you.” “You say the nicest things, Yu.” She lifted her eyebrows. “It’s true. 

Title: Professional Bridesmaid for Hire—w4w—26 (NYC) Post: When all of my friends started getting engaged, I decided to make new friends. So I did—but then they got engaged also, and for what felt like the hundredth time, I was asked to be a bridesmaid. This year alone, I’ve been a bridesmaid 4 times. That’s 4 different chiffon dresses, 4 different bachelorette parties filled with tequila shots and guys in thong underwear twerking way too close to my face, 4 different prewedding pep talks to the bride about how this is the happiest day of her life, and how marriage, probably, is just like riding a bike: a little shaky at first, but then she’ll get the hang of it. Right, she’ll ask as she wipes the mascara-stained tears from her perfectly airbrushed face. Right, I’ll say, though I don’t really know. I only know what I’ve seen and that’s a beautiful-looking bride walking down, down, down the aisle, one two, three, four times so far this year. So let me be there for you this time if: — You don’t have any other girlfriends except your third cousin, twice removed, who is often found sticking her tongue down an empty bottle of red wine. — Your fiancé has an extra groomsman and you’re looking to even things out so your pictures don’t look funny and there’s not one single guy walking down the aisle by himself. — You need someone to take control and make sure bridesmaid #4 buys her dress on time and doesn’t show up 3 hours late the day of the wedding or paint her nails lime green. Bridesmaid skills I’m exceptionally good at: — Holding up the 18 layers of your dress so that you can pee with ease on your wedding day. — Catching the bouquet and then following that moment up with my best Miss America–like “OMG, I can’t believe this” speech. — Doing the electric and the cha-cha slide. — Responding in a timely manner to prewedding email chains created by other bridesmaids and the maid of honor.

Hire character. Train skill. -Peter Schutz (1930 -

She’s autistic and she hires an escort to help her get better in bed. It’s so good and Stella is so funny and cute.

Our investment style has been given a name-focus investing-which implies ten holdings, not one hundred or four hundred. The idea that it is hard to find good investments. So concentrate in a few, seems to me to be an obviously good idea. But ninety-eight percent of the investment world doesn't think this way. It's been good for us-and you-that we've done this.What's funny is that most big investment organizations don't think like this. They hire lots of people, evaluate Merck vs. Pfizer and every stock in the S&P 500, and think they can beat the market. You can't do it.

I had a case once where a woman had been going to Responsivist meetings for only two weeks when her husband became concerned and hired me. She ended up leaving him and is now the secretary to the director of their Greek retreat where you rescued your son. Pattie Ogdenburg. Funny how you remember the names of your failures but never those of your successes.” Max and Eddie nodded in unison. They had shared many of each together.

I know my alphabet,' I said sharply as he laid a piece of paper in front of me. 'I'm not that stupid.' I twisted my fingers in my lap, then pinned my restless hands under my thighs. 'I didn't say you were stupid,' he said. 'I'm just trying to determine where we should begin.' I leaned back in the cushioned seat. 'Since you've refused to tell me a thing about how much you know.' My face warmed. 'Can't you hire a tutor?' He lifted a brow. 'Is it that hard for you to even try in front of me?' 'You're a High Lord- don't you have better things to do?' 'Of course. But none as enjoyable as seeing you squirm.' 'You're a real bastard, you know that?' Rhys huffed a laugh. 'I've been called worse. In fact, I think you've called me worse.' He tapped the paper in front of him. 'Read that.' A blur of letters. My throat tightened. 'I can't.' 'Try.' The sentence had been written in elegant, concise print. His writing, no doubt. I tried to open my mouth, but my spine locked. 'What exactly, is your stake in all this? You said you'd tell me if I worked with you.' 'I didn't specify when I'd tell you.' I peeled back from him as my lip curled. He shrugged. 'Maybe I resent the idea of you letting those sycophants and war-mongering fools in the Spring Court make you feel inadequate. Maybe I indeed enjoy seeing you squirm. Or maybe-' 'I get it.' He snorted. 'Try to read it, Feyre.' Prick. I snatched the paper to me, nearly ripping it in half in the process. I looked at the first word, sounding it out in my head. 'Y-you...' The next I figured out with a combination of my silent pronunciation and logic. 'Look...' 'Good,' he murmured. 'I didn't ask for your approval.' Rhys chuckled. 'Ab... absolutely.' It took me longer than I wanted to admit to figure that out. The next word was even worse. 'De... Del...' I deigned to glance at him, brows raised. 'Delicious,' he purred. My brows knotted. I read the next two words, then whipped my face toward him. 'You look absolutely delicious today, Feyre?! That's what you wrote?' He leaned back in his seat. As our eyes met, sharp claws caressed my mind and his voice whispered inside my head. It's true, isn't it? I jolted back, my chair groaning. 'Stop that!' But those claws now dug in- and my entire body, my heart, my lungs, my blood yielded to his grip, utterly at his command as he said, The fashion of the Night Court suits you.

