Relative Funny Quotes

Yesterday was surreal. At times K was almost back to herself…funny…interested and relatively mobile. She was tactile and we kissed…she whispered naughty comments into my ear…achingly beautiful…I love her so much

There should be more sincerity and heart in human relations, more silence and simplicity in our interactions. Be rude when you’re angry, laugh when something is funny, and answer when you’re asked.

I wonder if my entire life will be a series of moments in which I realize I’m an idiot long after I can actually do anything about it. Will I ever feel like I know what I’m doing?

It's funny, but certain faces seem to go in and out of style. You look at old photographs and everybody has a certain look to them, almost as if they're related. Look at pictures from ten years later and you can see that there's a new kind of face starting to predominate, and that the old faces are fading away and vanishing, never to be seen again.

Have you ever heard of the theory of relativity?" Artemis blinked. "Is this a joke? I have traveled through time, Doctor. I think I know a little something about relativity.

When they were introduced, he made a witticism, hoping to be liked. She laughed extremely hard, hoping to be liked. Then each drove home alone, staring straight ahead, with the very same twist to their faces. The man who'd introduced them didn't much like either of them, though he acted as if he did, anxious as he was to preserve good relations at all times. One never knew, after all, now did one now did one now did one.

Flattery does not encourage the perfect flow of love in the vein of your relationship. Be genuine and speak out what you feel for each other without hiding the painful truth.

[The American President] has to take all sorts of abuse from liars and demagogues.… The people can never understand why the President does not use his supposedly great power to make ’em behave. Well, all the President is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.

I had a dream about you. I was sitting on your couch, relating my succession of ideas on subconscious influence. I asked you what they meant, and you told me that free associations were a bad way to advance my political career.

I squinted at her. “You’re an adult.” “You’re an adult too.” “But you’re an older adult. You’ve had more practice.” Mom leaned back and laughed.

ITS NOT FUNNY!" "You're right," agreed Sydney. "It's no funny. It's hilarious." We were back at Raymond's house, in the privacy of our room. It had taken forever for us to get away form the fireside festivities, particularly after learning a terrible fact about a Keeper custom. Well, I thought it was terrible, at least. It truned out that if someone wanted to marry domeone else around here, the prospectimve bride and groom each had to battle it out with the other's nearest relative of the same sex. Angeline had spotted Joshua's interest from the moment I'd arrived, and when she'd seen the bracelet, she'd assumed some sort of arragement has been made.

Alexia had found pregnancy relatively manageable, up to a point. That point having been some three weeks ago, at which juncture her natural reserves of control gave way to sentimentality. Only yesterday she had ended breakfast sobbing over the fried eggs because they looked at her funny. The pack had spent a good half hour trying to find a way to pacify her. Her husband was so worried he looked to start crying himself.

It's funny how this total stranger could relate to me better than anyone else I'd ever met. It was as if I'd known her my entire life.

Nah, Dad, I'm good. Please leave me in this hotel bedroom with my handsome boyfriend. And several of his relatives, and a very sharp weapon." "Clearly I went badly wrong somewhere when raising you," said Dad. "Well, best to do down before Tomo gets into the vodka.

Did you really just invite Adrian to your room later?" asked Lissa. Avery shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. Sometimes we hang out once you guys are all tucked into bed. You aren't going to get jealous, are you?" "No," laughed Lissa. "Just curious. Adrian's a good guy." "Oh?" asked Christian. "Define 'good'." Avery held up her hand and began ticking items off with each finger. "He's devastatingly handsome, funny, rich, related to the queen..." "You got your wedding colors picked out?" asked Lissa, still laughing. "Not yet," said Avery. "I'm still testing the waters. I figured he'd be an easy notch on the Avery Lazar belt, but he's kind of hard to read." "I really don't want to be hearing this," Christian said.

Asked in 1919 whether it was true that only three people in the world understood the theory of general relativity, [Eddington] allegedly replied: 'Who's the third?

Eventually, Krysomallos would be skinned for his fleece, which became known as the Golden Fleece, which means I am related to a sheepskin rug. This is why you don't want to think too hard about who you're related to in the Greek myths. It'll drive you crazy.

I tell yeh, Bright-eyes. Men and women? A bloody mess. Every time.

Zen cuts straight through the Quidditch match in progress and almost gets taken down by a Beater hurling a Nerf quaffle right at his machopartes.

Please ta meetcha, kid. I'm Aahz." "Oz?" "No Relation." "No relation to what?" I asked, but he was examining the room again.

