Wit And Humour Quotes

So you're a Shadowhunter,' Nate said. 'De Quincey told me that you lot were monsters.' 'Was that before or after he tried to eat you?' Will inquired.

It is only a novel... or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the road less traveled by and they CANCELLED MY FRIKKIN' SHOW. I totally shoulda took the road that had all those people on it. Damn.

A man is made of emotions, largely, and intellect – wit, humour, rationale and that's it? No! A man is the rob that hides a soul

Someone once told me that we move when it becomes less painful than staying where we are".

I didn't cross the line, you drew it in after I traversed it.

The wish of death had been palpably hanging over this otherwise idyllic paradise for a good many years. All business and politics is personal in the Philippines. If it wasn't for the cheap beer and lovely girls one of us would spend an hour in this dump. They [Jehovah's Witnesses] get some kind of frequent flyer points for each person who signs on. I'm not lazy. I'm just motivationally challenged. I'm not fat. I just have lots of stored energy. You don't get it do you? What people think of you matters more than the reality. Marilyn. Despite standing firm at the final hurdle Marilyn was always ready to run the race. After answering the question the woman bent down behind the stand out of sight of all, and crossed herself. It is amazing what you can learn in prison. Merely through casual conversation Rick had acquired the fundamentals of embezzlement, fraud and armed hold up. He wondered at the price of honesty in a grey world whose half tones changed faster than the weather. The banality of truth somehow always surprises the news media before they tart it up. You've ridden jeepneys in peak hour. Where else can you feel up a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl without even trying? [Ralph Winton on the Philippines finer points] Life has no bottom. No matter how bad things are or how far one has sunk things can always get worse. You could call the Oval Office an information rain shadow. In the Philippines, a whole layer of criminals exists who consider that it is their right to rob you unhindered. If you thwart their wicked desires, to their way of thinking you have stolen from them and are evil. There's honest and dishonest corruption in this country. Don't enjoy it too much for it's what we love that usually kills us. The good guys don't always win wars but the winners always make sure that they go down in history as the good guys. The Philippines is like a woman. You love her and hate her at the same time. I never believed in all my born days that ideas of truth and justice were only pretty words to brighten a much darker and more ubiquitous reality. The girl was experiencing the first flushes of love while Rick was at least feeling the methadone equivalent. Although selfishness and greed are more ephemeral than the real values of life their effects on the world often outlive their origins. Miriam's a meteor job. Somewhere out there in space there must be a meteor with her name on it. Tsismis or rumours grow in this land like tropical weeds. Surprises are so common here that nothing is surprising. A crooked leader who can lead is better than a crooked one who can't. Although I always followed the politics of Hitler I emulate the drinking habits of Churchill. It [Australia] is the country that does the least with the most. Rereading the brief lines that told the story in the manner of Fox News reporting the death of a leftist Rick's dark imagination took hold. Didn't your mother ever tell you never to trust a man who doesn't drink? She must have been around twenty years old, was tall for a Filipina and possessed long black hair framing her smooth olive face. This specter of loveliness walked with the assurance of the knowingly beautiful. Her crisp and starched white uniform dazzled in the late-afternoon light and highlighted the natural tan of her skin. Everything about her was in perfect order. In short, she was dressed up like a pox doctor’s clerk. Suddenly, she stopped, turned her head to one side and spat comprehensively into the street. The tiny putrescent puddle contrasted strongly with the studied aplomb of its all-too-recent owner, suggesting all manner of disease and decay.

Anger gets you into trouble, ego keeps you in trouble.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a sane employee in possession of his wits must be in want of a good manager.

Six a.m.!" Xander cried. "I know that's a number on my clock, but I've never actually been awake to personally witness it!

I'm living so far beyond my means that we may almost be said to be living apart.

I suppose when you say you slept with him, it was more than just a nap?" Lillian shot her a withering glance. "Daisy, don’t be a pea wit.

The jogger came upon them after the tragedy occurred and witnessed Raymond preparing to take off on his bike while Howard lay facedown on the ground with a metal spike through his head. When the cops arrived at the scene and questioned Raymond, he told them, “I don’t know … he like fell on it, or something. I was just riding my bike to the grocery store when I passed him on the trail. He was walking on the path while I was biking by. He saw me and said hello and then he fell face-first on a spike. I was like, ‘Dude, does that hurt?’ but he didn’t reply or move.” When the cops asked him why he was trying to flee the scene, he said, “I was going to get help on my bike. Maybe doctors could, like, unspike his head or something, like, I don’t know.

I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage: but doth not the appetite alter? a man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.

To evade insanity and depression, we unconsciously limit the number of people toward whom we are sincerely sympathetic.

In my dictionary, romance is not maudlin, treacly sentiment. It is a curry, spiced with excitement, and humour, and a healthy dollop of cynicism.

I am no novel-reader—I seldom look into novels—Do not imagine that I often read novels—It is really very well for a novel.” Such is the common cant. “And what are you reading, Miss—?” “Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.

He lies down next to me. He says, 'You know - you have a face to die for/' 'Well, don't die,' I say, "we just met.

Ever since I discovered that my god given male member was going to give me no peace, I decided to give it no rest in return.

Twelve dead?” I said. “Jesus.

And here, I believe, the wit is generally misunderstood. In reality, it lies in desiring another to kiss your a-- for having just before threatened to kick his; for I have observed very accurately, that no one ever desires you to kick that which belongs to himself, nor offers to kiss this part in another.

In Brazil, every road, bridge and viaduct has been given a name, usually that of some long-forgotten personage who was once famous for doing something worthy. Honestly, every one of them; deeper into the country, I’ve even found unsurfaced dirt tracks given names. I’m never likely to have even five minutes of fame, but if I did, I don’t think I’d want to be remembered by a dirt track going from Nowhere Town to Obscure Village.

Now kneel, fools, and witness my ascension to GODHOOD!” – Last words of Dread Empress Sinistra IV, the Erroneous

Has no one done my son a service and assassinated you yet?" "No assassins yet," Wit said, amused. "I guess I've already got too much ass sass of my own."..."Oh really, Wit" she said. "I thought that kind of humour was beneath you." "So are you technically," Wit said, smiling, from atop his high-legged stool.

It was possible she’d been too focused on her need for another cocktail to realize we were witnessing one of the portents of the apocalypse. ”The Luidaeg is singing Disney songs.

Well, well," said he, "do not make yourself unhappy. If you are a good girl for the next ten years, I will take you to a review at the end of them.

With a roof over his head he had ceased to work, living off his [war] pension and his wits, both hopelessly inadequate.

My name is Mr Bread." He began writing his name neatly on the board. "But you can call me Peter." Suddenly there was quiet, as thirty little brains whirred. "Pita Bread!" proclaimed a ginger-haired boy from the back.

Graham's life is as tense as an overstretched simile.

Instead of being regarded as intelligent or knowledgeable, many a woman would rather be regarded as beautiful or good in the kitchen; many a man, as handsome or good in bed.

He’s the thing my teenage fantasies were made of. Woodsy male scent. Muscular, yet trim frame. A quick wit that always finds a way to pull me into a debate.

Most unintelligent or foolish people do not regard themselves as that; they regard themselves as not-that-intelligent or not-that-wise.

Historical Re-creation, he thought glumly, as they picked their way across, under, over or through the boulders and insect-buzzing heaps of splintered timber, with streamlets running everywhere. Only we do it with people dressing up and running around with blunt weapons, and people selling hot dogs, and the girls all miserable because they can only dress up as wenches, wenching being the only job available to women in the olden days.

Are you smarter than my chicken?” cried a weathered, wild-haired woman holding a nonplussed bird over her head. At her feet was a wooden board covered with numbers and arcane symbols. “Lay your bets! Test your wits against a trained fowl! One coppin a try! Are you smarter than my chicken? You might be in for a surprise!

