Potential Funny Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Potential Funny. Here they are! All 66 of them:

Somewhere in the crowd was at least one potential friend who'd understand the fundamental value of goofing off. Because if not, how boring would that be?
Alyson Noel (Radiance (Riley Bloom, #1))
A funny thing happened on the way to my potential
Anonymous (The Arabian Nights)
Lawyers were notorious for finding cases in the most unlikely places, especially ones with huge potential damagers awards.
Jodi Picoult (Handle with Care)
You sure are a sweet girl, Scout. I'm half tempted to keep you." "Ummm... Thanks?" Knowing she was a potential Alpha I worried about what "keeping me" might entail. Probably chains. And whips. And maybe a dog collar. And now I was going to have to live with scary Fifty Shades Aunt Rachel pictures living in my head for all time.
Tammy Blackwell (Fate Succumbs (Timber Wolves Trilogy, #3))
Do you get the feeling that they're talking about someone else other than an article?" Kami stared at her fork, lying forlornly askew on her plate. "I don't know what you could mean! You are talking crazy!" " They are talking about boys," Dad told Tomo and Ten. " I believe your mother may have concerns about Kami and a Lynburn boy. Possibly in a tree. Potentially k-i-s-s-i-n-g. I couldn't say.
Sarah Rees Brennan (Unspoken (The Lynburn Legacy, #1))
If you've spent any time trolling the blogosphere, you've probably noticed a peculiar literary trend: the pervasive habit of writers inexplicably placing exclamation points at the end of otherwise unremarkable sentences. Sort of like this! This is done to suggest an ironic detachment from the writing of an expository sentence! It's supposed to signify that the writer is self-aware! And this is idiotic. It's the saddest kind of failure. F. Scott Fitzgerald believed inserting exclamation points was the literary equivalent of an author laughing at his own jokes, but that's not the case in the modern age; now, the exclamation point signifies creative confusion. All it illustrates is that even the writer can't tell if what they're creating is supposed to be meaningful, frivolous, or cruel. It's an attempt to insert humor where none exists, on the off chance that a potential reader will only be pleased if they suspect they're being entertained. Of course, the reader isn't really sure, either. They just want to know when they're supposed to pretend to be amused. All those extraneous exclamation points are like little splatters of canned laughter: They represent the "form of funny," which is more easily understood (and more easily constructed) than authentic funniness.
Chuck Klosterman (Eating the Dinosaur)
It was funny how the potential for profit always seemed to trump antipathy.
Becky Chambers (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1))
Her attention was now drawn upon a boy whose imagination had the potential to change the face of reality. Unfortunately for him, Ærinna liked reality the way it was: fluid, slippery and with a brick in it. The case was quickly resolved by giving the young boy an appetite for procrastination.
Louise Blackwick (The Weaver of Odds (Vivian Amberville, #1))
101 Reasons Why its great to be a woman : We have three times the amount of potential sick leave. Take into account all those days you are unable to work owing to pre, during and post menstrual tension.
Summersdale
Truly competent Literary Detectives are as rare as truthful men, Mr. Tweed -- you can see her potential as clearly as I can. Frightened of someone stealing your thunder, perhaps?
Jasper Fforde (Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next, #2))
Very ... shiny. Jack winced a little and snapped the eye patch back into place. Potentially dangerous levels of cheer.
Jessica Townsend (Hollowpox: The Hunt for Morrigan Crow (Nevermoor, #3))
STEVE CARELL IS NICE BUT IT IS SCARY It has been said many times, but it is true: Steve Carell is a very nice guy. His niceness manifests itself mostly in the fact that he never complains. You could screw up a handful of takes outside in 104-degree smog-choked Panorama City heat, and Steve Carell’s final words before collapsing of heat stroke would be a friendly and hopeful “Hey, you think you have that shot yet?” I’ve always found Steve gentlemanly and private, like a Jane Austen character. The one notable thing about Steve’s niceness is that he is also very smart, and that kind of niceness has always made me nervous. When smart people are nice, it’s always terrifying, because I know they’re taking in everything and thinking all kinds of smart and potentially judgmental things. Steve could never be as funny as he is, or as darkly observational an actor, without having an extremely acute sense of human flaws. As a result, I’m always trying to impress him, in the hope that he’ll go home and tell his wife, Nancy, “Mindy was so funny and cool on set today. She just gets it.” Getting Steve to talk shit was one of the most difficult seven-year challenges, but I was determined to do it. A circle of actors could be in a fun, excoriating conversation about, say, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and you’d shoot Steve an encouraging look that said, “Hey, come over here; we’ve made a space for you! We’re trashing Dominique Strauss-Kahn to build cast rapport!” and the best he might offer is “Wow. If all they say about him is true, that is nuts,” and then politely excuse himself to go to his trailer. That’s it. That’s all you’d get. Can you believe that? He just would not engage. That is some willpower there. I, on the other hand, hear someone briefly mentioning Rainn, and I’ll immediately launch into “Oh my god, Rainn’s so horrible.” But Carell is just one of those infuriating, classy Jane Austen guys. Later I would privately theorize that he never involved himself in gossip because—and I am 99 percent sure of this—he is secretly Perez Hilton.
Mindy Kaling (Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns))
Funny how nobody talks on the tubes, isn't it? I rarely catch the tube myself, or lifts. Confined spaces, everybody shuts down. Why is that? Perhaps we think everybody on the tube is a potential psychopath or a drunk,so we close down and pretend to read a book or something.
