Villagers Funny Quotes

I watch the Eruptions. Mount Dad, long dormant, now considered armed and dangerous. Mount Saint Mom, oozing lava, spitting flame. Warn the villagers to run into the sea.

Well, what do you want me to say?' The Doctor was so angry he was almost hovering. 'Well done on marrying the only male nurse not to have a full set of Barbara Streisand records? Why did you pick him, anyway? Were there no flight attendants in your village?' 'Only Jeff,' [Amy replied]. 'Ah.'... 'I picked Rory, always Rory, because he is just like you,' I [Amy] yelled at him. 'He is sweet and understanding and funny and he always tries to do the right thing. Plus you both run the same way.' 'We do not.' 'Do so.

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!

Because zombies can’t go out into the sun, most of them tend to be afraid of anything that can go into the sun and live to tell the tale.

What about you? What do you do?” I needed to ask questions, draw him out. I needed to find out all the information I could. My voice sounded strong and smooth, but my hands were shaking. I put them in my lap so he couldn’t see. “I prey on innocent villagers and terrify their children,” he said with a nasty smile. “And sometimes when I’m feeling really evil, I read books or paint.

Naturally the villagers blamed bears. No one had ever seen a bear in Gavaldon, but this made them more determined to find one. Four years later, when two more children vanished, the villagers admitted they should have been more specific and declared black bears the culprit, bears so black they blended with the night. But when children continued to disappear every four years, the village shifted their attention to burrowing bears, then phantom bears, then bears in disguise. . . Until it became clear it wasn't it wasn't bears at all.

This wasn’t what she expected. Never, in her wildest dreams. This... this was the Blood Queen of Garbhán Isle? Scourge of the Madron lands? Destroyer of Villages? Demon Killer of Women and Children? She who had blood pacts with the darkest of gods? This was Annwyl the Bloody? Talaith watched, fascinated, as Annwyl held onto Morfyd the Witch’s wrists. Morfyd — the Black Witch of Despair, Killer of the Innocent, Annihilator of Souls, and all around Mad Witch of Garbhán Isle or so she was called on the Madron lands — had actually tried to sneak up on Annwyl to put ointment on the nasty wound the queen had across her face. But as soon as the warrior saw her, she squealed and grabbed hold of her. Now Annwyl lay on her back, Morfyd over her, trying her best to get Annwyl to stop being a ten year old. “If you just let me—” “No! Get that centaur shit away from me, you demon bitch!” “Annwyl, I’m not letting you go home to my brother looking like that. You look horrific.” “He’ll have to love me in spite of it. Now get off!” ... “Ow!” “Crybaby.” No, this isn’t what Talaith expected. Annwyl the Blood Queen was supposed to be a vicious, uncaring warrior bent on revenge and power. She let her elite guard rape and and pillage wherever they went, and she used babies as target practice while their mothers watched in horror. That’s what she was supposed to be and that’s what Talaith expected to find. Instead, she found Annwyl. Just Annwyl. A warrior who spent most of her resting time reading or mooning over her consort. She was silly, charming, very funny, and fiercely protective of everyone. Her elite guard, all handpicked by Annwyl, were sweet, vicious fighters and blindingly loyal to their queen.

Trying to make her angry is like trying to find a corner on a bowling ball.

I prey on innocent villagers and terrify their children," he said with a nasty smile. "And sometimes when I'm feeling really evil, I read books or paint.

It's a booley village," Ian told her. "The islanders used to take their animals into the hills for the summ. They'd camp out in these stone huts: men, women, and children. Everyone stayed up all night, sang, told stories, watched the stars. It must have been great craic." "How do you know this stuff?" she asked, admiringly. "I' a bloody genius." When she threw him a look, he grinned. " I also read it in the guidebook.

New Rule: Instead of killing 99.9 percent of germs, Lysol has to just go ahead and kill them all. Why spare the remaining 0.1 percent? So they can return to their villages and tell the other germs, "Dude, do not mess with Lysol"?

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

She was smart like that, and lucky like that, and people loved the hell out of her. They didn’t love the hell out of me; they ran the hell away from me. It wasn’t like I was a bad person or anything, I just … had a lot of accidents. I didn’t mean accidents like I ate glue and then peed myself on a regular basis. I just tripped more than usual, and accidently set things on fire more than what would be considered ‘normal’. I got kicked out of the village school only one moon-cycle before graduation for accidently making one of the teachers bald. How do you accidently make someone bald? That’s a good question. All you really need is a bucket of warm tar to accidently toss onto the back of their head. How do you get a bucket of warm tar? You don’t go looking for it or anything—or at least I didn’t. It was just sitting on the road outside the school and I thought I should carry it inside to ask what it was.

Twenty-five minutes ago, I was blissfully invisible. No laughing. No evil grins. No drama. And now? It couldn’t be more dramatic. I’ve got a stepsister masquerading as Cinderella, the chauvinistic villagers think I’m the ugly stepsister, and the boy coming to my side is more likely to snag a prince than I am.

Only then could he have a sad waffle with no syrup on it for breakfast. He didn’t think his mother made them properly: rumor in the village had it that waffles weren’t supposed to be gray.