Three,' reckoned the captain, 'ourselves make seven, counting Hawkins, here. Now, about honest hands?' Most likely Trelawney's own men," said the doctor; 'those he had picked up for himself, before he lit on Silver.' Nay,' replied the squire. 'Hands was one of mine.' I did think I could have trusted Hands,' added the captain.

We rose from our chairs and bowed at each other, Japanese-style. The eight of them sat on the opposite side of the table to us, leaving the middle chair empty. All looking at us, no-one speaking a word. A long minute later, a very short, rather elderly lady – also dressed in funereal black – waddled in and seated herself in the empty chair in the middle of the row, directly facing us. She smiled; well, she attempted to twist her mouth. Too much effort. Her expression reverted to seriousness. Lin, sitting next to her, now spoke and introduced her as the Managing Director. She didn’t speak any English. Nor, it transpired, did any of the others – or if they did, we would never know, as either they weren’t brave enough to try or were inhibited by the business hierarchy. A scene that could have come out of Kafka.

She's fine," said Declan, defensive. "You're fine, right?" She gave him a look. "Peachy." "See? Both Alex and her astounding wit have made it here intact. Her sense of humour seems to be M.I.A, but I'm pretty sure that was a pre-existing condition.

The Little Prince : What are you doing there? The Tippler : I am drinking. The Little Prince : Why are you drinking? The Tippler : So that I may forget. The Little Prince : Forget what? The Tippler : Forget that I am ashamed. The Little Prince : Ashamed of what? The Tippler : Ashamed of drinking!

If to raise malicious smiles at the infirmities or misfortunes of those who have never injured us be the province of wit or humour, Heaven grant me a double portion of dullness.

Wit is a weapon. Jokes are a masculine way of inflicting superiority. But humour is the pursuit of a gentle grin, usually in solitude.

The questions appeared to be pre-rehearsed. The senior people spoke to the young one in Japanese, and he translated. I answered, and he translated back. Another one. Another one. And one more, that I felt needed a longer answer. Only then did I also notice that there was a clock on the wall opposite me, ticking past 11:59. I opened my mouth and began my answer. To my astonishment, mid-sentence, everyone just stood up, bowed, turned to their right and, in line, walked out of the room. Even while I was talking. They weren’t being rude. It’s just how meetings in Japan work.

and if a rainy morning deprived them of other enjoyments, they were still resolute in meeting in defiance of wet and dirt, and shut themselves up, to read novels together. Yes, novels; for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel–writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding — joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust. Alas! If the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body. Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers. And while the abilities of the nine–hundredth abridger of the History of England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the Spectator, and a chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand pens — there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them. “I am no novel–reader — I seldom look into novels — Do not imagine that I often read novels — It is really very well for a novel.” Such is the common cant. “And what are you reading, Miss — ?” “Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best–chosen language. Now, had the same young lady been engaged with a volume of the Spectator, instead of such a work, how proudly would she have produced the book, and told its name; though the chances must be against her being occupied by any part of that voluminous publication, of which either the matter or manner would not disgust a young person of taste: the substance of its papers so often consisting in the statement of improbable circumstances, unnatural characters, and topics of conversation which no longer concern anyone living; and their language, too, frequently so coarse as to give no very favourable idea of the age that could endure it.

Help yourself with the state! It's on democracy!

Why did Juliet fall for Romeo? Well for one thing, with all due deference for Shakespeare, he happened to be the first man she had seen.

It was one of those exuberant peaches that meet you halfway, so to speak, and are all over you in a moment.

I am horribly poor—and very expensive. I must have a great deal of money.

Wit, after all, is a mighty tart, pungent ingredient, and much too acid for some stomachs; but honest good humour is the oil and wine of a merry meeting, and there is no jovial companionship equal to that where the jokes are rather small, and the laughter abundant.

At a mere five feet seven inches, Dan was a head shorter than most of the boys. His body sagged slightly where their muscles rippled, his teeth were crooked where theirs gleamed, and his brown hair was thick and unruly where theirs shone. To judge solely from appearances, it was difficult to believe he’d been accepted into this prestigious little clique. But to judge from appearances was to ignore Dan’s quick wit and effortless charm. These were the characteristics that each of the boys aspired to, and the fact that Dan possessed them in such abundance was a constant source of fascination to them. No matter that he looked so freakishly average. His sense of humour and charisma were the benchmarks toward which the entire group was working, and few within the circle were held in higher esteem.

Oh! it is only a novel! ... only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda;' or, in short, only some work in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language.

And what are you reading, Miss?" "Oh!" it is only a novel!" replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.

I wouldn't do that," Silk advised. "Thinking about it isn't going to help, and it's only going to make you nervous." "Nervouser," Garion corrected. "I'm already nervous." "Is there such a word as "'nervouser'?" Silk asked Belgarath curiously. "There is now," Belgarath replied. "Garion just invented it." "I wish I could invent a word," Silk said admiringly to Garion.

Miss Taverner took the whip and reins in her hands, and mounted into the driving-seat, scorning assistance. "Take your orders from Miss Taverner, Henry," said the Earl, getting up beside his ward. "Me Lord, you are never going to let a female drive us?" said Henry almost tearfully. "What about my pride?" "Swallow it, Henry," replied the Earl amicably.

...our witness, one Edward Littleton, was as gay as Elton John's handbag.

He was a corpulent man, with a gift for sly chaffing, which to the end of his life he exercised in his intercourse with his son, a little pityingly, as if upon a half-witted person.

The Parisian is of all men the most sophisticated. Paris is a city of realists, unaffected by sentimentality; a city of industry and thrift; a city of irony, but rarely of laughter, of wit but never or humour, of superficial intolerance and yet of people who regard the rest of the world with more or less amiable contempt.

You judge very properly, and it is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are the result of previous study?

She then recovered her wits and averting her eyes from the wreck of her house she shook Babbington's hand, embraced Stephen tenderly, greeted all the officers, young gentlemen and seamen she knew, and said she would not get in their way - would go and sort her baggage and draw breath in one of the loose-boxes: there was nothing she preferred to a really commodious loose-box.

That as my sister-in-law at Colchester had said, beauty, wit, manners, sense, good humour, good behaviour, education, virtue, piety, or any other qualification, whether of body or mind, had no power to recommend; that money only made a woman agreeable; that men chose mistresses indeed by the gust of their affection, and it was requisite to a whore to be handsome, well-shaped, have a good mien and a graceful behaviour; but that for a wife, no deformity would shock the fancy, no ill qualities the judgment; the money was the thing; the portion was neither crooked nor monstrous, but the money was always agreeable, whatever the wife was.

only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.

In the context of fiercely monolingual dominant cultures like that of the United States, code-switching lays claim to a form of cultural power: the power to own but not be owned by the dominant language...Code-switching is a rich source of wit, humour, puns, word play, and games of rhythm and rhyme.

Mrs. Henderson looked up at the sheriff and smiled pleasantly. "Is my husband still alive?" she asked. "Yes, ma'am. He's hanging in there," he replied. "Good," she said. "I hope he lives." The sheriff nodded. The old woman smiled. "Because I really want to stab him again." Wit that, Mrs. Henderson went back to reading the Bible.

At the crisis of my fever, I besought Hollingsworth to let nobody else enter the room, but continually to make me sensible of his own presence… then he should be the witness how courageously I would encounter the worst. It still impresses me almost a matter of regret, that I did not die then, when I had tolerably made up my mind to do it

Lady Fate, what is your greatest weapon?” Max frowned. “My extensive fucking vocabulary and razor-sharp wit!” I wanted to cry. This was so stupid.

She imagined how distraught her mother would be to witness such a thing—her daughter rubbing her bare ankle while alone in a strange place with a strange man

Have a selective optimistic sight, transform the bitch glitch "in stitches.

