“
The female mind is certainly a devious one, my lord."
Vetinari looked at his secretary in surprise. "Well, of course it is. It has to deal with the male one.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (Unseen Academicals (Discworld, #37; Rincewind, #8))
“
Two years ago, I was a twenty-nine year old secretary. Now I am a thirty-one year old writer. I get paid very well to sit around in my pajamas and type on my ridiculously fancy iMac, unless I'd rather take a nap. Feel free to hate me -- I certainly would.
”
”
Julie Powell (Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen)
“
If it was an emergency, you would have hung up and called back. Over and over again. Leaving progressively more and more threatening messages about what you were going to do to me when you did finally get a hold of me,” he told her, signing off on the bottom of the letter he’d just finished and moving it to the side.
“I would never do that,” she said.
“No?” When she did finally send him reports it was always in folders that were named things like I’m Not Your Fucking Secretary and If You Ask Me to Get You Coffee It Will Definitely Have Turtle Shit In It.
“If I really needed your attention, I’d start texting. Photos. Naked photos.”
His entire body reacted to that. He cleared his throat. “I would definitely—.”
“Of my grandfather.”
Bennett paused. Then groaned. He knew her grandfather. Leo Landry was a great guy. Funny, down-to-earth, honest, loyal. And someone that Bennett absolutely did not ever want to see naked. Ever.
“You’re an evil woman.”
“Remember that.
”
”
Erin Nicholas (Crazy Rich Cajuns (Boys of the Bayou, #4))
“
They adored Mona and peppered her with questions about how we met and when we were planning to get married and she handled it expertly. She was utterly charming, sweet, funny, and knew exactly when to pull back and let someone else talk. If she wasn't my secretary, I might have proposed to her on the spot.
”
”
Chance Carter (Room Service)
“
«Dashenka, sister, Dasha?»
«Yes?» She sounded so sad.
Tatiana swallowed. «Want to hear a funny story?»
«Oh, yes, please: I need a funny story to cheer me up. Tell me, darling».
«Stalin as Chairman of the Presidium went in front of the House of Parliament to make a short speech that lasted maybe five minutes. After the speech there was applause. The plenum stood on its feet and applauded. For a minute. Then another minute. They stood and applauded. But – Another minute. Still applauded. They were standing up, and still applauding, as Stalin stood in front of the lectern and listened with a humble smile on his face, the epitome of humility. Another minute. And still applauded. No one knew what to do. They waited for a signal from the Chairman to cease, but no such signal came from the humble and diminutive man. Another minute went by. And still they stood and applauded. It had now been eleven minutes. And no one knew what to do. Someone had to stop applauding. But who? Twelve minutes of applause. Thirteen minutes of applause. And still he stood there. And still they stood there. Fourteen minutes. Fifteen minutes. Finally, at the fifteen-minute mark, the man in the front, the Secretary of Transportation, stopped. As soon as he stopped, the entire auditorium fell mute. The following week the Secretary of Transportation was shot for treason».
«Tania!» exclaimed a startled Dasha. «That was supposed to be funny?»
«Yes», said Tatiana. «Funny, as in, cheer up, things could be worse. You could be the Secretary of Transportation».
”
”
Paullina Simons (The Summer Garden (The Bronze Horseman, #3))
“
A week ago I saw a monkey in the street jump on a donkey and try to wank him off – the donkey brayed and kicked, the monkey’s owner shouted, the monkey itself squealed – apart from two or three children who laughed and me who found it very funny, no one paid any attention. When I described this to M. Bellin, the secretary at the consulate, he told me of having seen an ostrich trying to rape a donkey. Max had himself wanked off the other day in a deserted section among some ruins and said it was very good. Letter to Louis Bouilhet, Cairo, January 15th, 1850
”
”
Julian Barnes (Flaubert's Parrot)
“
It’s funny the things you miss. Like phone cords. Reading this today, you might not even know what a phone cord is. Or it’s a relic that you see in an office, or on that antique phone in the corner of the classroom, used to call the principal’s secretary. But once upon a time—that would be our time—a telephone cord seemed like nothing less than a lifeline. It was your attachment to the outside world and, even more than that, your attachment to the people you loved, or wanted to love, or tried to love. Everything about it was fitting—the way it curled in on itself, they way it got so easily tangled, the way you could pull it only so far before it kept you in place. Twisted and knotted and essential.
”
”
David Levithan (Two Boys Kissing)
“
my cell phone rang. Alyssa.
“I’m busy,” I answered.
“Then why did you pick up the phone?”
“Because the sound of my voice makes you wet.”
“Funny.” She laughed. “How’s your morning?”
“Typical. My secretary just came onto me for the third time this month.”
“She sent you another ‘You and me belong together’ note with chocolates?”
“No, she offered to suck my dick.”
