Village Idiot Quotes

It’s sarcasm, Josh.” “Sarcasm?” “It’s from the Greek, sarkasmos. To bite the lips. It means that you aren’t really saying what you mean, but people will get your point. I invented it, Bartholomew named it.” “Well, if the village idiot named it, I’m sure it’s a good thing.” “There you go, you got it.” “Got what?” “Sarcasm.” “No, I meant it.” “Sure you did.” “Is that sarcasm?” “Irony, I think.” “What’s the difference?” “I haven’t the slightest idea.” “So you’re being ironic now, right?” “No, I really don’t know.” “Maybe you should ask the idiot.” “Now you’ve got it.” “What?” “Sarcasm.

You’re like the cute version of the village idiot.

You're an idealist, and I pity you as I would the village idiot.

Hilary Clinton said you know, it takes a village to raise a child and somebody said it takes a village idiot to believe that … it is part of the whole thing of third parties wanting to make decisions for which they pay no price for when they’re wrong.

when I was a boy I used to dream of becoming the village idiot. I used to lie in bed and imagine myself the happy idiot able to get food easily ...and easy sympathy, a planned confusion of not too much love or effort. some would claim that I have succeeded.

A village somewhere was missing it's idiot.

What do they do for a village idiot when you're here?

If Henry Miller often sounded like a village idiot, it is because, like Whitman, he was the rest of the village as well.

Eldhusfifls!” Halfborn roared. (That was another of his favorite insults. As he explained it, an eldhusfifl was a fool who sat by the communal fire all day, so basically, a village idiot. Plus, it just sounded insulting: el-doos-feef-full.)

Remember, the village idiot was the spiritual man who built the ark and saved his family. Keep being you and never give up marching to the beat of your own drum!

We all know, of course, what to make of our newspapers. The deaf man writes down what the blind man has told him, the village idiot edits it, and their colleagues in the other press houses copy it. Each story is doused afresh with the same stagnant infusion of lies, so that the “splendid” brew can then be served up to a clueless Volk.

How could they think Noel was hot? If this was REALLY Versailles, Noel SO would not be Louis XIV, he would be the French version of the village idiot

God is the comic shepherd who gets more of a kick out of that one lost sheep once he finds it again than out of the ninety and nine who had the good sense not to get lost in the first place. God is the eccentric host who, when the country-club crowd all turned out to have other things more important to do than come live it up with him, goes out into the skid rows and soup kitchens and charity wards and brings home a freak show. The man with no legs who sells shoelaces at the corner. The old woman in the moth-eaten fur coat who makes her daily rounds of the garbage cans. The old wino with his pint in a brown paper bag. The pusher, the whore, the village idiot who stands at the blinker light waving his hand as the cars go by. They are seated at the damask-laid table in the great hall. The candles are all lit and the champagne glasses filled. At a sign from the host, the musicians in their gallery strike up "Amazing Grace.

I'd be at work where poeple respected my opinions, said Nick. And then, I'd come home and it was like I was the village idiot.

You're a fool, and I'm another. Between us, we barely make a village idiot.

A utopian system, when established by men, is likely to be synonymous with a dystopian depression. The only way for perfect peace by man is absolute control of all wrongs. Bully-cultures find this: with each and every mistake, another village idiot is shamed into nothingness and mindlessly shut down by the herd. This is a superficial peace made by force and by fear, one in which there is no freedom to breathe; and the reason it is impossible for man to maintain freedom and peace for everyone at the same time. Christ, on the other hand, transforms, instead of controls, by instilling his certain inner peace. This is the place where one realizes that only his holiness is and feels like true freedom, rather than like imprisonment, and, too, why Hell, I imagine, a magnified version of man's never-ending conflict between freedom and peace, would be the flesh's ultimate utopia - yet its ultimate regret.

Somewhere out there was a village I'd deprived of it's idiot.

Voices of village idiots roiled in a jester's stew of odds-making tomfoolery. Occasionally, a monkey screamed in the heat of competition, and crude words were freely spoken. The more sophisticated were forced to tolerate such low-minded displays.

And indeed, who can doubt that everything would be different and better, if only England were ruled by village idiots and their drunken friends?

I'll make a book on learning how to be a complete moron someday, and I'm sure no one will buy it, because everyone will have mastered that already by the time I gather enough moronism to process it into digestible upgrade instructions for your average village cyborg-idiot.

A village idiot, in the literal sense, who really loves the truth, even when he only babbles, is in his thinking infinitely superior to Aristotle. He is infinitely nearer to Plato than Aristotle ever was.

Mind telling me what’s so funny?” he asked as he spooned beans onto their plates. “Nothing.” Lorelai avoided looking at Kol. “Then if nothing is funny, you two can stop grinning at each other like village idiots and start eating your dinner. I imagine tomorrow will be another difficult day.” And

The gaping trunk looked like the mouth of a village idiot who was explaining that he didn't know anything about anything.

