Rubber Chicken Quotes

You can't get a suit of armour and a rubber chicken just like that. You have to plan ahead.

Te vivo?” Winter nods. “It’s Portuguese. My dad used to say it to my sister and me. Sadly, it’s some of the only Portuguese I know. It means ‘I live you’ or something along those lines.” “You mean I love you?” “No.” I scrub at my stubble and glance down at our daughter, who is now amusing herself by playing her favorite game of fetch with Peter and his miniature rubber chicken. “It means . . . I live you. Like I see you everywhere, you are in everything. Our connection is more than physical.

I blamed this on Kelly Clarkson. On Kelly-Freaking-Clarkson. The angry man standing across the kitchen island looked like he was about to throttle me. I had visions of large hands gripped firmly around my neck shaking me like a rubber chicken. His eyes flashed with frustration and I cursed Kelly Clarkson straight to the grave.

Since that era the question “Do you have any food restrictions?” has become a part of the etiquette of a dinner invitation, and participants at conference dinners can now tick a box that will replace a plate of rubber chicken with a plate of sodden eggplant.

I whispered, "Do you have a rubber?" He laughed, hushed, a laughing whisper, as though his parents were in the next room, and reached one arm past my head to a nightstand there. "A rubber chicken." He shook the dancing chicken in the air. "Will that do?" I laughed back, ran a finger along the bumps of the fake chicken skin. "Ribbed and beaked for her pleasure, even. Want me to leave you two alone?" He threw the chicken on the floor and bit my neck and I giggled and he said, "Never," and he was everywhere then. The couch was a sinking place and I disappeared into the orgy of costumes, the smell of nervous strangers, makeup and smoke, my naked body buried in the perfume of human need. I took the rubber chicken home. Plucky was my mascot, the souvenir of our date. Later, much later, there was the conception of our child. And now the miscarriage, unexpected, though I should've expected it because, why not? -- family slid through my fingers the same as the old silicone banana-peel trick. After the D&C, after the suctioning away of our tiny fetus, I drew the black heart on Plucky's rubber breast in the place where a chicken might have a heart, over the ridges of implied feathers. Indelible ink. Now she'd been nabbed by a kid too young to know what love means, what a chicken might mean. Too young to know that a rubber chicken can carry all of love in one indelible ink heart.

So we go around pigeonholing everything. We put cows in cowsheds, horses in stables, pigs in pigsties, and chickens in chicken coops. The same happens when Sophie Amundsen tidies up her room. She puts her books on the bookshelf, her schoolbooks in her schoolbag, and her magazines in the drawer. She folds her clothes neatly and puts them in the closet - underwear on one shelf, sweaters on another, and socks in a drawer on their own. Notice that we do the same thing in our minds. we distinguish between things made of stone, things made of wool, and things made of rubber. We distinguish between things that are alive or dead, and we distinguish between vegetables, animal, and human

already she drew in the sand with her big toe: King Solomon, as though he were a rubber ball, an apocalyptic, bearded herring, an imperial walking-stick, an amalgam, half chicken and half Solomon.

I imagined that a better world would be less complicated, less involved, and with less need to mass produce doorknobs and lock sets, electric outlets, power cords, frozen chicken wings, packages of steak, rubber bands, and a million little foam earbuds that slip over the broadcasting end of an iPod. I'd stand staring at Jenna's room, the recycling porch, and imagine what my life would be like if I could squeeze all my worldly possessions into a space like that.

Harry looked out for the first time at Ron’s house. It looked as though it had once been a large stone pigpen, but extra rooms had been added here and there until it was several stories high and so crooked it looked as though it were held up by magic (which, Harry reminded himself, it probably was). Four or five chimneys were perched on top of the red roof. A lopsided sign stuck in the ground near the entrance read, THE BURROW. Around the front door lay a jumble of rubber boots and a very rusty cauldron. Several fat brown chickens were pecking their way around the yard. “It’s not much,” said Ron. “It’s wonderful,” said Harry happily, thinking of Privet Drive.

Charis watches the chickens eat. They fill her with joy, a joy that has no rational source, because she knows—she has seen, also she remembers—how greedy chickens are, how selfish and unfeeling, how cruel they are to one another, how they gang up: at least two of them have naked scalps, from being picked on. Nor are they placid vegetarians: you can start a riot among them just by tossing them a few hot-dog ends or scraps of bacon. As for the rooster, with his eye of an insane prophet and his fanatic’s air of outrage and his comb and wattles flaunted like genitals, he’s an overbearing autocrat, and attacks her rubber boots when he thinks she’s not looking. Charis doesn’t care; she excuses the chickens everything.