And here we go creating great men out of artisans who happened to have stumbled on a way to improve electrical apparatus or pedal through Sweden on a bicycle! And we solicit great men to write books promoting the cult of other great men! It's really very funny, and worth the price of admission! It will all end up with every village having his own great man - a lawyer, a novelist, and a polar explorer of immense stature! And the world will become wonderfully flat and simple and easy to master . . .

It was a still night, tinted with the promise of dawn. A crescent moon was just setting. Ankh-Morpork, largest city in the lands around the Circle Sea, slept. That statement is not really true On the one hand, those parts of the city which normally concerned themselves with, for example, selling vegetables, shoeing horses, carving exquisite small jade ornaments, changing money and making tables, on the whole, slept. Unless they had insomnia. Or had got up in the night, as it might be, to go to the lavatory. On the other hand, many of the less law-abiding citizens were wide awake and, for instance, climbing through windows that didn’t belong to them, slitting throats, mugging one another, listening to loud music in smoky cellars and generally having a lot more fun. But most of the animals were asleep, except for the rats. And the bats, too, of course. As far as the insects were concerned… The point is that descriptive writing is very rarely entirely accurate and during the reign of Olaf Quimby II as Patrician of Ankh some legislation was passed in a determined attempt to put a stop to this sort of thing and introduce some honesty into reporting. Thus, if a legend said of a notable hero that “all men spoke of his prowess” any bard who valued his life would add hastily “except for a couple of people in his home village who thought he was a liar, and quite a lot of other people who had never really heard of him.” Poetic simile was strictly limited to statements like “his mighty steed was as fleet as the wind on a fairly calm day, say about Force Three,” and any loose talk about a beloved having a face that launched a thousand ships would have to be backed by evidence that the object of desire did indeed look like a bottle of champagne.

While running I had a funny image of Entybrine being pushed out of a village – you can guess which one – by an Iron Golem. I imagined the Iron Golem saying, “Please leave

I see coming back to my village as significant, thanks to my privilege of being able to leave. But also because I can simultaneously cherry-pick my favourite aspects of my culture for anecdotes back home and social media, and keep the private, painful reflective ones for myself. This is what so many second-and-third generation immigrants experience visiting their homeland. We fine-tune the ability to find the nuances funny, deflecting the crushing weight of displacement and diaspora drama that becomes part of our everyday.

Everyone in my village liked U2," I said. "Everyone in my country, maybe. Wouldn't that be funny, if the oil rebels were playing U2 in their trucks. I think everyone was killing everyone else and listening to the same music. Do you know what? The first week I was in the detention center, U2 were number one here too. That is a good trick about this world, Sarah. No one likes each other, but everyone likes U2.

My traitorous vagina was putting on war paint and blowing a Viking horn like it was about to go ransack Jacob's village.

Did everyone from your little Hans Christian Andersen village look the same?

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.

It’s a funny thing because Britain was in a terrible state in those days. It limped from crisis to crisis. It was known as the Sick Man of Europe. It was in every way poorer than now. Yet there were flower beds in roundabouts, libraries and post offices in every village, cottage hospitals in abundance, council housing for all who needed it. It was a country so comfortable and enlightened that hospitals maintained cricket pitches for their staff and mental patients lived in Victorian palaces.

Eula-Beulah was prone to farts—the kind that are both loud and smelly. Sometimes when she was so afflicted, she would throw me on the couch, drop her wool-skirted butt on my face, and let loose. “Pow!” she’d cry in high glee. It was like being buried in marshgas fireworks. I remember the dark, the sense that I was suffocating, and I remember laughing. Because, while what was happening was sort of horrible, it was also sort of funny. In many ways, Eula-Beulah prepared me for literary criticism. After having a two-hundred-pound babysitter fart on your face and yell Pow!, The Village Voice holds few terrors

He imagined a town called A. Around the communal fire they’re shaping arrowheads and carving tributes o the god of the hunt. One day some guys with spears come over the ridge, perform all kinds of meanness, take over, and the new guys rename the town B. Whereupon they hang around the communal fire sharpening arrowheads and carving tributes to the god of the hunt. Some climatic tragedy occurs — not carving the correct tributary figurines probably — and the people of B move farther south, where word is there’s good fishing, at least according to those who wander to B just before being cooked for dinner. Another tribe of unlucky souls stops for the night in the emptied village, looks around at the natural defenses provided by the landscape, and decides to stay awhile. It’s a while lot better than their last digs — what with the lack of roving tigers and such — plus it comes with all the original fixtures. they call the place C, after their elder, who has learned that pretending to talk to spirits is a fun gag that gets you stuff. Time passes. More invasions, more recaptures, D, E, F, and G. H stands as it is for a while. That ridge provides some protection from the spring floods, and if you keep a sentry up there you can see the enemy coming for miles. Who wouldn’t want to park themselves in that real estate? The citizens of H leave behind cool totems eventually toppled by the people of I, whose lack of aesthetic sense if made up for by military acumen. J, K, L, adventures in thatched roofing, some guys with funny religions from the eastern plains, long-haired freaks from colder climes, the town is burned to the ground and rebuilt by still more fugitives. This is the march of history. And conquest and false hope. M falls to plague, N to natural disaster — same climatic tragedy as before, apparently it’s cyclical. Mineral wealth makes it happen for the O people, and the P people are renowned for their basket weaving. No one ever — ever — mentions Q. The dictator names the city after himself; his name starts with the letter R. When the socialists come to power they spend a lot of time painting over his face, which is everywhere. They don’t last. Nobody lasts because there’s always somebody else. They all thought they owned it because they named it and that was their undoing. They should have kept the place nameless. They should have been glad for their good fortune, and left it at that. X, Y, Z.