The global village will have its village idiots and they’ll have global range.

We all know, of course, what to make of our newspapers. The deaf man writes down what the blind man has told him, the village idiot edits it, and their colleagues in the other press houses copy it.

We all know, of course, what to make of our newspapers. The deaf man writes down what the blind man has told him, the village idiot edits it, and their colleagues in the other press houses copy it. Each

But she let herself think of Jay. And of the kiss. And suddenly the damp chill that had been clinging to her evaporated in a wave of heat that started in her belly and spread like an uncontained blaze, flushing her from cheek to toe. She realized that she was smiling now, and she had to force it away, not wanting anyone to see her as she searched in vain for the missing girl, grinning like the village idiot.

I know it’s supposed to take a village to raise our children, but why does ours have so many village idiots?

See, that’s just it…You shouldn’t even know sayings like that,” I griped. “It takes normal people years to pick up on all those little phrases. Do you have any idea how stupid I feel, when I can’t even say ‘Hello, my name is Palta…Oh, and by the way—I’m the village idiot.’?

I feel like the kindly village idiot wandering the city. But try as I might, I can’t get past the mundane. Stefan helped me make contact with strangers. Now I needed someone to help me connect with them.

Sig is like that. She tends to have an “it takes a village” attitude toward monster hunting. I have mostly hunted supernatural predators alone, partly because I had no choice and partly because I’m an idiot.

Great, the English had sent her to her death accompanied by two village idiots. Not that it mattered anymore how her life ended, but she did take slight offense at the fact that her security team was chosen from among the incompetent.

There can be no emblem or parable in a village idiot's hallucinations or in last night's dream of any of us in this hall. In those random visions nothing – underline nothing (grating sound of horizontal stroke can be construed as allowing itself to be deciphered y a witch doctor that can then cure a madman or give confort to a killer by laying the blame on a too fond, too fiendish or too indifferent parent – secret festerings that the foster quack feigns to heal by expensive confession feasts (laughter and applause).

He delivered the mail, ran our modest recycling program, and maintained our handful of public buildings. He also occasionally fell asleep while driving a snowplough, but he was such a cheerful guy it was hard to stay pissed at him. Besides every village needs an idiot.

A sturdy hold, but I think there's something up with the material.

I wanted to kick myself. Somewhere out there was a village I’d deprived of its idiot.

I know what the word stress means but I don’t know exactly how it feels. I don’t think I have it. I just keep on keeping on, surrounded by the village idiots.

Sensing this man had issued a challenge, Rose was not about to be outdone by a village idiot.

You can't expect to be treated like a king and act like the village idiot.

Some days life feels like I am playing chess with the village idiot.

Percy, you are dismissed from my service." "Me? Why, my lord?" "Why? Because, Percy, far from being a fit consort for a prince of the realm, you would bore the leggings off a village idiot. You ride a horse rather less well than another horse would. Your brain would make a grain of sand look large and ungainly, and the part of you that can't be mentioned, I am reliably informed by women around the court, wouldn't be worth mentioning even if it could be. If you put on a floppy hat and a funny codpiece, you might just get by as a fool, but since you wouldn't know a joke if it got up and gave you a haircut, I doubt it. That's why you're dismissed." "Oh, I see." "And as for you, Baldrick..." "Yes." "You're out, too.

I dropped a word from the string of negative adjectives that had trailed behind me like tin cans behind the village idiot. Unappreciated, unloved, unmarried. But no longer unpublished.

Interpreters package and then sell, rent, or impose upon us artificially flavored illusions of truth, salvation, enlightenment, and happiness that are built upon their goals. That twisted information and those errant goals and are often very different from those of the original teachers that these interpreters are borrowing moral authority from. Following our own inner guidance would yield better results than following the village idiot. Neither Buddha nor Jesus was waiting for a Buddha or a Jesus to come solve their personal problems or those of humanity. The key to whatever we need is within us. The job of uncovering it is ours to do.

Spending one’s day hitting a small wooden ball at a stick should have one labelled as the village idiot. But, add some elegant ladies in posh frocks and gentlemen in blazers and bally heck, it’s a British institution!

for a moment now I reflected on the fact that, although Meredith Wittman and I both wanted to be writers, she was going about it by interning at a magazine, whereas I was sitting at this table in a Hungarian village trying to formulate the phrase “musically talented” in Russian, so I could say something encouraging by proxy to an off-putting child whose father had just punched him in the stomach. I couldn’t help thinking that Meredith Wittman’s approach seemed more direct.