Mallory dropped her head to the steering wheel. "Look, I'm mad at you, okay? This isn't about me. I know my painful memories are relative. My life is good. I'm lucky. This isn't about how poor little Mallory has had it so hard. I'm not falling apart or anything." He stroked a hand down her back. "Of course you're not. You're just holding the steering wheel up with your head for a minute, that's all.

The funny thing about life is that there’s a lot you don’t get to choose. You don’t get to choose whom you’re related to. You don’t get to choose your hair color, your height, or what natural talents you are given. You don’t get to choose where you are born, or who or what the world will see when they look at you. But the best part of life is that in the end, none of that matters. You get to choose who you become. Who you love. You can change your hair color and, to an extent, you can even change your eye color and height. You can learn to be great at something.

My family tree spreads wide as well. I am a great ape, and you are a great ape, and so are chimpanzees and orangutans and bonobos, all of us distant and distrustful cousins. I know this is troubling. I too find it hard to believe there is a connection across time and space, linking me to a race of ill-mannered clowns. Chimps. There's no excuse for them.

The fate of the world depends upon whether or not you can bring yourself to visit your relatives ..." ~ Skulduggery Pleasant

I am an adult now (sort of, kind of, not really).

This book is for all of us who looked up at the sky in wonder, and then cried when we learned how much calculus separated us from the stars

Darker thoughts crowded in during the deepest hours of the night when he woke listening to the secret mystifying sounds of the sleeping palace. Many nights, the king was there. Pleasant, irrelevant, and distracting, he eased Relius past nightmares and self-recrimination. Some nights he said nothing at all, just comforted with his presence. Other nights he related the events of his day, spewing out his insights and analyses of the Attolian court in a devastatingly funny critique.

Whatever— the soup is getting cold. [Last sentence of a mathematical theorem in Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook, 1518]

You will have relatively less problems to solve, if you don't confuse problems with inconveniences.

It was barely ten in the morning, and Tuesday was already fucked.

The Dictionary defines Soul Mate as: A person who is perfectly suited to another in temperament. Before I met mine, I didn't know I was bonkers!

They told me that nothing was a sin, just a poor life choice. Poor impulse control. That nothing is evil. Any concept of right versus wrong, according to them, is merely a cultural construct relative to one specific time and place. They said that if anything should force us to modify our personal behavior it should be our allegiance to a social contract, not some vague, externally imposed threat of flaming punishment.

I’m related to one. Can you believe that? It was bad enough thinking I was paranoid, going crazy or maybe just cursed, but to find out Gods are real and that I’m related to one… life sucks lemons and I’ve run out of tequila and salt.

It's funny, but we only know the people in our lives in relation to who they are to us--a father or a mother or a brother. We never see them the way others do.

Some people stride toward a better future. Others have chauffeurs.

The truth can be very funny in an awful way, especially as it relates to greed and hipocrisy.

Always keep in mind the existence of those individuals, whether relatives or great friends, who believe that reality must adapt to their immediate impulses and desires. Those who created opportunities to hurt you, and then find it funny to watch your pain, sometimes pointing it out to others, instead of protecting your privacy and helping you comfort yourself.

Admirable? And she’s related to Rey? How come he’s such a weasel then?” “There’s a messed up weasel in every family. Look at you.” Lex smirked at his brother as he heaved himself off the couch and headed down the hall to the kitchen. He bent to grab a beer from the fridge and tossed one to Cade. “Ha ha, very funny. Call me Alpha when you say that,” Cade growled.

he commences to laugh. Nobody can tell exactly why he laughs; there’s nothing funny going on. But it’s not the way that Public Relation laughs, it’s free and loud and it comes out of his wide grinning mouth and spreads in rings bigger and bigger till it’s lapping against the walls all over the ward. Not like that fat Public Relation laugh. This sounds real. I realize all of a sudden it’s the first laugh I’ve heard in years. He stands looking at us, rocking back in his boots, and he laughs and laughs. He laces his fingers

Have you noticed how dogs sniff at one another when they meet? It seems to be their nature. - Yes; it's a funny habit. - No, it's not funny; you are wrong there. There's nothing funny in nature, however funny it may seem to man. If dogs could reason and criticize us they'd be sure to find just as much that would be funny to them, if not far more, in the social relations of men, their masters -far more, I think. I am more convinced that there is far more foolishness among us.

It was funny, in her old age, to look back and see for how short a period her nest had NOT been empty. Relatively speaking, it was nothing - empty far longer than full. so much of herself had been invested in those children; who could believe how briefly they'd been with her.