Salt waters shall be found in the sweet, and all friends shall destroy one another; then shall wit hide itself, and understanding withdraw itself into his secret chamber-

If you want to be heard, become a dentist.

They seek him here. They seek him there. Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in Heaven? Or is he in Hell? That damned, illusive pimpernel.

If water was beer I'd be a teetotaler

The best thing to learn from any government is that it does not get affacted by what other people talk or think about it.

Frame everything and some of it will become art.

if he had an equal in his profession he had never acknowledged the fact.

It’s libertine this and libertine that, but so far as I can tell, he only has about six notches in his bedpost and it never once crossed his mind that he could lower himself onto it.

Who are those depressed-looking young women who have just gone by?" asked the Baroness; "they have the air of people who have bowed to destiny and are not quite sure whether the salute will be returned.

You wait a minute,” she said. “I have to see about my dinner.” She went out to the kitchen and found Joy standing near the door where she had been listening. “Get rid of the salt of the earth,” she said, “and let's eat.

To me she said, "It's this stupid gotcha thing, they've been doing it for weeks now. Leaping out at each other and us, scaring the hell out of everyone." "It's a game of wits," Bert said to me. "Half-wits," Kristy added.

Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.

she had been the eldest sister of a large family of self-indulgent children, and her particular form of indulgence had consisted in openly disapproving of the foibles of the others. Unfortunately the hobby had grown up with her.

To my own ear, I sound like Charles de Gaulle himself but when I put my new-found phrases into practice, the post office clerk from whom I’ve asked to buy a stamp will look at me like I’ve asked him to administer a rectal thermometer.

She used to be a tremendously affectionate and cooperative cat, perfectly happy for you to pick her up and carry her around on your shoulder like a parrot. Time was, you could even pop her on your head like a living fur hat and she’d stay there, content to grow fat on your loving brainwaves. Now, in her advanced years, she’s developed a certain coolness. Though there are, of course, limits to one’s cool when one looks like a not-particularly-sophisticated glove puppet.

And what are you reading, Miss—?” “Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language

The little stone Saint and the Goblin got on very well together, though they looked at most things from different points of view. The Saint was a philanthropist in an old fashioned way; he thought the world, as he saw it, was good, but might be improved. In particular he pitied the church mice, who were miserably poor. The Goblin, on the other hand, was of opinion that the world, as he knew it, was bad, but had better be let alone. It was the function of the church mice to be poor.

..... he had ridden right through the gates of the palace. Of course, people rode through the gates of the palace every day, but most of them needed the things to be opened first. The guards on the other side were rigid with fear, because they thought they had seen a ghost. They would have been far more frightened if they had known that a ghost was almost exactly what they hadn't seen. The guard outside the doors of the great hall had seen it happen too, but he had time to gather his wits, or such that remained, and raise his spear as Binky trotted across the courtyard. 'Halt,' he croaked. 'Halt. What goes where?' Mort saw him for the first time. 'What?' he said, still lost in thought. The guard ran his tongue over his dry lips, and backed away. Mort slid off Binky's back and walked forward. 'I meant, what goes there?' the guard tried again, with a mixture of doggedness and suicidal stupidity that marked him for early promotion. Mort caught the spear gently and lifted it out of the way of the door. As he did so the torchlight illuminated his face. 'Mort,' he said softly. It should have been enough for any normal soldier, but this guard was officer material. 'I mean, friend or foe?' he stuttered, trying to avoid Mort's gaze. 'Which would you prefer?' he grinned. It wasn't quite the grin of his master, but it was a pretty effective grin and didn't have a trace of humour in it. The guard sagged with relief, and stood aside. 'Pass, friend,' he said.

[Ulysses] appears to have been written by a perverted lunatic who has made a speciality of the literature of the latrine… I have no stomach for Ulysses… James Joyce is a writer of talent, but in Ulysses he has ruled out all the elementary decencies of life and dwells appreciatively on things that sniggering louts of schoolboys guffaw about. In addition to this stupid glorification of mere filth, the book suffers from being written in the manner of a demented George Meredith. There are whole chapters of it without any punctuation or other guide to what the writer is really getting at. Two-thirds of it is incoherent, and the passages that are plainly written are devoid of wit, displaying only a coarse salacrity intended for humour.

When I was a little girl, I was the girl laughing at things that are actually funny. I wasn't one of them girls sitting in a circle giggling silently at stupid stuff. I LAUGHED and I laughed loud and wonderfully! I laughed at things that are funny and offensive and stirring and hilarious! Girls are raised to not have wit, to have no sense of humour, to only be quiet and sweet, and to be offended by everything! Girls are raised to not be people. I was born into this world determined to be a person! And I did it.

LADY BRACKNELL. I have always been of the opinion that a man who desires to be married should know either everything or nothing. Which do you know? JACK. [After some hesitation.] I know nothing, Lady Bracknell. LADY BRACKNELL. I am pleased to hear it. I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever.

The difference ‘twixt poet and coxcomb is precisely that the latter stops gaps like a ship fitter caulking seams, merely to keep the boat afloat, while the former doth his work as doth a man with a maid: he fills the gap, but with vigor, finesse, and care; there’s beauty and delight as well as utility in his plugging

I did not utter a word on seeing them nor did my feet falter but I was shaken by the revelation of two people, whom until now I had regarded only as reflections of my own existence, in violent relation to each other. For the first time I was forced to admit that other people existed. It was not a discovery that I welcomed.

Sometimes when a father has an ugly, loutish son, the love he bears him so blindfolds his eyes that he does not see his defects, or, rather, takes them for gifts and charms of mind and body, and talks of them to his friends as wit and grace. I, however—for though I pass for the father, I am but the stepfather to "Don Quixote"—have no desire to go with the current of custom, or to implore thee, dearest reader, almost with tears in my eyes, as others do, to pardon or excuse the defects thou wilt perceive in this child of mine. Thou art neither its kinsman nor its friend, thy soul is thine own and thy will as free as any man's, whate'er he be, thou art in thine own house and master of it as much as the king of his taxes and thou knowest the common saying, "Under my cloak I kill the king;" all which exempts and frees thee from every consideration and obligation, and thou canst say what thou wilt of the story without fear of being abused for any ill or rewarded for any good thou mayest say of it.

The Liquor Vicar is beautiful chaos. Ditrich’s characters come alive with all the complexity of a Shakespearean comedy and a uniquely Canadian dry wit. Colourful characters carry this story like a current, moving seamlessly from side-splitting humour to tenderness as it explores our human desire for relevance and purpose.” Melanie Martin, author of “A Splendid Boy

Women then are only children of a larger growth ; they have an entertaining tattle and sometimes wit , but for solid , reasoning good - sense , I never knew in my life one that had it , or who reasoned or acted consequentially for four -and-twenty hours together. Some little passion or humour always breaks in upon their best resolutions... No flattery is too high or low for them...

It was clear to me that my hosts too were feeling anything but comfortable, that their cheerfulness was forced, whether because they were inhibited by me, or else were out of sorts for some domestic reason. They only asked me questions it was impossible to give an honest answer to and, as a result, I had soon lied myself into such a corner that every word I uttered almost made me sick. Eventually in an effort to distract them, I started to tell them about the funeral I had witnessed that day, but I struck a wrong note. My attempts at humour did nothing to improve the general mood, and we were increasingly at odds with one another. Inside me, Steppenwolf was laughing and baring his teeth and, by the time dessert was served, we had all three fallen quite silent.

There are so many "tools for life" that you are going to hear about, every day. But obviously I tell my son what I believe in most of all. I always tell my son, "The wheels that are going to get you through daily life are two things: Humour and Wit. Add a cup of humour and a cup of wit to every hour of your life and these are the wheels that will keep you turning." Humour and Wit. Remember that.