Cats make terrible publicists. Hire me instead.

My mother saying walk with me is akin to a woman you're dating saying, "we need to talk"—it never ends well. She loops her arm through mine and we stroll across the grass, away from the crowd. "I've been reading a lot recently," she begins. "And thinking. You're thirty-two years old, darling— you're handsome, you're a fine dresser, you dance well—you've always been very clean." The last comment has me looking at her funny, but I let her go on. "Talula Fitzgibbons's son is about your age, and he recently told her that he's become a homosexual." Oh boy. "Not only that, he's also hired a lovely surrogate and she's expecting triplets. Isn't that amazing, Brent? Triplets!" "Mom—" But that train has left the station. "So I wanted you to know, if you are a homosexual, your father and I will love you every bit as much as we do right now." She pats my arm and amends, "As long as you have children." "I'm not gay, Mom." She looks disappointed. "Are you sure?" "Mom, I'm as not gay as a man can possibly be.

We have plenty of time for whatever dirty thoughts are swirling around in that pretty head of yours later. This is important." Robby stomped his foot and whined in what Calder could only describe as a hissy fit. He bit down on his lower lip to keep from laughing as the boy said, "Is it? Why? I hired you to protect me. I don't want to hit anybody, and I don't want anybody hitting me. I don't like being hit in the face. I don't like being hit at all. The whole point of hiring you was so that you will keep people from hitting me.

I think the Coens are great film editors. So great! It’s funny to me because they get hired to doctor scripts all the time, but no one ever hires them to edit.

I know that you were pulled out of school and that your parents hired a private tutor.” “Yeah, Stephen Graham Jones. Funny that I remember his full name like that, but that’s how he was introduced to me. He wouldn’t let me call him mister like my regular teachers, and I liked saying his whole name out loud, whenever I could. It became a little OCD tic of mine. I’d say, ‘Good-bye, Stephen Graham Jones,’ or, ‘I don’t know what an obtuse triangle is, Stephen Graham Jones.

