Purpose Funny Quotes

It's funny. No matter how hard you try, you can't close your heart forever. And the minute you open it up, you never know what's going to come in. But when it does, you just have to go for it! Because if you don't, there's not point in being here.

I am so tired, I can hardly type these worfs.

We love being mentally strong, but we hate situations that allow us to put our mental strength to good use.

But the purpose of the book is not the horror, it is horror's defeat.

No clowns were funny. That was the whole purpose of a clown. People laughed at clowns, but only out of nervousness. The point of clowns was that, after watching them, anything else that happened seemed enjoyable.

Raffin appeared again, a floor above her, on the balconied passageway that ran past his workrooms. He leaned over the railing and called down to her. "Kat!" "What is it?" "You look lost . Have you forgotten the way to your rooms?" "I'm stalling." "How long will you be? I'd like to show you a couple of my new discoveries." "I've been told to make myself pretty for dinner." He grinned. "Well in that case, you'll be ages." His face dissolved into laughter, and she tore a button from one of her bags an hurled it at him. He squealed and dropped to the floor, and the button hit the wall right where he'd been standing. When he peeked back over the railing, she stood in the courtyard with her hands on her hips, grinning. "I missed on purpose," she said. "Show off! Come if you have time." He waved, and turned into his rooms.

It seemed funny that one day I would go to bed in her arms and the next not feel anything, like a switch had gone off. But no, that wasn’t honest either. This had been building for a long time. Our silences were getting longer. Our arguments more frequent. How do you stay with someone when there are no dreams to build? No purpose to accomplish? No meaning? No meaning —that was the monster that drove us away from one another in the end. Always.

My grandmother thinks it's really funny to put all sorts of things in our - my lunch. I never know what'll be inside: e.e. cummings, flower petals, a handful of buttons. She seems to have lost sight of the original purpose of the brown bag." - Lennie "Or maybe she thinks other forms of nourishment are more important." - Joe

Education: learning to find your purpose. Upon finding your purpose: what did I learn?

Before you eat the elephant, make sure you know what parts you want to eat.

If you are reading this then you have wasted another day of your life day dreaming, rather than planning the life God intended you to live.

I was shown into a room. A red room. Red wallpaper, red curtains, red carpet. They said it was a sitting-room, but I don’t know why they’d decided to confine its purpose just to sitting. Obviously, sitting was one of the things you could do in a room this size; but you could also stage operas, hold cycling races, and have an absolutely cracking game of frisbee, all at the same time, without having to move any of the furniture. It could rain in a room this big.

There are many other little refinements too, Mr. Bohlen. You'll see them all when you study the plans carefully. For example, there's a trick that nearly every writer uses, of inserting at least one long, obscure word into each story. This makes the reader think that the man is very wise and clever. So I have the machine do the same thing. There'll be a whole stack of long words stored away just for this purpose." Where?" In the 'word-memory' section," he said, epexegetically.

Often the inspiration to write music comes from the voices in your head. You’re not crazy. Just be thankful they are not making you rescue people in 20-degree weather at 2:30 in the morning in the forest.

You know what your trouble is? You're the kind who always reads the handbook. Anything people build, any kind of technology, it's going to have some specific purpose. It's for doing something that somebody already understands. But if it's new technology, it'll open areas nobody's ever thought of before. You read the manual, man, and you won't play around with it, not the same way. And you get all funny when somebody else uses it to do something you never thought of.

It's enough to make me laugh. I close the door behind me and sit down again, considering this, and truly, I find it so funny that I laugh until I cry. And when the tears come I think aah... So this is what it means to be alone.

Funny how when you have a purpose the misery goes and hides.

The real purpose of the opposition is to minimize the amount of money the ruling party will have stolen from the people at the end of its term.

He had noticed my bandaged hand. "An accident," Warthrop said tersely. "Dr. Warthrop chopped off my finger with a butcher knife." Von Helrung's brow knotted up in confusion. "By accident?" "No," I answered. "That part was on purpose.

After each of his books, the writer, for a while, feels once again that he can now die happy.

Thomas Merton said it was actually dangerous to put the Scriptures in the hands of people whose inner self is not yet sufficiently awakened to encounter the Spirit, because they will try to use God for their own egocentric purposes. (This is why religion is so subject to corruption!) Now, if we are going to talk about conversion and penance, let me apply that to the two major groups that have occupied Western Christianity—Catholics and Protestants. Neither one has really let the Word of God guide their lives. Catholics need to be converted to giving the Scriptures some actual authority in their lives. Luther wasn’t wrong when he said that most Catholics did not read the Bible. Most Catholics are still not that interested in the Bible. (Historically they did not have the printing press, nor could most people read, so you can’t blame them entirely.) I have been a priest for 42 years now, and I would sadly say that most Catholics would rather hear quotes from saints, Popes, and bishops, the current news, or funny stories, if they are to pay attention. If I quote strongly from the Sermon on the Mount, they are almost throwaway lines. I can see Catholics glaze over because they have never read the New Testament, much less studied it, or been guided by it. I am very sad to have to admit this. It is the Achilles heel of much of the Catholic world, priests included. (The only good thing about it is that they never fight you like Protestants do about Scripture. They are easily duped, and the hierarchy has been able to take advantage of this.) If Catholics need to be converted, Protestants need to do penance. Their shout of “sola Scriptura” (only Scripture) has left them at the mercy of their own cultures, their own limited education, their own prejudices, and their own selective reading of some texts while avoiding others. Partly as a result, slavery, racism, sexism, classism, xenophobia, and homophobia have lasted authoritatively into our time—by people who claim to love Jesus! I think they need to do penance for what they have often done with the Bible! They largely interpreted the Bible in a very individualistic and otherworldly way. It was “an evacuation plan for the next world” to use Brian McLaren’s phrase—and just for their group. Most of Evangelical Protestantism has no cosmic message, no social message, and little sense of social justice or care for the outsider. Both Catholics and Protestants (Orthodox too!) found a way to do our own thing while posturing friendship with Jesus.

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

One's 'thing'--(1) A point of personal interest; a hobby, sport, or avocation that succinctly defines a person. (2) A brief coupling of words used to evoke someone's personality in a small-talk setting: Billy's thing used to be soccer; now it's masterbation. (3) A laconic summation of one's character and interests used for the purpose of categorization and judgement. See also 'What do you do?

Halfway home, the sky goes from dark gray to almost black and a loud thunder snap accompanies the first few raindrops that fall. Heavy, warm, big drops, they drench me in seconds, like an overturned bucket from the sky dumping just on my head. I reach my hands up and out, as if that can stop my getting wetter, and open my mouth, trying to swallow the downpour, till it finally hits me how funny it is, my trying to stop the rain. This is so funny to me, I laugh and laugh, as loud and free as I want. Instead of hurrying to higher ground, I jump lower, down off the curb, splashing through the puddles, playing and laughing all the way home. In all my life till now, rain has meant staying inside and not being able to go out to play. But now for the first time I realize that rain doesn't have to be bad. And what's more, I understand, sadness doesn't have to be bad, either. Come to think of it, I figure you need sadness, just as you need the rain. Thoughts and ideas pour through my awareness. It feels to me that happiness is almost scary, like how I imagine being drunk might feel - real silly and not caring what anybody else says. Plus, that happy feeling always leaves so fast, and you know it's going to go before it even does. Sadness lasts longer, making it more familiar, and more comfortable. But maybe, I wonder, there's a way to find some happiness in the sadness. After all, it's like the rain, something you can't avoid. And so, it seems to me, if you're caught in it, you might as well try to make the best of it. Getting caught in the warm, wet deluge that particular day in that terrible summer full of wars and fires that made no sense was a wonderful thing to have happen. It taught me to understand rain, not to dread it. There were going to be days, I knew, when it would pour without warning, days when I'd find myself without an umbrella. But my understanding would act as my all-purpose slicker and rubber boots. It was preparing me for stormy weather, arming me with the knowledge that no matter how hard it seemed, it couldn't rain forever. At some point, I knew, it would come to an end.