The Barbies with their stick legs and rocket breasts were another problem Megan had to endure. She was supposed to spend hours dressing up or playing house with them, including the darker ones she was supposed to find more relatable. In a fit she'd once tried to commit Barbicide, defaced them with colored marker pens, chopped off hair, extracted eyes with scissors and de-limbed a few... The Barbie invasion proliferated on birthdays and at Christmas, relatives talked about incredible collection, as if she'd actually chosen to have them in her life.

It was a Wednesday, I think. Yes, a Wednesday, that miserable day sandwiched between the dreadful Monday and Tuesday and the 'all right' Thursday and Friday, which ultimately gave way to what I hoped woud be a glorious weekend.

My mind is a dramatic and often inaccurate place. Point is—you said we should talk.

MY DAD ISNT A KILLER!!!" he yelled. -paragraph- "cant relate," Cara shrugged.

Chizpurfle infestations explain the puzzling failure of many relatively new Muggle electrical artifacts.

he commences to laugh. Nobody can tell exactly why he laughs; there’s nothing funny going on. But it’s not the way that Public Relation laughs, it’s free and loud and it comes out of his wide grinning mouth and spreads in rings bigger and bigger till it’s lapping against the walls all over the ward. Not like that fat Public Relation laugh. This sounds real. I realize all of a sudden it’s the first laugh I’ve heard in years.

I speak languages with more ease than I read or write them, she explains. It is something in the feel of the sounds. I could attempt to put them on paper but I am sure the result would be appalling.

My mom believed that you make your own luck. Over the stove she had hung these old, maroon painted letters that spell out, “MANIFEST.” The idea being if you thought and dreamed about the way you wanted your life to be -- if you just envisioned it long enough, it would come into being. But as hard as I had manifested Astrid Heyman with her hand in mine, her blue eyes gazing into mine, her lips whispering something wild and funny and outrageous in my ear, she had remained totally unaware of my existence. Truly, to even dream of dreaming about Astrid, for a guy like me, in my relatively low position on the social ladder of Cheyenne Mountain High, was idiotic. And with her a senior and me a junior? Forget it. Astrid was just lit up with beauty: shining blonde ringlets, June sky blue eyes, slightly furrowed brow, always biting back a smile, champion diver on the swim team. Olympic level. Hell, Astrid was Olympic level in every possible way.

Science Fiction properly conceived, like all serious fiction, however funny, is a way of trying to describe what is going on, what people actually do and feel, how people relate to everything else in this vast sack, this belly of the universe, this womb of things to be and tomb of things that were, this unending story. In it, as in all fiction, there is room enough to keep even Man where he belongs, in his place in the scheme of things, there is time enough to gather plenty of wild oats and sow them, too, and sing to little Oom, and listen to Ool's joke, and watch newts, and still the story isn't over. Still there are seeds to be gathered and room in the bag of stars.

Some people (like singularly unhelpful and clearly underqualified physical therapists, unsympathetic GPs, and that supremely irritating second cousin who ate all the stuffing at Christmas) assumed that a lack of feeling in certain body parts shouldn’t affect sleep at all. Her insomnia in such situations, they said, was something she could easily overcome. Chloe liked to remind those people that the human brain tended to keep track of all body parts, and was prone to panic when one of those parts went offline. Actually, what Chloe liked to do was imagine hitting those people with a brick.

Several months ago there was a somewhat, in some people's eyes, relatively normal Cal--or by and large normal--the best he was able to be as half Auphe. Occasionally he did lose his shit, attacked and ate deer while on road trips through the woods, created massive holes in between dimensions to shove through malevolently murderous pucks, and once in a while ripped out an Auphe's throat with his teeth. He also opened a gate or two to save his friends, blew up an antihealer from the inside out to save the world, cleaned his guns while watching porn, and generally was a smart-ass to everyone. Normal.

I will do arts, then maybe honours and a PhD (I am the kind of person who will just keep automatically doing the next study option until there are none left).

I’m disrespectful,” I say, “but I’m not rude.

I've always been uncomfortable with compliments, though I have a pathological need for them.

Well, you keep your place then, Nigger. I could get you strung upon a tree so easy it ain’t even funny.

Purgatory of about ten seconds' duration while I debate all I'd like to say. I don't know whether to look straight past him, shake his hand by way of greeting, or simply run off screaming.

... but then I was so utterly entranced by our discussion of Einstein's relative theory -" "Relativity," Ling corrected quickly under her breath. "- that I completely lost track of the time. "Funny," Ling whispered. "What?" Henry said. "Lost track of..." Ling shook her head, "never mind.

