Insightful Funny Quotes

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It's a funny thing about life, once you begin to take note of the things you are grateful for, you begin to lose sight of the things that you lack.
Germany Kent
I take a longer look at the words on her headstone. Brave, kind, loyal, sweet, loving, graceful, strong, thoughtful, funny, genuine, hopeful, playful, insightful, and on and on… Was she, though? Was she any of those things? The words make me angry. I can’t look at them any longer. Why do we romanticize the dead? Why can’t we be honest about them?
Jennette McCurdy (I'm Glad My Mom Died)
Time was being stripped from her one second at a time.
D.L. Maddox (THE DOG WALKER: THE PREQUEL (A DOG WALKER NOVEL Book 4))
Some people avoid thinking deeply in public, only because they are afraid of coming across as suicidal.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A relationship is likely to last way longer, if each partner convinces or has convinced themselves that they do not deserve their partner, even if that is not true.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Some of us were brought into this troubled world primarily or only to increase our fathers’ chances of not being left by our mothers, or vice versa.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
A premature death does not only rob one of the countless instances where one would have experienced pleasure, it also saves one from the innumerable instances where one would have experienced pain.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The most upsetting thing about Society’s attitude towards disabled people is that many millions of disabled people became disabled while trying to please Society, the very same bitch that secretly regards them as subhuman.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
Some people will hate you for not loving them.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Life is a process during which one initially gets less and less dependent, independent, and then more and more dependent.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Funny how you can forget that every family isn't like yours.
Patrick Ness (The Rest of Us Just Live Here)
We are way less likely to love someone just because they love us than we are to hate someone just because they hate us.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Most sane human beings who are over the age of six usually act or react not as per what they genuinely feel or really think but in accordance with the expectations of those around them.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
It would have been funny if I had been an observer and not a participant, an idea that gave me a disconcerting insight into gossip. As I walked beside the silent Tamara, I realized that despite how entertaining certain stories were, at the bottom of every item of gossip there was someone getting hurt.
Sherwood Smith (Court Duel (Crown & Court, #2))
Some people hate people who are overconfident, only because their overconfidence reminds them of their underconfidence.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Patriotism is the narcissism of countries.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
Not everyone who talks less or keeps quiet whenever they are with or around you does that because they find you interesting or knowledgeable; some people do that because they find you boring or ignorant.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Adults who use big words in order to seem intelligent are annoying, especially those who are not intelligent.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The world economy would collapse if a significant number of people were to realize and then act on the realization that it is possible to enjoy many if not most of the things that they enjoy without first having to own them.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
Most men would no longer enjoy conversing with most women if they stopped bringing their vaginas along.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The fact that the person who you are sleeping with is also sleeping with another person or other people does not necessarily mean that he or she does not love you. And the fact that you are the only person who someone is sleeping with does not necessarily mean that he or she loves you.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
For me, the times I always regret are missed opportunities to say farewell to good people, to wish them long life and say to them in all sincerity, "You build and do not destroy; you sow goodwill and reap it; smiles bloom in the wake of your passing, and I will keep your kindness in trust and share it as occasion arises, so that your life will be a quenching draught of calm in a land of drought and stress." Too often I never get to say that when it should be said. Instead, I leave them with the equivalent of a "Later, dude!" only to discover there would be no later for us.
Kevin Hearne (Hammered (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #3))
Ben leaned back slightly, studying her with that same unreadable calm. “I looked into you, you know. Not the name you gave. The real one.” Jane sat up slowly, her wine glass balanced loosely in one hand. The water had gone too still, as if something just below the surface had pressed pause.
