Quiz Night Quotes

I guess I just like myself the way I am. Sorry if I’m not fancy or fashionable enough for you. I’m not like the cheerleaders or all those models and pop stars whose pictures you have plastered all over your room. But you know what? I’m a nice person, and I don’t judge people on how they look or how much money they have, and I don’t have to give a person a pop quiz to decide if I’ll let them hang out with me or not!

hate to be wrong, and I hate that I am wrong so often in so many ways, that my thinking is often defensive, judgmental, and skittish. (I have a thinking disorder. I once took a 20 Questions quiz about drinking but substituted thinking and I got most of them: Do you prefer to think alone? Do you hide your thinking from loved ones? Has thinking begun to impact your health and quality of life?) Anyway,

Homework _Yes _No 1. Did you make a serious effort to understand the text? (Just hunting for relevant worked-out examples doesn’t count.) _Yes _No 2. Did you work with classmates on homework problems, or at least check your solutions with others? _Yes _No 3. Did you attempt to outline every homework problem solution before working with classmates? Test Preparation The more “Yes” responses you recorded, the better your preparation for the test. If you recorded two or more “No” responses, think seriously about making some changes in how you prepare for the next test. _Yes _No 4. Did you participate actively in homework group discussions (contributing ideas, asking questions)? _Yes _No 5. Did you consult with the instructor or teaching assistants when you were having trouble with something? _Yes _No 6. Did you understand ALL of your homework problem solutions when they were handed in? _Yes _No 7. Did you ask in class for explanations of homework problem solutions that weren’t clear to you? _Yes _No 8. If you had a study guide, did you carefully go through it before the test and convince yourself that you could do everything on it? _Yes _No 9. Did you attempt to outline lots of problem solutions quickly, without spending time on the algebra and calculations? _Yes _No 10. Did you go over the study guide and problems with classmates and quiz one another? _Yes _No 11. If there was a review session before the test, did you attend it and ask questions about anything you weren’t sure about? _Yes _No 12. Did you get a reasonable night’s sleep before the test? (If your answer is no, your answers to 1–11 may not matter.) _Yes _No TOTAL

A question shot through his brain. “Can this be me?” For a thirteen-year-old who had just labeled his religious leader a bastard, twice, it was not an improper question. Louder and louder the question came to him–“Is it me? Is it me?”–until he discovered himself no longer kneeling, but racing crazily towards the edge of the roof, his eyes crying, his throat screaming, and his arms flying every whichway as though not his own. “Is it me? Is it me Me Me Me Me? It has to be me–but is it!” It is a question a thief must ask himself the night he jimmies open his first window, and it is said to be the question with which bridegrooms quiz themselves before the altar. In the few wild seconds it took Ozzie’s body to propel him to the edge of the roof, his self-examination began to grow fuzzy. Gazing down at the street, he became confused as to the problem beneath the question: was it, is-it-me-who-called-Binder-a-bastard? or, is-it-me-prancing-around-on-the roof? However, the scene below settle all, for there is an instant in any action when whether it is you or somebody else is academic. The thief crams in the money in his pockets and scoots out the window. The bridegroom signs the hotel register for two. And the boy on the roof finds a streetful of people gaping at him, necks stretched backwards, faces up, as though he was the ceiling of the Hayden Planetarium. Suddenly you know it’s you.

THE PARTY And at last the police are at the front door, summoned by a neighbor because of the noise, two large cops asking Peter, who had signed the rental agreement, to end the party. Our peace can’t be disturbed, one of the officers states. But when we receive a complaint we act on it. The police on the front stoop wear as their shoulder patch an artist’s palette, since the town likes to think of itself as an art colony, and indeed, Pacific Coast Highway two blocks inland, which serves as the main north-south street, is lined with commercial galleries featuring paintings of the surf by moonlight —like this night, but without anybody on the sand and with a bigger moon. And now Dennis, as at every party once the police arrive at the door, moves through the dancers, the drinkers, the talkers, to confront the uniforms and guns, to object, he says, to their attempt to stop people harmlessly enjoying themselves, and to argue it isn’t even 1 a.m. Then Stuart, as usual, pushes his way to the discussion happening at the door and in his drunken manner tries to justify to the cops Dennis’ attitude, believing he can explain things better to authority, which of course annoys Dennis, and soon those two are disputing with each other, tonight exasperating Peter, whose sole aim is to get the officers to leave before they are provoked enough to demand to enter to check ID or something, and maybe smell the pot and somebody ends up arrested with word getting back to the landlord and having the lease or whatever Peter had signed cancelled, and all staying here evicted. The Stones, or Janis, are on the stereo now, as the police stand firm like time, like death—You have to shut it down—as the dancing inside continues, the dancers forgetting for a moment a low mark on a quiz, or their draft status, or a paper due Monday, or how to end the war in Asia, or some of their poems rejected by a magazine, or the situation in Watts or of Chavez’s farmworkers, or that they wish they had asked Erin rather than Joan to dance. That dancing, that music, the party, even after the cops leave with their warning Don’t make us come back continues, the dancing has lasted for years, decades, across a new century, through the fear of nuclear obliteration, the great fires, fierce rain, Main Beach and Forest Avenue flooded, war after war, love after love, that dancing goes on, the dancing, the party, the night, the dancing