Hush little baby, don’t you cry, Mama’s gonna sing you a lullaby, and if that mockingbird don’t sing, Papa’s gonna buy you a diamond ring. Mama, Dada, uh-oh, ball. Good night tree, good night stars, good night moon, good night nobody. Potato stamps, paper chains, invisible ink, a cake shaped like a flower, a cake shaped like a horse, a cake shaped like a cake, inside voice, outside voice. If you see a bad dog, stand still as a tree. Conch shells, sea glass, high tide, undertow, ice cream, fireworks, watermelon seeds, swallowed gum, gum trees, shoes and ships and sealing wax, cabbages and kings, double dares, alphabet soup, A my name is Alice and my boyfriend’s name is Andy, we come from Alabama and we like apples, A my name is Alice and I want to play the game of looooove. Lightning bugs, falling stars, sea horses, goldfish, gerbils eat their young, please, no peanut butter, parental signature required, #1 Mom, show-and-tell, truth or dare, hide-and-seek, red light, green light, please put your own mask on before assisting, ashes, ashes, we all fall down, how to keep the home fires burning, date night, family night, night-night, May came home with a smooth round stone as small as the world and as big as alone. Stop, Drop, Roll. Salutations, Wilbur’s heart brimmed with happiness. Paper valentines, rubber cement, please be mine, chicken 100 ways, the sky is falling. Monopoly, Monopoly, Monopoly, you be the thimble, Mama, I’ll be the car.

He was walking down a narrow street in Beirut, Lebanon, the air thick with the smell of Arabic coffee and grilled chicken. It was midday, and he was sweating badly beneath his flannel shirt. The so-called South Lebanon conflict, the Israeli occupation, which had begun in 1982 and would last until 2000, was in its fifth year. The small white Fiat came screeching around the corner with four masked men inside. His cover was that of an aid worker from Chicago and he wasn’t strapped. But now he wished he had a weapon, if only to have the option of ending it before they took him. He knew what that would mean. The torture first, followed by the years of solitary. Then his corpse would be lifted from the trunk of a car and thrown into a drainage ditch. By the time it was found, the insects would’ve had a feast and his mother would have nightmares, because the authorities would not allow her to see his face when they flew his body home. He didn’t run, because the only place to run was back the way he’d come, and a second vehicle had already stopped halfway through a three-point turn, all but blocking off the street. They exited the Fiat fast. He was fit and trained, but he knew they’d only make it worse for him in the close confines of the car if he fought them. There was a time for that and a time for raising your hands, he’d learned. He took an instep hard in the groin, and a cosh over the back of his head as he doubled over. He blacked out then. The makeshift cell Hezbollah had kept him in in Lebanon was a bare concrete room, three metres square, without windows or artificial light. The door was wooden, reinforced with iron strips. When they first dragged him there, he lay in the filth that other men had made. They left him naked, his wrists and ankles chained. He was gagged with rag and tape. They had broken his nose and split his lips. Each day they fed him on half-rancid scraps like he’d seen people toss to skinny dogs. He drank only tepid water. Occasionally, he heard the muted sound of children laughing, and smelt a faint waft of jasmine. And then he could not say for certain how long he had been there; a month, maybe two. But his muscles had wasted and he ached in every joint. After they had said their morning prayers, they liked to hang him upside down and beat the soles of his feet with sand-filled lengths of rubber hose. His chest was burned with foul-smelling cigarettes. When he was stubborn, they lay him bound in a narrow structure shaped like a grow tunnel in a dusty courtyard. The fierce sun blazed upon the corrugated iron for hours, and he would pass out with the heat. When he woke up, he had blisters on his skin, and was riddled with sand fly and red ant bites. The duo were good at what they did. He guessed the one with the grey beard had honed his skills on Jewish conscripts over many years, the younger one on his own hapless people, perhaps. They looked to him like father and son. They took him to the edge of consciousness before easing off and bringing him back with buckets of fetid water. Then they rubbed jagged salt into the fresh wounds to make him moan with pain. They asked the same question over and over until it sounded like a perverse mantra. “Who is The Mandarin? His name? Who is The Mandarin?” He took to trying to remember what he looked like, the architecture of his own face beneath the scruffy beard that now covered it, and found himself flinching at the slightest sound. They had peeled back his defences with a shrewdness and deliberation that had both surprised and terrified him. By the time they freed him, he was a different man.  

prospective buyer who knocked on their door in January and found her in a chenille robe, a World War II trench coat, a pair of rubber garden boots, a man’s felt hat, and what appeared to be Uncle Billy’s flannel pajama bottoms. As far as the frozen caller could tell, there was no heat in the house. Being a caring soul, he inquired around and was told that the Presbyterian church had filled up Miss Rose’s oil tank in November, and, on last inspection, it was still full. Most people knew, too, that the old couple walked to Winnie Ivey’s bake shop every afternoon, always hand in hand, to pick up what was left over. Winnie, however, was not one to give away the store. She carefully portioned out what she thought they would eat that night and the next morning, and no more. She didn’t like the idea of Miss Rose feeding her perfectly good day-old Danish to the birds. After their visit to the bake shop, Miss Rose and Uncle Billy, walking very slowly due to arthritis and a half dozen other ailments, dropped by to see what Velma had left at the Main Street Grill. Usually, it was a few slices of bacon and liver mush from breakfast, or a container of soup and a couple of hamburger rolls from lunch. Occasionally, she might add a little chicken salad that Percy had made, himself, that very morning. On balance, it was said, Miss Rose and Uncle Billy fared