D.L. Maddox (THE DOG WALKER: SECRETS: A PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER (A DOG WALKER NOVEL Book 1))
In reality most human beings are not, to most human beings, more important than money.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
In some cases, you can tell how somebody is being treated by their own boss from the way they are treating someone to whom they are a boss.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Among other possibilities, money was invented to make it possible for a foolish man to control wise men; a weak man, strong men; a child, old men; an ignorant man, knowledgeable men; and for a dwarf to control giants.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
Death devours not only those who have been cooked by old age; it also feasts on those who are half-cooked and even those who are raw.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
If we were not impressed by job titles, suits, and jargon, we would demand that financial advisors show us their personal bank statements before they tell us what we could or should do with our own money.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Percy and Books Percy does not like it when I read a book. He puts his face over the top of it, and moans. He rolls his eyes, sometimes he sneezes. The sun is up, he says, and the wind is down. The tide is out, and the neighbor's dogs are playing. But Percy, I say, Ideas! The elegance of language! The insights, the funniness, the beautiful stories that rise and fall and turn into strength, or courage. Books? says Percy. I ate one once, and it was enough. Let's go.
Mary Oliver (Red Bird)
Many if not most slaves would have each readily jumped, and many if not most slaves would each readily jump, at the opportunity to be a master, if such an opportunity presents or had presented itself.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
To some believers, being on the pill or using a condom is a nonverbal way of telling God to go to hell.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
A seemingly simple task like taking a bath or wearing a condom feels like multitasking to someone who suffers from hemiplegia or has only one hand.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Bigheadedness is usually a symptom of small-mindedness.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The last time everyone loved or at least liked everyone was when the world had a population of about 4.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
The average adult has had sex innumerable times more than they have formed an opinion of their own.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
Being rich or famous is the only profound thing that some people have ever said.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Millions of business people are each constantly forced to choose between their desire to not be a bad person and their desire to be a good business person, that is to say, to make as much money as they possibly can by maximizing their revenue while minimizing the cost of producing whatever it is that they sell.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
Darker thoughts crowded in during the deepest hours of the night when he woke listening to the secret mystifying sounds of the sleeping palace. Many nights, the king was there. Pleasant, irrelevant, and distracting, he eased Relius past nightmares and self-recrimination. Some nights he said nothing at all, just comforted with his presence. Other nights he related the events of his day, spewing out his insights and analyses of the Attolian court in a devastatingly funny critique.
Megan Whalen Turner (The King of Attolia (The Queen's Thief, #3))
Many a survivor of a plane crash who is or was against cannibalism and had never eaten human flesh once found themselves in a situation where they had to either eat human flesh, or go the way of all flesh.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
Most human beings strongly believe that money is way less important than the life of a human being, but in reality five hundred, fifty, or even five dollars are way more important to the lives of most human beings than the lives of most human beings.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Greed is a contagious mental illness without which civilization as we know it would not have been possible.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
There is nothing morally wrong with buying stolen goods, unless you know that they were stolen.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
…they looked about as careful and as discreet as a troupe of Visigoths at an afternoon tea party.
Harry F. MacDonald (Casanova and the Devil's Doorbell)
Not a few millions of parents strongly hope that their own children will step in by instantly becoming their own parents’ foster parents, if and when the parents reach their second childhood.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
Many a parent, sad to say, has used their child as an opportunity for them, the parent, to do, through their child, something or some of the things that they, the parent, did not do or did not do successfully.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
For their never-ending endeavours to obtain or retain wealth, countries desperately need companies, because they—unlike most human beings—have the means of production, and human beings, because they—unlike all companies—have the means of reproduction.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
As libertines we seek to find and provide pleasures for others before pleasing ourselves. Libertines are never boorish, profane or blasphemous. We seek to lessen any cause for offence while maximizing pleasure. After our liaisons, our return is eagerly anticipated, and our departure is mourned. For most men the reverse is the case. In a world where most men are barely on before they are off again, we take the time and the care to be gentle lovers and build the sighs and the panting of true delight.