But nothing is ever enough, have you noticed?” he said. “I can’t touch you enough. I can’t make you happy. I can’t say anything right to you. And you can’t take away from me a single thing I’ve fucked up along the way.” She became deflated. “You’re here, and you’re forgiven for everything,” she said quietly, sitting up and closing her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at his tattooed arms and his scar-ribbon chest. “Tell me the truth,” Alexander said. “Don’t you sometimes think it’s harder—this—and other stuff like the magazines quizzes—harder for the two of us? That magazine quiz just points up the absurdity of us pretending we’re like normal people. Don’t you sometimes think it would be easier with your Edward Ludlow in New York? Or a Thelma? No history. No memories. Nothing to get over, nothing to claw back from.” “Would it be easier for you?” “Well, I wouldn’t hear you cry every night,” Alexander said. “I wouldn’t feel like such a failure every minute of my life.” “Oh my God! What are you talking about?” Tatiana yanked to get off him, but now it was Alexander who held her in place. “You know what I’m talking about,” he said, his eyes blazing. “I want amnesia! I want a fucking lobotomy. Could I please never think again? Look what’s happened to us, us, Tania. Don’t you remember how we used to be? Just look what’s happened.” His long winter’s night bled into Coconut Grove through all the fields and villages in three countries Alexander plundered through to get to the Bridge to Holy Cross, over the River Vistula, to get into the mountains, to escape to Germany, to save Pasha, to make his way to Tatiana. And he failed. Twenty escape attempts—two in Catowice, one ill-fated one in Colditz Castle, and seventeen desperate ones in Sachsenhausen, and he never got to her. He had somehow made all the wrong choices. Alexander knew it. Anthony knew it. With the son asleep, the parents had hours to mindlessly meander through the fields and rivers of Europe, through the streets of Leningrad. That was not to be wished upon. “Stop it,” Tatiana whispered. “Just stop it! You didn’t fail. You’re looking at it all twisted. You stayed alive, that was all, that was everything, and you know that. Why are you doing this?” “Why?” he said. “You want it out while sitting naked on top of my stomach with your hair down? Well, here it is. You don’t want it out? Then don’t ask me. Turn the light off, keep the braid in, get your”— Alexander stopped himself—“get off me, and say nothing.” Tatiana did none of those things. She didn’t want it out, what she wanted, desperately, was him to touch her. Though the aching in her heart from his words was unabated, the aching in her loins from her desire for him was also unabated.

Start the evening off right and get the audience laughing and smiling

In short, I became proficient at giving the audience what they wanted — a good show!

skip this section

Mrs. Rondle gave us a pop quiz. So lame.

The night is cold, but I welcome it. I need to feel something other than loss, something other than pain. There is only one tree in our backyard, a great big oak tree, but it's perfect. I settle down beneath it and crack the spine on my book. It's not dusk, but it will have to do. Just like Zane said, the experience is totally different. I'm not reading to pass a stupid English quiz. I'm reading for my life, for what Zane's life was. I'm reading to see the book through his eyes. At first, the pages move slowly, but before I know it I'm halfway through. Soon it is light, and I'm finished. It swallowed me whole and then released me, a different person than I was before. I lie back and watch the sun inching its way upward. Maybe I didn't ever really know Zane, but on the other hand-maybe the part he showed to me was the only part of him that was real.