I’d be at work, where people respected my opinions,” said Nick. “And then I’d come home and it was like I was the village idiot. I’d pack the dishwasher the wrong way. I’d pick the wrong clothes for the children. I stopped offering to help. It wasn’t worth the criticism.

There will never be a shortage of idiots in this world. Never underestimate just how naïve, arrogant and short-sighted people can be.

She lives, she knows, in a village of idiots situated at the edge of a nation of morons. There are worse things, of course. Though, in truth, not many.

I'd love to go out with you, but I'd hate to deprive some village of its idiot.

Maybe because Tim allowed himself to be an idiot with no self-consciousness whatsoever.

All the same: in village alehouses up and down England, they are blaming the king and Anne Boleyn for the weather: the concubine, the great whore. If the king would take back his lawful wife Katherine, the rain would stop. And indeed, who can doubt that everything would be different and better, if only England were ruled by village idiots and their drunken friends?

One of the advantages of living in the Ice Age would be that there are not very many people around. You’re constantly moving, and you have to live by your wits. You can’t just have fifteen different kinds of tools, you can’t carry them. And no villages—no village idiots. Imagine a world free of idiots!” Idiots, he liked to point out, “don’t survive in environments with lions.

One of these days I’m going to write a book about living in New York—in a sixteen-story apartment house complete with families, bachelors, career girls, a ninety-year-old Village Idiot and a doorman who can tell you the name and apartment number of every one of the twenty-seven resident dogs. I am so tired of being told what a terrible place New York is to live in by people who don’t live there.

Good morning,” said the Cleric. “Do you wish to ask for my forgiveness, Dave? Do you wish to declare that you are a true villager and that you worship Steve?” “I wish to declare that I think you’re an idiot,” said Carl.

Shart just bowed his head.  “You are an idiot.  Mages focus on a SINGLE type of magic.  Most of them learn about the Elemental schools like fire, for offense, earth, for defense, air, for movement, or water, for healing.  You are focused on Farts!

Walking backwards is an excellent means of remembering how little you know. On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was sitting in a café in the West Village with my friends Lucy and Adrian when a woman ran in and said a plane had just hit the World Trade Center. A plane? we asked. Like a Cessna? She didn’t know. She hadn’t seen it happen. We went out to the street on that bright morning to see a fire high up in the distance. The waiter came out and told us to get back inside. We hadn’t paid the check. I paid the check. Lucy said she didn’t have time for this. She was teaching at Bennington in Vermont, and this was the first day of classes. She had to make her train. We said our goodbyes and Adrian and I walked downtown to see what had happened. We both wrote for the New York Times. Surely there would be a story for one of us. We had just passed Stuyvesant Park when the first tower fell. I would tell you we were idiots, but that’s only true in retrospect. In fact we were so exactly in the middle of history that we had no way to understand what we were seeing.

You, the woman; I, the man; this, the world: And each is the work of all. There is the muffled step in the snow; the stranger; The crippled wren; the nun; the dancer; the Jesus-wing Over the walkers in the village; and there are Many beautiful arms around us and the things we know. See how those stars tramp over the heavens on their sticks Of ancient light: with what simplicity that blue Takes eternity into the quiet cave of God, where Ceasar And Socrates, like primitive paintings on a wall, Look, with idiot eyes, on the world where we two are. You, the sought for; I, the seeker; this, the search: And each is the mission of all. For greatness is only the drayhorse that coaxes The built cart out; and where we go is reason. But genius is an enormous littleness, a trickling Of heart that covers alike the hare and the hunter. How smoothly, like the sleep of a flower, love, The grassy wind moves over night's tense meadow: See how the great wooden eyes of the forrest Stare upon the architecture of our innocence. You, the village; I, the stranger; this, the road: And each is the work of all. Then, not that man do more, or stop pity; but that he be Wider in living; that all his cities fly a clean flag... We have been alone too long, love; it is terribly late For the pierced feet on the water and we must not die now. Have you ever wondered why all the windows in heaven were broken? Have you seen the homeless in the open grave of God's hand? Do you want to aquaint the larks with the fatuous music of war? There is the muffled step in the snow; the stranger; The crippled wren; the nun; the dancer; the Jesus-wing Over the walkers in the village; and there are Many desperate arms about us and the things we know.

Differences in culture, race, ethos, élan, or religion no longer matter, because there is increasingly a common faith in what the Bible calls the ‘love of Mammon.’ Behind this façade of the happy shopper of the global mall and the smiling idiot of the global village stands the raw power of the global oligarchy. To paraphrase Karl Marx, ‘shopping is the opiate of the people.

Don’t forget us when you’re both rich and famous, chaps,” said Porkins. “I can’t promise that,” said Carl. “If I get rich and famous, I’m going to live in a big diamond house with lots of guard wolves, so I can just sit around eating baked potatoes all day. If anyone tries to disturb me, the wolves will slay them on sight. So, you’d best be careful.” “Crikey,” said Porkins, his cheeks turning pale. “Idiots,” said Spidroth, rolling her eyes.