Hey, I am thinking of it myself, in this part of world (East), we all do endeavors in praying and are sweating (white liquid) and this is our situation, frustrated , but on the other part of world (West) ,they are enjoying in party and drinking liquor (white liquid) but their situation is that, successful, I do not know that the problem relates to the type of liquid or the way of drinking!!

The funny thing about games and fictions is that they have a weird way of bleeding into reality. Whatever else it is, the world that humans experience is animated with narratives, rituals, and roles that organize psychological experience, social relations, and our imaginative grasp of the material cosmos. The world, then, is in many ways a webwork of fictions, or, better yet, of stories. The contemporary urge to “gamify” our social and technological interactions is, in this sense, simply an extension of the existing games of subculture, of folklore, even of belief. This is the secret truth of the history of religions: not that religions are “nothing more” than fictions, crafted out of sociobiological need or wielded by evil priests to control ignorant populations, but that human reality possesses an inherently fictional or fantastic dimension whose “game engine” can — and will — be organized along variously visionary, banal, and sinister lines. Part of our obsession with counterfactual genres like sci-fi or fantasy is not that they offer escape from reality — most of these genres are glum or dystopian a lot of the time anyway — but because, in reflecting the “as if” character of the world, they are actually realer than they appear.

One pundit had asked her to visualize herself in the career she wanted while he chanted prayers to make her vision a reality. Her mind had gone blank, and this canvas of nothingness was the image sent up to the Gods.

Sir Henry fixed him with a keen eye. 'Odd name, Tom Skatt - eh?' 'Thats right' 'You don't think we could be related?' Tom looked up at his great-great-great-uncle and smiled. 'I don't think so' 'No,' grinned Sir Henry "no, of course not

Do you have a dog?' she asked. 'No, but...' Just answer the question. Do you have a dog? 'No, but...' Just answer the question. Have you ever had a dog? 'No, but...' Just answer the question. Have you ever had a dog? 'No.' Naida said, 'I rest my case.

[Robert] Jensen calls for an end to our current understanding of masculinity. He says, "We men can settle for being men, or we can strive to be human beings." What's funny is that that statement essentially echoes the same hope I have for women: that we can start to see ourselves, and encourage men to see us, as more than just the sum of our sexual parts: not as virgins or whores, as mothers or girlfriends, or as existing only in relation to men, but as people with independent desires, hopes and abilities.

You had every intention of being depressed forever, but as it turns out, there’s work to be done, meals to eat, movies to see, errands to run. You meant to be in ruins permanently, your misery a monument, a gash across the cold hard earth, but honestly, who has the time for that?

It had been in a Paris house, with many people around, and my dear friend Jules Darboux, wishing to do me a refined aesthetic favor, had touched my sleeve and said, "I want you to meet-" and led me to Nina, who sat in the corner of a couch, her body folded Z-wise, with an ashtray at her heel, and she took a long turquoise cigarette holder from her lips and joyfully, slowly exclaimed, "Well, of all people-" and then all evening my heart felt like breaking, as I passed from group to group with a sticky glass in my fist, now and then looking at her from a distance (she did not look...), and listening to scraps of conversation, and overheard one man saying to another, "Funny, how they all smell alike, burnt leaf through whatever perfume they use, those angular dark-haired girls," and as it often happens, a trivial remark related to some unknown topic coiled and clung to one's own intimate recollection, a parasite of its sadness.

People never like to talk about their slower relatives. I got a cousin, twice removed, got webs between his toes, ain't said one word his whole life. You never hear about him in the family newsletter that goes around every Christmas. Hell, nobody mentions me, either, if it comes to that. Families is funny about who they advertise.

In the end, it was relatively easy to let go of Peter, to accept his actions as proof of the truth: that our relationship, our life together, his feelings for me were never quite what I thought they were. And I stopped longing for him when I accepted this, because how could I miss someone who didn’t exist? So why can’t I seem to do the same thing with my father? Why can’t I stop missing the dad I never had? Why is he this constant dull ache in my heart? I knew he wouldn’t change. But a part of me kept hoping I had changed enough that he couldn’t hurt me, or that this new iteration of me would be the one worth sticking around for. That I’d fixed whatever’s so broken in me that I can’t be loved.