Harry F. MacDonald (Casanova and the Devil's Doorbell)
We, in the interest of the so-called progress, have been persuaded to leave the production and at times the cooking of our food to companies whose owners and employees make a living by exploiting our busyness or laziness and our innate hunger to continue living.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
Some people are each holding on to a lover of theirs who no longer loves them and/or who they no longer love, only because they do not want to have a reason or another reason to be jealous of the person who would eventually be their lover if they let go of them.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Although they probably know that some children were used and some children are used as miners, most adults are ignorant of the chocolate industry’s use of minors.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
Most human beings would have never been pained by the death of a human being if they had never seen a human being or pretending to be pained by that.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Most of us cling to life as if our existence were a result of our deed or choice.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Most unintelligent or foolish people do not regard themselves as that; they regard themselves as not-that-intelligent or not-that-wise.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Loneliness tortures many if not most of the elderly more intensely and more frequently than it torments many if not most of us who will never be or have not yet been pushed or pulled into old age.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
Most sane human beings who have managed to attain and retain fame each uses it to dramatically increase their name’s chances of being remembered until Jesus comes back, since their heart cannot do what they consciously or unconsciously lust for, that is to say, for it to beat until Jesus returns.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
Just like how most if not all poor boys look up to and aspire to someday be rich men, most if not all underdeveloped and developing countries look up to and aspire to someday be developed countries.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
Many millions of pregnancies—many if not most of which have each led to the birth of at least one child—were each used as nothing but a conspicuous means to a secret end called the evasion of abortion.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
More often than not, expecting to lose weight without first losing the diet that made the weight loss necessary is like expecting a pig to be spotless after hosing it down while it was still rolling in mud.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
When selecting a one-night stand, a heterosexual woman who is materialistic is a trillion times more likely to choose a sexually unattractive poor man who seems rich over a sexually attractive rich man who seems poor.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
To ask a man whether or not he has a girlfriend is to talk about his sex life. If you disagree with that, then how in the name of God do you differentiate between a man’s girlfriend and a girl that is a friend to the man?
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
As we all know, as if forever exploiting or attempting to exploit each other were not enough, a group of sane human beings who have just reached the end of a war against a common enemy of theirs will sooner or later start or continue killing and/or fighting against each other.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
Wehehehehell, if it isn’t Ollie-Ollie-oxidant-free..." You can take…all the tea in China…put it in a big brown…bag for me. He’s as sweet as tupelo honey; he’s an angel of the first degree. Men with insight…men in granite…knights in armor bent on…chivalry. He’s as sweet as…tupelo honey; just like honey, baby…from the bee." => For those who read and liked "When Irish eyes are sparkling" Can i have a musician here?
Tom Collins
If you want to live a life free of regret, there is an option open to you. It’s called a lobotomy.
Kathryn Schultz
For a sane person to sincerely be happy that someone has succeeded, they have to either be profiting or likely to profit from that person’s success, or be that person.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Boredom is probably more frequent and more tormenting if you do not have sight or hands.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Some people would have killed themselves and/or someone else if they were single; and some people would not have done that.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Her plan was perfect until the world reminded her that perfection is a myth.
Yarro Rai (Vice and Virtue (Season 1))
It goes without saying that even those of us who are going to hell will get eternal life—if that territory really exists outside religious books and the minds of believers, that is. Having said that, given the choice, instead of being grilled until hell freezes over, the average sane human being would, needless to say, rather spend forever idling in an extremely fertile garden, next to a lamb or a chicken or a parrot, which they do not secretly want to eat, and a lion or a tiger or a crocodile, which does not secretly want to eat them.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
More often than not, an inspirational or motivational speaker is someone who makes money from telling us that we can do all of the things that we can do … and pretty much all of the things that we cannot do.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
But a funny thing happens to you in a depression. If you don't hurt yourself, you can gain tremendous insights and empathy, find inner strengths and hidden talents. It's a mysterious process, but if you can hold on, you become a wiser person.
Art Buchwald (Leaving Home)
It’s funny, isn’t it?” he said, something odd in his voice. “It’s funny how some people show they love people with dramatic proclamations and huge displays and romantic gestures…but for some people, it’s in the small things. Like the small things you do for him.
Cole McCade (Zero Day Exploit (Bayou's End, #1.5))
Most girls take one look at you and swoon. You've never had to really work for someone's affection or put effort into maintaining it. In many ways, your natural gifts have done you a disservice-- they've stunted your sensitivity and charm! You've never had to develop insight into what will make a girl laugh and come to love you for reasons that aren't handsome or heroic. That's why smees are experts on the subtle arts of courtship and seduction; nothing comes easy to us, but we do understand and live by the Lover's Maxim." "And what on earth is the Lover's Maxim?" asked Maz, feeling very uninformed. The smee cleared his throat. "If you can't be handsome, be rich. If you can't be rich, be strong. If you cant be strong, be witty." "But what if you can't be witty?" Max wondered. "Learn the guitar.