These Claudines, then…they want to know because they believe they already do know, the way one who loves fruit knows, when offered a mango from the moon, what to expect; and they expect the loyal tender teasing affection of the schoolgirl crush to continue: the close and confiding companionship, the pleasure of the undemanding caress, the cuddle which consummates only closeness; yet in addition they want motherly putting right, fatherly forgiveness and almost papal indulgence; they expect that the sights and sounds, the glorious affairs of the world which their husbands will now bring before them gleaming like bolts of silk, will belong to the same happy activities as catching toads, peeling back tree bark, or powdering the cheeks with dandelions and oranging the nose; that music will ravish the ear the way the trill of the blackbird does; that literature will hold the mind in sweet suspense the way fairy tales once did; that paintings will crowd the eye with the delights of a colorful garden, and the city streets will be filled with the same cool dew-moist country morning air they fed on as children. But they shall not receive what they expect; the tongue will be about other business; one will hear in masterpieces only pride and bitter contention; buildings will have grandeur but no flowerpots or chickens; and these Claudines will exchange the flushed cheek for the swollen vein, and instead of companionship, they will get sex and absurd games composed of pinch, leer, and giggle—that’s what will happen to “let’s pretend.” 'The great male will disappear into the jungle like the back of an elusive ape, and Claudine shall see little of his strength again, his intelligence or industry, his heroics on the Bourse like Horatio at the bridge (didn’t Colette see Henri de Jouvenel, editor and diplomat and duelist and hero of the war, away to work each day, and didn’t he often bring his mistress home with him, as Willy had when he was husband number one?); the great affairs of the world will turn into tawdry liaisons, important meetings into assignations, deals into vulgar dealings, and the en famille hero will be weary and whining and weak, reminding her of all those dumb boys she knew as a child, selfish, full of fat and vanity like patrons waiting to be served and humored, admired and not observed. 'Is the occasional orgasm sufficient compensation? Is it the prize of pure surrender, what’s gained from all that giving up? There’ll be silk stockings and velvet sofas maybe, the customary caviar, tasting at first of frog water but later of money and the secretions of sex, then divine champagne, the supreme soda, and rubber-tired rides through the Bois de Boulogne; perhaps there’ll be rich ugly friends, ritzy at homes, a few young men with whom one may flirt, a homosexual confidant with long fingers, soft skin, and a beautiful cravat, perfumes and powders of an unimaginable subtlety with which to dust and wet the body, many deep baths, bonbons filled with sweet liqueurs, a procession of mildly salacious and sentimental books by Paul de Kock and company—good heavens, what’s the problem?—new uses for the limbs, a tantalizing glimpse of the abyss, the latest sins, envy certainly, a little spite, jealousy like a vaginal itch, and perfect boredom. 'And the mirror, like justice, is your aid but never your friend.' -- From "Three Photos of Colette," The World Within the Word, reprinted from NYRB April 1977

The Pottery Barn and Rubber Soul had gotten old, but my ability to order more than the chicken fingers with honey mustard from T.G.I. Friday’s would always provide me with a sense of accomplishment.

In politics, I don’t know which came first, the rubber chicken policies, or the eggheadedness.

You know it’s going to be a bad day when the only weapon you have to defend yourself with is a rubber chicken.

It means ‘I live you’ or something along those lines.” “You mean I love you?” “No.” I scrub at my stubble and glance down at our daughter, who is now amusing herself by playing her favorite game of fetch with Peter and his miniature rubber chicken. “It means … I live you. Like I see you everywhere, you are in everything. Our connection is more than physical.

Attempting to win with last year's moves is like playing chess with a rubber chicken - entertaining, but not effective!

We’ll bet thirty-seven Galleons, fifteen Sickles, three Knuts,’ said Fred, as he and George quickly pooled all their money, ‘that Ireland win – but Viktor Krum gets the Snitch. Oh, and we’ll throw in a fake wand.’ ‘You don’t want to go showing Mr Bagman rubbish like that –’ Percy hissed, but Bagman didn’t seem to think the wand was rubbish at all; on the contrary, his boyish face shone with excitement as he took it from Fred, and when the wand gave a loud squawk and turned into a rubber chicken, Bagman roared with laughter. ‘Excellent! I haven’t seen one that convincing in years! I’d pay five Galleons for that!’ Percy froze in an attitude of stunned disapproval. ‘Boys,’ said Mr Weasley under his breath, ‘I don’t want you betting … that’s all your savings … your mother –’ ‘Don’t be a spoilsport, Arthur!’ boomed Ludo Bagman, rattling his pockets excitedly. ‘They’re old enough to know what they want! You reckon Ireland will win but Krum’ll get the Snitch? Not a chance, boys, not a chance … I’ll give you excellent odds on that one … we’ll add five Galleons for the funny wand, then, shall we …’ Mr Weasley looked on helplessly as Ludo Bagman whipped out a notebook and quill and began jotting down the twins’ names.

to me it was looking like one of those logic problems that end up with the proposition that all men are Socrates, and Socrates is a rubber chicken.