Get off me, you idiot!” Carl shouted. “Calling a police officer an idiot is a very serious offense,” said the officer holding Carl. “How long do you reckon that would get you in prison, Liam?” “Er, I reckon about zero years, Chief,” said another officer. “I don’t think that’s actually a crime.” “Well, it should be,” said the officer holding Carl. “But stealing a priceless artifact definitely is a crime. You’re coming with us, little creeper.

So why didn’t you call me after you went to the village? Why didn’t you call me for more than two weeks?” I didn’t say anything. “You can’t not answer.” “Because sometimes after I see you, I feel really bad,” I said. “It’s almost physically painful.” I touched my sternum. He averted his face. “Now, this sounds like something I’m not used to hearing from you,” he said, and I could hear from his voice that he was smiling. He was happy that I hurt like that. And I knew I had felt the same happiness, anytime he mentioned feeling hurt by me. Why was it fun for us to make each other suffer? Did that mean it wasn’t love? Surely that wasn’t what love was?

And who was I? Not nearly as much of a loner and outsider as I’d always thought. A bit odd, but others were more odd. And who else was I? A member of an expedition, or no, someone who’d been on an expedition all by himself, and after forging his way through all sorts of difficulties had come back here to civilization to freshen up, for the time being, before his next one-man venture. And who else? At first sight a disturbed person, who, when you got to know him, seemed much more normal, indeed the only normal person among a thousand, while the other nine hundred and ninety-nine eventually turned out to be as mad as hatters. And who else was I? (As if, having seen my double, I suddenly couldn’t find out enough about myself - couldn’t get enough of myself.) Let me be someone else as well, play someone else: a pioneer, a deserter, a soccer referee or at least a linesman. And what was I like, considering my double there in the restroom’s white neon glare? Not special. Not that bad. Maybe somewhat deficient in that certain something, but not entirely deficient either. Far from being a star, but if an idiot, a village idiot, not a provincial or city idiot. And what else was I like? And in what way? And in what other way? Well, what d’you know! Yes, just look at that! You didn’t expect that, did you? Look, just look! Yes, just look. Look!

Someone brings up “Sandwiches,” and someone else a Bottle, and as night comes down over New-York like a farmer’s Mulch, sprouting seeds of Light, some reflected in the River, the Company, Mason working on in its midst, becomes much exercis’d upon the Topick of Representation. “No taxation— ” “— without it, yesyes but Drogo, lad, can you not see, even thro’ the Republican fogs which ever hang about these parts, that ’tis all a moot issue, as America has long been perfectly and entirely represented in the House of Commons, thro’ the principle of Virtual Representation?” Cries of, “Aagghh!” and, “That again?” “If this be part of Britain here, then so must be Bengal! For we have ta’en both from the French. We purchas’d India many times over with the Night of the Black Hole alone,— as we have purchas’d North America with the lives of our own.” “Are even village Idiots taken in any more by that empty cant?” mutters the tiny Topman McNoise, “no more virtual than virtuous, and no more virtuous than the vilest of that narrow room-ful of shoving, beef-faced Louts, to which you refer,— their honor bought and sold so many times o’er that no one bothers more to keep count.— Suggest you, Sir, even in Play, that this giggling Rout of poxy half-wits, embody us? Embody us? America but some fairy Emanation, without substance, that hath pass’d, by Miracle, into them?— Damme, I think not,— Hell were a better Destiny.

I turned to the exercises. “The dog kicked by the boy is red. Circle the picture that applies.” The pictures showed a red dog kicking a boy, a dog kicking a red boy, a red boy kicking a dog, and a boy kicking a red dog. It was the kind of test used to diagnose Wernicke’s aphasia. “I think I’m going to buy it,” Owen decided. “Do you want to split the cost? One of us can read it here in Budapest, and the other can take it to the village and leave it there as a gift.” I didn’t want to read the book, not in Budapest and not in a village, but I didn’t want to seem snotty so I said okay and paid for half of it. It wasn’t expensive. It was, however, big, and Owen didn’t have a bag, so I ended up carrying it all day.