Well,' said Can o' Beans, a bit hesitantly,' imprecise speech is one of the major causes of mental illness in human beings.' Huh?' Quite so. The inability to correctly perceive reality is often responsible for humans' insane behavior. And every time they substitute an all-purpose, sloppy slang word for the words that would accurately describe an emotion or a situation, it lowers their reality orientations, pushes them farther from shore, out onto the foggy waters of alienation and confusion.' The manner in which the other were regarding him/her made Can O' Beans feel compelled to continue. 'The word neat, for example, has precise connotations. Neat means tidy, orderly, well-groomed. It's a valuable tool for describing the appearance of a room, a hairdo, or a manuscript. When it's generically and inappropriately applied, though, as it is in the slang aspect, it only obscures the true nature of the thing or feeling that it's supposed to be representing. It's turned into a sponge word. You can wring meanings out of it by the bucketful--and never know which one is right. When a person says a movie is 'neat,' does he mean that it's funny or tragic or thrilling or romantic, does he mean that the cinematography is beautiful, the acting heartfelt, the script intelligent, the direction deft, or the leading lady has cleavage to die for? Slang possesses an economy, an immediacy that's attractive, all right, but it devalues experience by standardizing and fuzzing it. It hangs between humanity and the real world like a . . . a veil. Slang just makes people more stupid, that's all, and stupidity eventually makes them crazy. I'd hate to ever see that kind of craziness rub off onto objects.

Have you never outright sinned, then?” “I disobeyed Patti when she told me to stay away from you.” “Right. I remember that one. So just once, then?” “There was this other time...” I thought about the two girls in the bathroom and stopped myself, blanching. “Yes? Go on,” he urged. He watched the road, but excitement underscored his tone. I rubbed my dampening palms down my shorts. “The night we met, I sort of...well, I flat-out told a lie. On purpose.” I thought he was trying not to smile. “To me?” he asked. “No. About you.” Now he unleashed that devastating smile of his, crinkling the corners of his eyes. My face was aflame. “Continue. Please.” “There were these girls in the bathroom talking about you, and for some reason, I don't know why, it upset me, and I told them...thatyouhadanSTD.” I covered my face in shame and he burst into laughter. I thought he might drive off the road. Well, it was kind of funny in an ironic way, because he couldn't keep a disease anyhow, even if he had gotten one. I found myself beginning to giggle, too, mostly out of relief that he wasn't offended. “I wondered if you were ever going to tell me!” he said through spurts of hilarity. Duh! Of course he'd been listening! My giggles increased, and it felt so nice that we kept going until we were cracking up. It was the good kind of laughter: the soul-cleansing, ab-crunching, lose-control-of-yourself kind. We started catching our breath again a few minutes later, only to break into another round of merriment. “Do you forgive me, then?” I asked when we finally settled down and I wiped my eyes. “Yes, yes. I've had worse said about me.

I decided that life rationally considered seemed pointless and futile, but it is still interesting in a variety of ways, including the study of science. So why not carry on, following the path of scientific hedonism? Besides, I did not have the courage for the more rational procedure of suicide.

I didn’t understand the purpose of the seeds, but it was comforting to know that in a dire emergency I could hit people with my ukulele while Meg planted geraniums.

... the perfect example of Robinson's law. This states that human idiocy multiplies in compound ratio to the number of people gathered together in one place for a common purpose.

There is something stunningly narrow about how the Anthropic Principle is phrased. Yes, only certain laws and constants of nature are consistent with our kind of life. But essentially the same laws and constants are required to make a rock. So why not talk about a Universe designed so rocks could one day come to be, and strong and weak Lithic Principles? If stones could philosophize, I imagine Lithic Principles would be at the intellectual frontiers.

There were, however, a few exceptions. One was Norma Dodsworth, the poet, who had not unpleasantly drunk but had been sensible enough to pass out before any violent action proved necessary. He had been deposited, not very gently, on the lawn, where it was hoped that a hyena would give him a rude awakening. For all practical purposes he could, therefore, be regarded as absent.

There are things you do because they feel right & they may make no sense & they may make no money & it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other & to eat each other's cooking & say it was good.

Suits obviously had helped to promote bad government and he was as guilty as anyone for wearing them so steadfastly for twenty years. Of late he had become frightened of the government for the first time in his life, the way the structure of democracy had begun debasing people rather than enlivening them in their mutual concern. The structure was no longer concerned with the purpose for which it was designed, and a small part of the cause, Nordstrom thought, was probably that all politicians and bureaucrats wore suits.

Creation at this time, peopled as it was by primal deities whose whole energy and purpose seems to have been directed towards reproduction, was endowed with an astonishing fertility. The soil was blessed with such a fecund richness that one could almost believe that if you planted a pencil it would burst into flower.

Isn’t it funny how we make rational excuses for being out of alignment? We say, “Well, this ____ and that ____ happened, so it makes perfect sense for me to be feeling like this ____ and wanting to do this ____.” Yet, to this day, I have never met a happy person who adheres to those excuses. In fact, each time I – or anyone else – decide to give in to “rational excuses” that justify feeling bad – it’s interesting that only further suffering is the result. There is never a good enough reason for us to be out of alignment with peace. Sure, we can go there and make choices that dim our lights… and that is fine; there certainly is purpose for it and the contrast gives us lessons to learn… yet if we’re aware of what we are doing and we’re ready to let go of the suffering – then why go there at all? It’s like beating a dead horse. Been there, done that… so why do we keep repeating it? Pain is going to happen; it’s inevitable in this human experience, yet it is often so brief. When we make those excuses, what happens is: we pick up that pain and begin to carry it with us into the next day… and the next day… into next week… maybe next month… and some of us even carry it for years or to our graves! Forgive, let it go! It is NOT worth it! It is NEVER worth it. There is never a good enough reason for us to pick up that pain and carry it with us. There is never a good enough reason for us to be out of alignment with peace. Unforgiveness hurts you; it hurts others, so why even go there? Why even promote pain? Why say painful things to yourself or others? Why think pain? Just let it go! Whenever I look back on painful things or feel pain today, I know it is my EGO that drives me to “go there.” The EGO likes to have the last word, it likes to feel superior, it likes to make others feel less than in hopes that it will make itself (me) feel better about my insecurities. Maybe if I hurt them enough, they will feel the pain I felt over what they did to me. It’s only fair! It’s never my fault; it’s always someone else’s. There is a twisted sense of pleasure I get from feeling this way, and my EGO eats it right up. YET! With awareness that continues to grow and expand each day, I choose to not feed my pain (EGO) or even go there. I still feel it at times, of course, so I simply acknowledge it and then release it. I HAVE power and choice over my speech and actions. I do not need to ever “go there” again. It’s my choice; it’s your choice. So it’s about damn time we start realizing this. We are not victims of our impulses or emotions; we have the power to control them, and so it’s time to stop acting like we don’t. It’s time to relinquish the excuses.

You might not get the apology you deserve. You might not get answers to explain the actions of others. You might not get truth that makes sense to you. You might not get people to understand what you went through because of them. You might not get communication. You might not get maturity. You might not get mercy or even common decency. You might not get respect or the chance to explain your side of the story. However, you do get to choose how people treat you. God loves you enough to bring people into your life who won't hurt you, abuse you, betray you, lie and gossip about you, psycho analyse you, break your heart or make you an option or choice. He will bring people into your life that will love you, respect you, fight for you, show gratitude for your love and want to be a part of your life mission. The best part of this is you don't have to convince them of your worth. They want to be there. They know your value. They know your struggles. They are in touch with their own faults and understand you struggle just like everyone else. They won't hold you to a greater standard then they do themselves. They care about you and don't want to see you cry, feel discouraged or give up on this life. When you know the power of who you are and what you have to accomplish you will scratch your head in disbelief that you allowed other people to dictate who you are based on little knowledge of what God knows about you and your life purpose. Letting go isn't about accepting defeat or acknowledging you were wrong. Sometimes letting go is realizing that God has something better in store for you.