John's particular talents hadn't gone unnoticed but they weren't his artistic talents. They were his talents for having his fellow students fall about with shocked, uncontrollable laughter at his wicked, disrespectful wit. His ability to disrupt a lecture had to be seen to be believed and John's appearance was even worse than his humour. I think he was the last stronghold of the Teddy Boys - totally aggressive and anti-establishment. My first impression of John, as he slouched reluctantly into the lettering class for the first time, was one of apprehension. I felt that I had nothing in common with this individual and as far as I was concerned I never would. In fact he frightened me to death. The only thing that John and I had in common was that we were both blind as bats without our glasses.

there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them. “I am no novel-reader—I seldom look into novels—Do not imagine that I often read novels—It is really very well for a novel.” Such is the common cant. “And what are you reading, Miss—?” “Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.

Such is the common cant. “And what are you reading, Miss —?” “Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language. Now, had the same young lady been engaged with a volume of the Spectator, instead of such a work, how proudly would she have produced the book, and told its name; though the chances must be against her being occupied by any part of that voluminous publication, of which either the matter or manner would not disgust a young person of taste:

Erm…I don’t know maybe for kissing me and tasting so damn delicious, maybe for holding my hand in public, maybe for looking far too hot in that sexy, snug tee when you should just be looking like Jo’s little brother. The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I chose the much more sophisticated reaction of scowling, hard. I would have kicked him again, but I was convinced he’d moved his legs out of the way. Coward.” ~ Ella, A Perfect Moment

Wit and high spirits and a sense of fun- yes, they're wonderful things. But a sense of humour- a real one- is a rarity and can be utter hell. Because it's immoral, you know, in the real sense of the word: I mean, it makes its own laws; and it possesses the person who has it like a demon. Fools talk about it as though it were the same thing as a sense of balance, but believe me, it's not. It's a sense of anarchy, and a sense of chaos. Thank God it's rare.

LADY BRACKNELL. I have always been of the opinion that a man who desires to be married should know either everything or nothing. Which do you know? JACK. [After some hesitation.] I know nothing, Lady Bracknell. LADY BRACKNELL. I am please to hear it. I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever.

To me Society says: “You sit at your desk and write, that is all I want you to do.  You are not good for much, but you can spin out yards of what you and your friends, I suppose, call literature; and some people seem to enjoy reading it.  Very well: you sit there and write this literature, or whatever it is, and keep your mind fixed on that.  I will see to everything else for you.  I will provide you with writing materials, and books of wit and humour, and paste and scissors, and everything else that may be necessary to you in your trade; and I will feed you and clothe you and lodge you, and I will take you about to places that you wish to go to; and I will see that you have plenty of tobacco and all other things practicable that you may desire—provided that you work well.  The more work you do, and the better work you do, the better I shall look after you.  You write—that is all I want you to do.” “But,” I say to Society, “I don’t like work; I don’t want to work.  Why should I be a slave and work?” “All right,” answers Society, “don’t work.  I’m not forcing you.  All I say is, that if you don’t work for me, I shall not work for you.  No work from you, no dinner from me—no holidays, no tobacco.” And I decide to be a slave, and work.

JACK. We must get married at once. There is no time to be lost. GWENDOLEN. Married, Mr. Worthing? JACK. Well... surely. You know that I love you, and you let me to believe, Miss Fairfax, that you were not absolutely indifferent to me. GWENDOLEN. I adore you. But you haven't proposed to me yet. Nothing has been said at all about marriage. The subject has not even been touched on. JACK. Well... may I propose to you now? GWENDOLEN. I think it would be an admirable opportunity. And to spare you any possible disappointment, Mr. Worthing, I think it only fair to tell you quite frankly beforehand that I am fully determined to accept you.

But Brandoch Daha laughed, and answered him, “To nought else may I liken thee, O Juss, but to the sparrow-camel. To whom they said, ‘Fly,’ and it answered, ‘I cannot, for I am a camel’; and when they said, ‘Carry,’ it answered, ‘I cannot, for I am a bird.’ ” “Wilt thou egg me on so much?” said Juss. “Ay,” said Brandoch Daha, “if thou wilt be assish.” “Wilt thou quarrel?” said Juss. “Thou knowest me,” said Brandoch Daha. “Well,” said Juss, “thy counsel hath been right once and saved us, for nine times that it hath been wrong, and my counsel saved thee from an evil end. If ill behap us, it shall be set down that it had from thy peevish will original.

My studio team and I approached the creation of this series with enthusiasm, wit, sincerity and sometimes more than a dash of humour. Is the result just another foray into the clichés of Orientalism? I think not. For the most part the people photographed became co-conspirators in our elaborate game of recreating reality. They enjoyed chai with us and a morning samosa (we most always shoot in the early morning since it is the best time to utilize available light). Our models were indeed “posed and paid”, but they cooperated by suggesting so many things themselves… eagerly grasping the process we were undertaking and joining in the creation of what generally became more than just a photo shoot. Each session in the studio became an “event”…an episode of manufactured expression in which all participated and all remembered.

From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers. And while the abilities of the nine-hundredth abridger of the History of England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the Spectator, and a chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand pens—there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them. “I am no novel-reader—I seldom look into novels—Do not imagine that I often read novels—It is really very well for a novel.” Such is the common cant. “And what are you reading, Miss—?” “Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language. Now, had the same young lady been engaged with a volume of the Spectator, instead of such a work, how proudly would she have produced the book, and told its name; though the chances must be against her being occupied by any part of that voluminous publication, of which either the matter or manner would not disgust a young person of taste: the substance of its papers so often consisting in the statement of improbable circumstances, unnatural characters, and topics of conversation which no longer concern anyone living; and their language, too, frequently so coarse as to give no very favourable idea of the age that could endure it.

It is a revelation to compare the Don Quixote of Pierre Menard with that of Miguel de Cervantes. Cervantes, for example, wrote the following (Part I, Chapter IX): ...truth, whose mother is history, rival of time, depository of deeds, witness of the past, exemplar and adviser to the present, and the future's counselor. This catalog of attributes, written in the seventeenth century, and written by the "ingenious layman" Miguel de Cervantes, is mere rhetorical praise of history. Menard, on the other hand, writes: ...truth, whose mother is history, rival of time, depository of deeds, witness of the past, exemplar and adviser to the present, and the future's counselor. History, the mother of truth! - the idea is staggering. Menard, a contemporary of William James, defines history not as delving into reality but as the very font of reality. Historical truth, for Menard, is not "what happened"; it is what we believe happened. The final phrases - exemplar and adviser to the present, and the future's counselor - are brazenly pragmatic.

...the letters begin to cross vast spaces in slow sailing ships and everything becomes still more protracted and verbose, and there seems no end to the space and the leisure of those early nineteenth century days, and faiths are lost and the life of Hedley Vicars revives them; aunts catch cold but recover; cousins marry; there is the Irish famine and the Indian Mutiny, and both sisters remain, to their great, but silent grief, for in those days there were things that women hid like pearls in their breasts, without children to come after them. Louisa, dumped down in Ireland with Lord Waterford at the hunt all day, was often very lonely; but she stuck to her post, visited the poor, spoke words of comfort (‘I am sorry indeed to hear of Anthony Thompson's loss of mind, or rather of memory; if, however, he can understand sufficiently to trust solely in our Saviour, he has enough’) and sketched and sketched. Thousands of notebooks were filled with pen and ink drawings of an evening, and then the carpenter stretched sheets for her and she designed frescoes for schoolrooms, had live sheep into her bedroom, draped gamekeepers in blankets, painted Holy Families in abundance, until the great Watts exclaimed that here was Titian's peer and Raphael's master! At that Lady Waterford laughed (she had a generous, benignant sense of humour); and said that she was nothing but a sketcher; had scarcely had a lesson in her life—witness her angel's wings, scandalously unfinished. Moreover, there was her father's house for ever falling into the sea; she must shore it up; must entertain her friends; must fill her days with all sorts of charities, till her Lord came home from hunting, and then, at midnight often, she would sketch him with his knightly face half hidden in a bowl of soup, sitting with her notebook under a lamp beside him. Off he would ride again, stately as a crusader, to hunt the fox, and she would wave to him and think, each time, what if this should be the last? And so it was one morning. His horse stumbled. He was killed. She knew it before they told her, and never could Sir John Leslie forget, when he ran down-stairs the day they buried him, the beauty of the great lady standing by the window to see the hearse depart, nor, when he came back again, how the curtain, heavy, Mid-Victorian, plush perhaps, was all crushed together where she had grasped it in her agony.