John Hannah
Project: Potential was a separate class that the gifted students went to for an hour each day. The name was supposed to make it exciting, like Code Name: Cursive or Mission: State Capitals.
Adam Rex (Cold Cereal (The Cold Cereal Saga, #1))
Pritkin, it’s a hotel room, not a death trap!” A glance over his shoulder showed him impatient blue eyes under a fall of messy blond curls. “Anyway, you’re here.” “I can’t protect you from everything,” he forced himself to say, because it was true. It was also frankly terrifying in a way that his own mortality was not. He’d never had children, but he sometimes wondered if this was how parents felt when catching sight of a fearless toddler confidently heading toward a busy street. Not that his charge was a child, as he was all too uncomfortably aware. But the knowledge of just how many potentially lethal pitfalls lay in her path sometimes caused him that same heart-clenching terror. And the same overwhelming need to throw her over his lap and spank the living daylights out of her, he thought grimly, when she suddenly popped out of existence. “Cassie!
Karen Chance (A Family Affair (Cassandra Palmer, #4.1))
I have good news, potentially bad news, and hopefully good news,' ...
Jennifer L. Armentrout (A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire (Blood and Ash, #2))
People tend to spend so much time focusing on what they feel they can't do, rather examining the true potential of what they can.
Mark W. Boyer (Human Resources for the Heart, the Soul, and the FunnyBone)
while saying things like “Oh, I hate loud noises, too” might be meant to make people feel included, it also potentially trivializes a person’s daily struggles.
Michael McCreary (Funny, You Don't Look Autistic: A Comedian's Guide to Life on the Spectrum)
Whether we are trying to buy a packet of chips or getting to know a person for a potentially important relationship, its nice to have an overview of what it/he/she contains. - Of A Sense of Self
Amrita Sarkar
The dead raccoon’s name was Rory. I fell in love with him the instant I saw him because he looked exactly like Rambo, the rescued, orphaned raccoon who lived in my bathtub when I was little. Rory hadn’t been lucky enough to be adopted by a small child who’d dress him up in small shorts sets and let him turn her sink into his own tiny waterfall. Instead, Rory had fallen in with a bad crowd and ended up as roadkill, but my friend Jeremy (a burgeoning taxidermist) saw great potential (and very few tire marks) on the cadaver and decided that Rory’s tiny spirit should live on in the most disturbingly joyous way possible.
Jenny Lawson (Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things)
She thought of the revelations she held cradled against her chest, of how they could potentially serve up more discord, more upset and controversy. Would she be doing this society any good by revealing her new knowledge? “I . . .” She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you. Really, it’s nothing that can’t wait. Actually”—she stood up and extracted the scrolls from Noah’s hold—“all I wanted was, uh . . . help with some interpretation. But you are busy . . .” She rounded the peculiar triangular table as casually as she could while she spoke, even turning to back out of the room while giving them a bright smile that she hoped did not look as fake as it felt. “You know, there are lots of books down there, and I bet there’s a translation.” She reached up to smack her palm into her forehead, chiding herself for not thinking properly. Isabella reached for the door and closed it even faster than she had originally opened it. Noah looked over at Jacob, one dark brow lifting toward his thick hairline. “Does . . .?” He raised a hand to point to the door, looking utterly perplexed. “Does she have any idea what a lousy liar she is?” “Apparently not,” Jacob said with a long, low sigh. “I think that was my fault,” he speculated wryly. “Your fault?” “Yeah . . . it is . . . a long story. We better get her.” “Relax,” Noah chuckled. “She’s leaning against the other side of the door, trying to catch her breath. “I know. I just thought it would be funny if we opened it behind her.” “I never knew you actually enjoyed being cruel,” the King remarked, humor sparkling in his eyes as they both stepped up to the exit. Noah opened the door, and Jacob reached out to catch her, scrolls and all.
Jacquelyn Frank (Jacob (Nightwalkers, #1))
I look. At the two-thirty spot I see a group of men watching two women kiss. I've never entirely understood why men like watching two women, or having two women at once. To me it just seems potentially confusing: four breasts, two whoosits, a lot of work to do....I imagine blacking out from overload.