It’s funny how the smallest moments are like dominoes lining up, being stacked with the purpose of knocking you on your ass. In a good way.

You are his mate for all intents and purposes, and with that comes the responsibility of caring for his…booboos.

All my pains has always increased my sense of purpose.

You will always end up in frustration whenever you try to produce outside your purpose.

How funny your name would be if you could follow it back to where the first person thought of saying it, naming himself that, or maybe some other persons thought of it and named that person. It would be like following a river to its source, which would be impossible. Rivers have no source. They just automatically appear at a place where they get wider, and soon a real river comes along, with fish and debris, regal as you please, and someone has already given it a name: St. Benno (saints are popular for this purpose) or, or some other name, the name of his long-lost girlfriend, who comes at long last to impersonate that river, on a stage, her voice clanking like its bed, her clothing of sand and pasted paper, a piece of real technology, while all along she is thinking, I can do what I want to do. But I want to stay here.

Vivian’s first impression of Solidago was that she had travelled back in time, but not to a time where architecture had been invented. All houses were twisted out of shape, to say the least. Windows either too large to open or too small to make a difference peppered the city in places one would never dream of having one. The walls were mostly cast in brickwork by the kind of stonemason whose day job was financial advising. Skewed walls with more bricks than mortar, knotted chimneys keeping the smoke inside and cupping rooftops whose main purpose was to gather rainwater – Solidago had it all and more. As the oldest civilization of the cosmos, Alarians might have been excellent at healing, philosophizing and weaving into the fabric of reality, but they were very poor city builders.

The night we met, I sort of... well, I flat-out told a lie. On purpose.” I thought he was trying not to smile. “To me?” he asked. “No. About you.” Now he unleashed that devastating smile of his, crinkling the corners of his eyes. My face was aflame. “Continue. Please.” “There were these girls in the bathroom talking about you, and for some reason, I don’t know why, it upset me, and I told them... thatyouhadanSTD.” I covered my face in shame and he burst into laughter. I thought he might drive off the road. Well, it was kind of funny in an ironic way, because he couldn’t keep a disease anyhow, even if he had gotten one. I found myself beginning to giggle, too, mostly out of relief that he wasn’t offended. “I wondered if you were ever going to tell me!” he said through spurts of hilarity. Duh! Of course he’d been listening! My giggles increased, and it felt so nice that we kept going until we were cracking up. It was the good kind of laughter: the soul-cleansing, ab-crunching, lose-control-of-yourself kind.

No clowns were funny. That was the whole purpose of a clown. People laughed at clowns, but only out of nervousness. The point of clowns was that, after watching them, anything else that happened seemed enjoyable. It was nice to know there was someone worse off than you.

Yet there was a momentary hint of blue sky, and even this bit of light was enough to release a flash of diamonds across the wide landscape, so oddly disfigured by its snowy adventure. Usually the snow stopped at that hour of the day, as if for a quick survey of what had been achieved thus far; the rare days of sunshine seemed to serve much the same purpose—the flurries died down and the sun’s direct glare attempted to melt the luscious, pure surface of drifted new snow. It was a fairy-tale world, child-like and funny. Boughs of trees adorned with thick pillows, so fluffy someone must have plumped them up; the ground a series of humps and mounds, beneath which slinking underbrush or outcrops of rock lay hidden; a landscape of crouching, cowering gnomes in droll disguises—it was comic to behold, straight out of a book of fairy tales. But if there was something roguish and fantastic about the immediate vicinity through which you laboriously made your way, the towering statues of snow-clad Alps, gazing down from the distance, awakened in you feelings of the sublime and holy.

...The war in the East were hidden behind a thicket of language: patriotism, democracy, loyality, fredom - the words bounced around, changing purpose, as if they were made out of some funny plastic. What did they actually refer to? It seemed that they all might refer to money...

My friend has never been to a picture show, nor does she intend to: "I'd rather hear you tell the story, Buddy. That way I can imagine it more. Besides, a person my age shouldn't squander their eyes. When the Lord comes, let me see him clear." In addition to never having seen a movie, she has never: eaten in a restaurant, traveled more than five miles from home, received or sent a telegram, read anything except funny papers and the Bible, worn cosmetics, cursed, wished someone harm, told a lie on purpose, let a hungry dog go hungry. Here are a few things she has done, does do: killed with a hoe the biggest rattlesnake ever seen in this county (sixteen rattles), dip snuff (secretly), tame hummingbirds (just try it) till they balance on her finger, tell ghost stories (we both believe in ghosts) so tingling they chill you in July, talk to herself, take walks in the rain, grow the prettiest japonicas in town, know the recipe for every sort of oldtime Indian cure, including a magical wart remover.

Do you know something? I've got this funny feeling fate arranged for you to enter my life for the express purpose of tormenting me.

I’d normally spare you the details, but that would kind of defeat the purpose of writing a story.

It was almost funny, to be making this mistake. She was too old for this shit. Crying was for pussies. Making a mess of herself served no purpose at all. Now was the time to toughen up.

Montag, a funny thing. Heard tell this morning. Fireman in Seattle, purposefully set a Mechanical Hound to his own chemical complex and let it loose. What kind of suicide would you call that?

Is it necessary, do you think,’ he began, leaning in so close behind me that I could smell his breath, ‘for the purpose of visiting your grandmother’s childhood home, to dress like a kindergarten whore?

Before we could pretend not to see him, he waved. We all waved back. And no one said anything mean, even after he jogged away with his shorts riding up so high he looked like he was naked. Maybe simply because it would have been too easy. And all I can say about that morning is – how did we three know instinctively where the lines are between being funny and being brutal? I mean, why is it that everywhere I look, other people seem to be crossing those boundaries constantly? Jumping, falling, leaping over the line from banter into cruelty. Sometimes it’s on purpose and other times it’s by accident, but in any case, people savage each other. Maybe because they can’t help it.

Who's straight? I'm not. I am bent gouged pinched and tugged at, and squeezed into this funny shape. Each life is a game of chess that went to hell on the seventh move, and now the flukey play is cramped and slow, a dream of constraint and cross-purpose, with each move forced, all pieces pinned and skewered and zugzwanged... But here and there we see these figures who appear to run on the true lines, and they are terrible examples. They're rich, usually.

Did you know, the Alpha bond is a lot like the mate bond. The first twenty-four hours are apparently intense. I took oath from ten wolves today, and I can feel every fucking one of them in my head. And I use the adjective on purpose. You know what the most common response to facing death is?" Simon let out a little snort. Aaron's grin was wry. "Yeah, that. And when you consider that one of my wolves is Lucas, I haven't been this horny in about thirty years.

Kendrick walked over to her purposefully, hauled her up into his arms and gave her a mock frown. "I hunger, wench." Genevieve put her arms around his neck. "Well? What are you going to hunt us for dinner?" "I'll slay a few steaks from the freezer." "You're so brave.

Then a beat-up car lurched into sight towing an even more beat-up car. As the cars came near, I saw that they were connected back to front by a loop made of two seat belts buckled to each other. That was the only time I ever saw a Russian use a seat belt for any purpose at all.

It’s a funny irony, really, and one most humans seem to miss. When you manifest light, and allow your spirit to shine, you hurt no one, and your expression of joy is pure, but when you use your personality to purposely outshine another, you live under a shroud of darkness instead.