Lek swung his legs off the chair, unable to stay in the same position lest the memory catch up to him. “The funny thing is, Date Grove doesn’t exist anymore. It was running out of water, on its last legs while I was there. It’s been swallowed by the desert. The people of the town killed my brother to uphold the law, and it meant nothing in the end. If the law was there to protect the village, and the village didn’t survive, then what did they gain?

Let's just stand still. Maybe whoever it is won't notice us. It's dark out anyway." Both boys knew it could just be someone from the local village but their hearts were starting to beat faster anyways. Who wound be out at this time of night? Suddenly, out from the darkness came a voice. "I'll get you you mangy little...." There was the sound of something flying through the air and then a plunk as it landed somewhere nearby. Lionel winced. The voice was female.

Well, that night we had our show; but there warn’t only about twelve people there – just enough to pay expenses. And they laughed all the time, and that made the duke mad; and everybody left, anyway, before the show was over, but one boy which was asleep. So the duke said these Arkansaw lunkheads couldn’t come up to Shakespeare; what they wanted was low comedy – and maybe something ruther worse than low comedy, he reckoned. He said he could size their style. So next morning he got some big sheets of wrapping paper and some black paint, and drawed off some handbills, and stuck them up all over the village. The bills said: AT THE COURT HOUSE! FOR 3 NIGHTS ONLY! The World-Renowned Tragedians DAVID GARRICK THE YOUNGER! AND EDMUND KEAN THE ELDER! Of the London and Continental Theatres, In their Thrilling Tragedy of THE KING’S CAMELEOPARD, OR THE ROYAL NONESUCH ! ! ! Admission 50 cents. Then at the bottom was the biggest line of all, which said: LADIES AND CHILDREN NOT ADMITTED. “There,” says he, “if that line don’t fetch them, I don’t know Arkansaw!

We need a test!" I jump up out of the chair and pat my body down. "Where's my wallet?" "In your pocket," she replies dryly. "I'll be back!" I race out of the house and drive the short distance between Dom's estate and the nearest village. After I find a drug store and buy one of each kind of pregnancy test they have, I race back to my hopefully pregnant wife. "That was fast," she murmurs with a grin. She was still sitting in the lounge chair, sipping her coffee. "Should you be drinking coffee?" I ask. "Let's not get crazy," she responds. I need coffee. "I got one of each kind," I announce and opened the bag, sending small white and blue boxes scattering. "Uh, Caleb, we only need one." "What if we can't figure them out?" I ask and pick one up to examine it. "All of the instructions are in Italian." She laughs hysterically and then stands, wiping her eyes. "It's not funny." "Yes, it is. Pregnancy tests are pretty universal, Caleb. You pee on it and a line either appears or it doesn't." She rubs my arm sweetly and kisses my shoulder before plucking the box out of my fingers. "I'll be back." "I'm coming with you." I begin to follow her but she turns quickly with her hands out to stop me. "Oh no, you aren't. You are not going to watch me pee on this stick." I scowled down at her and cross my arms over my chest. "I've helped you bathe and dress and every other damn thing when you were hurt. I can handle watching you pee." "Absolutely not." She shakes her head but then leans in and kisses my chin. "But thank you for helping me when I was hurt." She turns and runs for the bathroom and it feels like an eternity before she comes back out, white stick in her hand. "Well?" I ask. "It takes about three minutes, babe." She sits in the lounge chair and stares out over the vineyard.

It’s a funny thing because Britain was in a terrible state in those days. It limped from crisis to crisis. It was known as the Sick Man of Europe. It was in every way poorer than now. Yet there were flower beds in roundabouts, libraries and post offices in every village, cottage hospitals in abundance, council housing for all who needed it. It was a country so comfortable and enlightened that hospitals maintained cricket pitches for their staff and mental patients lived in Victorian palaces. If we could afford it then, why not now? Someone needs to explain to me how it is that the richer Britain gets, the poorer it thinks itself.

Like what? What else have you found in a book?" "Well..." he looked around, like the walls might have ears and reopened the cigar box, faced it towards him so I couldn't see the contents. "Things like this." He showed me a pressed blue flower as big as my fist, it's stamens flattened in all directions like a firework display. A cookie fortune that read simply 'woe betide you'. A neatly clipped page of personal ads dated September 1, 1970 from a paper called the East Village Chronicler. "Funny stuff right?" It was. I liked it. The thought that you could find harmless, interesting things tucked inside books. A reminder that the world contained mysteries.