Funny is like sexy, and they are kind of related. What turns one person on is hilarious to another person. And vice versa. And you can see all of this at the nexus of clowns. Many people think clowns are hilarious. (Many others think clowns are creepy.) But there is a certain percentage of people who think clowns are sexy. Don't believe me, Google "clown porn" right now. I dare you. And if you don't need to Google that, then it's because it is already saved on your browser. So when these dudes say, "Women aren't funny," they are forgetting a classically important addendum: "to me." They should be saying, "Women aren't funny to me." But they don't say "to me" because if you are a man in America, you are considered the norm. (Remember it's the NBA and the W[omen's]NBA, not the WNBA and the M[en's]NBA.) And if you are a white man in America, then you are also considered the norm.

You took the sunrise seriously." She nodded. "Googled it and everything.

We don't know they're friends. They could be brother and sister." "Impossible. They're smiling." "You're right. They're definitely not related.

I'm so embarrassed by everything all the time, humiliated even by the need to breathe air where other people can see me

Mama always says there are no ugly women, only lazy women—but from what I’ve gathered, it’s more like there are no ugly women, only broke women.

The toll of the last three weeks has given him a slightly feral edge—a Labrador bitten by a werewolf and dumped back at the pound. Relatable, honestly.

I'm sitting in the bleachers, watching longingly as all the boys and umbumped girls in my Personal Health and Fitness class play Muggle Quidditch. I don't even like the game very much, I think it's silly, but I so miss physical activity that I'd be thrilled if I could run around the gymnasium with a broom between my legs, chasing after the human snitch wearing a gold pinny.

Humans are most imaginative when they need a means of self-destruction. If the world existed in an overflowing amount of happiness; a utopian state, then the suicide rate would dwarf any extinction level threat. Humans cannot be trusted with their own survival. Their minds have been trained to be blindly and unconsciously subjugated. In a time related to Heaven-on-Earth, the smallest amount of worry, will drive a human into the arms of death. This is how weak and fragile the human mind and will is. It's funny, because the best friend of humanity, is none other than Chaos itself.

It’s funny, even though we’ve just been discussing dementia-related stuff, for the last few minutes, it didn’t feel like either of us had dementia. It felt like we were just a guy and a girl, discussing life.

Also funny how, even knowing that it was almost over, the hold she had on me only got harder to break. Almost like it was related to her expanding belly—as if by getting bigger, she was gaining gravitational force.

Accent is the last great redoubt of prejudice. The race relations industry, that inquisition of fairness and sensitivity, doesn't protect against discrimination by funny voice. You can mock an accent with impunity, and everyone does

Él es un chico bajito, así feillo, pelo castaño, ojos marrones, lo típico, moreno, es así feillo, pero tiene un gran personalidad, pero claro, eso no lo valoran. Es el típico friki, pero de un friki un poco distinto.Su nombre es Jack.

The last I knew you were going to a party. just a few friends at the McEvoys' you told me. The science club, you told me. What happened? You got into a fight about the theory of relativity? Did creationists crash the party and start a rumble?

A few years back, they jacked David Copperfield in West Palm Beach, for Chrissake. Yes, it's funny: "Yo, empty your pockets," and he pulls out a bunny rabbit. But it's also depressing. If someone who can make himself disappear isn't safe, who is?

Tragedies, I was coming to realize through my daily studies in humanities both in and out of the classroom, were a luxury. They were constructions of an affluent society, full of sorrow and truth but without moral function. Stories of the vanquishing of the spirit expressed and underscored a certain societal spirit to spare. The weakening of the soul, the story of the downfall and the failed overcoming - trains missed, letters not received, pride flaring, the demolition of one's own offspring, who were then served up in stews - this was awe-inspiring, wounding entertainment told uselessly and in comfort at tables full of love and money. Where life was meagerer, where the tables were only half full, the comic triumph of the poor was the useful demi-lie. Jokes were needed. And then the baby feel down the stairs. This could be funny! Especially in a place and time where worse things happened. It wasn't that suffering was a sweepstakes, but it certainly was relative. For understanding and for perspective, suffering required a butcher's weighing. And to ease the suffering of the listener, things had better be funny. Though they weren't always. And this is how, sometimes, stories failed us: Not that funny. Or worse, not funny in the least.

since it sounds like from a . . . reputation standpoint”—he said the word “reputation” rolling his eyes a little, as if the concept of caring about what others thought were the dumbest thing since homeopathic antibiotics—“things cannot get any worse for you.

When you are a kid, playing with the other kids on your street, and everyone is fighting over who they are going to be, you have to call dibs early, as soon as you see one another, pretty much as soon as you step outside your house, even if you're halfway down the block. First dibs gets Hans Solo. Everyone knows that. You don't even have to say it. If you are first, you are Han Solo, period, end of story...I was never totally sure why everyone wanted to be Han Solo. Maybe it was because he wasn't born into it, like Luke, with the birthright and the natural talent for the Force and the premade story. Solo had to make his own story. He was a freelance protagonist, a relatively ordinary guy who got to the major leagues by being quick with a gun and a joke. He was, basically, a hero because he was funny.