No one ever changed the world by being beautiful," she said. "If you want to make a difference, you can't let something as trivial as appearance get in your way. A daisy doesn't need the roses' permission to bloom - and neither do you." "I may not need permission, but I do need support," the woman argued. "I can't fight an army on my own - I'll need others to join me. But I'm afraid they'll only see my looks and won't listen to my words. I'm afraid they'll only laugh at my hopes of rescuing my loved ones." The little girl placed her hands on her hips and stared at the woman with the confidence of someone twice her age. "Only idiots listen with their eyes," she said. "If people don't hear your words, then shout them. If people silence you, then write your message with fire. Demanding respect is never easy, but if something you love is at stake, then I'd say it's worth the price. Besides, if you can't get villagers to take you seriously, you'll never defeat an army! Sometimes we're meant to face the demons at home so we know how to fight the demons abroad." The little girl had waited years to give someone that advice, and it appeared to do the trick. As if a sudden electric charge had run through the woman's body, she stood taller and straighter, and her eyes beamed with determination. "You're right, child," she said. "With all the energy I've wasted moping in front of the mirror, I could have accomplished great things by now. Well, I'm going to stop moping at once and get to work.

It is true. I did fall asleep at the wheel. We nearly went right off a cliff down into a gorge. But there were extenuating circumstances.” Ian snickered. “Are you going to pull out the cry-baby card? He had a little bitty wound he forgot to tell us about, that’s how small it was. Ever since he fell asleep he’s been trying to make us believe that contributed.” “It wasn’t little. I have a scar. A knife fight.” Sam was righteous about it. “He barely nicked you,” Ian sneered. “A tiny little slice that looked like a paper cut.” Sam extended his arm to Azami so she could see the evidence of the two-inch line of white marring his darker skin. “I bled profusely. I was weak and we hadn’t slept in days.” “Profusely?” Ian echoed. “Ha! Two drops of blood is not profuse bleeding, Knight. We hadn’t slept in days, that much is true, but the rest . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head and rolling his eyes at Azami. Azami examined the barely there scar. The knife hadn’t inflicted much damage, and Sam knew she’d seen evidence of much worse wounds. “Had you been drinking?” she asked, her eyes wide with innocence. Those long lashes fanned her cheeks as she gaze at him until his heart tripped all over itself. Sam groaned. “Don’t listen to him. I wasn’t drinking, but once we were pretty much in the middle of a hurricane in the South Pacific on a rescue mission and Ian here decides he has to go into this bar . . .” “Oh, no.” Ian burst out laughing. “You’re not telling her that story.” “You did, man. He made us all go in there, with the dirtbag we’d rescued, by the way,” Sam told Azami. “We had to climb out the windows and get on the roof at one point when the place flooded. I swear ther was a crocodile as big as a house coming right at us. We were running for our lives, laughing and trying to keep that idiot Frenchman alive.” “You said to throw him to the crocs,” Ian reminded. “What was in the bar that you had to go in?” Azami asked, clearly puzzled. “Crocodiles,” Sam and Ian said simultaneously. They both burst out laughing. Azami shook her head. “You two could be crazy. Are you making these stories up?” “Ryland wishes we made them up,” Sam said. “Seriously, we’re sneaking past this bar right in the middle of an enemy-occupied village and there’s this sign on the bar that says swim with the crocs and if you survive, free drinks forever. The wind is howling and trees are bent almost double and we’re carrying the sack of shit . . . er . . . our prize because the dirtbag refuses to run even to save his own life—” “The man is seriously heavy,” Ian interrupted. “He was kidnapped and held for ransom for two years. I guess he decided to cook for his captors so they wouldn’t treat him bad. He tried to hide in the closet when we came for him. He didn’t want to go out in the rain.” “He was the biggest pain in the ass you could imagine,” Sam continued, laughing at the memory. “He squealed every time we slipped in the mud and went down.” “The river had flooded the village,” Sam added. “We were walking through a couple of feet of water. We’re all muddy and he’s wiggling and squeaking in a high-pitched voice and Ian spots this sign hanging on the bar.

You may, for instance, inquire of a popular preacher, or any one else, who denounces his countrymen as "pagan" (as speakers, and even Bishops, at religious gatherings have been known to do) what, exactly, he means by this word, and you will find that he means irreligious, and is apparently oblivious of the fact that pagans were and are, in their village simplicity, the most religious persons who have ever flourished, having more gods to the square mile then the Christian or any other Church has ever possessed or desired, and paying these gods more devout and more earnest devotion than you will meet even among Anglo-Catholics in congress. To be pagan may not be very intelligent; it is rustic and superstitious, but it is at least religious. Yet you will hear the word "pagan" flung loosely about for "irreligious", or sometimes as meaning joyous, material and comfort-loving, whereas the simple pagans walked the earth full of what is called holy awe and that mystic faith in unseen powers which is the antithesis of materialism, and gloomy with apprehension of the visitations of their horrid and vindictive gods; and, though no doubt, like all men, they loved comfort, they only obtained, just as we do, as much of that as they could afford.