Taking a deep breath, Sailor decided to lay himself at her feet. "I was imagining the future and thinking of how if everything went according to plan, I'd have a very successful business with a high turnover." He made sure his hands were locked behind Ísa's back--just in case she decided to leave him in her dust a fourth time. "And since I'd be rich, I'd be able to buy houses and other nice things for my family." Ísa frowned. "I don't think your family expects that." "They don't exactly need my largess either," Sailor muttered. "But in my future fantasy, I'm buying everyone fancy cars and houses. Go with it." Ísa's lips twitched. "Okay, big spender. What else is fantasy Sailor doing?" "He's building a ginormous mansion. Swimming pool, tennis court, the works." "Is he hiring a buff personal masseuse named Sven?" "Hell no." He glared at her. "The masseuse is a fifty-year-old forner bodybuilder named Helga. Now, can I carry on?" Pretending to zip up her lips and throw away the key, Ísa made a "go on" motion. "Future Sailor is also creating a huge walk-in closet for you and filling it with designer shoes and clothes. He's giving you everything your heart desires." A flicker of darkness in Ísa's gaze, but she didn't interrupt... though her hands went still on his shoulders. "And there's a tricked-out nursery too," he added. "Plus a private playground for our rug rats." Throat moving, Ísa said, "How many?" It was a husky question. "Seven, I think." "Very funny, mister." "I'm not done." Sailor was the one who swallowed this time. "And in this fantasy house, future Sailor walks in late for dinner again because of a board meeting, and he has a gorgeous, sexy, brilliant wife and adorable children. But his redhead doesn't look at him the same anymore. And it doesn't matter how many shoes he buys her or how many necklaces he gives her, she's never again going to look at him the way she did before he stomped on her heart. Ísa's lower lip began to quiver, but she didn't speak. "I'm so sorry, baby." Sailor cupped her face, made sure she saw the sheer terror he felt at the thought of losing her. "I've been so tied to this idea of becoming a grand success that I forgot what it was all about in the first place--being there for the people I love. Sticking through the good and the bad. Never abandoning them." Silent tears rolled own Ísa's face. "But that great plan of mine?" he said, determined not to give himself any easy outs. "It'd have mean abandoning everyone. How can I be there for anyone when all I do is work? When I shove aside all other commitments? When the people I love hesitate to ask for my time because I'm too tired and too busy?" Using his thumbs, he rubbed away her tears. More splashed onto the backs of his hands, her hurt as hot as acid. "Spitfire, please," he begged, breaking. "I'll let you punch me as many times as you want if you stop crying. With a big red glove. And you can post photos online." Ísa pressed her lips together, blinked rapidly several times. And pretended to punch him with one fist, the touch a butterfly kiss. Catching her hand, he pressed his lips to it. "That's more like my Ísa." He wrapped his arms around her again. And then he told her the most important thing. "I realized that I could become a multimillionaire, but it would mean nothing if my redhead didn't look at me the way she does now, if she expected to have to take care of everything alone like she's always done--because her man was a selfish bastard who was never there." Ísa rubbed her nose against his. "You're being very hard on future Sailor," she whispered, her voice gone throaty. "That dumbass deserves it," Sailor growled. "He was going to put his desire to be a big man above his amazing, smart, loving redhead.

Good night. Don't let the boogeyman bite" "Mindy, there is no boogeyman, "I said as I snuggled in to bed, " I hauled Carl in years ago.

After Natalie [Wood] and I got back from our honeymoon, I began The Hunters, with Robert Mitchum, directed by Dick Powell. I adored both of them. Powell was one of the great guys of all time, and Mitchum and I became fast friends. He insisted that I call him "Mother Mitchum." One day we cooked up a juvenile practical joke—we hired a girl to sit on a bench at lunchtime without any underpants on. We were in Arizona, at an Air Force base, and from the reaction you'd have thought the men of the United States Air Force had never seen a woman's private parts before. As word spread, we gradually brought the entire base to a halt. The fact that it was juvenile didn't make it any less funny; actually, it made it funnier.

Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t say anything about this to anyone other than your lawyer. (By the end of the day, I had hired three lawyers: One to deal with the criminal case and a divorce lawyer. And a third lawyer for John.) Don’t answer any questions. It’s going to be difficult, but you have to resist the urge to talk to anyone. The irony of these words would’ve been funny if it wasn’t so devastating. Not talking to anyone was a tall order for someone who has made a living encouraging others (and myself) to be more vulnerable, connected, and present in all relationships. Someone whose life’s work, and true passion, lies in talking with others about things that matter. And now, at the very moment I needed to connect with people, I was told I couldn’t talk to anyone. I’ve never felt so alone, so shattered, and so scared for the future.