A.M. Homes
I probably should say that this is what makes you a good traveler in my opinion, but deep down I really think this is just universal, incontrovertible truth. There is the right way to travel, and the wrong way. And if there is one philanthropic deed that can come from this book, maybe it will be that I teach a few more people how to do it right. So, in short, my list of what makes a good traveler, which I recommend you use when interviewing your next potential trip partner: 1. You are open. You say yes to whatever comes your way, whether it’s shots of a putrid-smelling yak-butter tea or an offer for an Albanian toe-licking. (How else are you going to get the volcano dust off?) You say yes because it is the only way to really experience another place, and let it change you. Which, in my opinion, is the mark of a great trip. 2. You venture to the places where the tourists aren’t, in addition to hitting the “must-sees.” If you are exclusively visiting places where busloads of Chinese are following a woman with a flag and a bullhorn, you’re not doing it. 3. You are easygoing about sleeping/eating/comfort issues. You don’t change rooms three times, you’ll take an overnight bus if you must, you can go without meat in India and without vegan soy gluten-free tempeh butter in Bolivia, and you can shut the hell up about it. 4. You are aware of your travel companions, and of not being contrary to their desires/​needs/​schedules more often than necessary. If you find that you want to do things differently than your companions, you happily tell them to go on without you in a way that does not sound like you’re saying, “This is a test.” 5. You can figure it out. How to read a map, how to order when you can’t read the menu, how to find a bathroom, or a train, or a castle. 6. You know what the trip is going to cost, and can afford it. If you can’t afford the trip, you don’t go. Conversely, if your travel companions can’t afford what you can afford, you are willing to slum it in the name of camaraderie. P.S.: Attractive single people almost exclusively stay at dumps. If you’re looking for them, don’t go posh. 7. You are aware of cultural differences, and go out of your way to blend. You don’t wear booty shorts to the Western Wall on Shabbat. You do hike your bathing suit up your booty on the beach in Brazil. Basically, just be aware to show the culturally correct amount of booty. 8. You behave yourself when dealing with local hotel clerks/​train operators/​tour guides etc. Whether it’s for selfish gain, helping the reputation of Americans traveling abroad, or simply the spreading of good vibes, you will make nice even when faced with cultural frustrations and repeated smug “not possible”s. This was an especially important trait for an American traveling during the George W. years, when the world collectively thought we were all either mentally disabled or bent on world destruction. (One anecdote from that dark time: in Greece, I came back to my table at a café to find that Emma had let a nearby [handsome] Greek stranger pick my camera up off our table. He had then stuck it down the front of his pants for a photo. After he snapped it, he handed the camera back to me and said, “Show that to George Bush.” Which was obviously extra funny because of the word bush.) 9. This last rule is the most important to me: you are able to go with the flow in a spontaneous, non-uptight way if you stumble into something amazing that will bump some plan off the day’s schedule. So you missed the freakin’ waterfall—you got invited to a Bahamian family’s post-Christening barbecue where you danced with three generations of locals in a backyard under flower-strewn balconies. You won. Shut the hell up about the waterfall. Sally
Kristin Newman (What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding)
What happened to you?” she asked. “Bullets hurt,” he said. “It missed the artificial arm by two inches, damn the marksman. I hate people who can’t shoot straight.” “How many this time?” she asked with a smile. “Just one,” he said. “In the shoulder. It’s much better now.” He shook his head. “I’m getting too old for this. I’ve got so many broken bones that I can’t move fast enough anymore.” She smiled wider. “Someday you’ll find a woman who’s worth giving up the danger for.” The smile faded. “You’re like Tate. He loves his work. He probably lives on adrenaline. Funny. I never understood that before. Now suddenly everything is clear. I was living on pipe dreams.” He sighed. “It was more than his heritage that kept him away from you,” he said. “I knew, but I couldn’t explain it to you. Work like ours demands sacrifice. Any loved one can become a hostage. Any relationship can take away the edge we need when we’re under fire. A man with something to lose isn’t a man to send on a potential suicide mission. Take your mind off the objective for one minute, and you’re dead.
Diana Palmer (Paper Rose (Hutton & Co. #2))
Daybreak,' he said, looking out at it. 'I always thought it was funny that dawn should be called daybreak. This is when the day is made - it's the beginning. I'ts the best part: you've got all the potential of the day to come, and you haven't wasted yet. When it gets dark, that should be daybreak. When the day is broken. When it turns into night time, that's when it all start's to go wrong.
Erin Kelly (The Poison Tree)
My goodness. Humans are quite noisy, aren't they?" A voice called as Morgan's eyes were drawn to the large brown circles blinking back at him, floating in midair. "These two also don't seem to have a very good sense of judgement either. So quick to pick a fight rather than showing kindness. Such a shame. What wasted potential." The voice filled the air as the silhouette bobbed into view again. It slowly took on a human-like shape.
Alexia D. Miller (Crystal Storm: Battleground (The Crystal Key Book Series 2))
I would fall in love with someone’s potential rather than with who they actually were. I’d walk in, find a guy who was smart and funny but a complete mess, and light up like a talent agent from the 1950s. I’d think to myself, “This kid’s gonna be a star!” I’d take on a guy the way Michelle Pfeiffer took on the punk-ass kids from Dangerous Minds, seeing the best in them and pushing them to be better. And also like Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds, I had to teach a couple of guys how to read. Of course, this dynamic caused my relationships to feel maternal, making my partner resent me and making sex feel like incest. To add insult to injury, I basically ended up coaching a guy to be the best he can be for the next girl who came along. To anyone dating my exes, you’re welcome for getting them together so you could have the perfect boyfriend. Love you, girl.
Whitney Cummings (I'm Fine...And Other Lies)
Our brain is funny. Its primary function is to keep us safe from danger. It has us believe that in order to insulate us from such, we must work harder, meaner, and longer to stay ahead of potential competitors who can rip the rug out from under us at any moment. But the reality is, when we are well rested and reflective rather than reactive, we put ourselves in a better place; a place that is well insulated from the ultimate danger of meaningless or, even worse, toxic, self-destructive work.
Charles F. Glassman (Brain Drain - The Breakthrough That Will Change Your Life)
Neptune’s Lost Banana by Stewart Stafford O lost banana of Neptune, Do you wonder why you’ve washed ashore? Do people see a yellow fruit in the water? Or a Portuguese Man O’War? You were so near the fingertips of power, Did fortune peel away your chances too quick? Or do you see yourself in an ivory tower? Of a split-away banana republic? You could have been top banana, Now you’re potential poetic justice, For someone with bad karma to slip on, And go skidding as you go squish. © Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.
Stewart Stafford
Life is funny. You start out with limitless potential, but time is always shaving away the possibilities. Every choice you make is the choice not to do a thousand other things. What's important, when all is said and done, is that you made a difference. Your choices, and everything undone, have to mean something. Otherwise, what was the point? I'm lucky that way. My path was already there. I had only to walk it. I often thought even if no one knew of the good I had done with my life, it didn't matter. That it was done is all that counts in the end. But then I died. And I hadn't gotten to do any of it yet.