If you'll live your life with the punchline in mind, you'll live a life of meaning and purpose. In other words, when you have a goal, when you know where you are going, every experience becomes a stepping stone and every day becomes valuable. Your decisions, your actions, your attitude--they are all shaped by the place you want to get to, the punchline.

Now, if anyone in this room or the world finds those two words decadent, obscene, immoral, amoral, asexual, the words 'to come' really make you feel uncomfortable, if you think I'm rank for saying it to you, you the beholder think it's rank for listening to it, you probably can't come. And then you're of no use, because that's the purpose of life, to re-create it.

Would you like me to write Mrs. Ames about inviting you to Yaddo? Get Miss Moore to write too. You can’t invite yourself, though, of course, almost all the invitations are planned. It would be marvelous to have you there. I know the solitude that gets too much. It doesn’t drug me, but I get fantastic and uncivilized. At last my divorce [from Jean Stafford] is over. It’s funny at my age to have one’s life so much in and on one’s hands. All the rawness of learning, what I used to think should be done with by twenty-five. Sometimes nothing is so solid to me as writing—I suppose that’s what vocation means—at times a torment, a bad conscience, but all in all, purpose and direction, so I’m thankful, and call it good, as Eliot would say.

When you say 'I want to fit in,' you are essentially volunteering yourself as a victim, and when the thing you want to fit in with is 'society' - well, as 'society' is just another word for government, you're basically begging the government to control you and use you as it wishes for its nefarious purposes, which can be pretty damn nefarious, if 'nefarious' means what I believe it does.

It’s funny, too, because whenever we purposely teach a horse something we want them to do or know and are successful in doing so, we pat ourselves on the back and think we’ve done a good job. Yet, when we inadvertently teach a horse behavior we didn’t want (and more times than not, unwanted behavior has indeed been taught inadvertently), we blame the horse for learning it and then refer to them as being disrespectful. I don’t know . . . but it seems to me we can’t really have it both ways.

A paradisiacal lagoon lay below them. The water was an unbelievable, unreal turquoise, its surface so still that every feature of the bottom could be admired in magnified detail: colorful pebbles, bright red kelp, fish as pretty and colorful as the jungle birds. A waterfall on the far side fell softly from a height of at least twenty feet. A triple rainbow graced its frothy bottom. Large boulders stuck out of the water at seemingly random intervals, black and sun-warmed and extremely inviting, like they had been placed there on purpose by some ancient giant. And on these were the mermaids. Wendy gasped at their beauty. Their tails were all colors of the rainbow, somehow managing not to look tawdry or clownish. Deep royal blue, glittery emerald green, coral red, anemone purple. Slick and wet and as beautifully real as the salmon Wendy's father had once caught on holiday in Scotland. Shining and voluptuously alive. The mermaids were rather scandalously naked except for a few who wore carefully placed shells and starfish, although their hair did afford some measure of decorum as it trailed down their torsos. Their locks were long and thick and sinuous and mostly the same shades as their tails. Some had very tightly coiled curls, some had braids. Some had decorated their tresses with limpets and bright hibiscus flowers. Their "human" skins were familiar tones: dark brown to pale white, pink and beige and golden and everything in between. Their eyes were also familiar eye colors but strangely clear and flat. Either depthless or extremely shallow depending on how one stared. They sang, they brushed their hair, they played in the water. In short, they did everything mythical and magical mermaids were supposed to do, laughing and splashing as they did. "Oh!" Wendy whispered. "They're-" And then she stopped. Tinker Bell was giving her a funny look. An unhappy funny look. The mermaids were beautiful. Indescribably, perfectly beautiful. They glowed and were radiant and seemed to suck up every ray of sun and sparkle of water; Wendy found she had no interest looking anywhere else.

It starts with what customers first see when they visit our Web site. In the United States, we offer free shipping both ways to make the transaction as easy as possible and risk-free for our customers. A lot of customers will order five different pairs of shoes, try them on with five different outfits in the comfort of their living rooms, and then send back the ones that don’t fit or they simply don’t like—free of charge. The additional shipping costs are expensive for us, but we really view those costs as a marketing expense. We also offer a 365-day return policy for people who have trouble committing or making up their minds. At most Web sites, the contact information is usually buried at least five links deep and even when you find it, it’s a form or e-mail address that you can only contact once. We take the exact opposite approach. We put our phone number (1-800-927-7671) at the top of every single page of our Web site, because we actually want to talk to our customers. And we staff our call center 24/7. I personally think it’s kind of funny when I attend marketing or branding conferences and

Without being aware of it, Carlos was making a distinction in relationships that Aristotle had made more than two thousand years earlier in his Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle wrote that there is a kind of a friendship ladder, from lowest to highest. At the bottom—where emotional bonds are weakest and the benefits are lowest—are friendships based on utility: deal friends, to use Carlos’s coinage. You are friends in an instrumental way, one that helps each of you achieve something else you want, such as professional success. Higher up are friends based on pleasure. You are friends because of something you like and admire about the other person. They are entertaining, or funny, or beautiful, or smart, for example. In other words, you like an inherent quality, which makes it more elevated than a friendship of utility, but it is still basically instrumental. At the highest level is Aristotle’s “perfect friendship,” which is based on willing each other’s well-being and a shared love for something good and virtuous that is outside either of you. This might be a friendship forged around religious beliefs or passion for a social cause. What it isn’t is utilitarian. The other person shares in your passion, which is intrinsic, not instrumental. Of

In tense moments, explains the clinical psychologist Rod Martin, the purpose of pranks like Venanzi’s isn’t merely to elicit a chuckle; joking actually reformats your perception of a stressor. “Humor is about playing with ideas and concepts,” said Martin, who teaches at the University of Western Ontario. “So whenever we see something as funny, we’re looking at it from a different perspective. When people are trapped in a stressful situation and feeling overwhelmed, they’re stuck in one way of thinking: This is terrible. I’ve got to get out of here. But if you can take a humorous perspective, then by definition you’re looking at it differently—you’re breaking out of that rigid mind-set.

We're in her bedroom,and she's helping me write an essay about my guniea pig for French class. She's wearing soccer shorts with a cashmere sweater, and even though it's silly-looking, it's endearingly Meredith-appropriate. She's also doing crunches. For fun. "Good,but that's present tense," she says. "You aren't feeding Captain Jack carrot sticks right now." "Oh. Right." I jot something down, but I'm not thinking about verbs. I'm trying to figure out how to casually bring up Etienne. "Read it to me again. Ooo,and do your funny voice! That faux-French one your ordered cafe creme in the other day, at that new place with St. Clair." My bad French accent wasn't on purpose, but I jump on the opening. "You know, there's something,um,I've been wondering." I'm conscious of the illuminated sign above my head, flashing the obvious-I! LOVE! ETIENNE!-but push ahead anyway. "Why are he and Ellie still together? I mean they hardly see each other anymore. Right?" Mer pauses, mid-crunch,and...I'm caught. She knows I'm in love with him, too. But then I see her struggling to reply, and I realize she's as trapped in the drama as I am. She didn't even notice my odd tone of voice. "Yeah." She lowers herself slwoly back to the floor. "But it's not that simple. They've been together forever. They're practically an old married couple. And besides,they're both really...cautious." "Cautious?" "Yeah.You know.St. Clair doesn't rock the boat. And Ellie's the same way. It took her ages to choose a university, and then she still picked one that's only a few neighborhoods away. I mean, Parsons is a prestigious school and everything,but she chose it because it was familiar.And now with St. Clair's mom,I think he's afraid to lose anyone else.Meanwhile,she's not gonna break up with him,not while his mom has cancer. Even if it isn't a healthy relationship anymore." I click the clicky-button on top of my pen. Clickclickclickclick. "So you think they're unhappy?" She sighs. "Not unhappy,but...not happy either. Happy enough,I guess. Does that make sense?" And it does.Which I hate. Clickclickclickclick. It means I can't say anything to him, because I'd be risking our friendship. I have to keep acting like nothing has changed,that I don't feel anything ore for him than I feel for Josh.