Kane smiled and said, “You want to know something funny?” “Always.” “There are over seven billion people on this planet, and I can only tolerate eleven.” I raised an eyebrow. “Who are the eleven people?” He held up both of his hands and dropped a finger for each person he named. “You, Branna, Bronagh, Keela, Alannah, Alec, Dominic, Ryder, Damien, Tony the pizza delivery guy, and Susan who works in Subway in the village.” I resisted the urge to laugh. “Why the last two? You don’t know them.” Kane pointed his index finger at me. “Tony brings me food, and Susan makes me food. Leave them alone, they’re good people.” I snorted. “You really need to expand your circle of people.

Harris wanted to get out at Hampton Church, to go and see Mrs. Thomas’s tomb. “Who is Mrs. Thomas?” I asked. “How should I know?” replied Harris.  “She’s a lady that’s got a funny tomb, and I want to see it.” I objected.  I don’t know whether it is that I am built wrong, but I never did seem to hanker after tombstones myself.  I know that the proper thing to do, when you get to a village or town, is to rush off to the churchyard, and enjoy the graves; but it is a recreation that I always deny myself.  I take no interest in creeping round dim and chilly churches behind wheezy old men, and reading epitaphs.  Not even the sight of a bit of cracked brass let into a stone affords me what I call real happiness.

I really do think Britain had attained something approaching perfection just around the time of my arrival. It’s a funny thing because Britain was in a terrible state in those days. It limped from crisis to crisis. It was known as the Sick Man of Europe. It was in every way poorer than now. Yet there were flowerbeds on roundabouts, libraries and post offices in every village, cottage hospitals in abundance, council housing for all who needed it. It was a country so comfortable and enlightened that hospitals maintained cricket pitches for their staff and mental patients lived in Victorian palaces. If we could afford it then, why not now? Someone needs to explain to me how it is that the richer Britain gets the poorer it thinks itself.

We worship The Block.” The player stared at me for a moment, screwing up his face as he tried to comprehend what I’d said. Then he started to chuckle. “You worship blocks? Like what everything is made out of?” I shook my head. “No, we worship The Block. It is a mysterious block that exists somewhere in the sky. It is said that The Block knows all and sees all. It is said that if it chose to, it could write everyone’s story in the Book of Life. Everyone from Herobrine and Notch down to the smallest endermite.” The player nodded his head. “The Block sounds pretty powerful. Have you ever seen him or her or it or whatever it is?” I shook my head. “The Block only reveals itself in dreams and trance-induced stupors.” “So, you’ve never seen it then?” “I have not. But I work every day to get to the point where I will be blessed enough to see The Block.” Tanisto nodded and pursed his lips. “Sounds kinda cool, I guess. What do you call your religion?” I leaned forward again. “We call ourselves … Blockheads.” The player nodded. He was getting a strange look on his face, like he was stifling a laugh. “It was nice talking to you. I think I’ll go find a villager to trade with. I require more ... earthly transactions.” I leaned back. “Suit yourself. But, you will never know the grand truth of the universe if you do not try to communicate with The Block.” The player nodded, but said no more before scurrying away. After the player was out of earshot, Dark Knight chuckled. “Blockheads. You just made all that up? You’re funny. I never realized.” I looked over my shoulder and hissed at him. “You have taken a vow of silence. Now, you have broken it, and you will never know the mysteries of The Block.

He had a rough idea where he was going, since Rylann had previously mentioned that she lived in Roscoe Village. At the stoplight at Belmont Avenue, he pulled out his cell phone and scrolled through his contacts. The beauty of text messaging, he realized, was in its simplicity. He didn’t have to try to explain things, nor did he have to attempt to parse through all the banter in an attempt to figure out what she might be thinking. Instead, he could keep things short and sweet. I’D LIKE TO SEE YOU. He hit send. To kill time while he waited for her response, he drove in the direction of his sister’s wine shop, figuring he could always drop in and harass Jordan about something. This time, however, she beat him to the punch. “So who’s the brunette bombshell?” Jordan asked as soon as he walked into the shop and took a seat at the main bar. Damn. He’d forgotten about the stupid Scene and Heard column. Kyle helped himself to a cracker and some Brie cheese sitting on the bar. “I’m going to say…Angelina Jolie. Actually, no—Megan Fox.” “Megan Fox is, like, twenty-five.” “And this is a problem why, exactly?” Jordan slapped his hand as he reached for more crackers. “Those are for customers.” She put her hand on her hip. “You know, after reading the Scene and Heard column, I’d kind of hoped it was Rylann they were talking about. And that maybe, just maybe, my ne’er-do-well twin had decided to stop playing around and finally pursue a woman of quality.” He stole another cracker. “Now, that would be something.” She shook her head. “Why do I bother? You know, one day you’re going to wake up and…” Kyle’s cell phone buzzed, and he tuned out the rest of Jordan’s lecture—he could probably repeat the whole thing word for word by now—as he checked the incoming message. It was from Rylann, her response as short and sweet as his original text. 3418 CORNELIA, #3. He had her address. With a smile, he looked up and interrupted his sister. “That’s great, Jordo. Hey, by any chance do you have any bottles of that India Ink cabernet lying around?” She stopped midrant and stared at him. “I’m sure I do. Why, what made you think of that?” Then her face broke into a wide grin. “Wait a second…that was the wine Rylann talked about when she was here. She said it was one of her favorites.” “Did she? Funny coincidence.” Jordan put her hand over her heart. “Oh my God, you’re trying to impress her. That is so cute.” “Don’t be ridiculous,” Kyle scoffed. “I just thought, since I’ve heard such good things about the wine, that I would give it a shot.” Jordan gave him a look, cutting through all the bullshit. “Kyle. She’s going to love it.” Okay, whatever. Maybe he was trying to impress Rylann a little. “You don’t think it’s too much? Like I’m trying too hard?” Jordan put her hand over her heart again. “Oh. It’s like watching Bambi take his first steps.” “Jordo…” he growled warningly. With a smile, she put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed affectionately. “It’s perfect. Trust me.