Brian Clevinger (8-Bit Theater)
You have a taboo list?” Jade asked. “You don’t?” Lilah asked. Jade bit her lower lip and Adam laughed. “Jade has a list for everything.” “True,” Dell said, studying her, getting nothing from her expression. She had quite the game face, his Jade. “You do, you have lists for everything.” “Not everything.” “Jade, you have a list for every situation, big or small, from when to brush your teeth, to how to handle every potential patient to cross my door. Hell, you’ve got a list on what’s in your purse and my office fridge and—” “And don’t forget the list on how many different ways I could kill you,” she said, sipping her drink.
Jill Shalvis (Animal Attraction (Animal Magnetism, #2))
Over the past six years, living and working in this city had turned the funny, charismatic girl I´d loved with every cell of my body into a jaded, hard-edged loner I still couldn´t look at without catching my breath. I´d never felt more alive, watching Liv to prepare to charm-or maybe force- her way into some stranger´s apartment. Olivia was a wire wound too tight, always about to snap, but she lived on excitement and thrived under pressure. Being with her was like holding a bomb in both hands, watching the numbers tick back toward zero. I knew she´d eventually explode, and this time it might kill me. But it was hard to care about the potential for collateral damage when just being near her again felt so good.
Rachel Vincent
There is no formula. Lisa began this quest with active imagination by having continuous dialogs with the witch and herself, as a young girl. She discovered that there is joy in finding what has been lost and in cultivating feelings and potentials that have laid fallow for a lifetime. As our final session was coming to a close, Lisa leaned forward and said to me, “Looking inward has helped me feel the presence of love in my life. That something has been interested in me all along, guiding my life, supporting it in some strange way—trying to become known by me. It’s somewhere within myself. It seems funny I had to seek it, while at the same time allow it to find me. It brings a sense of peace, or serenity, no matter what hardships I have to face.
Bud Harris (Becoming Whole: A Jungian Guide to Individuation)
Eventually, you will have to stop pouring yourself into the things that will give nothing back, that take without any intent to give. You will have to stop trying to make yourself fit into places you are no longer meant to be. If you are going to give your energy to anything, give it to what’s already working. To the people who already love you, to the things that show potential, to the places that make you feel more alive. Life speaks to us in subtleties, in the smallest possible ways. In the little clicks, the funny coincidences, the ways the ordinary collides into the serendipitous. Sometimes, the quiet whispers are the most accurate ones. The voices of pride and ego and attraction are louder, but they are often devoid of the fullness of truth. Listen for the quiet yes, for what gently sprouts, for what grows, and grows.
Brianna Wiest (The Pivot Year)
Rhys shut the door and went to a small box on the desk- then silently handed it to me. My heart thundered as I opened the lid. The star sapphire gleamed in the candlelight, as if it were one of the Starfall spirits trapped in stone. 'Your mother's ring?' 'My mother gave me that ring to remind me she was always with me, even during the worst of my training. And when I reached my majority, she took it away. It was an heirloom of her family- had been handed down from female to female over many, many years. My sister wasn't yet born, so she wouldn't have known to give it to her, but... My mother gave it to the Weaver. And then she told me that if I were to marry or mate, then the female would either have to be smart or strong enough to get it back. And if the female wasn't either of those things, then she wouldn't survive the marriage. I promised my mother that any potential bride or mate would have the test... And so it sat there for centuries.' My face heated. 'You said this was something of value-' 'It is. To me, and my family.' 'So my trip to the Weaver-' 'It was vital that we learn if you could detect those objects. But... I picked the object out of pure selfishness.' 'So I won my wedding ring without even being asked if I wanted to marry you.' 'Perhaps.' I cocked my head. 'Do- do you want me to wear it?' 'Only if you want to.' 'When we go to Hybern... Let's say things go badly. Will anyone be able to tell that we're mated? Could they use that against you?' Rage flickered in his eyes. 'If they see us together and can scent us both, they'll know.' 'And if I show up alone, wearing a Night Court wedding ring-' He snarled softly. I closed the box, leaving the ring inside. 'After we nullify the Cauldron, I want to do it all. Get the bond declared, get married, throw a stupid party and invite everyone in Velaris- all of it.' Rhys took the box from my hands and set it down on the nightstand before herding me toward the bed. 'And if I wanted to go one step beyond that?' 'I'm listening,' I purred as he laid me on the sheets.
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2))
You're a shameless flirt.' 'Thank you.' He grins and goes back to carving. 'It wasn't a compliment.' 'Don't mind her, she's just sexually frustrated. Makes a girl crabby.' ... 'That has nothing to do with it.' Gods, could she have said that a little louder? 'And yet I don't hear you denying it.' She smiled sweetly at me. 'I'm sorry I don't make the cut,' Liam teases. 'But I'm sure Riorson would be fine with my reviewing a couple candidates, especially if it means you'll stop flipping him off in front of his entire wing.' 'And how exactly would you be reviewing candidates? What will you be scoring?' Rhiannon asks, one eyebrow raised above her wide grin. 'This I have to hear.' I manage a straight face for all of two seconds before laughing at how horrified he suddenly looks. 'Thanks for the offer, though. I'll make sure to run any potential liaisons by you.' 'I mean, you could watch,' Rhiannon continues, blinking innocently at him. 'Just to be sure she's fully covered. You know, so no one... sticks it to her.' 'Oh, are we telling dick jokes now?' Ridoc asks from Liam's side. 'Because my entire life has led up to this moment.' Even Sawyer laughs. 'Fuck me,' Liam mutters under his breath.