You have heard your sentence. So you see, you’ll have to get used to going on listening to the radio music of life. It will do you good. You are uncommonly lacking in talent, my dear stupid chap, but by now I suppose even you have gradually realized what is being asked of you. You are to learn to laugh, that’s what is being asked of you. You are to understand life’s humour, the gallows humour of this life. But of course you are prepared to do anything on earth other than what is asked of you. You are prepared to stab girls to death; you are prepared to have yourself solemnly executed; you would no doubt also be prepared to spend a hundred years mortifying your flesh and scourging yourself. Or am I wrong? ‘No! With all my heart I’d be prepared to do so,’ I cried in my despair. Naturally! There isn’t a single stupid and humourless activity, anything pompous, serious and devoid of wit, that doesn’t appeal to you! But, you see, nothing of that sort appeals to me. I don’t give a fig for all your romantic desire to do penance. You must be berserk, wanting to be executed and have your head chopped off! You’d commit another ten murders to achieve this stupid ideal of yours. You want to die, you coward, but not to live. But to go on living, damn it, is precisely what you will have to do.

You have heard your sentence. So you see, you’ll have to get used to going on listening to the radio music of life. It will do you good. You are uncommonly lacking in talent, my dear stupid chap, but by now I suppose even you have gradually realized what is being asked of you. You are to learn to laugh, that’s what is being asked of you. You are to understand life’s humour, the gallows humour of this life. But of course you are prepared to do anything on earth other than what is asked of you. You are prepared to stab girls to death; you are prepared to have yourself solemnly executed; you would no doubt also be prepared to spend a hundred years mortifying your flesh and scourging yourself. Or am I wrong?’ ‘No! With all my heart I’d be prepared to do so,’ I cried in my despair. ‘Naturally! There isn’t a single stupid and humourless activity, anything pompous, serious and devoid of wit, that doesn’t appeal to you! But, you see, nothing of that sort appeals to me. I don’t give a fig for all your romantic desire to do penance. You must be berserk, wanting to be executed and have your head chopped off! You’d commit another ten murders to achieve this stupid ideal of yours. You want to die, you coward, but not to live. But to go on living, damn it, is precisely what you will have to do.

The society’s ‘look’ is a self-publicizing one. The American flag itself bears witness to this by its omnipresence, in fields and built-up areas, at service stations, and on graves in the cemeteries, not as a heroic sign, but as the trademark of a good brand. It is simply the label of the finest successful international enterprise, the US. This explains why the hyperrealists were able to paint it naively, without either irony or protest (Jim Dine in the sixties), in much the same way as Pop Art gleefully transposed the amazing banality of consumer goods on to its canvases. There is nothing here of the fierce parodying of the American anthem by Jimi Hendrix, merely the light irony and neutral humour of things that have become banal, the humour of the mobile home and the giant hamburger on the sixteen-foot long billboard, the pop and hyper humour so characteristic of the atmosphere of America, where things almost seem endowed with a certain indulgence towards their own banality. But they are indulgent towards their own craziness too. Looked at more generally, they do not lay claim to being extraordinary; they simply are extraordinary. They have that extravagance which makes up odd, everyday America. This oddness is not surrealistic (surrealism is an extravagance that is still aesthetic in nature and as such very European in inspiration); here, the extravagance has passed into things. Madness, which with us is subjective, has here become objective, and irony which is subjective with us has also turned into something objective. The fantasmagoria and excess which we locate in the mind and the mental faculties have passed into things themselves. Whatever the boredom, the hellish tedium of the everyday in the US or anywhere else, American banality will always be a thousand times more interesting than the European - and especially the French - variety. Perhaps because banality here is born of extreme distances, of the monotony of wide-open spaces and the radical absence of culture. It is a native flower here, asis the opposite extreme, that of speed and verticality, of an excess that verges on abandon, and indifference to values bordering on immorality, whereas French banality is a hangover from bourgeois everyday life, born out of a dying aristocratic culture and transmuted into petty-bourgeois mannerism as the bourgeoisie shrank away throughout the nineteenth century. This is the crux: it is the corpse of the bourgeoisie that separates us. With us, it is that class that is the carrier of the chromosome of banality, whereas the Americans have succeeded in preserving some humour in the material signs of manifest reality and wealth. This also explains why Europeans experience anything relating to statistics as tragic. They immediately read in them their individual failure and take refuge in a pained denunciation of the merely quantitative. The Americans, by contrast, see statistics as an optimistic stimulus, as representing the dimensions of their good fortune, their joyous membership of the majority. Theirs is the only country where quantity can be extolled without compunction.

They listened to her description of Joey’s early life. It took her an hour to talk them through that, his troubles at school and his damning reputation on the estate, which she dismissed as neighbours’ spite. She dwelt on his reliability, his help around the house and with the kids, his sense of humour, his quick wits… ‘Allow me to stop you there for one moment,’ interrupted Formby-Hart, who had appeared to be dozing. ‘You seem to be describing the sort of boy that I for one have never met. Who is this lad, this little darling who is constantly misrepresented by teachers and neighbours? Even his friends find some of his actions alarming.

But he had no understanding of the virtues of moderation. He had the kind of generous nature that reckoned panic was not something you hoarded for yourself; you shared it with family.

No one was safe from Terry Hanlon's wit and humour. He was much loved by polo players all over the world.

I now realized that to know all is not to forgive all. It is to despise everybody.

Take heart, I said to myself, all may yet be lost.

It is nice to be in the same boat as one's betters especially if it is sinking.

In 1653, when God took a turn for the worse, the gusto with which the English took to a life of self-restraint undoubtedly contained an element of debauchery. If we don't suffer, how shall we know that we live?

Only novels! Only some work in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language!

What is a warchild, you ask? Some say they are human, other ‘witnesses’ call them horrendous demons. That they wield great power is undeniable. They master the very thing that makes us who we are: emotion. Love, hatred, terror, anguish, humour, sadness, joy . . . all these and a hundred more, a thousand. Imagine a thing, a creature that could take them from you, leaving you as an empty husk, able to think, but having no will to act. No will to resist. “That, my emperor, is a warchild.

Max waited until Barry went into the back office before tapping the aquarium tank and agitating the fish. "...here's the truth, Hildy. None of us guys is good enough for you --especially not Neanderbob. You deserve someone who's kind and creative and super hot." "And straight." "Yeah, that too. Now shut up for a while and watch. We could all learn something from tropical fish. They're utterly useless and yet content." "Be still and find your inner guppy." "Yeah, basically.

I'm not being stupid. I'm taking an honest look at my life and drawing the obvious conclusions...Lots of people are single their whole lives and are totally fine wit it." "Sure." Max took her croissant because she clearly wasn't eating it. "The pope, most guidance counsellors -- and who else?

I'm glad you two find this amusing." Hildy scooched toward the table so a man with a howling baby and several canvas bags full of vegetables could get by. "Go ahead. Laugh at me. I don't care." "We're not laughing at you. We're just laughing. Know why?" Xiu threw her napkin over her plate so she wouldn't be tempted to eat any more. "1) Because we're young and alive and 2) because it's not that big a deal. It's normal. I don't know what it is about surly guys but they make girls do crazy things. Especially so-called 'sensitive' girls. Witness Heathcliff.