“What?” She gasped. ”You’re kidding!”
“Unfortunately not. After that, she told me she was willing to give me her virginity. Needless to say, I’ll be posting a replacement ad pretty soon. Anyone from your office want to work for a better firm? I’ll double the salary.”
“How do you know that my firm isn’t better than yours?”
“Because you call and ask me for advice on cases all the time—silly cases at that. If your firm was better, you’d never have to ask.
”
”
Whitney G. (Reasonable Doubt: Volume 1 (Reasonable Doubt, #1))
“
Her speeches were about the sanctity of the home, about how women should stay home. Serena Joy didn't do this herself, she made speeches instead, but she presented this failure of hers as a sacrifice she was making for the good of all. Around that time, someone tried to shoot her and missed; her secretary, who was standing right behind her, was killed instead. Someone else planted a bomb in her car but it went off too early. Though some people said she'd put the bomb in her own car, for sympathy. That's how hot things were getting. Luke and I would watch her sometimes on the late-night news. Bathrobes, nightcaps. We'd watch her sprayed hair and her hysteria, and the tears she could still produce at will, and the mascara blackening her cheeks. By that time she was wearing more makeup. We thought she was funny. Or Luke thought she was funny. I only pretended to think so. Really she was a little frightening. She was in earnest.
”
”
Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale)
“
Secretary of State for International Trade Liam Fox said in 2016, in the run-up to the EU referendum, that ‘the United Kingdom is one of the few countries in the European Union that does not need to bury its twentieth-century history.’ Funny, because Britain is in fact one of the few countries in the world that literally did bury a good portion of its twentieth-century history. During the period of decolonisation, the British state embarked upon a systematic process of destroying the evidence of its crimes. Codenamed ‘Operation Legacy’, the state intelligence agencies and the Foreign Office conspired to literally burn, bury at sea or hide vast amounts of documents containing potentially sensitive details of things done in the colonies under British rule.25 Anything that might embarrass the government, that would show religious or racial intolerance or be used ‘unethically’ by a post-independence government was ordered destroyed or hidden. The Foreign Office were forced to admit in court about having hidden documents, then were unforthcoming about the scale of what was hidden, to the point that you’d be a fool to trust anything that is now said. But from what we know, hundreds of thousands of pages of documents were destroyed and over a million hidden, not just starting in the colonial period but dating all the way back to 1662. This operation was only exposed to the public in 2011 as part of a court case between the survivors of British concentration camps in Kenya and the government.
”
”
Akala (Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire)
“
as it did. The crest said "PNS Farnese" and that always irritated him. After all, the battlecruiser wasn't a Navy ship; she belonged to State Security, and her designation should reflect that. Except that the Navy's position was that she was only a Navy ship which was assigned to StateSec, as if the true guardians of the People's safety had no right to put on the airs of "real" warriors. Of course, Thornegrave conceded, hanging SSS on the front of a ship's name would probably look a little funny, but it's the principle of the thing! The Navy and the Marines represent vestigial holdovers from the decadent elitism of the Old Regime. It's past time that State Security absorbed them both into a single organization whose loyalty to the People and State can be absolutely relied upon. The people's commissioners are a move in the right direction, but there's still too much room for recidivists to secretly sabotage the war and the Revolution alike. Surely Citizen Secretary Saint-Just and Citizen Chairman Pierre realize that, don't they? No doubt they did, he told himself once more
”
”
David Weber (Echoes of Honor (Honor Harrington, #8))
“
Pan again!" said Dr. Bull irritably. "You seem to think Pan is everything."
"So he is," said the Professor, "in Greek. He means everything."
"Don't forget," said the Secretary, looking down, "that he also means Panic.
”
”
G.K. Chesterton (The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare)
“
He was enormously relieved to hear the facts at last.
Riva Allen was brought in. She entered the room with an air. She seemed intelligent, assured and quite gay. She had obviously abandoned her act of being an unregistered courtesan. She looked at Marin with a bright smile and said cheerfully, “Well—lover!” And she laughed, an easy, tinkling, relaxed laughter.
Marin glanced questioningly at the women who had escorted his captive. He recognized them as skillful interrogators. He asked, “Get anything?” The older woman answered, “We’ve been with her ever since she was turned over to us at a quarter to nine. Everything we ask her, every persuasive method we use, just makes her laugh.”
Marin nodded calmly. But there was no doubt of the defeat that was here. His guess the night before had been correct. Chemicals. Most likely, she had had the stuff concealed in a false tooth, which simply required her to bite down once, hard. He knew this “laughing” drug. It ended all fear. Threat of death, use of torture, were equally funny to the individual under its influence. The effect would last about twenty-four hours. By taking such a drug, this woman spy had removed herself as a participant during the
decisive hours ahead.
Marin said, reluctantly but with finality, “Take her away! Keep her under arrest!”