Rebecca Yarros (Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1))
So I got lucky. But then again, it took me many hundreds of rejections to manage to find that luck. I am sure there is a lesson n that somewhere. Someone had taken a punt and had faith in me. I wouldn’t let them down, and I would be eternally grateful to them for giving me that chance to shine. Once DLE were on board, a few other companies joined them. It’s funny how, once one person backs you, somehow other people feel more comfortable doing the same. I guess most people don’t like to trailblaze. So before I knew it, suddenly, from nothing, I had the required funds for a place on the team. (In fact I was about £600 short, but Dad helped me out on that one, and refused to hear anything about ever being paid back. Great man.) The dream of an attempt on Everest was now about to become a reality. So many people over the years have asked me how to get sponsorship, but there is only one magic ingredient. Action. You just have to keep going. Then keep going some more. Our dreams are just wishes, if we never follow them through with action. And in life, you have got to be able to light your own fire. The reality of planning big expeditions is often tedious and frustrating. There is no glamour in yet another potential sponsor’s rejection letter, and I have often felt my own internal fire flickering close to snuff point. Action is what keeps it alight.
Bear Grylls (Mud, Sweat and Tears)
Secretary of State for International Trade Liam Fox said in 2016, in the run-up to the EU referendum, that ‘the United Kingdom is one of the few countries in the European Union that does not need to bury its twentieth-century history.’ Funny, because Britain is in fact one of the few countries in the world that literally did bury a good portion of its twentieth-century history. During the period of decolonisation, the British state embarked upon a systematic process of destroying the evidence of its crimes. Codenamed ‘Operation Legacy’, the state intelligence agencies and the Foreign Office conspired to literally burn, bury at sea or hide vast amounts of documents containing potentially sensitive details of things done in the colonies under British rule.25 Anything that might embarrass the government, that would show religious or racial intolerance or be used ‘unethically’ by a post-independence government was ordered destroyed or hidden. The Foreign Office were forced to admit in court about having hidden documents, then were unforthcoming about the scale of what was hidden, to the point that you’d be a fool to trust anything that is now said. But from what we know, hundreds of thousands of pages of documents were destroyed and over a million hidden, not just starting in the colonial period but dating all the way back to 1662. This operation was only exposed to the public in 2011 as part of a court case between the survivors of British concentration camps in Kenya and the government.
Akala (Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire)
Trump’s shortcomings stood out particularly during emergencies. I remember briefing the president in the Oval Office on the projected storm track of an Atlantic hurricane. At first, he seemed to grasp the devastating magnitude of the Category 4 superstorm, until he opened his mouth. “Is that the direction they always spin?” the president asked me. “I’m sorry sir,” I responded, “I don’t understand.” “Hurricanes. Do they always spin like that?” He made a swirl in the air with his finger. “Counterclockwise?” I asked. He nodded. “Yes, Mr. President. It’s called the Coriolis effect. It’s the same reason toilet water spins the other direction in the Southern Hemisphere.” “Incredible,” Trump replied, squinting his eyes to look at the foam board presentation. We needed him to urge residents to evacuate from the Carolinas, where it looked like the storm would make landfall, but the president mused about another potential response. “You know, I was watching TV, and they interviewed a guy in a parking lot,” Trump leaned back and recounted. “He was wearing a red hat, a MAGA hat, and he said he was going to ‘ride it out.’ Isn’t that something? That’s what Trump supporters do. They’re tough. They ride it out. I think that’s what I’ll tell them to do.” Sometimes his irreverence could be funny, even charming. That day it wasn’t. Worried looks filled the room. A clever communications aide piped up. “Mr. President, I wouldn’t take that chance. This is going to be a pretty bad storm, and you don’t want to lose supporters in the Carolinas before the 2020 election.” The president thought about it for a moment. “That’s such a good point. We should urge the evacuations.” You couldn’t write such a stupid scene in a movie, but it always got a little worse.
Miles Taylor (Blowback A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump)
Collateral Capacity or Net Worth? If young Bill Gates had knocked on your door asking you to invest $10,000 in his new company, Microsoft, could you get your hands on the money? Collateral capacity is access to capital. Your net worth is irrelevant if you can’t access any of the money. Collateral capacity is my favorite wealth concept. It’s almost like having a Golden Goose! Collateral can help a borrower secure loans. It gives the lender the assurance that if the borrower defaults on the loan, the lender can repossess the collateral. For example, car loans are secured by cars, and mortgages are secured by homes. Your collateral capacity helps you to avoid or minimize unnecessary wealth transfers where possible, and accumulate an increasing pool of capital providing accessibility, control and uninterrupted compounding. It is the amount of money that you can access through collateralizing a loan against your money, allowing your money to continue earning interest and working for you. It’s very important to understand that accessibility, control and uninterrupted compounding are the key components of collateral capacity. It’s one thing to look good on paper, but when times get tough, assets that you can’t touch or can’t convert easily to cash, will do you little good. Three things affect your collateral capacity: ① The first is contributions into savings and investment accounts that you can access. It would be wise to keep feeding your Golden Goose. Often the lure of higher return potential also brings with it lack of liquidity. Make sure you maintain a good balance between long-term accounts and accounts that provide immediate liquidity and access. ② Second is the growth on the money from interest earned on the money you have in your account. Some assets earn compound interest and grow every year. Others either appreciate or depreciate. Some accounts could be worth a great deal but you have to sell or close them to access the money. That would be like killing your Golden Goose. Having access to money to make it through downtimes is an important factor in sustaining long-term growth. ③ Third is the reduction of any liens you may have against these accounts. As you pay off liens against your collateral positions, your collateral capacity will increase allowing you to access more capital in the future. The goose never quit laying golden eggs – uninterrupted compounding. Years ago, shortly after starting my first business, I laughed at a banker that told me I needed at least $25,000 in my business account in order to borrow $10,000. My business owner friends thought that was ridiculously funny too. We didn’t understand collateral capacity and quite a few other things about money.