This David Hume is an excellent man; he is naturally placid; he listens attentively, he sometimes speaks with wit, although he speaks little; but he is clumsy, he has neither warmth, nor grace, nor charm of humour, nor anything that properly appertains to the chirping of those charming little mechanisms known as pretty women.”23

Venom by Stewart Stafford Thou art the Great Pudenda; The usurper king of Puck's Fair, Miasma ague, a goat's smear, From a reeking jakes' baited bear! Thou dost hurl thy feeble barbs, Witted pits 'gainst an impregnable bard, With dagger'd quill to etch thy epitaph, Far-outliving thy quarrel's shard. Toad-spawn at the gates of Hades; Cast out from its cursed ground, For the dunghill art thou fit, With its foul beetles all around. © 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.

mystery thrown over the whole, until atlast all the incidents and attendant circumstances are explained and the reader finds himself relieved from all embarrassments and impediments. There are interpersed throughout the book fine pieces of humour, lively flashes of wit and imagination, and shrewd observations on the ways of the world and the inner workings of the human mind. Love, loyalty and patriotism are represented in the highest form and in the end rise as oil above water. The rebels are killed one after another and Marthanda Varma ascends the throne and finally makes over the country to God Padmanabhaswami. Parameswaran Pillay is made chamberlain and Ramayyer becomes an important officer of the State. The country is peaceful, contented and happy. Ananthapadmanabhan at last reveals his identity and is wedded to the ideal heroine. With the exception of the unfortunate Subhadra, everyone gets his due and the whole story is brought to a happy, though abrupt, termination. The author wields an admirable style and shows wide acquaintance with Malayalam literature. But from the point of view of the popular reader, the chief defect of the book is perhaps the lavish imagery which adorns its pages; and in the free use of Sanskrit words. Mr. Raman Pillay, is, in our opinion, hardly surpassed by any modern Malayalam prose writer. The result

It’s The Specialist, by Charles Sale, and is only a few dozen pages long. Strictly speaking, it’s the reminiscences of a privy builder, but it’s really a gentle education in the nature of humour. That stuff needs deep soil; you can grow wit on a damp flannel.

I saved you,” Andersen said at last, slowly but firmly, like Pat was an idiot child who had to be reminded of the basic rules of the universe. To wit: Gravity exists. Time purports to flow in a linear fashion, but it’s only trying to fool us. I saved you.

The worst case of discrimination can be witnessed in music. Imagine calling B 'sharp' in presence of D 'minor

The large bedroom was crammed to overflowing with family relics, and examples of the various arts in which Lady Emily had brilliantly dabbled at one time or another. Part of one wall was decorated with a romantic landscape painted on the plaster, the fourpost bed was hung with her own skilful embroidery, watercolour drawings in which a touch of genius fought and worsted an entire want of technique hung on the walls. Pottery, woodcarving, enamels, all bore witness to their owner’s insatiable desire to create. From their earliest days the Leslie children had thought of their mother as doing or making something, handling brush, pencil, needle with equal enthusiasm, coming in late to lunch with clay in her hair, devastating the drawing-room with her far-flung painting materials, taking cumbersome pieces of embroidery on picnics, disgracing everyone by a determination to paint the village cricket pavilion with scenes from the life of St Francis for which she made the gardeners pose. What Mr Leslie thought no one actually knew, for Mr Leslie had his own ways of life and rarely interfered. Once only had he been known to make a protest. In the fever of an enamelling craze, Lady Emily had a furnace put up in the service-room, thus making it extremely difficult for Gudgeon and the footman to get past, and moreover pressing the footman as her assistant when he should have been laying lunch.

He has something more important that a sense of humour, but I don't know what it is.

authority. She is a serious figure: Her Majesty, the British monarch and head of the Commonwealth. But as anyone who has ever met her will tell you, in person she is very warm and human with a well-developed sense of humour. Look at it another way,

I lost the plot and bought myself an allotment

When a novel lacks the indefinable, unmistakable thing we call beauty, one looks in it for sound delineation of character, or humour of situation, or verbal wit.

Smile makes women smarter, humour makes men handsome.

You can't take a crash course in comedy, there is no crash course in comedy.

I remember stating that humour was the poor cousin of wit and at best it was the whetstone on which wit sharpened itself – that one laughs at humour but savours wit.

I moved out of my head office and went out of my mind.

Parents never you make church and studying the word of God optional for your children. If they are in your house, get them up, teach them the word of God, the greatest awards, PhD or achievements any child could have is to grow up in the word of God. I and my family are living witness and it is extending to our third generation.

Of what use is my going to church every day and still come home and remain the same? Of what use is my attending the mosques and the next day I enter the mall with knives and start slaughtering people in the name of religion. God is a God of variety. He was not stupid creating all of us different with our uniqueness. His creating us different shows the level of His creativity. He didn't make you white to hate black or vice versa. He made it so that we can cherish and love each other irrespective of our differences just as He loved us with all our flaws and our short comings. Can we forgive those who have offended us? Yes and some will say no but never forget that you are not worthy but God still forgives you even till the last hour of your life. If God can love us against all our atrocities why can't we learn to love one another. Take a look around you, you can only see sad faces. Was that really God's intention for us on earth? Absolutely not. But we have remoulded God's creativity to suit our taste and lifestyles and now we are reaping the fruit of our labour. You should not expect to reap love when you sowed the seed of hatred. What a man sows that he reaps. We sowed on weapons of war and we are yielding war in return. We have sowed on weapons of destruction so why are we asking for peace. If you ask me....I will say let's go back to our source. He has never lost any battle. I am a living witness.

They were very devout, I don’t mean silly like the Hare Krishnas or deadly dull like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, they had a sense of humour, but they really believed our destiny lies out among the stars.

Frankly speaking, I'm not afraid of death. I don't endeavour to avert its advent. But I don't want to be a witness of it.

I've met at least three Great Beast 666's over the last few years, and not one of them had even one-tenth of the wit, humour, wisdom or panache that I would expect from a figure of Crowleyan proportions. Isn't it curious how those who strive to be someone else are very selective; yes, I can see that you've got the heroin habit and mastered the art of beating up on your 'scarlet women,' but you haven't been extradited [sic] from any countries, you haven't published anything, nor have you climbed any mountains of late.

One...Two...Three...I'd heard somewhere that counting to ten when you're at your wits' end was a good way to keep from blowing your stack.

The other night I was invited out for a night with the 'girls.' I told my husband that I would be home by midnight, 'I promise!' Well, the hours passed and the Blue Wkds went down way too easily. Around 3 a.m., a bit pissed, I headed for home. Just as I got in the door, the cuckoo clock in the hallway started up and cuckooed 3 times. Quickly, realizing my husband would probably wake up, I cuckooed another 9 times. I was really proud of myself for coming up with such a quick-witted solution, in order to escape a possible conflict with him. (Even when totally smashed... 3 cuckoos plus 9 cuckoos totals 12 cuckoos MIDNIGHT!) The next morning my husband asked me what time I got in, I told him 'MIDNIGHT'... he didn't seem pissed off in the least. Whew, I got away with that one! Then he said 'We need a new cuckoo clock.' When I asked him why, he said, 'Well, last night our clock cuckooed three times, then said 'oh shit.' Cuckooed 4 more times, cleared its throat, cuckooed another three times, giggled, cuckooed twice more, and then tripped over the coffee table and farted.