Henry H. Neff (The Maelstrom (The Tapestry, #4))
Something is funny, most of all, because it’s true, and because the velocity of insight into this truth exceeds our normal standards. Something is funny because it’s outside our accepted boundary of decorum. Something is funny because it defies our expectations. Something is funny because it offers a temporary reprieve from the hardship of seeing the world as it actually is. Something is funny because it is able to suggest gently that even the worst of our circumstances and sins is subject to eventual mercy.
Steve Almond
As an unavoidable result of the inevitable loss of some physical and/or some mental abilities, many a man who has been alive for many years has become a boy again.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
Millions of sane people would each be sexually attracted to their own parent or child if they were not related to them.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
In the Catskills, nostalgia runs backwards. The upwardly mobile Jewish masses of the 1950s and 1960s have been replaced by the Jews of 19th century Poland.
Kevin Haworth (Famous Drownings in Literary History: Essays on 21st-Century Jewishness)
I guess it's funny how life turns out?" she tried. "Not last I checked," Errol said with a snort.
Daniel Handler (We Are Pirates)
You can shovel your awards into the place closest to your brain.
Janus Lucky (The Birthmark Murders: "Death is a Cabaret, Old Chum." (Pekka Wall Series Book 1))
The future belongs to those who dare—but also to those who don’t check their mailboxes too often.
Janus Lucky (The Birthmark Murders: "Death is a Cabaret, Old Chum." (Pekka Wall Series Book 1))
I’d normally spare you the details, but that would kind of defeat the purpose of writing a story.
J.S. Mason (The Stork Ate My Brother...And Other Totally Believable Stories)
A lot of people think a good conversationalist is someone who can tell funny stories. That’s a raconteur, but it’s not a conversationalist. A lot of people think a good conversationalist is someone who can offer piercing insights on a range of topics. That’s a lecturer, but not a conversationalist. A good conversationalist is a master of fostering a two-way exchange. A good conversationalist is capable of leading people on a mutual expedition toward understanding.
David Brooks (How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen)
On certain days, driving into Santa Monica was like having hallucinations without going to all the trouble of acquiring and then taking a particular drug, although some days, for sure, any drug was preferable to driving into Santa Monica.
Thomas Pynchon (Inherent Vice)
I would say that if Rilo Kiley were ... hmmm ... a human being ... hmmm ... he's probably laying on his back in a morgue with a tag on his toe. Now, I see movies where the dead get up and walk. And when they do that, rarely do good things happen.
Blake Sennett
It is funny that in the name of meditation people chase god, prophetess, images, mantras, breaths, sounds, thoughts, feelings, sensations and what not. True meditation is dropping all these chasing and finding the supreme love that is inside you in the light of your own soul.
Amit Ray (Meditation: Insights and Inspirations)
Despite all their surface diversity, most jokes and funny incidents have the following logical structure: Typically you lead the listener along a garden path of expectation, slowly building up tension. At the very end, you introduce an unexpected twist that entails a complete reinterpretation of all the preceding data, and moreover, it's critical that the new interpretation, though wholly unexpected, makes as much "sense" of the entire set of facts as did the originally "expected" interpretation. In this regard, jokes have much in common with scientific creativity, with what Thomas Kuhn calls a "paradigm shift" in response to a single "anomaly." (It's probably not coincidence that many of the most creative scientists have a great sense of humor.) Of course, the anomaly in the joke is the traditional punch line and the joke is "funny" only if the listener gets the punch line by seeing in a flash of insight how a completely new interpretation of the same set of facts can incorporate the anomalous ending. The longer and more tortuous the garden path of expectation, the "funnier" the punch line when finally delivered.