Steve walks funny too. I tried walking like him once. And a villager started talking to me. I didn’t know what to do. So I ran away. But even though he’s weird, Steve is

Maybe they’ve been drinking and think it’s funny. They’re from Cutchogue.” Karen seemed to believe the nearby village of Cutchogue was known for its drunken liars.

We are all getting tired of the Village Explainers. Explanations don’t seem to be explaining very much anymore. Authoritative accounts have a way of looking like official lies, which in their solemnity start to sound funny.

Until three weeks before,Lu Xin had lived on her family's millet farm on the banks of the Huan River. Passing through her river valley on his shining chariot one afternoon,the king had glimpsed Lu Xin tending the crops.He had decided that he fancied her. The next day,two militiamen had arrived at her door.She'd had to leave her family and her home. She'd had to leave De, the handsome young fisherman from the next village. Before the king's summons, De had shown Lu Xin how to fish using his pair of pet cormorants,by tying a bit of rope loosely around their necks so that they could catch several fish in their mouths but not swallow them. Watching De gently coax the fish from the depths of the funny bird's beaks,Lu Xin had fallen in love with him.The very next morning,she'd had to say goodbye to him. Forever. Or so she'd thought. It had been nineteen sunsets since Lu Xin had seen De,seven sunsets since she'd received a scroll from home with bad news: De and some other boys from the neighboring farms had run away to join the rebel army, and no sooner had he left than the kind's men had ransacked the village,looking for the deserters. With the king dead,the Shang men would show no mercy to Lu Xin,and she would never find De,never reunite with Daniel. Unless the king's council didn't find out that their king was dead.

He raced to Marinella at breakneck speed, about fifty miles an hour for normal drivers. As he was passing through the village of Villaseta, a carabiniere with disc signals in hand, who’d probably been hiding behind a blade of grass, suddenly appeared in front of him, gesturing for him to stop. “License and registration.” “Why, may I ask?” “The speed limit in a residential area is thirty miles an hour. Everybody and their dog knows this.” The inspector’s irritation at this new delay and the use of a cliché triggered an unfortunate reply. “Why, don’t the cats and birds know it?” The carabiniere gave him a dirty look. “Trying to be funny, are we?” He couldn’t allow himself to get into an argument. The guy was liable to run him in, and that would be all for Angelica that night.

I’m Carl,” said Carl. “Imcarl,” said Boggo. “What a funny name.” “No,” said Carl, “not Imcarl, just Carl.” “Justcarl?” said Boggo. “That name is even stranger to Boggo.” “Fine, whatever,” said Carl, rolling his eyes. “Lead the way, Boggo.

Er, yeah,” said Steve, “that was why. It definitely wasn’t just because I thought it would be funny.

Hey!” said Steve. “I know you—you’re the chicken lady!” “I’M NOT A CHICKEN LADY!” roared Spidroth. “Sorry, chicken lady,” said Steve. “I had the weirdest dream. I was fighting off a load of skeletons, and then I died. Isn’t that funny!” “That was no dream, you slack-jawed oaf!” said Spidroth. “It’s still happening right now!

For my tomorrow is a concrete jungle in a number-driven world, and hers remains a ministry to a lush little village. Thus time will pass and letters will be sent, and letters will arrive and letters will be sent, and one day I'll be seated at a noisy Manhatten trading desk, oblivious to markets in motion and will wonder once again how God got me into a Presbyterian church, to a particular beach with a particular girl on a certain weekend in May, and gave me wacky new friends and a new fresh perspective, the living words and the eternal words and the words of a black man who give rhythm to the gospel, and once again it will occur to me that all this just cannot be happenstance...no, surely not happenstance, nothing Presbyterian is ever happenstance. But what you didn't tell me, Asbury, is how much of life derives simply from choice.

But in God's shadow I had been dazzled by the detour, amazed at the fraternity, and flabbergasted by the depth that comes from simplicity, from serving in a village that was shabby, green, and pulsing with life.

Some technologies have made it possible for one to travel to the other side of the world in order to see something, whereas some have made that unnecessary: if it were not for things such as the camera and the Internet, some African boys would have never seen a Chinese woman’s vagina.