Dallas. The scriptwriters have each of the actresses in the soap opera play the death scene in the swimming pool: they do not know which of them is to die, and hence disappear from the series. The 'soap' becomes their destiny. If they should die in reality, a way is devised for writing them out of the script. If they are sacrificed in the script, their stardom inevitably comes to an end in real life too, since they are identified with the characters they play. It is the same as in a ceremony: outside the ritual, you count for nothing, but the ritual is flexible enough to make use of all the chance happenings of life. Dallas 's secret lies in its closeness to tribal and initiatory stereotypes. That is why there is never any laughter in it: no wit, no humour, no comic episodes, no happy coincidences. It is a closed world in which everything leads inevitably to fatality, perfidy, sentimental incest or magical cannibalism. Such is the tribal law, of which J.R. is the emblem, which gives rise to the desperate efforts on the part of the women to escape from this archaic trap. In its artless cruelty, Dallas is superior to any 'intelligent' critique that can be made of it. That is why intellectual snobbery meets its match here. In a dream I saw the face of servitude. It is the face of a woman with heavy lidded, blue, expressionless eyes. The crescent shapes of her breasts are asymmetrical. She always has a smile for the poorest as she crawls off daintily towards infinity. Boredom is like a pitiless zooming in on the epidermis of time. Every instant is dilated and magnified like the pores of the face.

He who laugh last, laugh best

Peabody, am I an ass-kicker?" "Are you asking to see my scars, or is that a trick question?" "Shut up, Peabody

You know what they say: the FBI doesn’t share. It eats like an elephant and shits like a mouse.

If our witches' phantasies were not corrupted, nor their wits confounded with this humour, they would not so voluntarilie and readilie confesseth that which calleth their life into question.

A GUIDE TO DIFFERENT RELIGIONS Taoism: Shit happens. Zen: What is the sound of shit happening? Hinduism: This shit's happened before. Buddhism: If shit happens, it isn't really shit. Islam: If shit happens, it's the will of Allah. Protestantism: Shit happens because we don't work hard enough. Catholicism: Shit happens because we are bad. Christian Fundamentalism: Shit happens because the Bible says so. Jehovah's Witness: Knock, knock. 'Shit happens." Judaism: Why does shit always happen to us? Agnosticism: We don't know shit. Atheism: No shit. Hare Krishna: Shit happens - rama rama ding ding. Rastafarianism: Let's smoke this shit.

Reviewed by Vincent Dublado for Readers' Favorite Another Time in a Vacuum by Roland Burisch is a witty fantasy adventure of anachronistic proportions. Meet Monty, a timetraveling historian who travels back to 1673. Imagine the thrill of excitement that greets him as he meets one of history’s most important diarists, Samuel Pepys. He musters the courage to tell Pepys that he has important information, but the eminent diarist is suspicious that he could be an extortionist. Monty tells Pepys that he is from the future and that he is familiar with the contents of Pepys’s diaries. Monty introduces the diarist to his mobile phone to lend authenticity to his claim. Monty remembers that Sir Isaac Newton is alive in the same period, with which Pepys concurs, unless Newton is beheaded for heresy. But Monty tells him that Newton will go down in history for his work. This fills Pepys with disbelief. Monty brings the two men into the present, and these two historical figures will witness the contemporary period with awe and bewilderment, an adventure that they will fill with many questions. Another Time in a Vacuum is a fascinating time-travel adventure that is intelligent, witty, and at times, sad. While this novel takes the idea of time travel as an essential element in the storyline, it is more about a comparative look at the lifestyle and norms of the past with the present. It is inevitable that the two famous men will not understand Monty initially. But Roland Burisch equips his plot with confidence in the intelligence of Pepys and Newton. They eventually understand why Monty exists in their time without many ramifications about the historical timeline getting altered. Burisch wisely hinges on the mechanics of dialogue and the interaction of the trio for the plot. It is also one of the reasons why this novel works because you like the quirks of the characters. They are wise, funny, and fish out of water. It sounds like a story that you will enjoy reading. It is.

Reviewed by Vincent Dublado for Readers' Favorite Another Time in a Vacuum by Roland Burisch is a witty fantasy adventure of anachronistic proportions. Meet Monty, a timetraveling historian who travels back to 1673. Imagine the thrill of excitement that greets him as he meets one of history’s most important diarists, Samuel Pepys. He musters the courage to tell Pepys that he has important information, but the eminent diarist is suspicious that he could be an extortionist. Monty tells Pepys that he is from the future and that he is familiar with the contents of Pepys’s diaries. Monty introduces the diarist to his mobile phone to lend authenticity to his claim. Monty remembers that Sir Isaac Newton is alive in the same period, with which Pepys concurs, unless Newton has been beheaded for heresy. But Monty tells him that Newton will go down in history for his work. This fills Pepys with disbelief. Monty brings the two men into the present, and these two historical figures will witness the contemporary period with awe and bewilderment, an adventure that they will fill with many questions. Another Time in a Vacuum is a fascinating time-travel adventure that is intelligent, witty, and at times, sad. While this novel takes the idea of time travel as an essential element in the storyline, it is more about a comparative look at the lifestyle and norms of the past with the present. It is inevitable that the two famous men will not understand Monty initially. But Roland Burisch equips his plot with confidence in the intelligence of Pepys and Newton. They eventually understand why Monty exists in their time without many ramifications about the historical timeline getting altered. Burisch wisely hinges on the mechanics of dialogue and the interaction of the trio for the plot. It is also one of the reasons why this novel works because you like the quirks of the characters. They are wise, funny, and fish out of water. It sounds like a story that you will enjoy reading. It is.

…the nature of humour. That stuff needs deep soil; you can grow wit on a damp flannel.

Man and woman both, there was an age that, when reached, made the world beyond seem to fall away, drained of colour, devoid of significance. To live as a thing no longer desired but tolerated, at best humoured. To reach that age was to know the light in the eyes dimming – the first spark to wink out, and from that moment on, the shadows just crept ever closer.

She who laugh last, laugh best

The audience want to see the pompous man made ridiculous, the braggart forced to eat his words, the cheater cheated; for this is right, this is what should happen to them; these characters are allegorical, this is what they exist for; they are facets of ourselves, isolated expressly to be ridiculed, not to be pitied or revered. This kind of humour is the essence of comedy and wit is the salt wherewith it is salted.

she believed in the healthy influence of natural surroundings, never having been in Sicily, where things are different.

Reginald gave a delicate shiver, such as an Italian greyhound might give in contemplating the approach of an ice age of which he personally disapproved, and resigned himself to the inevitable political discussion.

Temptations came to him, in middle age, tentatively and without insistence, like a neglected butcher-boy who asks for a Christmas box in February for no more hopeful reason that than he didn’t get one in December. He had no more idea of succumbing to them than he had of purchasing the fish-knives and fur boas that ladies are impelled to sacrifice through the medium of advertisement columns during twelve months of the year. Still, there was something impressive in this unasked-for renunciation of possibly latent enormities.

Isydoris stared at him, her mind still clouded with doubts. “So, if you do not associate yourself with slaves, servants, or even former princesses, what kind of women do meet your high royal standards?” The reigh smirked and caressed her face. “The kind who know their worth and stay true to their principles. Indeed, I admire women who radiate beauty and innocence…with just the right amount of wit and feistiness. But I must admit they are very difficult to find. As a matter of fact, so far, I have encountered only one such.

The essence of humour appears to me to consist in a laying of stress on empirical things, in order that their unreality may become more obvious. Everything that is realised is laughable, and in this way humour seems to be the antithesis of eroticism. The latter welds men and the world together, and unites them in a great purpose; the former loses the bonds of synthesis and shows the world as a silly affair. The two stand somewhat in the relation of polarised and unpolarised light. When the great erotic wishes to pass from the limited to the illimited, humour pounces down on him, pushes him in front of the stage, and laughs at him from the wings. The humourist has not the craving to transcend space; he is content with small thing; his dominion is neither the sea nor the mountains, but the flat level plain. He shuns the idyllic, and plunges deeply into the commonplace, only, however, to show its unreality. He turns from the immanence of things and will not hear the transcendental even spoken of. Wit seeks out contradictions in the sphere of experience; humour goes deeper and shows that experience is a blind and closed system; both compromise the phenomenal world by showing that everything is possible in it. Tragedy, on the other hand, shows what must for all eternity be impossible in the phenomenal world; and thus tragedy and comedy alike, each in their own way, are negations of the empiric.