V.S. Ramachandran
When I was a kid watching comedians on TV and listening to their records they were the only ones that could make it all seem okay. They seemed to cut through the bullshit and disarm fears and horror by being clever and funny. I don't think I could have survived my childhood without watching stand-up comics. When I started doing comedy I didn't understand show business. I just wanted to be a comedian. Now, after twenty-five years of doing stand-up and the last two years of having long conversations with over two hundred comics I can honestly say they are some of the most thoughtful, philosophical, open-minded, sensitive, insightful, talented, self-centred, neurotic, compulsive, angry, fucked-up, sweet, creative people in the world.
Marc Maron
Well, it was a kind of back-to-front program. It’s funny how many of the best ideas are just an old idea back-to-front. You see there have already been several programs written that help you to arrive at decisions by properly ordering and analysing all the relevant facts so that they then point naturally towards the right decision. The drawback with these is that the decision which all the properly ordered and analysed facts point to is not necessarily the one you want.’ ‘Yeeeess...’ said Reg’s voice from the kitchen. ‘Well, Gordon’s great insight was to design a program which allowed you to specify in advance what decision you wished it to reach, and only then to give it all the facts. The program’s task, which it was able to accomplish with consummate ease, was simply to construct a plausible series of logical-sounding steps to connect the premises with the conclusion. ‘And I have to say that it worked brilliantly. Gordon was able to buy himself a Porsche almost immediately despite being completely broke and a hopeless driver. Even his bank manager was unable to find fault with his reasoning. Even when Gordon wrote it off three weeks later.’ ‘Heavens. And did the program sell very well?’ ‘No. We never sold a single copy.’ ‘You astonish me. It sounds like a real winner to me.’ ‘It was,’ said Richard hesitantly. ‘The entire project was bought up, lock, stock and barrel, by the Pentagon. The deal put WayForward on a very sound financial foundation. Its moral foundation, on the other hand, is not something I would want to trust my weight to. I’ve recently been analysing a lot of the arguments put forward in favour of the Star Wars project, and if you know what you’re looking for, the pattern of the algorithms is very clear. ‘So much so, in fact, that looking at Pentagon policies over the last couple of years I think I can be fairly sure that the US Navy is using version 2.00 of the program, while the Air Force for some reason only has the beta-test version of 1.5. Odd, that.
Douglas Adams (Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (Dirk Gently, #1))
Russell’s Teapot (Celestial Teapot Analogy) We cannot equate Russell’s teapot idea with the idea of God. Although this idea is humorous, it isn't very sensible. If anybody without scientific credentials stated thoughtfully that the teapot is circling the Sun, the majority of people would think that a person saying that is either bipolar, schizophrenic, or suffers from some other mental illness. This kind of comparison is absurd. Comic and absurdist comparisons of this kind only muddy the waters. Proof or disproof of such a thing is unnecessary because almost everybody knows the teapot can't orbit the Sun as freely as planets on a microcosmic or macro level. Regardless of Russel being aware that his example is nonsense, he still used it (and he states that). The point was not to prove anything but to make a funny remark to diminish the subject of the attack, God. It is a logical fallacy whenever we use such tactics or tricks because we use witty comments for lacking something more potent. If we make fun of some ideas, it does not mean they have no value. We cannot destroy an idea that has existed for millennia by witty but silly arguments. Carl Sagan made an even sillier argument about the undetectable dragon in his garage. To compare the idea of God to the teapot or a dragon in a garage is a useless way to refute an idea or argument with an “argument” (example) in the form of funny irony. I admire Bertrand Russell and Carl Sagan for their ingenuity and insights. I also admire Bertrand Russell’s writing style because he could express complicated ideas and concepts in very readable and clear prose. There can be no comparison between the idea of God and a teapot floating around the Sun or between God and an unidentifiable dragon in the garage. We cannot base our arguments on the value of their wit because regardless of how witty the statement is, it has to stand the test of truth, not the test of wit. We can easily exclude the idea of a teapot floating in orbit around the Sun as ridiculous. The same applies to the argument about the dragon in a garage. But can we exclude the idea of God from religious and theological thoughts and serious philosophical inquiries interested in discovering the truth about the world and God? We can easily refuse to accept a teapot or dragon in the garage as serious arguments. However, we cannot a priori deny the legitimacy of the idea about God, at least not the deist one (or pantheistic).