Father,” he said finally, “I don’t understand why the Council had to question Padan Fain.” With an effort he took his eyes off the woods and looked across Bella at Tam. “It seems to me, the decision you reached could have been made right on the spot. The Mayor frightened everybody half out of their wits, talking about Aes Sedai and the false Dragon here in the Two Rivers.” “People are funny, Rand. The best of them are. Take Haral Luhhan. Master Luhhan is a strong man, and a brave one, but he can’t bear to see butchering done. Turns pale as a sheet.” “What does that have to do with anything? Everybody knows Master Luhhan can’t stand the sight of blood, and nobody but the Coplins and the Congars thinks anything of it.” “Just this, lad. People don’t always think or behave the way you might believe they would. Those folk back there…let the hail beat their crops into the mud, and the wind take off every roof in the district, and the wolves kill half their livestock, and they’ll roll up their sleeves and start from scratch. They’ll grumble, but they won’t waste any time with it. But you give them just the thought of Aes Sedai and a false Dragon in Ghealdan, and soon enough they’ll start thinking that Ghealdan is not that far the other side of the Forest of Shadows, and a straight line from Tar Valon to Ghealdan wouldn’t pass that much to the east of us. As if the Aes Sedai wouldn’t take the road through Caemlyn and Lugard instead of traveling cross-country! By tomorrow morning half the village would have been sure the entire war was about to descend on us. It would take weeks to undo. A fine Bel Tine that would make. So Bran gave them the idea before they could get it themselves. They’ve seen the Council take the problem under construction, and by now they’ll be hearing what we decided. They chose us for the Village Council because they trust we can reason things out in the best way for everybody. They trust our opinions. Even Cenn’s, which doesn’t say much for the rest of us, I suppose. At any rate, they will hear there isn’t anything to worry about, and they’ll believe it. It is not that they couldn’t reach the same conclusion, or would not, eventually, but this way we won’t have Festival ruined, and nobody has to spend weeks worrying about something that isn’t likely to happen. If it does against all odds…well, the patrols will give us enough warning to do what we can.

Uh, who’s dere?” came a deep voice from inside. “Woo,” Jack said. Kate scowled at him, then rolled her eyes. “Whatever, I give up.” “Woo?” asked the voice. “Woo who?” “I’m glad you’re excited, but could you answer some questions for me?” Jack replied with a chuckle. His face lit up when the voice on the other side of the door laughed. “Dat was funny! Do it again!” the villager inside the house said.

The door creaked open a tiny bit to reveal a nitwit villager peeking through. Kate’s hopes soared when she thought they might actually get to talk to someone. They crashed down when the door slammed shut. “Hmph. Like funny stuff,” the nitwit said. “Hey buddy, what’s your name?” Jack asked through the door again. “You tell me joke, I tell you name.” Jack smirked, looking at Kate, who looked utterly defeated. He lifted his hand and knocked twice. “Who’s dere?” “Spell.” “Spell who?” Jack snorted. “W.H.O.” The nitwit paused for a long moment, then suddenly laughed. “Oh dat good one! So smart! My name Fred.

She never found words hard; her whole life she had always had a pert answer or a gentle insult or a funny riposte to anything the villagers said to her. Now she found that pulling them from her heart - and not her mind - felt like dragging something jagged and reluctant out of a well.

Need a hand?” Detective McCarl asked with a sly grin. “Even though I’ve just lost my hand and I’m in a significant amount of pain, I have to admire how funny that joke was,

No, YOU. You were my first and best reader. You helped me immensely in all those years when the world didn’t quite believe, but you always did. Those summer nights at your apartment in the Village . . . reading my plays . . . I always felt so good when you would read a line and you’d crack up in the middle of it. That’s when I knew it was truly funny. Of course, I only wrote those plays as an excuse to kiss you. But you knew that. It was always YOU.

You were my first and best reader. You helped me immensely in all those years when the world didn’t quite believe, but you always did. Those summer nights at your apartment in the Village . . . reading my plays . . . I always felt so good when you would read a line and you’d crack up in the middle of it. That’s when I knew it was truly funny. Of course, I only wrote those plays as an excuse to kiss you. But you knew that. It was always YOU.

Lek swung his legs off the chair, unable to stay in the same position lest the memory catch up to him. “The funny thing is, Date Grove doesn’t exist anymore. It was running out of water, on its last legs while I was there. It’s been swallowed by the desert. The people of the town killed my brother to uphold the law, and it meant nothing in the end. If the law was there to protect the village, and the village didn’t survive, then what did they gain? “I always wondered if those people felt satisfied about condemning that one boy, that one time, while they fled the sandstorm that buried their houses,” Lek said. “I always hoped Chen’s death was worth it to someone.

knew it was funny, but I did like people laughing at me. “Let me try that again.

Shock is a funny thing. It can render one hysterical or, in my case, totally calm.

Got it, old chap,” said Porkins. “Let’s give these blaggards a darn good thrashing. Pip pip, tally-ho, chocks away!” “Porkins say funny words,” said Saggo. “Does Porkins’s brain work properly?