Annette Wise
Time And Memory It's intriguing how a certain Point in our lives lingers with us. It's marked by a certain face, A haunting song, and of course A particular feeling. That point seems to define us, And its Memory fills us with melancholy - Through the knowledge that we had met Our happiest self, and were Too naive to hold on to it. That point where potential Met purpose, and love was a happy Song, and freedom was the wind on A butterfly's wings, and passion Was illicit yet unrestrained. Funny how the stolen fruit Is always the sweetest - Yet when immersed in morality That sweetness is leached, and Joys are exchanged for secrets. Funny how this Time flies by The swiftest, without the Slightest glance backwards, Taking our bodies hostage But leaving our minds behind. That point in our lives, where The body yearns to return, Just for a moment, to take Hold of its reality. But Time will never allow it, And gives Memory only a glimpse of it. The moments are never fully ours at all
Tanya Stewart Boateng
In [James Kelman's story] 'The Third Man, or Else the Fourth,' four men stand around a fire, on a freezing day. They appear to be out of work, and very poor. They talk about politics, about an old man who was recently found dead in a cold tenement building, about prison. One of the men, Arthur, starts describing a dream he had. Like most dreams, it is incomprehensible; it gathers pace, and we are drawn into it, and then it fizzles out. Kelman makes a funny, implicit connection between maintaining the fire (the narrator goes off to get "burnables") and maintaining a story: everything is potentially burnable, everything can be used.
James Wood
the internet, the media with the most potential for honest news and understanding of the world, had become one large scam or a place to watch funny videos that showed the same animal behavior for the entertainment of the masses.
J.C. Ryan (The Skywalkers (Rossler Foundation, #5))
Many experiments show that when people are put into a good mood (e.g., by giving them candy or showing them a funny movie), they are more creative. For example, they are better at inventing diverse and unusual ways for getting a candle to burn without dripping, or at finding more obscure and remote associations between words and ideas.22 People in good moods are “more cognitively flexible —more able to make associations, to see dimensions, and to see potential relationships among stimuli—than are persons in a neutral state.”23 In other words, they generate more varied ideas and combinations of those ideas, which are crucial aspects of creative work.
Robert I. Sutton (Weird Ideas That Work: 11 1/2 Practices for Promoting, Managing, and Sustaining Innovation)
Funny how the youthful decisions we make, often for little more than to prove independence from our parents, carry such potential to jerk our lives in directions we never would have imagined.
David Bishop (Hometown Secrets (Linda Darby, #2))
When living in Denver, me and my friend Tony – who’s actually up here now and does amazing photography and helped us with the photoshoot for this collection – we did this funny thing on the anniversary of the stock market crash. It was a protest at a mall in Denver, and we called it “Black Friday is the new Black Monday”. We wanted to make the hipster thing into something else, we wanted to see what potential it had. Because we were fascinated by Paris 68, we made these pamphlets that said stuff like “Real hipsters riot”. We tried to encourage that mythology of the hipster from Sorbonne, Paris. This guy you see in Godard movie. We went into Urban Outfitters, threw a bunch of shit, flipped over things, went outside, shot a bunch of fireworks. That was pretty cool. The IEF was grounded in certain theoretical premises of insurrectionist theory, continental philosophy, and critical theory. It was definitely all over the damn place.
Anonymous
Daybreak," he said, looking out at it. "I've always thought it was funny that dawn should be called daybreak. This is when the day is made: it's the beginning. It's the best part: you've got all the potential of the day to come, and you haven't wasted it yet. When it gets dark, that should be daybreak. When the day is broken. When it turns into nighttime, that's when it all starts to go wrong.
Erin Kelly
For attached to every wedding is that font of hope, that potential piece of manna, the best man.
Eva Ibbotson (A Countess Below Stairs)
It was funny how we needed an explanation for another's early death, equating it to some lack of judgment, so we can cross ourselves off the list of potential cancer acquirers. Don't smoke, do eat lots of fruits and vegetables, don't drink, do yoga. So we can tell ourselves with some frail reassurance that we're immune. Or even better: it strikes one out of eight, she has it, so statistically I won't get it.
Tara Delaney (The Red Bike)
Caspian Marks, he... he is a lot of things. He was made to mean something, to be someone, to move mountains, touch the moon, and explore the deep blue seas. He was made to become someone extraordinary. So don’t you dare let him be stripped of that potential, and help him see his potential if needs it. Sometimes he will, sometimes he won’t. And if at any time you ever need the reminder, he may be a lot of things, but Caspian Marks will never be a heartbreaker. He is not meant to break hearts.” Caspian Marks was a lot of things. He was irritating and brave and calculative and helpful and articulate and beautiful and funny in his own way. He was a lot of things, Caspian Marks, but out of all the things he was out of the many things in the world he could be, he was a lover. He was a lover, and he loved me.