Forget bringing the troops home from Iraq. We need to get the troops home from World War II. Can anybody tell me why, in 2009, we still have more than sixty thousand troops in Germany and thirty thousand in Japan? At some point, these people are going to have to learn to rape themselves. Our soldiers have been in Germany so long they now wear shorts with black socks. You know that crazy soldier hiding in the cave on Iwo Jima who doesn’t know the war is over? That’s us. Bush and Cheney used to love to keep Americans all sphinctered-up on the notion that terrorists might follow us home. But actually, we’re the people who go to your home and then never leave. Here’s the facts: The Republic of America has more than five hundred thousand military personnel deployed on more than seven hundred bases, with troops in one hundred fifty countries—we’re like McDonald’s with tanks—including thirty-seven European countries—because you never know when Portugal might invade Euro Disney. And this doesn’t even count our secret torture prisons, which are all over the place, but you never really see them until someone brings you there—kinda like IHOP. Of course, Americans would never stand for this in reverse—we can barely stand letting Mexicans in to do the landscaping. Can you imagine if there were twenty thousand armed Guatemalans on a base in San Ber-nardino right now? Lou Dobbs would become a suicide bomber. And why? How did this country get stuck with an empire? I’m not saying we’re Rome. Rome had good infrastructure. But we are an empire, and the reason is because once America lands in a country, there is no exit strategy. We’re like cellulite, herpes, and Irish relatives: We are not going anywhere. We love you long time!

No more bereavement food. I was sick of it. It’s funny how time is measured after you’ve lost someone. Everything relates back to that second your life swerved. The calendar isn’t measured by the names of the months or seasons anymore, but by those significant dates. The day we met. The first time we kissed. The first dinner with his family. The anniversary of his death. The date of his funeral.

Suddenly, I missed Jenna so much that it was almost a physical ache. I wanted to hold her hand, and hear her say something that would make this whole situation funny instead of incredibly screwed up. Archer would’ve been nice, too. He probably would’ve raised an eyebrow in that annoying/hot way he had, and made a dirty joke about Elodie possessing me. Or Cal. He wouldn’t say anything, but just his presence would make me feel better. And Dad- “Sophie,” Mom said, shaking me out of my reverie. “I don’t…I don’t even know how to start explaining all of this to you.” She looked at me, her eyes red. “I meant to, so many times, but everything was always so…complicated. Do you hate me?” I took a deep breath. “Of course not. I mean, I’m not thrilled. And I totally reserve the right to angst over all this later. But honestly, Mom? Right now, I’m so happy to see you that I wouldn’t care if you’re secretly a ninja sent from the future to destroy kittens and rainbows.” She chuckled, a choked and watery sound. “I missed you so much, Soph.” We hugged, my face against her collarbone. “I want the whole story, though,” I said, my words muffled. “All of it on the table.” She nodded. “Absolutely. After we talk to Aislinn.” Pulling back, I grimaced. “So how exactly are you related to her? Are you guys like, cousins?” “We’re sisters.” I stared at her. “Wait. So you’re like, a Brannick Brannick? But you don’t even have red hair.” Mom got off the bed, twisting her ponytail into a bun. “It’s called dye, Soph. Now, come on. Aislinn is already in a mood.” “Yeah, picked up on that,” I muttered, shoving the covers off and standing up

Humor comes out of the unexpected: If there’s no surprise, there’s no laugh. In a triple, as discussed in chapter seven, the first two lines are often straight lines; this is the realistic element. The third line is the surprise twist—logically related to the first two lines, but unexpected and exaggerated. Realism is the setup, while exaggeration is the joke. “Get your facts first,” wrote Mark Twain, “and then you can distort them as much as you please.

How did you get through it?” I asked her. I was hoping she was going to recommend a book, a pill, some quick fix to make this feeling of inadequacy go away. Instead, she looked at me kindly, quite earnestly, and said, “You know, I think after years and years, I learned to stop giving a fuck. If people I knew, friends or relatives or strangers or whoever, had an opinion about what kind of mother I was or wasn’t, if they thought I was making mistakes, or doing things the wrong way, being too this or too that, being selfish by not giving all of myself to my kids, I eventually decided, fuck ’em. I’m doing the best I can in a culture that offers parents little material or emotional support. If people have a problem with the way I’m doing it, fuck every last one of them. And it’s funny—that anger—that was what got me to a place where I could finally stop caring and enjoy the little monsters. That’s when I started feeling better.