Sometimes being given the elbow can turn out to be the best hand.

A bunch of bad songs, make an awful whine.

I did not know you were a philosopher, Miss LaSalle,” Adam said. He knew he was being disagreeable, but he could not help himself. “Are not all women, doctor? Else they could never cope with the way men treat them. Now, please stop trying to annoy me and do as I ask. I promise I will give you many more opportunities to vent your bad temper in my direction if you wait but a little.” Adam was defeated. If she persisted in responding with such wit and good humour to his truculence, he might as well give in. Yet he was still sulky enough not to want her to see his change of mood. “Oh, very well,” he said, sighing mightily. “If I must …” “Indeed you must, sir. Now come along and stop behaving like a small boy whose playthings are taken from him. Reassure your dear mother that you are not annoyed with her or I will be angry with you. Like the cat you think I am, I assure you I can bite and scratch with a will, if provoked.” With that, she stood aside to allow him to precede her through the doorway – and to conceal the way she stuck out her tongue at his back, once he had passed.

Where is the counterpart to this closed system of will, goal and interpretation? Why is the counterpart lacking? . . . Where is the other ‘one goal’? . . . But I am told it is not lacking, not only has it fought a long, successful fight with that ideal, but it has already mastered that ideal in all essentials: all our modern science is witness to that, – modern science which, as a genuine philosophy of reality, obvi- ously believes only in itself, obviously possesses the courage to be itself, the will to be itself, and has hitherto got by well enough without God, the beyond and the virtues of denial. However, I am not impressed by such noise and rabble-rousers’ claptrap: these people who trumpet reality are bad musicians, it is easy enough to hear that their voices do not come from the depths, the abyss of scientific conscience does not speak from them – for the scientific conscience today is an abyss –, the word ‘science’ is quite simply an obscenity in the traps of such trumpeters, an abuse, an indecency. 109 On the Genealogy of Morality Precisely the opposite of what they are declaring here is the truth: science today has absolutely no faith in itself, let alone in an ideal above it, – and where it is still passion, love, fire, suffering, it is not the opposite of the ascetic ideal but rather the latter’s own most recent and noble manifestation. Does that sound strange to you? . . . There are enough worthy and modest workers even amongst the scholars of today, who like their little corner and therefore, because they like being there, are occasionally somewhat pre- sumptuous in making their demand heard that people today ought to be content in general, especially with science – there being so much useful work to be done. I do not deny it: I am the last to want to spoil the pleasure of these honest workers in their craft: for I delight in their work. But the fact that nowadays people are working hard in science, and that they are contented workmen, does not at all prove that today, science as a whole has a goal, a will, an ideal, a passion of great faith. The opposite, as I said, is the case: where it is not the most recent manifestation of the ascetic ideal – there are too few noble, exceptional cases for the general judgment to be deflected – then science today is a hiding place for all kinds of ill-humour, unbelief, gnawing worms, despectio sui,113 bad conscience – it is the disquiet of the lack of ideals itself, the suffering from a lack of great love, the dis- content over enforced contentedness. Oh, what does science not conceal today! how much it is supposed to conceal, at any rate! The industry of our best scholars, their unreflective diligence, heads smoking night and day, their very mastery of their craft – how often does all that mean trying to conceal something from themselves? Science as a means of self-anaesthetic: do you know that? . . . Everyone in contact with scholars has the experience that they are sometimes wounded to the marrow by a harmless word, we anger our scholarly friends at the very moment when we want to honour them, we make them lose their temper and control simply because we were too coarse to guess who we were actually dealing with, with sufferers who do not want to admit what they are to themselves, with people drugged and dazed who fear only one thing: coming to consciousness . . .

jester.

irritated,

We hear so much about the sanitary qualities of laughter, we have been taught so seriously the gospel of amusement, that any writer, preacher, or lecturer, whose smile is broad enough to be infectious, finds himself a prophet in the market-place. Laughter, we are told, freshens our exhausted spirits and disposes us to good-will–which is true. It is also true that laughter quiets our uneasy scruples and disposes us to simple savagery. Whatever we laugh at, we condone, and the echo of man’s malicious merriment rings pitilessly through the centuries. Humour which has no scorn, wit which has no sting, jests which have no victim, these are not the pleasantries which have provoked mirth, or fed the comic sense of a conventionalized rather than a civilized world.

I have no money, not even the wooden disks they use for trade in Arasha. And my pack held the only items of any worth." "That is why," Velran said, "You must invest in security." "Do you realise that I understand less than half of what comes out of your mouth?" Raziel scowled at his companion, poking at the fire with unnecessary vehemence.

He held out his hand and studied his fingers. They were long and thin, not calloused like the other Hephaestus campers’. Leo had never been the biggest or the strongest kid. He’d survived in tough neighbourhoods, tough schools, tough foster homes by using his wits. He was the class clown, the court jester, because he’d learned early that if you cracked jokes and pretended you weren’t scared, you usually didn’t get beaten up. Even the baddest gangster kids would tolerate you, keep you around for laughs. Plus, humour was a good way to hide the pain. And if that didn’t work there was always Plan B. Run away. Over and over. There was a Plan C, but he’d promised himself never to use it again. He felt an urge to try it now – something he hadn’t done since the accident, since his mom’s death. He extended his fingers and felt them tingle, like they were waking up – pins and needles. Then flames flickered to life, curls of red-hot fire dancing across his palm.

You, Iris, 'twere an easy task to praise; But you refuse the incense of my lays. In this you are unlike all other mortals, Who welcome all the praise that seeks their portals; Not one who is not soothed by sound so sweet. For me to blame this humour were not meet, By gods and mortals shared in common, And, in the main, by lovely woman. That drink, so vaunted by the rhyming trade, That cheers the god who deals the thunder-blow, And oft intoxicates the gods below,-- The nectar, Iris, is of praises made. You taste it not. But, in its place, Wit, science, even trifles grace Your bill of fare; but, for that matter, The world will not believe the latter.

It started, as many disasters do, with a long weekend in North Yorkshire.

I am no novel-reader—I seldom look into novels—Do not imagine that I often read novels—It is really very well for a novel.” Such is the common cant. “And what are you reading, Miss——?” “Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.

I am no novel-reader—I seldom look into novels—Do not imagine that I often read novels—It is really very well for a novel.” Such is the common cant. “And what are you reading, Miss——?” “Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.

Sorry, moth,' he said. 'I'm afraid I've rather spoiled your night out. Presumably I've made some other moth a widow, or a widower—I've no idea what sex you are... were, I mean. But I didn't do you in with malice aforethought, old moth, take my word for it. I have no grudge against you, old moth, I do assure you. On the contrary, what I feel for you is love, the love of a tender morsel of moth-meat. I am a great lover of tender morsels, of vole-meat and mouse-meat, of the flesh of little birds and the innards of beetles, and of bite-sized bits of the wriggling worm. All must die to keep Eustace in good nick. And lastly I console you, my lepidopterous friend, with the thought that some day or night Eustace will drop off his perch and be loved in his turn, by the ants and the maggots.

A dog only urinates on that which stands firm.

Our age is so resolutely unheroic, and the employment opportunities for registered demigods are now so scarce, that all we can do, in our enfeebled state, is laugh with envy and disbelief at the memory of those who still had the wit and the wherewithal to live large.