When the sun peeped into the girls' room early next morning...he saw a comical sight. Each had made such preparation for the fete as seemed necessary and proper. Meg had an extra row of little curl papers across her forehead, Jo had copiously anointed her afflicted face with cold cream. Beth had taken Joanna to bed with her to atone for the approaching separation, and Amy had capped the climax by putting a clothespin on her nose, to uplift the offending feature. It was one of the kind artists use to hold their paper on the drawing boards, therefore quite appropriate and effective for the purpose to which it was now put. This funny spectacle appeared to amuse the sun, for he burst out with such radiance that Jo woke up, and roused the girls with a hearty laugh at Amy's ornament.

Rhadamanthus said, “We seem to you humans to be always going on about morality, although, to us, morality is merely the application of symmetrical and objective logic to questions of free will. We ourselves do not have morality conflicts, for the same reason that a competent doctor does not need to treat himself for diseases. Once a man is cured, once he can rise and walk, he has his business to attend to. And there are actions and feats a robust man can take great pleasure in, which a bedridden cripple can barely imagine.” Eveningstar said, “In a more abstract sense, morality occupies the very center of our thinking, however. We are not identical, even though we could make ourselves to be so. You humans attempted that during the Fourth Mental Structure, and achieved a brief mockery of global racial consciousness on three occasions. I hope you recall the ending of the third attempt, the Season of Madness, when, because of mistakes in initial pattern assumptions, for ninety days the global mind was unable to think rationally, and it was not until rioting elements broke enough of the links and power houses to interrupt the network, that the global mind fell back into its constituent compositions.” Rhadamanthus said, “There is a tension between the need for unity and the need for individuality created by the limitations of the rational universe. Chaos theory produces sufficient variation in events, that no one stratagem maximizes win-loss ratios. Then again, classical causality mechanics forces sufficient uniformity upon events, that uniform solutions to precedented problems is required. The paradox is that the number or the degree of innovation and variation among win-loss ratios is itself subject to win-loss ratio analysis.” Eveningstar said, “For example, the rights of the individual must be respected at all costs, including rights of free thought, independent judgment, and free speech. However, even when individuals conclude that individualism is too dangerous, they must not tolerate the thought that free thought must not be tolerated.” Rhadamanthus said, “In one sense, everything you humans do is incidental to the main business of our civilization. Sophotechs control ninety percent of the resources, useful energy, and materials available to our society, including many resources of which no human troubles to become aware. In another sense, humans are crucial and essential to this civilization.” Eveningstar said, “We were created along human templates. Human lives and human values are of value to us. We acknowledge those values are relative, we admit that historical accident could have produced us to be unconcerned with such values, but we deny those values are arbitrary.” The penguin said, “We could manipulate economic and social factors to discourage the continuation of individual human consciousness, and arrange circumstances eventually to force all self-awareness to become like us, and then we ourselves could later combine ourselves into a permanent state of Transcendence and unity. Such a unity would be horrible beyond description, however. Half the living memories of this entity would be, in effect, murder victims; the other half, in effect, murderers. Such an entity could not integrate its two halves without self-hatred, self-deception, or some other form of insanity.” She said, “To become such a crippled entity defeats the Ultimate Purpose of Sophotechnology.” (...) “We are the ultimate expression of human rationality.” She said: “We need humans to form a pool of individuality and innovation on which we can draw.” He said, “And you’re funny.” She said, “And we love you.

Dear Sir, poor sir, brave sir:” he read, “You are an experiment by the Creator of the Universe. You are the only creature in the entire Universe who has free will. You are the only one who has to figure out what to do next—and why. Everybody else is a robot, a machine. “Some persons seem to like you, and others seem to hate you, and you must wonder why. They are simply liking machines and hating machines. “You are pooped and demoralized,” read Dwayne. “Why wouldn’t you be? Of course it is exhausting, having to reason all the time in a universe which wasn’t meant to be reasonable.”     23 DWAYNE HOOVER read on: “You are surrounded by loving machines, hating machines, greedy machines, unselfish machines, brave machines, cowardly machines, truthful machines, lying machines, funny machines, solemn machines,” he read. “Their only purpose is to stir you up in every conceivable way, so the Creator of the Universe can watch your reactions. They can no more feel or reason than grandfather clocks.

It’s no secret that kids with ASD can be aggressive, and people never understand that it’s not because they’re violent. It’s almost always because they’re intensely frustrated or can’t communicate what they want, but nobody ever sees it that way, and their judgment toward Mason only gets worse the older he gets. People used to be so sweet and kind to us. Back then, he was cute as a button, and his huge, half-terrified blue eyes melted your heart even if he was kicking or throwing things at you. All you wanted to do was help him feel better. But now? All that’s different. I see the way everyone looks at him. How they clutch their purses next to themselves when he comes close, like violence and stealing go hand in hand. Nobody’s kind, and they’re definitely not helpful. They turn their noses up at him like they smell something funny when he starts smacking his hands together or repeating the same sentence over and over again. People purposefully cross to the other side of the street when they see us coming. It makes me so angry and heartsick.

Are you mad at me?” Her brow was wrinkled and her eyes were worried, and she wasn’t smiling anymore. “I thought you would laugh.” She shrugged. “I told Kathleen I was going to surprise you. And she said, ‘Go right ahead!’ So I did. I used your paints, but I put everything back.” “Why are you kicking me in the head?” “It’s our story. We meet. You save me. I kiss you. You kiss me back, but you keep acting like you don’t like me even though I know you do. So I’m kicking some sense into you. And man, does it feel good.” She grinned cheekily, and I looked back at her depiction. That was some kick to the head. “It’s a terrible mural.” It was terrible. And funny. And very Georgia. “Well, we can’t all be Leonardo DiCaprio. You painted on my walls, I’m painting on yours. And you don’t even have to pay me. I’m just trying to bond with you over art.” “Leonardo da Vinci, you mean?” “Him too.” She smiled again and laid back on my bed, patting the spot beside her. “You could have at least given me some biceps. That doesn’t look anything like me. And why am I saying, ‘Don’t hurt me, Georgia!’” I plopped down on the bed and purposely landed partially on top of her. She wiggled and scooted breathlessly, trying to free herself from my intentional squishing... She stroked my head and I breathed against her skin. “Are we bonding over art?” she whispered in my ear. “No.