Dejan Stojanovic (ABSOLUTE (THE WORLD IN NOWHERENESS))
I take a longer look at the words on her headstone. Brave, kind, loyal, sweet, loving, graceful, strong, thoughtful, funny, genuine, hopeful, playful, insightful, and on and on… Was she, though? Was she any of those things? The words make me angry. I can’t look at them any longer. Why do we romanticize the dead? Why can’t we be honest about them?
Jennette McCurdy (I'm Glad My Mom Died)
To someone else, we're all idiots
Jorge Arenas
It’s experience that has value, not possessions. We desire possessions because we think they’ll make us happier, but extensive research shows that once our basic survival needs are met, increased possessions don’t boost happiness levels. Meditation gives us the option of going straight to happiness and skipping the intermediate step of possessions. Acquiring them takes a lot of work and time, and all that effort can take us out of flow. We can spend a 40-year career amassing the possessions and money that we believe will give us happiness in retirement. Skipping the amassing stage and going straight to bliss gives us the end goal at the beginning. We win the gold medal before the contest even begins. Play doesn’t happen in an imaginary future in which our lives are perfect. Play happens now. We can become billionaires of happy experiences, the bank vaults of our minds overflowing with joy. That’s the only currency that counts. We’ve then acquired the end state without going through the intermediate state of getting stuff. We’ve loaded the dice, so that any and every roll produces bliss. Why not live like that every day? DEEPENING PRACTICES Here are practices you can do this week to integrate the information in this chapter into your life: Releasing the Suffering Self: That’s the theme of this chapter’s companion meditation. Use the link below to listen to this free 15-minute meditation each morning. Play the “Name Your Demon” Game: Give the selfing part of yourself a funny personal name, or ask it what its name is and write down the answer. One woman christened hers “Sticky.” Another, “Yuggo.” This exercise separates you from identification with the demon, and reminds you that you’re in control. Make the Subject-Object Shift: Whenever you find your mind wandering during meditation, simply thank your DMN by name (e.g., “Thanks, Yuggo!”) and then move your attention back to Focus. Mindfulness App: As a way of becoming mindful, enroll in the Harvard wandering mind study by using the link below to download the smartphone app. Time in Nature: Spend time in nature at least three times this week. Write those times in your calendar now, and treat them as seriously as you’d treat a doctor’s appointment. This exercise in self-care is a way of centering your mind and nurturing yourself. Journaling: In your new personal journal, write down the insights you have this week. Notice the way your mind works in meditation, and describe it in your journal. Just a few words are enough, like, “Had a hard time getting to a good place this morning. Lots of mind wandering, but I settled down in 15 minutes.
Dawson Church (Bliss Brain: The Neuroscience of Remodeling Your Brain for Resilience, Creativity, and Joy)
A lot of true things are stupid, but that doesn't make them not true.
Dan Wells (Stargazer (The Zero Chronicles, #3))
you have to focus on how it tries to achieve its funny and what it is trying to communicate, instead of debating if something is funny at all. If you find something funny, there is fun and insight to be had in trying to explain why, but if someone else finds something funny that you don’t, there is nothing you can say that can make the person revoke their laugh.
Jesse David Fox (Comedy Book: How Comedy Conquered Culture—and the Magic That Makes It Work)
They’re asking what they should replace the sacrifices with," Victor translated. "Tell them they must moonwalk until they collapse of exhaustion every full moon, then to eat their own fecal matter." "Seriously?" "No, but that would have been funny," the Moon Beast replied. "Tell them to pray to the Moon Man for insight, then to hold a quiet, private orgy under the moonlight every full moon; narcotics are encouraged, but not necessary. Order them to stop summoning me, as I have other cults to guide.