Throw the offerings!" Agnes and her husband had returned--- I could just make them out, clambering unsteadily down the hillside with their lanterns raised. In an act of ill-advised and entirely undeserved kindness, they had gathered up a handful of villagers to ride to the rescue of the idiot scholars who had tangled with the most fearsome of the local Folk, despite their warnings. A strangled sound escaped me, something between a sob and laugh. "Get back!" Eichorn shouted at the villagers. Rose was clambering to his feet, wheezing, for the fauns had released him to snatch at the "offerings" tossed their way by the villagers. I would have expected bloody hunks of meat, but instead, ludicrously, they seemed to be throwing vegetables--- carrots and onions, predominantly. How did it happen? The scene is a blur of noise and movement, to my memory. I believe I was laughing at the time--- yes, laughing. The image of those nightmarish beasts appeased by a hail of carrots was too much for my frayed composure, and for a moment it seemed this would become another story I told at conferences or to rouse a laugh from my students. For the Folk are terrible indeed, monsters or tyrants or both, but are they not also ridiculous? Whether they be violent beasts distracted by vegetables, or creatures powerful enough to spin straw into gold, which they will happily exchange for a simple necklace, or a great king overthrown by his own cloak, there is a thread of the absurd weaving through all faerie stories, to which the Folk themselves are utterly oblivious.

She could envision Shakespeare's sister. But she imagined a violent, an apocalyptic end for Shakespeare's sister, whereas I know that isn't what happened. You see, it isn't necessary. I know that lots of Chinese women, given in marriage to men they abhorred and lives they despised, killed themselves by throwing themselves down the family well. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I'm only saying that isn't what usually happens. It it were, we wouldn't be having a population problem. And there are so much easier ways to destroy a woman. You don't have to rape or kill her; you don't even have to beat her. You can just marry her. You don't even have to do that. You can just let her work in your office for thirty-five dollars a week. Shakespeare's sister did...follow her brother to London, but she never got there. She was raped the first night out, and bleeding and inwardly wounded, she stumbled for shelter into the next village she found. Realizing before too long that she was pregnant, she sought a way to keep herself and her child safe. She found some guy with the hots for her, realized he was credulous, and screwed him. When she announced her pregnancy to him, a couple months later, he dutifully married her. The child, born a bit early, makes him suspicious: they fight, he beats her, but in the end he submits. Because there is something in the situation that pleases him: he has all the comforts of home including something Mother didn't provide, and if he has to put up with a screaming kid he isn't sure is his, he feels now like one of the boys down at the village pub, none of whom is sure they are the children of the fathers or the fathers of their children. But Shakespeare's sister has learned the lesson all women learn: men are the ultimate enemy. At the same time she knows she cannot get along in the world without one. So she uses her genius, the genius she might have used to make plays and poems with, in speaking, not writing. She handles the man with language: she carps, cajoles, teases, seduces, calculates, and controls this creature to whom God saw fit to give power over her, this hulking idiot whom she despises because he is dense and fears because he can do her harm. So much for the natural relation between the sexes. But you see, he doesn't have to beat her much, he surely doesn't have to kill her: if he did, he'd lose his maidservant. The pounds and pence by themselves are a great weapon. They matter to men, of course, but they matter more to women, although their labor is generally unpaid. Because women, even unmarried ones, are required to do the same kind of labor regardless of their training or inclinations, and they can't get away from it without those glittering pounds and pence. Years spent scraping shit out of diapers with a kitchen knife, finding places where string beans are two cents less a pound, intelligence in figuring the most efficient, least time-consuming way to iron men's white shirts or to wash and wax the kitchen floor or take care of the house and kids and work at the same time and save money, hiding it from the boozer so the kid can go to college -- these not only take energy and courage and mind, but they may constitute the very essence of a life. They may, you say wearily, but who's interested?...Truthfully, I hate these grimy details as much as you do....They are always there in the back ground, like Time's winged chariot. But grimy details are not in the background of the lives of most women; they are the entire surface.

you idiot!

Any last words, creeper?” she said. “Yes,” said Carl, “you’re a big idiot, and I hate you.

Sorry I called you an idiot,” Professor Quigley said to the yellow endergirl. “I always get a bit tetchy when I’m about to be crushed to death by a 10,000 foot robot.

Well,” said Carl, “the first wolf I tamed was called Bark, so I thought I’d give them all names along a similar theme. So there’s Bark 2, Bark 3, Bark 4, Bark 5, Bark 6, Bark 7, Bark 8, Bark 9, Bark 10, Bark 11, Bark 12, Bark 13, Bark 14 and Alan.” “Alan?” said Dave. “Named after my uncle,” said Carl. “He blew himself up when he was frightened by a sheep. He was a bit of an idiot.