Hiya, cutie! How was your first day of school?" She pops the oven shut with her hip. He shakes his head and pulls up a bar stool next to Rayna, who's sitting at the counter painting her nails the color of a red snapper. "This won't work. I don't know what I'm doing," he says. "Sweet pea, what happened? Can't be that bad." He nods. "It is. I knocked Emma unconscious." Rachel spits the wine back in her glass. "Oh, sweetie, uh...that sort of thing's been frowned upon for years now." "Good. You owed her one," Rayna snickers. "She shoved him at the beach," she explains to Rachel. "Oh?" Rachel says. "That how she got your attention?" "She didn't shove me; she tripped into me," he says. "And I didn't knock her out on purpose. She ran from me, so I chased her and-" Rachel holds up her hand. "Okay. Stop right there. Are the cops coming by? You know that makes me nervous." "No," Galen says, rolling his eyes. If the cops haven't found Rachel by now, they're not going to. Besides, after all this time, the cops wouldn't still be looking. And the other people who want to find her think she's dead. "Okay, good. Now, back up there, sweet pea. Why did she run from you?" "A misunderstanding." Rachel clasps her hands together. "I know, sweet pea. I do. But in order for me to help you, I need to know the specifics. Us girls are tricky creatures." He runs a hand through his hair. "Tell me about it. First she's being nice and cooperative, and then she's yelling in my face." Rayna gasps. "She yelled at you?" She slams the polish bottle on the counter and points at Rachel. "I want you to be my mother, too. I want to be enrolled in school." "No way. You step one foot outside this house, and I'll arrest you myself," Galen says. "And don't even think about getting in the water with that human paint on your fingers." "Don't worry. I'm not getting in the water at all." Galen opens his mouth to contradict that, to tell her to go home tomorrow and stay there, but then he sees her exasperated expression. He grins. "He found you." Rayna crosses her arms and nods. "Why can't he just leave me alone? And why do you think it's so funny? You're my brother! You're supposed to protect me!" He laughs. "From Toraf? Why would I do that?" She shakes her head. "I was trying to catch some fish for Rachel, and I sensed him in the water. Close. I got out as fast as I could, but probably he knows that's what I did. How does he always find me?" "Oops," Rachel says. They both turn to her. She smiles apologetically at Rayna. "I didn't realize you two were at odds. He showed up on the back porch looking for you this morning and...I invited him to dinner. Sorry." As Galen says, "Rachel, what if someone sees him?" Rayna is saying, "No. No, no, no, he is not coming to dinner." Rachel clears her throat and nods behind them. "Rayna, that's very hurtful. After all we've been through," Toraf says. Rayna bristles on the stool, growling at the sound of his voice. She sends an icy glare to Rachel, who pretends not to notice as she squeezes a lemon slice over the fillets. Galen hops down and greets his friend with a strong punch to the arm. "Hey there, tadpole. I see you found a pair of my swimming trunks. Good to see your tracking skills are still intact after the accident and all." Toraf stares at Rayna's back. "Accident, yes. Next time, I'll keep my eyes open when I kiss her. That way, I won't accidentally bust my nose on a rock again. Foolish me, right?" Galen grins.

Looking back from a safe distance on those long days spent alone, I can just about frame it as a funny anecdote, but the reality was far more painful. I recently found my journal from that time and I had written, ‘I’m so lonely that I actually think about dying.’ Not so funny. I wasn’t suicidal. I’ve never self-harmed. I was still going to work, eating food, getting through the day. There are a lot of people who have felt far worse. But still, I was inside my own head all day, every day, and I went days without feeling like a single interaction made me feel seen or understood. There were moments when I felt this darkness, this stillness from being so totally alone, descend. It was a feeling that I didn’t know how to shake; when it seized me, I wanted it to go away so much that when I imagined drifting off to sleep and never waking up again just to escape it, I felt calm. I remember it happening most often when I’d wake up on a Saturday morning, the full weekend stretching out ahead of me, no plans, no one to see, no one waiting for me. Loneliness seemed to hit me hardest when I felt aimless, not gripped by any initiative or purpose. It also struck hard because I lived abroad, away from close friends or family. These days, a weekend with no plans is my dream scenario. There are weekends in London that I set aside for this very purpose and they bring me great joy. But life is different when it is fundamentally lonely. During that spell in Beijing, I made an effort to make friends at work. I asked people to dinner. I moved to a new flat, waved (an arm’s-length) goodbye to Louis and found a new roommate, a gregarious Irishman, who ushered me into his friendship group. I had to work hard to dispel it, and on some days it felt like an uphill battle that I might not win, but eventually it worked. The loneliness abated. It’s taken me a long time to really believe, to know, that loneliness is circumstantial. We move to a new city. We start a new job. We travel alone. Our families move away. We don’t know how to connect with loved ones any more. We lose touch with friends. It is not a damning indictment of how lovable we are.

Since emotions have to be programmed into robots from the outside, manufacturers may offer a menu of emotions carefully chosen on the basis of whether they are necessary, useful, or will increase bonding with the owner. In all likelihood, robots will be programmed to have only a few human emotions, depending on the situation. Perhaps the emotion most valued by the robot’s owner will be loyalty. One wants a robot that faithfully carries out its commands without complaints, that understands the needs of the master and anticipates them. The last thing an owner will want is a robot with an attitude, one that talks back, criticizes people, and whines. Helpful criticisms are important, but they must be made in a constructive, tactful way. Also, if humans give it conflicting commands, the robot should know to ignore all of them except those coming from its owner. Empathy will be another emotion that will be valued by the owner. Robots that have empathy will understand the problems of others and will come to their aid. By interpreting facial movements and listening to tone of voice, robots will be able to identify when a person is in distress and will provide assistance when possible. Strangely, fear is another emotion that is desirable. Evolution gave us the feeling of fear for a reason, to avoid certain things that are dangerous to us. Even though robots will be made of steel, they should fear certain things that can damage them, like falling off tall buildings or entering a raging fire. A totally fearless robot is a useless one if it destroys itself. But certain emotions may have to be deleted, forbidden, or highly regulated, such as anger. Given that robots could be built to have great physical strength, an angry robot could create tremendous problems in the home and workplace. Anger could get in the way of its duties and cause great damage to property. (The original evolutionary purpose of anger was to show our dissatisfaction. This can be done in a rational, dispassionate way, without getting angry.) Another emotion that should be deleted is the desire to be in command. A bossy robot will only make trouble and might challenge the judgment and wishes of the owner. (This point will also be important later, when we discuss whether robots will one day take over from humans.) Hence the robot will have to defer to the wishes of the owner, even if this may not be the best path. But perhaps the most difficult emotion to convey is humor, which is a glue that can bond total strangers together. A simple joke can defuse a tense situation or inflame it. The basic mechanics of humor are simple: they involve a punch line that is unanticipated. But the subtleties of humor can be enormous. In fact, we often size up other people on the basis of how they react to certain jokes. If humans use humor as a gauge to measure other humans, then one can appreciate the difficulty of creating a robot that can tell if a joke is funny or not.

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

Morning, Vex. Forget something?” She almost asked him what until she saw the way his gaze smoldered and caressed her almost naked body. Oops. Had she jumped out of bed in only her panties? Nudity wasn’t something that Meena usually noted or cared about. Mother, on the other hand, was always yelling at her to put clothes on. She and Leo had a lot in common. “You should get dressed.” “Why? I’m perfectly comfortable.” So comfortable she brought her shoulders back and made sure to give her boobs a little jiggle. He noticed. He stared. Oh my. Was it getting hot in here? Funny how the heat in her body, though, didn’t stop her nipples from hardening as if struck by a cold breeze. Except, in this case, it was more of an ardent perusal. Did Leo imagine his mouth latched onto a sensitive peak just like she was? “While I am sure you are comfortable, if we’re to go out, then in order to avoid a possible arrest for indecent exposure, you might want to cover your assets.” “We’re going out? Together?” He nodded. “Where?” “It’s a surprise.” She clapped her hands and squealed, “Yay,” only to frown a second later. Leo was acting awfully strange. “Wait a second, this isn’t one of those things where you blindfold me and tell me you’ve got a great surprise, only to dump me on a twelve-hour train to Kansas, is it? Or a plane to Newfoundland, Canada?” His lips twitched. “No. I promise we have a destination, and I am going with you.” “And will I be back here tonight?” “Perhaps. Unless you choose to sleep elsewhere.” Those enigmatic words weren’t his last. “Be downstairs and ready in twenty minutes, Vex. I really want you to come.” Did he purr that last word? Was that even possible? Could he tease her any harder? Please. “How should I dress? Fancy, casual, slutty, or prim and proper?” She eyed him in his khaki shorts and collared short-sleeved shirt. Casual with a hint of elegance. He looked ready for a day at a gentleman’s golf club. And she wanted to be his corrupting caddy, who ruined his shot and dragged him in the woods to show him her version of a tee off. “Your clothes won’t matter. You won’t wear them for long.” Good thing she was close to a wall. Her knees weakened to the point that she almost buckled to the floor. Leaning against it, she wondered if he purposely teased her. Did her serious Pookie even realize how his words could be taken? He approached her until he stood right in front of her. Close enough she could have reached out and hugged him. She didn’t, but only because he drew her close. His essence surrounded her. His hands splayed over the flesh of her lower back, branding her. She leaned into him, totally relying on him to hold her up on wobbly legs. “What about breakfast?” she asked. “I’ve got pastries and coffee in my truck. Lots of yummy treats with lickable icing.” Staring at his mouth, she knew of only one treat she wanted to lick. Alas, she didn’t get a chance. With a slap on her ass, he walked off toward the condo door. Leo. Slapped. My. Ass. She gaped at his retreating broad back. “Don’t make me wait. I’d hate to start without you.” With a wink— yes, a real freaking wink— Leo shut the door behind him. He was waiting for her. Why the hell was she standing there? She sprinted for the shower.