His secretary came in. “Lieutenant David Burnley to see you, sir, by your instructions.”
Marin said, “Send him in.
”
”
A.E. van Vogt (The Mind Cage (Masters of Science Fiction))
“
Vienna's reputation as a city of luxury, merrymaking and indulgence actually lies much further in the past, in the time of the Babenbergs at whose courts the Minnesinger were prestigious guests, similar to publicity-seeking pop stars of today. the half-censorious, half-envious comments of foreigners often reflect the ambivalence that so many have felt about a city that was both seductive and dangerous. Such was indeed how Grillparzer described the city he loved and hated in his "Farewell to Vienna"(1843) though he had more in mind than simply the temptations of the flesh. But if Vienna was insidiously threatening under its hedonistic surface for a Grillparzer, others have simply regarded it as cheerfully, even shamelessly, immoral. 'lhe humanist scholar Enea Silvio Piccolomini, private secretary to Friedrich III and subsequently elected Pope Pius II, expressed his astonishment at the sexual freedom of the Viennese in a letter to a fellow humanist in Basel written in 1450: "'lhe number of whores is very great, and wives seem disinclined to confine their affections to a single man; knights frequently visit the wives of burghers. 'lhe men put out some wine for them and leave the house. Many girls marry without the permission of their fathers and widows don't observe the year of mourning."
'the local equivalent of the Roman cicisbeo is an enduring feature of Viennese society, and the present author remembers a respectable middle-class intellectual (now dead) who habitually went on holiday with both wife and mistress in tow. Irregular liaisons are celebrated in a Viennese joke about two men who meet for the first time at a party. By way of conversation one says to the other: "You see those two attractive ladies chatting to each other over there? Well, the brunette is my wife and the blonde is my mistress." "that's funny," says his new friend; "I was just about to say the same thing, only the other way round." In Biedermeier Vienna (1815-48), menages d trois seem not to have been uncommon, since the gallant who became a friend of the family was officially known as the Hausfreund. 'the ambiguous status of such a Hausfreund features in a Wienerlied written in 1856 by the usually non-risque Johann Baptist Moser. It con-terns
a certain Herr von Hecht, who is evidently a very good friend of the family of the narrator. 'lhe first six lines of the song innocently praise the latter's wife, who is so delightful and companionable that "his sky is always blue"; but the next six relate how she imported a "friend", Herr von Hecht, and did so "immediately after the wedding". This friend loves the children so much "they could be his own." And indeed, the younger one looks remarkably like Herr von Hecht, who has promised that the boy will inherit from him, "which can't be bad, eh?" the faux-naivete with which this apparently commonplace situation is described seems to have delighted Moser's public-the song was immensely popular then and is still sung today.
”
”
Nicholas T. Parsons (Vienna: A Cultural History (Cityscapes))
“
Physically, too, he is funny—never more so than when indulging his passion for eccentric exercise. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge has been heard yelling irritably at a portly object swaying in the sky, “Theodore! if you knew how ridiculous you look on top of that tree, you would come down at once.”53 On winter evenings in Rock Creek Park, strollers may observe the President of the United States wading pale and naked into the ice-clogged stream, followed by shivering members of his Cabinet.54 Thumping noises in the White House library indicate that Roosevelt is being thrown around the room by a Japanese wrestler; a particularly seismic crash, which makes the entire mansion tremble, signifies that Secretary Taft has been forced to join in the fun.
”
”
Edmund Morris (The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt)
“
Look, we’re going to have to work together whether you like it or not, Chloe. You might as well enjoy it.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Is that what you tell all the ladies?”
“Only the shy ones. I’d promise you I’ll be gentle, but you don’t seem like the shy type, to be honest…”
Chloe’s gaze narrows even farther, accentuated by the sharp, dark frames of her glasses. “Thanks, but I prefer to drive rather than riding the company bike.”
I snort. “You know, I hear slut-shaming is out of style these days.”
“Funny, I heard the same thing about hooking up with your secretary.
”
”
Lola Darling (Off Limits)
“
Time Off A hard working man decided he needed some time off from work. The only problem was his boss would not allow any extra days off. So the man decided he would have to resort to acting like he was going crazy. One day he climbed up on his desk and wrapped his feet around the ceiling light and dangled there upside down. His boss walked in and asked what he was doing. The man said “I am a light bulb.” The boss said, “You must be going crazy, take a couple of days off.” The man agreed it was a good idea and as he was leaving his secretary got up to follow him. The boss asked the secretary what she was doing. She said, “I’m leaving too. I can’t work in the dark.