Laughter may not be nearly as expressive as language, but it has two properties that make it ideal for navigating sensitive topics. First, it’s relatively honest. With words, it’s too easy to pay lip service to rules we don’t really care about, or values that we don’t genuinely feel in our gut. But laughter, because it’s involuntary, doesn’t lie—at least not as much. “In risu veritas,” said James Joyce; “In laughter, there is truth.”51 Second, laughter is deniable. In this way, it gives us safe harbor, an easy out. When someone accuses us of laughing inappropriately, it’s easy to brush off. “Oh, I didn’t really understand what she meant,” we might demur. Or, “Come on, lighten up! It was only a joke!” And we can deliver these denials with great conviction because we really don’t have a clear understanding of what our laughter means or why we find funny things funny. Our brains just figure it out, without burdening “us” with too many damning details.

It won't work. You see, he is a liar and a thief. And he's been one for too long. He can't retire now. In addition to which. He has become, I'm afraid, a hack.' 'He may be all those things but she knows he's not.' 'What gives her that curious idea?' 'She's been with him constantly for the last few days. She's seen him shaking with terror, exhausted, ready to quit. She's watched him pull himself together again and she's also seen him be warm and tender. And funny. Not famous-international-wit funny but really funny.' 'Do you think she's an idiot? Do you think she doesn't know what kind of man he is? Or what he needs?' 'And what he needs is L-O-V-E? Uh-uh it's too late. He is 43 years old. Or will be this October. He's been married twice, both times disastrously and there have been too many years of... too much dough, too much bad writing and too much whiskey. He's got nothing left inside to give. Even if he could, which he can't.' 'But that's not true. You can, you have. I just know it.' 'No, you don't. It's lousy. In any case, the problem is you're not in love with the script. You're in love with me. And why shouldn't you be? When suddenly, waltzing into your life comes this charming and relatively handsome stranger. Me. Smooth as silk, with a highly practised line of chatter, specifically designed to knock relatively unsophisticated chicks like you Miss Simpson, right on their ears. Which I'm terribly afraid I've done. Well if it's the last decent thing I do in this world, and it very well may be, I'm going to fix that. I'm going to send you packing Miss Simpson before I cause you serious and irrevocable harm. You want the truth? Of course you don't. I'll give it to you anyway. I do not give one damn about anything.

The sides of my head throb. My knees feel weak. “You need therapy.” Mom laughs the most over-the-top, hysterical laugh I’ve ever heard. “It’s not funny. There is something wrong with you. Who treats their kids this way? There’s a reason none of us want to be around you. There’s a reason Shoji wants to live with Dad, and why Taro spent the rest of the summer with his friend, and why I want to go to art school thousands of miles away from you.” My face burns with frustration. “You are so obsessed with yourself that there isn’t any room for anyone else’s feelings. You don’t care about anything unless it somehow relates back to you.” I start to walk away, intent on leaving her alone in her chair. But something stops me. Spinning back to face her, my breathing erratic and my voice hoarse, I growl, “And I’m not imagining what happened to me. Your sick brother sexually abused me. I don’t care what you think it’s called, because that’s what it is. Sexual abuse. I was sexually abused. Do you get that? And if you were any kind of mother, that would have mattered to you. You wouldn’t have tried to justify it or rationalize it away by saying it wasn’t rape and therefore isn’t as bad—it was bad. That’s it.

Poverty is a funny phenomenon. It is always defined financially and always relative to what other people earn. It is possible to be extremely happy despite having little money and being officially categorised as poverty-stricken. You can also be really unhappy despite earning a high salary. Those who always want something more will always live in poverty, regardless of how much they earn, while those who are content with what they have will always feel they have an abundance. Most poverty in the UK isn't material poverty, it's spiritual poverty, a state of mind in which fulfilment comes only from the pursuit of material gain.