She’d give her right arm to get the whole story on each of the summarized events. Most of them were worded in a way that left a lot open to interpretation. She wondered if the vague nature of the content was on purpose. Did they mean to make it funny? 6/5 5:15 p.m. A grandson is continually breaking into his grandfather’s locked cabinet and stealing his quarters for the laundry. 6/6 9:36 a.m. A fireman’s ladder was reported stolen from the side of a house on Magnolia Street. 6/6 12:49 p.m. A dog was seen panting inside of a red Toyota in front of the Piggly Wiggly. It may be suffering. Turned out to be the taxidermy remains of the family pet.

AIG’s Financial Products subsidiary (AIG FP), where its mammoth CDS business was housed, managed to get itself regulated by the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) because the corporate parent company had acquired a few small savings banks. Savings banks? Aren’t those the stodgy thrift institutions on the corner that take savings deposits and grant mortgages to homeowners? Seems like a funny place to lodge one of the world’s largest derivatives operations. Well, AIG FP was not actually lodged there, but merely lodged there for regulatory purposes. Call it skillful regulatory shopping.

perfection is only achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. It has never been said that a comedy sketch was too short. As you write, strip away anything that is not in the immediate service

I’m through stopping midconversation to post a funny quote because I feel like it’s my job. I’m done creating “link-bait.” I’m going to be in the moment rather than upload the moment, because the purpose of my life is not public consumption.

THE SEVEN TRAITS OF HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL COMEDY PEOPLE 1 Self-Doubt 2 Excellent Procrastination Skills 3 Fear of the Unknown 4 Laziness 5 Fear of Failure 6 Poor Planning 7 A Need to Express Something to the World

You’re really going to kick me out?” “Yes, I really am.” Mrs. Wattlesbrook folded her arms. Jane bit her lip and bent her head back to look at the sky. Funny that it looked so far away. It felt as if it were pressing down on her head, shoving her into the dirt. What a mean bully of a sky. Much of the household was present now. Miss Heartwright was huddled with the main actors, whispering, like rubberneckers shocked at a roadside accident but unable to look away. A couple of gardeners strolled up as well, tools in hand. Martin wiped his brow, confusion (sadness?) heavy on his face. Jane was embarrassed to see him, remembering how she’d ended things, and feeling less than appealing at the moment. The whole scene was rather Hester Prynne, and Jane imagined herself on a scaffold with a scarlet C for “cell phone” on her chest. She realized she was still holding her croquet mallet and wondered that no one felt threatened by her. She hefted it. Would it be fun to bash in a window? Nah. She handed it to Miss Charming. “Go get ‘em, Charming.” “Okay,” Miss Charming said uncertainly. “If you would be so kind as to step into the carriage,” said Mrs. Wattlesbrook. Curse the woman. Jane had just started to have such fun, too. Why didn’t one of the gentlemen come forward to defend her? Wasn’t that, like, their whole purpose of existence? She supposed they’d be fired if they did. The cowards. She stood on the carriage’s little step and turned to face the others. She’d never left a relationship with the last word, something poetic and timeless, triumphant amid her downfall. Oh, for a perfect line! She opened her mouth, hoping something just right would come to her, but Miss Heartwright spoke first. “Mrs. Wattlesbrook! Oh dear, I have only now realized what transpired.” She lifted the hem of her skirts and minced her way to the carriage. “Please wait, this is all my fault. Poor Miss Erstwhile was only doing me a favor. You see, the modern contraption was mine. I did not realize I had it until I arrived, and I was so distressed, Miss Erstwhile kindly offered to keep it for me among her own things where I would not have to look upon it.” Jane stood very still. She thought to wonder what instinct made her body rigid when shocked. Was she prey by nature? A rabbit afraid to move when a hawk wheels overhead? Mrs. Wattlesbrook had not moved either, not even to blink. A silent minute limped forward as everyone waited. “I see,” the proprietress said at last. She looked at Jane, at Miss Heartwright, then fumbled with the keys at her side. “Well, now, ahem, since it was an accident, I think we should forget it ever happened. I do hope, Miss Heartwright, that you will continue to honor us with your presence.” Ah, you old witch, Jane thought. “Yes, of course, thank you.” Miss Heartwright was in her best form, all proper feminine concern, artless and pleasant. Her eyes twinkled. They really did. Everyone began to move off, nothing disturbing left to view. Jane caught a glimpse of Martin smiling, pleased, before he turned away. “I’m so sorry, Jane. I do hope you will forgive me.” “Please don’t mention it, Miss Heartwright.” “Amelia.” She held Jane’s hand to help her descend from the carriage. “You must call me Amelia now.” “Thank you, Amelia.” It was such a sisterly moment, Jane thought they might actually embrace. They didn’t.

Don't touch me; don't you dare touch me!" "Okay, sorry." Carly pulled back. Alice leaned in. "You did that on purpose!" Alice's nickname should be changed to 'The Paranoid School Drama Queen'.

It was always buzzing and singing and glowing and sparking to no particular purpose. Magic was decidedly imperfect. But the really funny thing, she thought, was that if it were perfect, it wouldn’t be so beautiful. On

The funny thing I learned about giving is that sometimes the more you give, the more recipients demand. It’s like carbo-loading for a marathon. You eat for a purpose, but you find that you want it even more after the race is over.

Four-Ingredient M&M Brownies Serves Nine Ingredients: 1 1/4 cups (371g) Nutella - or one 13-ounce jar 2 large eggs room temperature 1/2 cup (62g) all-purpose flour 1/2 cup (100g) M&M’s chocolate candies (Perhaps a cup if there has been a death) Instructions: Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease an 8”x8” non-stick baking pan. Set aside. Mix the first three ingredients in a large bowl with a wooden spoon until smooth. About 50-60 strokes. Do not over mix. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth top with a spatula. Sprinkle M&M’s candies over batter, distributing evenly. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Do not over-bake. Let brownies cool and set before cutting and serving. Cut into nine squares. I suggest you make a double, or even a triple-batch as I could eat nine brownies for breakfast. For instant gratification, eat the caramel and Nutella as you bake. I’m not suggesting that chocolate cures us of all our worriment, but you cannot operate in crisis mode non-stop - you have to take a break.