HELLO, DAVE. YOU AND I NEED TO HAVE A CHAT.” “I have nothing to say to you, Herobrine!” Dave yelled up at the black clouds. “Dave, I believe that is just a projection,” said Spidroth. “I don’t believe my father will be able to hear you.” “Oh,” said Dave. “I bet you feel like a right idiot,” said Carl. “I WANT YOU TO COME UP AND MEET ME AT THE TOP OF JEB’S PEAK,” continued Herobrine. “YOU MUST COME ALONE. IF YOU DO NOT, OR IF YOU TRY TO TRICK ME, I WILL DESTROY THESE TWO VILLAGERS. IF YOU TELL ME WHAT I WANT TO KNOW, I WILL SET THEM FREE.” The black clouds swirled once more, transforming into an image of two villagers huddling against a wall in fear. They were two villagers who Dave knew very well. “Mom!” Dave yelled. “Dad!” The black clouds swirled again, transforming back into Herobrine’s face. “I HAVE YOUR PARENTS, DAVE,” said Herobrine. “IF YOU DO NOT COME AND MEET ME BY THE NIGHT OF THE FULL MOON, I SHALL SLAY THEM.” The black clouds swirled one final time, and then they were gone, leaving nothing but blue sky. “Ah, man, I’m sorry, Dave,” said Carl.

Dave, I hope you’re here somewhere, he thought. I could do with a rescue. If you save my life I promise I’ll never call you an idiot again. Probably.

The Piglin King looked at me like I was an idiot. “What else would we make the floor with?” I slapped my forehead. “No, no. Villagers use ‘netherrack’ as a curse word. I was expressing my displeasure and anguish at hearing this news. Get it?” The Piglin King squinted his eyes at me. “So, now you’re insulting my building materials too?

The village called. They would like their idiot back. You should probably go.

We… were… ninja running,” gasped Knight Swagger, clutching his huge chest and panting. “It normally makes you faster.” “Running with your arms out behind you like idiots?” said Sasha. “How is that supposed to make you faster?

Before I met you I thought villagers were just idiot farmers and traders with big noses,” said Carl, “and now I find out that some of you are super villains with giant diamond pyramids. The world just keeps getting stranger and stranger.

Well, then—they were all children there, and I was always among children and only with children. They were the children of the village in which I lived, and they went to the school there—all of them. I did not teach them, oh no; there was a master for that, one Jules Thibaut. I may have taught them some things, but I was among them just as an outsider, and I passed all four years of my life there among them. I wished for nothing better; I used to tell them everything and hid nothing from them. Their fathers and relations were very angry with me, because the children could do nothing without me at last, and used to throng after me at all times. The schoolmaster was my greatest enemy in the end! I had many enemies, and all because of the children. Even Schneider reproached me. What were they afraid of? One can tell a child everything, anything. I have often been struck by the fact that parents know their children so little. They should not conceal so much from them. How well even little children understand that their parents conceal things from them, because they consider them too young to understand! Children are capable of giving advice in the most important matters. How can one deceive these dear little birds, when they look at one so sweetly and confidingly? I call them birds because there is nothing in the world better than birds! "However, most of the people were angry with me about one and the same thing; but Thibaut simply was jealous of me. At first he had wagged his head and wondered how it was that the children understood what I told them so well, and could not learn from him; and he laughed like anything when I replied that neither he nor I could teach them very much, but that they might teach us a good deal.

The colonists no longer viewed the Irish as genial village idiots who liked a drink. They were now seen as genial village idiots who liked a drink and murdering colonists in their beds.

The village or the idiot. Who was REALLY of the self-assurance to be the one with the advantage.

Any last words?” he asked. “Yes,” said Carl. “You’re a big idiot and I hate you.

A clocked minute of static—a long time to sit and watch nothing, I was all for fast-forwarding but Nakota glared me down—then a sip of absolute blackness, recorded blackness, rich and menacing as an X ray of a cancer. Nakota, lips parting to say something but the thought drowned in the flash of an image: something like bloody stalks, caressing the screen like hands behind the glass, so greedily intimate even Nakota gave a tiny backstepping whoop. Then as if a barrier shattered, ferocious fun, whatever provided the images warming to this game: a vast black grin like the Funhole itself become its namesake, black asshole-mouth studded with teeth or bones like broken glass and in that Pandora opening Nakota breathless and me with my mouth hanging wide open, village idiot at freak show, a vertiginous glide forward as upon the screen came things I didn’t want to know about, oh yes I’m quite sophisticated, quite the bent voyeur, I can laugh at stuff that would make you vomit but how would you like to see the ecstatic prance of self-evisceration, a figure carving itself, re-created in a harsh new form from what seemed to be its own hot guts, becoming no figure at all but the absence of one, a cookie-cutter shape and in but not contained by its outline a blackness, a vortex of nothing so final that beside it the Funhole was harmless, do you see what I’m saying, the Funhole was a goddamned carnival ride next to this nonfigure and all at once what I wanted least, least, far less than to be struck blind or any kind of petty death was to see the figure turn (as it did now) in slick almost pornographic slowness and show me, show me what there was to see

You’re a robot, and you’re an idiot, so I’m calling you a robot idiot.” “Technically, I am not a robot; I am an artificial intelligence,” said the voice cheerily. “As for whether or not I am an idiot, that is not for me to decide.” “Don’t worry, I’ve already decided it for you,” said Carl.