The number one thing a good logline must have, the single most important element, is: irony. My good friend and former writing partner, the funny and fast-typing Colby Carr, pointed this out to me one time and he’s 100% correct. And that goes for whether it’s a comedy or a drama. A cop comes to L.A. to visit his estranged wife and her office building is taken over by terrorists – Die Hard A businessman falls in love with a hooker he hires to be his date for the weekend – Pretty Woman I don’t know about you, but I think both of these loglines, one from a drama, one from a romantic comedy, fairly reek of irony. And irony gets my attention. It’s what we who struggle with loglines like to call the hook, because that’s what it does. It hooks your interest. What is intriguing about each of the spec sales I’ve cited above is that they, too, have that same ironic touch. A holiday season of supposed family joy is turned on its cynical head in the 4 Christmases example. What could be more unexpected (another way to say “ironic”) for a new employee, instead of being welcomed to a company, to be faced with a threat on his life during The Retreat? What Colby identified is the fact that a good logline must be emotionally intriguing, like an itch you have to scratch. A logline is like the cover of a book; a good one makes you want to open it, right now, to find out what’s inside. In identifying the ironic elements of your story and putting them into a logline, you may discover that you don’t have that. Well, if you don’t, then there may not only be something wrong with your logline — maybe your story’s off, too. And maybe it’s time to go back and rethink it. Insisting on irony in your logline is a good place to find out what’s missing. Maybe you don’t have a good movie yet.

We work long hours at these shows, and no matter how funny someone's writing sample is, if they are too talkative or needy or angry to deal with in the middle of the night by the printer, steer clear.

Aw, Jesus Christ,” Jack said. “You again.” Dan took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. “Nice to see you, too.” “Aw, man—you’re the one. Paul hired you!” Jack stepped up behind the bar, hands on his hips. “He said he hired a big guy who wore a funny-looking cowboy hat. Guess he doesn’t know a Shady Brady when he sees one.” Dan just shook his head and gave a half smile. “You hold some kind of grudge or something? What’d I ever do to you?” “Just seems like when you’re around, there’s some kind of trouble.” “Yeah, and sometimes when I’m around, someone needs a lift. Didn’t I pick you up off a dirt road in the middle of a wildfire? Jesus, some people have no gratitude. Can I get a beer or are you going to glare at me all day?” “You

The free babysitters are brief. You go through your parents, your siblings, and the rare friend who is not an alcoholic. You then must hire some stranger to watch your prized possessions and also your kids. See what I did there? Kind of funny, right? Well, I thought it was.

I think of this whenever someone says to me, “Jerry Lewis says women aren’t funny,” or “Christopher Hitchens says women aren’t funny,” or “Rick Fenderman says women aren’t funny…. Do you have anything to say to that?” Yes. We don’t fucking care if you like it. I don’t say it out loud, of course, because Jerry Lewis is a great philanthropist, Hitchens is very sick, and the third guy I made up. Unless one of these men is my boss, which none of them is, it’s irrelevant. My hat goes off to them. It is an impressively arrogant move to conclude that just because you don’t like something, it is empirically not good. I don’t like Chinese food, but I don’t write articles trying to prove it doesn’t exist. So my unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism or ageism or lookism or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: “Is this person in between me and what I want to do?” If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you’re in charge, don’t hire the people who were jerky to you. If the answer is yes, you have a more difficult road ahead of you. I suggest you model your strategy after the old Sesame Street film piece “Over! Under! Through!” (If you’re under forty you might not remember this film. It taught the concepts of “over,” “under,” and “through” by filming toddlers crawling around an abandoned construction site. They don’t show it anymore because someone has since realized that’s nuts.) If your boss is a jerk, try to find someone above or around your boss who is not a jerk.* If you’re lucky, your workplace will have a neutral proving ground—like the rifle range or the car sales total board or the SNL read-through. If so, focus on that. Again, don’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions. Go “Over! Under! Through!” and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t. Who cares? Do your thing and don’t care if they like it.