Porkins say funny words,” said Saggo. “Does Porkins’s brain work properly?

I had loads of good jokes written in my speech. There was one about how piglins look a lot like pigs. It was pretty funny.

I see coming back to my village as significant, thanks to my privilege of being able to leave. But also because I can simultaneously cherry-pick my favourite aspects of my culture for anecdotes back home and social media, and keep the private, painful reflective ones for myself. This is what so many second-and-third generation immigrants experience visiting their homeland. We fine-tune the ability to find the nuances funny, deflecting the crushing weight of displacement and dispora drama that becomes part of our everyday.

I can help you write some jokes for the speech,” said Alex. “People are always laughing at me, so I must be funny.

If they catch us, we in big trouble.” “More like ‘pig trouble,’” said Carl, grinning. Everyone looked around at him. “What?” said Carl. “It was a funny joke. You lot just don’t appreciate good humor.

It’s funny, isn’t it? How much bigger the world is outside our small village? How odd is it that I was so consumed with such a minuscule life as if that was all the realm had to offer? I couldn’t see beyond what I already had. I didn’t have it in me to want for more, but I get it now, you know? Your hunger for more and your unwillingness to settle for less. I didn’t… I didn’t know there was this much more.

How I Taught My Grandmother to Read and Other Stories Sudha Murty What do you do when your grandmother asks you to teach her the alphabet? Or the President of India takes you on a train ride with him? Or a teacher gives you more marks than you deserve? These are just some of the questions you will find answered in this delightful collection of stories recounting real-life incidents from the life of Sudha Murty, teacher, social worker and bestselling writer. There is the engaging story about one of her students who frequently played truant from school, the account of how her mother’s advice to save money came in handy when she wanted to help her husband start a software company and the heart-warming tale of the promise she made—and fulfilled—to her grandfather, to ensure that her little village library would always be well-supplied with books. Funny, spirited and inspiring, each of these stories teaches a valuable lesson about the importance of doing what you believe is right and having the courage to realize your dreams.

The villagers call him 'the Wild One,' you know. Why, just last week he had the Den of Debauchery members make a pyramid of themselves down on the village green, took bets from all those who'd gathered to watch, and jumped Crusader over the lot of them. Won himself a fortune that day. The week before that —" "That's enough, Andrew," the duke interrupted, straightening up. "Come now, Luce, even you have to admit that his getting Mrs. Dorking's pig foxed was hilariously funny." "It was not hilariously funny, it was uncommonly stupid. Especially in light of all the damage the animal went on to cause." Nerissa,

Hello Miss,” I said in a feverish manner. “I’m Jack, and of course I will muck out your horse for you.” I grinned a huge dumb smile right at her. “I’m always happy to help.” She was taken aback, gazing at me confused. She wasn’t sure if I was being sarcastic, or if I was just some village simpleton who always said too much.

Who is that girl?” Loretta demanded one evening. “What girl?” Hunter felt heat rising up his neck and avoided meeting his wife’s flashing blue gaze. “That girl, the one who seems to have something in her eye.” Hunter obliged Loretta by giving Bright Star a bored glance. “She is sister to my woman who is dead.” He bent back over the arrowhead he was sharpening. “She is called Bright Star.” “She doesn’t look very bright. Is that a tic, or does she always blink that way?” Hunter smothered a snort of laughter. “She makes eyes, yes?” “At you?” He straightened and lifted a dark brow. “You think she makes eyes for you?” Loretta’s spine stiffened. “You think this is funny? Doesn’t she realize that you’re a married--” The flash in her eyes grew more fiery. “Oh, yes, how remiss of me. I forgot that you can have an entire herd of wives.” Hunter sighed and set aside the arrowhead. “This Comanche has no wish for a herd of wives. One is sure enough plenty trouble.” “Are you saying I make your life miserable? If that’s the case, why did you marry me? Why didn’t you marry her?” Hunter knew jealousy when he saw it. Everything else had failed. New tactics were called for. “I could have. Bright Star thinks I would be a fine husband, yes?” “She can have you.” That wasn’t exactly the response Hunter had been hoping for. “You have me, one unto the other, forever until we die and rot. It was your wish.” She sputtered for a moment, trying to speak. “I wasforced into this farce of a marriage!” He shrugged again. “And you do not want your man. It is sure enough a sad thing.” He thumbed his hand at Bright Star, who was still fluttering her lashes. “She wants what you do not. Yet you are angry? It is boisa, Blue Eyes.” Loretta flew to her feet, hands clenched at her sides. “It sounds as if you’ve been cheated all the way around, you poor man. Well, let me tell you something!” “I am here.” She jutted her small chin at him. “As long as you have wandering eyes, this woman wouldn’t have you in her buffalo robes if you crawled on your knees and begged. Is that clear?” She swung her arm toward Bright Star. “You can have her! You can have every woman in the village! Be my guest. But you can’t have me as well, make no mistake in that!” With that, Loretta spun and ran into the lodge. Hunter sat there a moment, listening to the muffled sounds that drifted from the doorway. Sobbing. With a snarl, he picked up the nearly finished arrowhead he had been sharpening and threw it into some nearby brush.