Every village loves its own idiot or its own lunatic.

As they got closer, Dave saw that the outside of the walls was surrounded by a huge moat. The train was heading towards a bridge leading across the moat, but as far as Dave could see, there was no hole for the train to pass through. “Is this train just going to crash into those walls?” said Carl, peering out of one of the broken windows. “Which idiot designed this thing?” They sped across the moat, and Dave had a brief glimpse of a deep pit with water at the bottom of it. They were rushing straight towards the quartz walls, and in a few seconds, they would smash into them. “Everyone, brace yourselves!” Dave shouted. They all held on tightly to the seats as the train sped forward, but the crash never happened. Instead, a pair of large quartz doors opened, allowing the train to pass through. The next thing they knew, they were inside the theme park, still speeding along the train track. Dave caught glimpses of rides and shops and buildings as they zoomed forward, going deeper and deeper into the park. “Robot idiot, why isn’t the train stopping?” Carl demanded. “We’re inside the theme park now.” “When you say ‘robot idiot’, are you referring to me?” the friendly voice on the speakers asked. “Yes,” said Carl. “You’re a robot, and you’re an idiot, so I’m calling you a robot idiot.

That is a good idea,” said Dave. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.” “Because you’re an idiot?” Carl suggested. “Hey, you didn’t think of either,” said Dave.

I used to become very restless. I was continually thinking of the life I would lead. I wanted to know what life had in store for me. I was particularly restless at some moments. You know there are such moments, especially in solitude. There was a small waterfall there; it fell from a height on the mountain, such a tiny thread, almost perpendicular—foaming, white and splashing. Though it fell from a great height it didn’t seem so high; it was the third of a mile away, but it only looked about fifty paces. I used to like listening to the sound of it at night. At such moments I was sometimes overcome with great restlessness; sometimes too at midday I wandered on the mountains, and stood alone halfway up a mountain surrounded by great ancient resinous pine trees; on the crest of the rock an old medieval castle in ruins; our little village far, far below, scarcely visible; bright sunshine, blue sky, and the terrible stillness. At such times I felt something was drawing me away, and I kept fancying that in walked straight on, far, far away and reached that line where sky and earth meet, there I should find the key to the mystery, there I should see a new life a thousand times richer and more turbulent than ours. I dreamed of some great town like Naples, full of palaces, noise, roar, life. And I dreamed of all sorts of things, indeed. But afterwards I fancied one might find a wealth of life even in prison.

Nehemia had never once let the preening, bigoted idiots in Rifthold shut her out of any store, dining room, or household. And she had the sense that her friend might have been proud of the way she went from shop to shop that afternoon, head held high, and charmed the ever-loving hell out of those villagers.

He had the alertly stupid look of a dullard, Tom thought; the kind of child that either dies young or grows up to be the village idiot.

Sometimes I went and climbed the mountain and stood there in the midst of the solitude and the fir trees, all alone in the silence, with our little village in the distance, and the sky so blue, and the sun so bright, and an old ruined castle in the distance. I used to watch the line where earth and sky met, and long to go and seek there for some great city where life should be grander and newer than our own—and then it struck me that life may be grand enough even in a prison.

What is a village without village idiots ?

The Dark Ages called. They’re looking for their hateful village idiot.

We’re not heroes,” said Dave. “My fellow idiots, then,” said Carl.

And your man didn’t dump you. He freed you. He did you a favor. Take all that energy back that you’re wasting mourning the relationship and focus it on yourself. A queen doesn’t need the love of the village idiot.

They were making me sound like the village idiot.

My wife has never really thought much of me. Just the other night she turned to me and said, "George, do you know that you are depriving a small village, somewhere out there, of an idiot?" ♦◊♦◊♦◊♦

'Perhaps what Finneas needs, King Rowan, is an occupation. I believe there to be a village nearby in sore need of an idiot. Finn seems well suited to the task.' Rowan had just taken a hearty sip of wine when Gareth's words caused him to swallow the wrong way. Glenna gave him a healthy tap on the back. 'What's an idiot, Mama?' Stefan seemed excited by the prospect of Finn's employment. 'If Finn's to be an idiot, may I be an idiot, too?'

The problem with being a Village Idiot these days is that villages are run by even bigger idiots.