Bet you never thought I’d save your skin.” “What?” “Just makin’ small talk. Got to distract myself from the pain, y’know? Life has a funny way of workin’ out, don’t it? Take your friend, for example. The sword-lady.” “Tanith?” “First time we met, we were tryin’ to kill each other, remember that? But every time subsequent to that there’s been a kind of a frisson between us.” “A what?” “Frisson. It’s French for … To be honest I don’t really know what it’s French for, but I know what it means in American. A sort of electrical undercurrent of emotion.” “I know what frisson means, but I really don’t think Tanith would share your view.” “You’re a kid. You don’t know the ways of menfolk and womenkind. All those threats she fires my way? That there is the mark of flirtation.” “Oh, dear God,” Valkyrie said, the colour draining from her face. “You fancy Tanith.” “I don’t fancy her, I—” “You have a crush on Tanith. That is disgusting.” “What? Why would it be disgustin’?” “Because you’re a hired killer.” “That don’t make it disgustin’, just makes it … unusual. Does she talk about me? “Somebody shoot me.” “What does she say? I’m a formidable foe, right? Does she say anythin’ in a kind of a more … wistful voice?” “I don’t want to talk about this.” “Does she ever say, ‘If only he were good …’?” “Stop your talking. Stop it right now. Stop it. She has a boyfriend.” His face fell. “Someone I know?” he asked morosely. “He may have punched you a few times, yes.” “She’s not … She’s not datin’ the skeleton, is she? How would that be even possible, let alone … nice? He’s got no skin, or lips, or … or nothin’. And he talks. Good God, he talks and he never shuts up.” “It’s not Skulduggery.” “Well then, who else could it …? It’s not the ugly fella, is it? It couldn’t be the ugly fella.” “Don’t call him ugly.” “It is him! But he’s all scars! I mean, I know I ain’t got no eyes, but once you get past that, you got my face. And my face is all right. Better’n his. His is a mess, like he was dropped head first into a blender as a kid. Seriously? She’s with him?” “Seriously, and you’re not going to break them up. Not because you won’t try, but because you won’t be able to. Look, are you ready yet? Can we move now?” “I’m ready,” he snapped. “But this conversation stays between us, understand? My romancin’ ain’t gonna work if she knows it’s comin’.” “Believe me, I never want to speak to anyone about this ever again.

Boxwood, a man of indeterminate age with a scraggly mass of brown hair and a paper-thin mustache, had been hired on part-time, and it was he who oversaw the boys in their outdoor chores. Marvin was handed an axe and followed a few of the other boys to an adjacent area where several tree stumps had been strategically placed, along with a bounty of uncut wood. Marvin got to work. He hacked at a portion of a downed tree, and once he had a manageable piece, he heaved it into his arms and dropped it onto one of the stumps. He hoisted the heavy axe over his shoulder and, with as much force as he could muster, brought it down upon the chunky piece of trunk. The wood split in two, a few shards spraying outward and falling to the ground. Marvin repositioned one half of the newly cut trunk, heaved the axe over his shoulder, and brought it down forcefully on the wood. It split again. By the time Mr. Boxwood announced that the boys were through for the evening, Marvin was sweating profusely, and his arms ached. He returned the axe to the storage shed and walked toward the main entrance of the orphanage along with the other boys who had been required to split wood. The grounds were otherwise unoccupied, the other children having already headed to their dormitories to retire for the evening. Marvin was walking toward the stairwell when he passed a bathroom and spotted movement through the open door. When he instinctively turned his head to look within, he saw Eva on all fours, scrubbing the floor with a small-handled brush, a metal bucket of sudsy water at her side. Marvin searched the hallway and, not spotting any authority figures, whispered, “Eva. Hey, Eva.” When she looked up at the sound of his voice, Marvin noticed her eyes were tinged with red. “What are you doing?” “What does it look like I’m doing?” She seemed about to cry, but her jaw was clenched in anger. “Why do you have to do it?” Eva sat back on her heels, rested the brush on her lap, and ran her free hand up into her hair, where she angrily grasped the large bow. “This damn thing!” she exclaimed, and Marvin’s eyes widened at the curse. “I didn’t want to wear it. It’s babyish. My parents never made me wear something like this. Not at my age, anyway. Maybe when I was a baby and I didn’t know any better or didn’t care, but not now. And Sister What’s Her Name said I had to wear one because it made me look presentable—that was her word: presentable. Because apparently, I don’t look presentable without a big ol’ stupid, ugly, white baby bow in my hair. I got so mad, I yanked it out and threw it on the ground, but then she looked at me. Just looked at me. She didn’t say anything, just stared. And then my heart got all jumpy because nobody had ever looked at me that way before.” Eva wiped a tear from under her eye. “She picked it up, so slow I didn’t know if she had trouble with her legs or something, right? She picked it up, and then she held it in her hand and looked down at it, and then… then… Marvin, she slapped me so hard on the cheek, I couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t believe it. Nobody’s ever slapped me before!” Another tear dribbled from Eva’s eye, and Marvin was compelled forward. His knees hit the cold, hard floor, and he reached