The military authorities were concerned that soldiers going home on leave would demoralize the home population with horror stories of the Ostfront. ‘You are under military law,’ ran the forceful reminder, ‘and you are still subject to punishment. Don’t speak about weapons, tactics or losses. Don’t speak about bad rations or injustice. The intelligence service of the enemy is ready to exploit it.’ One soldier, or more likely a group, produced their own version of instructions, entitled ‘Notes for Those Going on Leave.’ Their attempt to be funny reveals a great deal about the brutalizing affects of the Ostfront. ‘You must remember that you are entering a National Socialist country whose living conditions are very different to those to which you have been accustomed. You must be tactful with the inhabitants, adapting to their customs and refrain from the habits which you have come to love so much. Food: Do not rip up the parquet or other kinds of floor, because potatoes are kept in a different place. Curfew: If you forget your key, try to open the door with the round-shaped object. Only in cases of extreme urgency use a grenade. Defense Against Partisans: It is not necessary to ask civilians the password and open fire upon receiving an unsatisfactory answer. Defense Against Animals: Dogs with mines attached to them are a special feature of the Soviet Union. German dogs in the worst cases bite, but they do not explode. Shooting every dog you see, although recommended in the Soviet Union, might create a bad impression. Relations with the Civil Population: In Germany just because someone is wearing women’s clothes does not necessarily mean that she is a partisan. But in spite of this, they are dangerous for anyone on leave from the front. General: When on leave back to the Fatherland take care not to talk about the paradise existence in the Soviet Union in case everybody wants to come here and spoil our idyllic comfort.

You can't write an honest novel about race in this country. If you write about how people are really affected by race, it'll be too obvious. Black writers who do literary fiction in this country, all three of them, not the ten thousand who write those bullshit ghetto books with the bright covers, have two choices: they can do precious or they can do pretentious. When you do neither, nobody knows what to do with you. So if you're going to write about race, you have to make sure it's so lyrical and subtle that the reader who doesn't read between the lines won't even know it's about race. You know, a Proustian meditation, all watery and fuzzy, that at the end just leaves you feeling watery and fuzzy." "Or just find a white writer. White writers can be blunt about race and get all activist because their anger isn't threatening.

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.

Home.” There really ought to be several different words for that, one for the place and one for the people, because after enough years a person’s relationship to their town becomes more and more like a marriage. Both are held together by stories of what we have in common, the little things no one else knows about, the private jokes that only we think are funny, and that very particular laugh that you only laugh for me. Falling in love with a place and falling in love with a person are related adventures. At first we run around street corners giggling and explore every inch of each other’s skin, over the years we get to know every cobblestone and strand of hair and snore, and the waters of time soften our passion into unfailing love, and in the end the eyes we wake up next to and the horizon outside our window are the same thing: home. So there ought to be two words for that, one for the home which can carry you through your darkest moments, and one for the home which binds you. Because sometimes we stay in towns and marriages simply because we would otherwise have no story. We have too much in common. We think no one else would be able to under-stand us.

Maybe it was easier if you knew your child was dead. It was a thought that stopped him in his tracks sometimes but he knew that it was the truth. If the child was dead then you had to figure out a way forward. It was being locked in this permanent state of limbo that was keeping Sarah in bed.One night he had come home from the day with a story of one of the young lads sliding through some fairly big cow pats. The boy had landed on his butt and there had been laughter all round. Restrained laughter but, still, it was funny. He had sat on the edge of the bed and related the story to Sarah and she had smiled and then released a small giggle. Immediately he could see her regret it and he had watched her bite down hard on her lip. Hard enough to draw some blood. ‘It’s okay, Sarah,’ he had said gently. ‘It’s okay to laugh.’ ‘Bullshit, Doug,’ she had spat back at him. ‘How can you laugh if he’s not laughing? How can I laugh knowing that he may be suffering?’ ‘I . . . I . . .’ Doug had started, then he had left the room. If a child died did it end this struggle? Could you put your faith in God and heaven and know he was in a better place, laughing with other children? Was that how you were able to move on?

Incubus?" I asked Ben. He nodded grimly. "A lost soul-usually male-turned evil spirit that attaches itself to someone in order to lead her astray. The spirit is kind of...sexual in nature." He reddened and gestured to the picture. "Like it shows there. The incubus comes to a woman and has...you know...relations with her in her sleep." My jaw dropped, and I was glad Ben's eyes were averted as an exhilarating stream of images from my dreams flashed at super-speed through my head. I didn't realize I'd been holding my breath until it came out in a whoosh that I tried to pass off as a laugh. "It's not funny, Clea." "It's insane. Even if there were such a thing as an evil spirit, wouldn't it be obvious if I'd spent my whole life stalked by one? Wouldn't terrible things have happened to me?" "Maybe they will. Maybe he's just been waiting for the right time. Maybe that time is now, and that's why all of a sudden you see him everywhere." "So he's a patient evil spirit," I said sarcastically. "Know what else comes from the same Latin root as 'incubus'?" Ben retorted. "Incubate. I don't think it's coincidence. I think this...thing has been incubating, and now it's ready to come out and do whatever it's going to do. And I think your dad would agree with me.