Braelyn Wilson (Counting Stars)
If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be meetings. -Dave Barry (1947 -)
M. Prefontaine (The Big Book of Quotes: Funny, Inspirational and Motivational Quotes on Life, Love and Much Else (Quotes For Every Occasion 1))
Monza remembered Sazine displaying the money to the new boys, all laid out in sparkling stacks. "If the walls fall, a thousand scales to the first man on the battlements, a hundred each to the next ten who follow him." "Provided they survive to collect the bounty," Cosca added. "If the task's impossible, they'll never collect, and if they do, well, you achieved the impossible for two thousand scales. It ensures a steady flow of willing bodies up the ladders, and has the added benefit of weeding the bravest men out of the company to boot." Shivers looked even more baffled. "Why would you want to do that?" "'Bravery is the dead man's virtue.'" Monza muttered. "'The wise commander never trusts it.'" "Verturio!" Cosca slapped on leg. "I do love an author who can make death funny! Brave men have their uses but they're damned unpredictable. Worrying to the herd. Dangerous to bystanders." "Not to mention potential rivals for command." "Altogether safest to cream them off," Cosca mimed the action with a careless flick of two fingers. "The moderately cowardly make infinitely better soldiers.
Joe Abercrombie (Best Served Cold)
Finally, after an awkward episode later that evening in which my friend couldn’t get me into a party he was attending, I took a cab back to the hotel, slept on the couch in his suite, and flew back to Chicago just as Al Gore was accepting the nomination. It’s a funny story, especially in light of where I ultimately ended up. It speaks, I tell my audience, to the unpredictable nature of politics, and the necessity for resilience. What I don’t mention is my dark mood on that flight back. I was almost forty, broke, coming off a humiliating defeat and with my marriage strained. I felt for perhaps the first time in my life that I had taken a wrong turn; that whatever reservoirs of energy and optimism I thought I had, whatever potential I’d always banked on, had been used up on a fool’s errand. Worse, I recognized that in running for Congress I’d been driven not by some selfless dream of changing the world, but rather by the need to justify the choices I had already made, or to satisfy my ego, or to quell my envy of those who had achieved what I had not.
Barack Obama (A Promised Land)
Doesn't everyone have in them this potential change and becoming? This absolute singularity which demands only to occur effortlessly, an inspired form freed from the straitjacket of our individual being? We have this becoming within us, and we lack nothing, since we are rid of truth. The world too lacks nothing as it is; it opposes any attempt to make it signify anything whatever. To inflict truth on it is like explaining a joke or a funny story.
Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact (Talking Images))
Keating bent over his task at once, his eyes fixed, his throat rigid. He saw nothing but the pearly shimmer of the paper before him. The steady lines he drew surprised him, for he felt certain that his hand was jerking an inch back and forth across the sheet. He followed the lines, not knowing where they led or why. He knew only that the plan was someone’s tremendous achievement which he could neither question nor equal. He wondered why he had ever thought of himself as a potential architect. Much later, he noticed the wrinkles of a gray smock sticking to a pair of shoulder blades over the next table. He glanced about him, cautiously at first, then with curiosity, then with pleasure, then with contempt. When he reached this last, Peter Keating became himself again and felt love for mankind. He noticed sallow cheeks, a funny nose, a wart on a receding chin, a stomach squashed against the edge of a table. He loved these sights. What these could do, he could do better. He smiled. Peter Keating needed his fellow men.
Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead)
Lem’s mother nodded, lips tight, clearly torn between a desire to protect her son from Miles and a desire to beat Ono till he bled for his potentially lethal stupidity.
Lois McMaster Bujold
It’s not a matter of having enough raw talent. Talent needs to be channeled and developed in order to become something more than a momentary spark. Actor and comedian Jerry Seinfeld, arguably the most influential comedian of his generation, wrote in his book Is This Anything?: Whenever I came up with a funny bit, whether it happened on a stage, in a conversation or working it out on my preferred canvas, the big yellow legal pad, I kept it in one of those old-school accordion folders . . . A lot of people I’ve talked to seemed surprised that I’ve kept all these notes. I don’t understand why they think that. I don’t understand why I’ve kept anything else. What could possibly be of more value?
Tiago Forte (Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organise Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential)
List your ten favorite comedians and humorists, and search for jokes, tweets, or quotes by each of these individuals. After you amass twenty jokes, identify the subject or target of the joke, and explain why you think the joke is funny. This exercise will help you become aware of the format of successful jokes and provide you with insight into your own comedic preferences. Collect ten to fifteen cartoons or comics. As you did with the jokes, identify the target of the humor and describe why the cartoon is funny to you. You may find it helpful to continue building a file of jokes and cartoons that appeal to you. In addition to building a joke and cartoon file, you’ll need to find new material to use as the building blocks for your humor writing. Most professional humor writers begin each day by reading a newspaper, watching news on TV, and/or surfing the Internet for incidents and situations that might provide joke material. As you read this book and complete the exercises at the end of each chapter, form a daily habit of recording odd and funny news events. Everyday life is the main source for humor, so you need to keep some type of personal humor journal. To facilitate psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud had patients complete a dream diary, and he encouraged them to associate freely during therapy. To be a successful writer and to tap into the full potential of your comic persona, you should follow an analogous approach. Record everyday events, ideas, or observations that you find funny, and do your journaling without any form of censorship. The items you list are not intended to be funny, but to serve as starting points for writing humor.