No one in his family could remember talking about it. Must have been dreadful, they agreed. And, being Walkers, and Bushes, they didn't bring it up. It was only years later, when he got into politics and had to learn to retail bits of his life, that he ever tried to put words around the war. His first attempts, in the sixties, were mostly about the cahm-rah-deree and the spirit of the American Fighting Man. The Vietnam War was an issue then, and Bush was for it. (Most people in Texas were.) He said he learned "a lot about life" from his years in the Navy—but he never said what the lessons were. Later, when peace was in vogue, Bush said the war had "sobered" him with a grave understanding of the cost of conflict—he'd seen his buddies die. The voters could count on him not to send their sons to war, because he knew what it was. Still later, when he turned Presidential prospect, and every bit of his life had to be melted down to the coin of the realm–character–Bush had to essay more thoughts about the war, what it meant to him, how it shaped his soul. But he made an awful hash of it, trying to be jaunty. He told the story of being shot down. Then he added: "Lemme tell ya, that'll make you start to think about the separation of church and state . Finally, in a much-edited transcript of an interview with a minister whom he hired as liaison to the born-again crowd, Bush worked out a statement on faith and the war: something sound, to cover the bases. It wasn't foxhole Christianity, and he couldn't say he saw Jesus on the water—no, it was quieter than that.... But there, on the Finback, he spent his time standing watch on deck in the wee hours, silent, reflective, under the bright stars... "It was wonderful and energizing, a time to talk to God. "One of the things I realized out there all alone was how much family meant to me. Having faced death and been given another chance to live, I could see just how important those values and principles were that my parents had instilled in me, and of course how much I loved Barbara, the girl I knew I would marry…” That was not quite how he was recalled by the men of the Finback. Oh, they liked him: a real funny guy. And they gave him another nickname, Ellie. That was short for Elephant. What they recollected was Bush in the wardroom, tossing his head and emitting on command the roaring trumpeted squeal of the enraged pachyderm; it was the most uncanny imitation of an elephant. Nor were "sobered" or "reflective" words that leapt to Bar's mind when she remembered George at that time. The image she recalled was from their honeymoon, when she and George strolled the promenades, amid the elderly retirees who wintered at that Sea Island resort. All at once, George would scream "AIR RAID! AIR RAID!" and dive into the shrubs, while Bar stood alone and blushing on the path, prey to the pitying glances of the geezers who clucked about "that poor shell-shocked young man." But there was, once, a time when he talked about the war, at night, at home, to one friend, between campaigns, when he didn't have to cover any bases at all. "You know," he said, "it was the first time in my life I was ever scared. "And then, when they came and pulled me out ..." (Him, Dottie Bush's son, out of a million miles of empty ocean!) "Well." Bush trailed off, pleasantly, just shaking his head.