Maxime J. Durand (Vainqueur the Dragon (Vainqueur the Dragon, #1))
She had devoted time to improving her reading and was now more than proficient. The shelf she'd first cleared with Bianca overflowed with tales of King Arthur and his knights, Ovid's poetry, plays by Sophocles, Aristotle and Aeschylus, Apuleius, names she loved repeating in her mind because the mere sound of them conjured the drama, pageantry, passion, transformations and suffering of their heroes and heroines. One of her favorite writers was Geoffrey Chaucer-- his poems of pilgrims exchanging stories as they traveled to a shrine in Canterbury were both heart aching and often sidesplittingly funny. Admittedly, one of the reasons she loved Chaucer was because she could read him for herself. It was the same reason she picked up Shakespeare over and over, and the works of Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle upon Tyne. They all wrote in English. Regarded as quite the eccentric, the duchess was a woman of learning who, like Rosamund, was self-taught. Her autobiography, A True Relation of my Birth, Breeding and Life, a gift from Mr. Henderson, gave Rosamund a model to emulate. Here was a woman who dared to consider not only philosophy, science, astronomy and romance, but to write about her reflections and discoveries in insightful ways. Defying her critics, she determined that women were men's intellectual equal, possessed of as quick a wit and as many subtleties if only given the means to express themselves-- in other words, access to education.
Karen Brooks (The Chocolate Maker's Wife)
The light is a funny thing, Grant. We think it shows us what we need to see, but in reality, it blinds us. That’s why I brought you here. I wanted you to see me.” [...] In Morgan’s case, the light had let me see the tics, the muscle spasms, and his strange movements, and I’d been distracted by them. The dark took it all away and left me sitting next to a person, not a behavior, a human being, not perceived defects. Someone insightful, quick- witted, determined, generous, kind, and armed with a wicked sense of humor.
Adrienne Wilder (In the Absence of Light (Morgan & Grant, #1))
Locke was Master of Revels, who spirited away his sister Taryn to his estate, where she drank wine and dressed in beautiful gowns and became sadder than he’d ever seen her.” "Your wish," she tells him, like the liar she is, "is my command." "Cardan plays with me," Leander said, obviously well prepared for this argument. "And he's the High King.” "And he tells me funny stories about my father, Locke," Leander concluded. "I am a trickster, like you. I am here because it amuses me. When I am bored, I will go away." “Locke thought life was a story, and he was responsible for introducing the conflict.” "Don't be ridiculous," she tells him, annoyed. "Unfair," he says. "When I so love being ridiculous." “If her shield is coldness, his is mirth.” "But you— you deceive as easily as you breathe and with as little thought." "You must stop," she says, her voice little more than a whisper. Her expression is fond. "Stop what?" “Being kind to me. I can't bear it?" He tenses. "I look forward to discussing this Cirien-Croin's wooing of Nicasia. I might have some insights to share. My half-brother seduced her, you know.
Holly Black (The Prisoner’s Throne (The Stolen Heir Duology, #2))
There are two rooted spiritual realities out of which grow all kinds of democratic conception or sentiment of human equality. There are two things in which all men are manifestly unmistakably equal. They are not equally clever or equally muscular or equally fat, as the sages of the modern reaction (with piercing insight) perceive. But this is a spiritual certainty, that all men are tragic. And this again, is an equally sublime spiritual certainty, that all men are comic. No special and private sorrow can be so dreadful as the fact of having to die. And no freak or deformity can be so funny as the mere fact of having two legs. Every man is important if he loses his life; and every man is funny if he loses his hat, and has to run after it... These, I say, are two roots of democratic reality. But they have in more civilized literature, a more civilized embodiment or form. In literature such as that of the nineteenth century the two elements appear somewhat thus. Tragedy becomes a profound sense of human dignity. The other and jollier element becomes a delighted sense of human variety. The first supports equality by saying that all men are equally sublime. The second supports equality by observing that all men are equally interesting.
G.K. Chesterton (Charles Dickens: A Critical Study)
When you’re poor and hungry and frightened of failure, you often don’t have the luxury of high values, lofty goals, and social conscience. Funny how fear and poverty will acid-wash your value set, burn away all the flimflam and artifice and learned morality and leave you with nothing but the urgency of survival. - Dr. Dan Trix - Chasing the Horizon.
Rodney Romig (Chasing the Horizon (#4))
How did I get IT? Well, I had the balls enough to cry, howl and beg for 'It'. This is the only Way. Get it!
Fakeer Ishavardas