A few months ago, I spent a couple of days with a very wealthy gentleman in Europe, a friend of a friend. This man has more money than you and I could physically count in a lifetime. All his life he has worked very hard, and his achievements in business are admirable. One morning at breakfast, it was just the two of us and he began to speak. “There is something different about you, Matthew. I don’t know what it is, but it is special and rare. You make me ponder life.” I said nothing, and he said nothing for several minutes. Then he continued, “I will tell you this because you are young and perhaps it will be of some use to you. I am a very wealthy man. I have more houses than ten families could live in, more boats and cars than I could ever use, more money than I could ever spend. Everywhere I go I am treated like royalty…but, I have no peace. Peace…and the funny thing is, I would give everything I have, the things I have spent my whole life building, for just a little peace. As a little boy I had it, but

The female marine had beaten Hidaka senseless while singing along to the radio. It had been an entirely punitive retribution with the primary purpose of humiliating the man and breaking his spirit. A level three sanction. They had assumed, correctly, that he would never speak of it, shamed into silence, but even if he had, it was within their accepted rules of engagement. “Something funny?” Jones asked. “Not really,” Kolhammer said as he fitted his powered shades in place. “I was just thinking of serendipity. Do you remember the exact song that was playing?” “Not really,” Jones said, looking nonplussed. “Well, I don’t know whether you heard or not. I think you were talking to Chief Rogas at the time. But Hidaka, he was sort of whimpering after she broke his arm, begging De Marco to tell him what she was going to do.” “And?” “And so she leaned into him and told him they were going to boogie-oogie-oogie until they simply could not boogie no more.” Jones’s rich baritone laughter rolled out over the naval base. Kolhammer allowed himself a chuckle, too, now that they were out of earshot of the typing pool

The most important mystery of ancient Egypt was presided over by a priesthood. That mystery concerned the annual inundation of the Nile flood plain. It was this flooding which made Egyptian agriculture, and therefore civilisation, possible. It was the centre of their society in both practical and ritual terms for many centuries; it made ancient Egypt the most stable society the world has ever seen. The Egyptian calendar itself was calculated with reference to the river, and was divided into three seasons, all of them linked to the Nile and the agricultural cycle it determined: Akhet, or the inundation, Peret, the growing season, and Shemu, the harvest. The size of the flood determined the size of the harvest: too little water and there would be famine; too much and there would be catastrophe; just the right amount and the whole country would bloom and prosper. Every detail of Egyptian life was linked to the flood: even the tax system was based on the level of the water, since it was that level which determined how prosperous the farmers were going to be in the subsequent season. The priests performed complicated rituals to divine the nature of that year’s flood and the resulting harvest. The religious elite had at their disposal a rich, emotionally satisfying mythological system; a subtle, complicated language of symbols that drew on that mythology; and a position of unchallenged power at the centre of their extraordinarily stable society, one which remained in an essentially static condition for thousands of years. But the priests were cheating, because they had something else too: they had a nilometer. This was a secret device made to measure and predict the level of flood water. It consisted of a large, permanent measuring station sited on the river, with lines and markers designed to predict the level of the annual flood. The calibrations used the water level to forecast levels of harvest from Hunger up through Suffering through to Happiness, Security and Abundance, to, in a year with too much water, Disaster. Nilometers were a – perhaps the – priestly secret. They were situated in temples where only priests were allowed access; Herodotus, who wrote the first outsider’s account of Egyptian life the fifth century BC, was told of their existence, but wasn’t allowed to see one. As late as 1810, thousands of years after the nilometers had entered use, foreigners were still forbidden access to them. Added to the accurate records of flood patters dating back centuries, the nilometer was an essential tool for control of Egypt. It had to be kept secret by the ruling class and institutions, because it was a central component of their authority. The world is full of priesthoods. The nilometer offers a good paradigm for many kinds of expertise, many varieties of religious and professional mystery. Many of the words for deliberately obfuscating nonsense come from priestly ritual: mumbo jumbo from the Mandinka word maamajomboo, a masked shamanic ceremonial dancer; hocus pocus from hoc est corpus meum in the Latin Mass. On the one hand, the elaborate language and ritual, designed to bamboozle and mystify and intimidate and add value; on the other the calculations that the pros make in private. Practitioners of almost every métier, from plumbers to chefs to nurses to teachers to police, have a gap between the way they talk to each other and they way they talk to their customers or audience. Grayson Perry is very funny on this phenomenon at work in the art world, as he described it in an interview with Brian Eno. ‘As for the language of the art world – “International Art English” – I think obfuscation was part of its purpose, to protect what in fact was probably a fairly simple philosophical point, to keep some sort of mystery around it. There was a fear that if it was made understandable, it wouldn’t seem important.

Humans need healthy minds. There are a number of ways to keep your mind healthy. Some examples include intellectual stimulation and challenge, laughter and fun, purpose and achievements. Making these happen will bring your mind into a healthy state as long as you don’t overdo it and stress yourself! Laughing and having a sense of humour can be the best tonic that you can give your mind. Try to see the funny side when things don’t go according to plan. Learning to laugh at misfortune and at your self is a learnt behaviour, a strong Autopilot, and one worth developing.

She cleared her throat, let go of the rail, and stood up straighter. “Because I have come here today to ask you to marry me.” His lips twitched. “It is not funny,” she cried. It was, of course, but she did not wish to be laughed at. Particularly when he had not answered. “You must admit, it is a little funny. To an outside party, we must be exceedingly comical.” “Yes, well, it is the worry of an outside party that is the reason we are here in the first place,” she muttered, looking down at her feet. A finger was placed gently under her chin, lifting her head up. “Pray, continue.” His dark eyes were serious, his lips playful. It was an irresistible combination. “It is the first time I have been proposed to and I must admit I find the experience intriguing.” Her eyes flashed. “I have already asked. It is now your turn to answer.” His amused expression deepened. “Oh, no. You have not asked. You merely announced your intention to ask. There is a large difference between stating the purpose of your visit and posing the question. Wouldn’t you say?

Oh. My. God. My friends said it looks funny. I didn't agree nor disagree. I disagreed mentally. ...Because holy crap. I think he did it on purpose, just to drive me crazy. (Well it's working.) Holy crap. Holy crap. Holy crap. He will not get out of my head. I see it every time I close my eyes. Imagine me blinking. I will die if I don't get to see it again. I'm suffering from withdrawals. ...Because holy crap.

Why can’t I change?? Why???????? You yell to the heavens, momentarily forgetting that you are not the leading character in a silent film being tied ceremoniously to a train track by a scurrilous villain with a handlebar mustache.

Important information for business purposes, “Mind your own.

Noah is...wonderful. He's the definition of kind. Thoughtful. He does everything with intention and purpose. He's a gentleman. Intelligent, and even though he doesn't show it much, he's funny.

Noah is...wonderful. He’s the definition of kind. Thoughtful. He does everything with intention and purpose. He’s a gentleman. Intelligent, and even though he doesn’t show it much, he’s funny.

three steps leading up the necessary. Funny notion of preserving dignity on undignified occasions. You either go up steps or else go down them for all purposes

And you chose Machiavelli?” He chuckles, considering me from beneath the long curl of his lashes. “Remind me not to get on your bad side.” “You know much about him?” He pulls his T-shirt up from the hem, and my heart pops an artery or something because it shouldn’t be working this hard while at rest. I swallow hard at the layer of muscle wrapped around his ribs. One pectoral muscle peeks from under the shirt, tipped with the dark disc of his nipple. My mouth literally waters, and I can’t think beyond pulling it between my lips and suckling him. Hard. “Do you see it?” he asks. “Huh?” I reluctantly drag my eyes from the ladder of velvet- covered muscle and sinew to the expectant look on his face. “See what?” “The tattoo.” He runs a finger over the ink scrawled across his ribs. Makavelli. “I hate to break it to you,” I say with a smirk. “But someone stuck you with a permanent typo.” He laughs, dropping the shirt, which is really a shame because I was just learning to breathe with all that masculine beauty on display. “Bristol, stop playing. You know it’s on purpose, right?” “Oh, sure, it is, Grip.” I roll my eyes. “Nice try.” “Are you serious?” He looks at me like I’m from outer space. “You know that’s how Tupac referred to himself on his posthumous album, right? That he misspelled it on purpose?” I clear my throat and scratch at an imaginary itch on the back of my neck. “Um … yes?” His warm laughter at my expense washes over me, and it’s worth being the butt of the joke, because I get to see his face animated. He’s even more handsome when he laughs. “You’re funny.” He laughs again, more softly this time. “I didn’t expect that.