Mark Shatz (Comedy Writing Secrets: The Best-Selling Guide to Writing Funny and Getting Paid for It)
You’re trying to explain the teeth, right?”  I sounded pathetic, like a child who needed reassurance.  I tried not to fidget on top of that. He gave me the reassurance I needed in one of his rare nods. Okay.  No kissing.  Just him moving closer.  He slept at the foot of my bed every night.  That was pretty close—right on my feet—and no big deal.  But he had fur on when he did that.  Now he looked... I eyed him again.  My stomach did a funny flip.  Maybe my fear wasn’t about his reaction, but mine.  I was afraid I’d forget myself.  I needed his control.  I took a deep breath. “It’s okay then.  Go ahead, explain.  I’ll behave,” I promised quietly.  I saw his mustache twitch with a quick smile.  The canines explained some of the facial hair, but the full-bearded, crazy-man look seemed overkill. After a slight hesitation, he leaned forward again while keeping his hands loose at his sides.  I pushed back the fear and held still.  He didn’t stop his slow approach until his whiskers tickled the side of my neck and collarbone.  There he paused and inhaled deeply. As soon as he inhaled, I knew what he was doing, and although I didn’t move, fear blossomed.  Heart pounding, eyes wide, I waited for him to finish scenting me as a werewolf would a potential Mate, not a distant inhale, but an up-close sample of my scent, infinitely more potent.  His warm exhale sent goose bumps skittering over my arms.  I braced myself, anticipating some type of slip in his highly-praised control.  He leisurely inhaled once more then lifted his head, exhaling as he went. With his face only inches from mine, he opened his mouth to display his teeth again.  The canines had grown even more pronounced, the surrounding gums swollen from their thickness. I didn’t know what to say.  He had canines when in his human form because of me. “So, when you’re around me, they’re worse?  I guess that means they’re like that all the time.” He shrugged and casually took a step back.  I was unsure what the shrug meant. We
Melissa Haag (Hope(less) (Judgement of the Six #1))
In a research study called “How today’s fastest growing B2B businesses found their first ten customers,” startup veteran Lenny Rachitsky interviewed early members of teams from Slack, Stripe, Figma, and Asana. In studying how these earliest companies found their first customers, it was concluded that a significant number came from the founders tapping their personal networks: Only three sourcing strategies account for every B2B company’s very early growth. [These are: Personal network, Seek out customers where they are, Get press.] Thus, your choices are easy, yet limited. Almost every B2B business both hits up their personal network and heads to the places their potential customers were spending time. The question isn’t which of these two routes to pursue, but instead how far your own network will take you before you move on. It’s a huge advantage to have a strong personal network in B2B, which you can also build by bringing a connector investor or joining an incubator such as YC. Getting press is rarely the way to get started.44 Just as Uber’s ops hustle worked for solving the city-by-city Cold Start Problem, B2B startups have an equivalent card to play: they can manually reach out and onboard teams from their friends’ startups, building atomic networks quickly, as Slack did in their early launch. Or, many productivity products begin by launching within online communities—like Twitter, Hacker News, and Product Hunt—where dense pockets of early adopters are willing to try new products. In recent years, B2B products have started to emphasize memes, funny videos, invite-only mechanics, and other tactics traditionally associated with consumer startups. I expect that this will only continue, as the consumerization of enterprise products fully embraces meme-based go-to-market early on, instead of leading with direct sales.
Andrew Chen (The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects)
But the point was that I realized, on some level, that whatever a potentially 'lost soul' was, I was one -- and it wasn't cool or funny.
David Foster Wallace (The Pale King)
Anything else you want to discuss before we begin?” “Who cuts your hair? You should run them through with their own thinning shears. You have a wonderful face, and so much wasted potential for—” He stepped forward and grabbed my ear. “Ow!
J.A. Rock (The Subs Club (The Subs Club, #1))
We are all planted in God's vineyard and our lives are filled with potentials and purpose and we have all been given the hopes to anchor our lives even in the most disappointed times. So God is waiting to see what you and I will make out of the raw materials that He has given to us. He is waiting to see what we will make out of the discouragement and disappointment. I believe that in those deepest places of disappointment that the greatest grace will manifest.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
Even the subconscious of a much lesser being is very good at fitting other living creatures into their respective boxes. Is this a potential meal? A potential mate? A potential threat? Almost any subconscious can give reasonably accurate answers to these questions in short order, which is good, because accuracy is important when deciding whether to bite it, flirt with it, or run away from it. That is the kind of thing you don’t want to get wrong.
Robbie Mahair (Orc Road Trip: Racial Tensions Book 1)
Even the most basic CEO building blocks will feel unnatural at first. If your buddy tells you a funny story, it would feel quite weird to evaluate her performance. It would be totally unnatural to say, “Gee, I thought that story really sucked. It had potential, but you were underwhelming on the buildup and then you totally flubbed the punch line. I suggest that you go back, rework it, and present it to me again tomorrow.” Doing so would be quite bizarre, but evaluating people’s performances and constantly giving feedback is precisely what a CEO must do. If she doesn’t, the more complex motions such as writing reviews, taking away territory, handling politics, setting compensation, and firing people will be either impossible or handled rather poorly.
Ben Horowitz (The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers)
The bottom line is, when you’re looking for a course that will have real value for you, keep an eye out for reviews calling a professor or course “funny” or “witty.” It suggests a level of care and creativity, and an understanding of student needs, that may not be in other courses . . . and let’s be honest: If there are two courses of equal quality, which would you go for, bland or funny?
Barbara Oakley (Mindshift: Break Through Obstacles to Learning and Discover Your Hidden Potential)