”
”
Peter Jenkins (Funny Jokes for Adults: All Clean Jokes, Funny Jokes that are Perfect to Share with Family and Friends, Great for Any Occasion)
“
I had a case once where a woman had been going to Responsivist meetings for only two weeks when her husband became concerned and hired me. She ended up leaving him and is now the secretary to the director of their Greek retreat where you rescued your son. Pattie Ogdenburg. Funny how you remember the names of your failures but never those of your successes.”
Max and Eddie nodded in unison. They had shared many of each together.
”
”
Clive Cussler (Plague Ship (Oregon Files, #5))
“
Queer contagion, including the anxiety triggered by gender nonnormativity, found its viral materiality in the early 1980s. The diagnosis of gay cancer, or GRID (gay-related immune disorder), the original name for AIDS, was a vengeful nomenclature for the perversion of existing in a world held together, at least in part, by trans/queer undoing. Found by chance, queers began showing symptoms of unexplainable illnesses such as Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) and Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP). Unresponsive to the most aggressive treatments, otherwise healthy, often well-resourced and white, young men were deteriorating and dying with genocidal speed. Without remedy, normative culture celebrated its triumph in knowing the tragic ends they always imagined queers would meet. This, while the deaths of Black, Brown, and Indigenous trans and cis women (queer or otherwise) were unthought beyond the communities directly around them. These women, along with many others, were stripped of any claim to tragedy under the conditions of trans/misogyny.
Among the architects of this silence was then-President Ronald Reagan, who infamously refused to mention HIV/AIDS in public until 1986. By then, at least 16,000 had died in the U.S. alone. Collective fantasies of mass disappearance through the pulsing death of trans/queer people, Haitians, and drug users - the wish fulfillment of a nightmare world concertized the rhetoric that had always been spoken from the lips of power. The true terror of this response to HIV/AIDS was not only its methodological denial but its joyful humor. In Scott Calonico's experimental short film, "When AIDS Was Funny", a voice-over of Reagan's press secretary Larry Speakes is accompanied by iconic still images of people close to death in hospital beds.
LESTER KINSOLVING: "Over a third of them have died. It's known as a 'gay plague.' [Press pool laughter.] No, it is. It's a pretty serious thing. One in every three people that get this have died. And I wonder if the president was aware of this."
LARRY SPEAKES: "I don't have it. [Press pool laughter.] Do you?"
LESTER KINSOLVING: "You don't have it? Well, I'm relieved to hear that, Larry!" [Press pool laughter.]
LARRY SPEAKES: "Do you?"
LESTER KINSOLVING: "No, I don't.
”
”
Eric A. Stanley (Atmospheres of Violence: Structuring Antagonism and the Trans/Queer Ungovernable)
“
We are told that in the course of this interview Stephens, seeing Lincoln not willing to grant the terms he asked, urged that even Charles I made certain concessions. To this...Lincoln answered: "I am not strong on history; I depend mainly on Secretary Seward for that. All I remember of Charles is that he lost his head.
”
”
Hélène A. Guerber (The Story of the Americans)
“
ALAN TAYLOR (Director) I wasn't going to mention that because I got in trouble the last time I mentioned it. We didn't have enough heads. We had to use every head we had. [Bush's head] had been made for some comedy. Se we had to use it. I remember making some not-very-brilliant joke at the time, like, "You go to production with the heads you have, not the heads you want"--paraphrasing [Bush's secretary of defense] Donald Rumsfeld--because I was pretty angry at Bush and Rumsfeld at the time. I thought it was funny. Since then I've realized if someone made a joke like that about a president I believed in, I would have been offended too. I think I've probably mellowed a bit, though if you gave me the chance to use [Trump's] head I'd probably jump at it.
”
”
James Hibberd (Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon: Game of Thrones and the Official Untold Story of the Epic Series)
“
We are told that in the course of this interview Stephens, seeing Lincoln not willing to grant the terms he asked, urged that even Charles I made certain concessions. To this...Lincoln answered: "I am not strong history; I depend mainly on Secretary Seward for that. All I remember of Charles is that he lost his head.
”
”
Hélène A. Guerber (The Story of the Americans)
“
Why did you get a divorce? Well, my wife did not greet me on my birthday, my ungrateful brats took after their mother and did not greet me. To make things worse, even my parents forgot my birthday! When I went to work, my colleagues did not greet me (and there is a freaking bulletin board with the birthday celebrant on it) but alas, my kind and sexy secretary greeted me with a smile and invited me for a lunch in her apartment nearby! Of course I felt flattered! At the apartment, she said, I’ll just go to the bedroom for a minute, I got excited and said Okkkaayyy! 3 minutes after, there she was with a huugge cake with my wife, the kids, my proud parents and yes, even my colleagues yelling “SURRRRPRRISSSEEE!” And me? I was waiting on the sofa…. Butt naked….
”
”
Kevin Murphy (Jokes : Best Jokes 2016 [Best Of] (Joke Books, Funny Books, Jokes For Kids & Adults, Best jokes))