It’s funny. The word lie is right in the middle of believe. As if the word gods never wanted us to truly believe in anything.

In Funny Face, all it takes for the lovely Audrey Hepburn, a mousy intellectual in a Greenwich Village bookshop, to question her high-minded celibacy (“My philosophic search / Has left me in the lurch”) is a peck on the cheek from a character played by Fred Astaire. Not Cary Grant or Gary Cooper: Fred Astaire. Well, he has as much right to play a chick magnet as she has to play an existentialist, but when she falls for him she hasn’t even seen him dance; she’s only seen him trash her bookstore.

Lamashtu laughed. The staccato sound echoing in my room. “I like you, Jimmy. You’re funny. And, you are this close to going over the edge. To becoming evil.

I knew it was funny, but I did like people laughing at me. “Let me try that again.

Eventually we discovered Bleeker Bob's in the West Village on 118 West Third Street. One time I was there I literally tried to rip the first Iron Maiden album out of the hands of a friend of mine. [...] I was having a tug-of-war with this guy over who was gonna buy it. [...] If I hadn't won, I would've gone home and gotten my shitty little tape recorder that you have to use two fingers to push play and record on, and I would've brought that to my friend's house and held it in front of a speaker to tape the record so I'd have something to listen to until I could find another copy. Yeah, it'd sound terrible but so what? We didn't know anything else. When I hear people say, 'I hate MP3s, they sound like shit,' I'm like, 'Fuck you, you hae no idea, you first-world-problem-having motherfucker.

See--she forced laughter into her thoughts--I took care of the problem all by my little feminine self. Amazing, isn’t it? From the other side of a grove of trees, out of her sight, Jacob suddenly screamed in terror, the sound fading to a thin wail. The roar of an enraged bear mingled with Jacob’s second scream. Something heavy crashed through the underbrush in the opposite direction of Raven. She felt Mikhail’s laughter, low, amused, very male. Very funny, Mikhail. Jacob was broadcasting fear, but not pain. You have a questionable sense of humor. I need sleep. Quit getting into trouble, woman. If you wouldn’t stay up all night, you might not need to sleep the day away, she reprimanded. How do you get work done? A computer. He said it with a note of pride in his voice. A computer? So you are one of the lucky few. Yes. It takes up the entire desk but is quite handy. Now for certain she knew he was bragging. She found herself laughing at the thought of him with a computer. He didn’t seem to belong in an era with cars or computers. He seemed more like the villagers with their carts and horses, yet he knew more of the modern world than she did. Go back to sleep, you big baby. I can handle things just fine, thank you very much, without any great big he-man to protect me. I would much prefer that you return to the safety of the inn until I rise. There was the merest hint of command in his voice. He was trying to soften his manner with her, and she found herself smiling at his efforts. It isn’t going to happen, so learn to live with it. American women are very difficult. She continued on her way up the mountain, his laughter still playing softly in her head.

Dear Diary, “Z! Get up for school!” my mom yelled at me this evening. The sun had just gone down, and the moon was on the way up, which meant that it was time to get ready for school. My name is Zombulon, Z for short, and I’m a zombie. Looking at my name and what kind of creature I am really makes my parents look lazy, but I don’t think that they ever imagined that they’d have another kid after my older brother because his name is Arrgh, or R for short. My parents are really into one-letter nicknames. Once my brother called my parents M and D for a while, but they didn’t like that at all. It really wasn’t fair. What also isn’t fair is that I’ve got to wake up right at nightfall for school when all of the other kids get to wake up at the crack of dawn. I bet they all feel really lucky about it. It must be great to be able to wake up to the sun in your eyes instead of having to go to bed when it comes up. Being a zombie is really complicated for a lot of reasons, but my main complaint is that I can’t go outside during the day because if I do I’ll burn up. It’s like all of those stories about vampires who turn to dust in the sunlight, except for zombies are real and I just happen to be one of them. Because zombies can’t go out into the sun, most of them tend to be afraid of anything that can go into the sun and live to tell the tale. I swear that once R ran away from a chicken just because he had never seen one before. It was pretty funny. The punch in the arm that he gave me after I laughed at him was not funny. Another weird thing about being a zombie, or a monster in general around here, is that we’ve all got to go to night school. Usually, when humans talk about night school, they’re complaining about adults who they think are dumber than them for not going to college right away and waiting to take classes after work or something. My mom complains about it every once in a while, and then my dad reminds her that their best human friend went to night school and now he’s loaded. Anyway, monster night school is different. It’s just a bunch of kids like me going to school together at night. Zombies, skeletons, pigmen, and other monsters are all allowed to go to the school. Personally, I think that the humans and villagers just don’t want us to scare their kids. Anyway, Mom’s pitching a fit downstairs, so I guess that I better get ready for school. After all, it is my first day of middle school, so she wants everything to be extra special for me. I’m going to write all about it tomorrow when I actually have some news. I’m sure I will because today is going to be the first day of school this year, and new stuff always happens on the first day.