Aren’t you going to ask me what kind of boat I own?” he asked. “Sure. What kind of boat do you own?” “A sailboat.” “That’s nice. The coals are ready. I’ll just dab some herb butter on the swordfish and we’ll be eating in no time.” Travis shook his head at Cat’s lack of interest in the possibilities of sailing with him. “Are you sure you like sailing?” he asked. “I love the ocean,” Cat said as she spread a sheen of butter over the swordfish. “I don’t know beans about rag sailing. So if you’re one of those avid sailors who expects me to care about sloops and catamarans and jibs and the six thousand boring shapes of canvas you can hang from masts, you’re going to be one disappointed puppy.” Travis smiled ruefully. “I learned a long time ago that my love of wind, sail, and water isn’t something most people give a damn about.” “Like me and photography. I could go on for hours about light and texture, shape and weight and shadow and—Get the door for me, would you?” He opened the door and followed Cat out to the back deck. Her hands were full of fresh swordfish. His eyes approved her unconscious grace as she bent over the grill. “But I’m more than willing to listen to you talk about wind and all,” she said without looking up. “I’ll even make soothing noises, as long as there isn’t a pop quiz at the end.” He laughed out loud. “Some other night, maybe. I won’t ask that much of a sacrifice on our first date.

It took a broken menstrual pad dispenser, a chance encounter, an inheritance, a failing company, a distillery, a rishta auntie, a hapless suitor, a spreadsheet, seven dates, a sword, extra-hot pork vindaloo, an Irish brawl, a sick dog, endless games of Guitar Hero, a hockey game, Shark Stew, a broken bed, a walk of shame, a quiz night, back-office shenanigans, a jealous ex, a motorcycle crash, a crisis of conscience, a break up, six pints of ice cream, four pounds of gummy bears, a partnership offer, a heart-to-heart, a family interrogation, a grovel, and a death-defying midnight climb to get them together.

She's not really your type," Ethan said, leaning against the bar. Liam bristled. "You don't know what my type is. Maybe I've just been killing time, waiting for a woman like Daisy who is beautiful, fiercely smart, funny, kindhearted, loving, and totally dedicated to her family. She's organized and efficient, and she created an entire spreadsheet with a plan to make this marriage authentic. She's got it all under control. And she's going to kill it at quiz night tonight because she has an incredible memory for trivia. She knows how many tamales people ate in San Francisco in 1890." Rainey and Ethan shared a look. "He slept with her.

It was Romulus who was responsible for her education, not Oenone. The habitat personality acted as her teacher, directing a steady stream of information into her sleeping brain; the process was interactive, allowing the habitat to quiz her silently and repeat anything which hadn’t been fully assimilated the first time. She learnt about the difference between Edenists and Adamists, those humans who had the affinity gene and those who didn’t, the ‘originals’, whose DNA was geneered but not expanded. The flood of knowledge sparked an equally impressive curiosity. Romulus didn’t mind, it had infinite patience with all its half-million-strong population. This difference seems silly to me, she confided to

Funny story, but the coincidence of our last names ending in the same letter is what led two such disparate types as Connla and myself to meet and team up in the first place. It’s a long story involving being sorted onto the same team for a pub quiz.

Not just together. They’re practically engaged except for the pesky matter of your dad’s approval.” Layla grinned. “But you know what the two of them are like. They can’t get out of their own heads. It took a broken menstrual pad dispenser, a chance encounter, an inheritance, a failing company, a distillery, a rishta auntie, a hapless suitor, a spreadsheet, seven dates, a sword, extra-hot pork vindaloo, an Irish brawl, a sick dog, endless games of Guitar Hero, a hockey game, Shark Stew, a broken bed, a walk of shame, a quiz night, back-office shenanigans, a jealous ex, a motorcycle crash, a crisis of conscience, a break up, six pints of ice cream, four pounds of gummy bears, a partnership offer, a heart-to-heart, a family interrogation, a grovel, and a death-defying midnight climb to get them together. And now, apparently, it’s all up to you.

Science should matter to us not only because it helps us to control parts of the world, but also because is shows us things that we will -never- master. [...] Nightly - perhaps after the main news bulletin and before the celebrity quiz - we might observe a moment of silence in order to contemplate the 200 to 400 billion stars in our galaxies and the 3 septillion stars in the universe. [...] majestically unaware of everything we are and consolingly unaffected by all that tears us apart.

Science should matter to us not only because it helps us to control parts of the world, but also because is shows us things that we will -never- master. [...] Nightly - perhaps after the main news bulletin and before the celebrity quiz - we might observe a moment of silence in order to contemplate the 200 to 400 billion stars in our galaxies and the 3 septillion stars in the universe. [...] majestically unaware of everything we are and consolingly unaffected by all that tears us apart.