And Humor At The End Quotes & Sayings

He built a tower to try and be closer to her and walled himself inside."
She stared at him for a moment as if waiting for something. "And?"
He glanced at her, puzzled. "And, what?"
She widened her eyes. "How does the story end? Did the sorcerer win his Moon Maiden?"
"Of course not," he said irritably. "She lived on the moon and was quite unattainable. I suppose he must've starved or pined away or fallen off the wall at some point. — Elizabeth Hoyt

Whatever story you're telling, it will be more interesting if, at the end you add, and then everything burst into flames. — Brian P. Cleary

Relax and breathe. The trouble with imaginative people is that we're good at picturing the worst that could happen to us. Fear is often just the imagination taking a wrong turn. Bad criticism is not the end of the world. As far as I know, no one has ever died from a bad review. Take a deep breath and accept whatever comes. — Austin Kleon

There was some kind of X-men emergency, so all the teachers were gone. This happens every now and then. It's one of the perks of having super heroes for your teachers - when the world is about to end (which is like at least twice a month), school gets canceled. Heck, three weeks ago there was a big chemistry final for the upperclassmen. Beast was the teacher - he's this big, burly guy who can do acrobatic stuff like a monkey, but he also happens to be a super-genius. He's, like, legendary for his tough finals, so there were kids walking through the halls, going, Oh, God, please let Galactus try to eat the earth. Please please please let there be an alien invasion by the Skrulls! — Barry Lyga

Comedy has to be based on truth. You take the truth and you put a little curlicue at the end. — Sid Caesar

My father had the spirit and integrity of a scientist, but he was a salesman. I remember asking him the question "How can a man of integrity be a salesman?"
He said to me, "Frankly, many salesmen in the business are not straightforward
they think it's a better way to sell. But I've tried being straightforward, and I find it has its advantages. In fact, I wouldn't do it any other way. If the customer thinks at all, he'll realize he has had some bad experience with another salesman, but hasn't had that kind of experience with you. So in the end, several customers will stay with you for a long time and appreciate it. — Richard Feynman

Love has an enormous spectrum of expression and impact. At the far end, it begins to unravel and move away from subjective experience and personal preference. It becomes pure intent, something that no longer tickles our desires, but fulfills the deeper needs of each circumstance we're in. — Darrell Calkins

That tried and true aphorism:
Each day is precious. Each day is a gift. If we don't open the wrapping carefully, we might break it and have to return it to the store. And then they're going to ask for a receipt and throw a total shit fit if we've left it at home, and we'll have to call the manager over and give him a good talking-to, and of course eventually he'll relent and tell the clerk to give us full credit, but by then we'll be so upset that we've wasted an hour of our time that we'll end up with a migraine and having to spend the rest of the day in bed, completely defeating the whole idea that each day is supposed to be precious and so forth. — Eric Garcia

It's okay, Fia," said Nathan from the end of the hallway. He carried a large bundle of white comforter in his skinny arms and dumped it on the couch. "Aaron sucks at compliments."

"I am quite adept with compliments," he said dryly. "But I do not praise bad behavior. — Deidre Huesmann

To me, nudity is a joke. I don't think nude people are very attractive at all. I like my women fully clothed. I like to imagine what might be under there. It might not be the standard thing. Imagine, stripping a woman down, and she has a body like a little submarine. With periscope, propellers, torpedoes. That would be the one for me. I'd marry her right off and be faithful to the end. — Charles Bukowski

So what does the winner get in the end?" Tate asked.
"They get to sit around with the losers and say, 'I am King Xavier of the world.' Repeat after me."
"And me?" Tate asked.
"You get to be my queen."
"How come you're the leader of the community?" Narnie asked, almost smiling. "Why can't Tate be?"
Webb looked at his sister, grinning. "Why can't you, Narnie?"
Fitz leaned his head on Narnie's shoulder. "And I'll be your queen?"
"You can be the eunuch," Jude said, shoving him out of the way, "and I'll be her prince." He bowed and took Narnie's hand, kissing it, and their eyes met. It was awkward for a moment until Narnie looked away. — Melina Marchetta

He didn't even apologize as he sat up, staring down at her. Was
he angry? She guessed not when he began to speak to his erection.
"I know. I can't believe she left us like this either. Cruel wench,
isn't she?"
After the long, frightening, horrible day she had, this was not
remotely how she expected to end it. And, against her will, she
smiled.
"Look. Now she's laughing at us."
Desperately fighting a bout of laughter, she ordered, "Stop
talking to it."
He shrugged. "Well you won't talk to him ... and he's feeling
awfully lonely. And I think you hurt his feelings." Then he made it
bounce twice in agreement.
Talaith covered her face and sighed. What exactly did her
mother tell her the seven signs of madness were? Well, a dragon
talking to his own shaft had to be one of them. — G.A. Aiken

Life makes fools of us all sooner or later. But keep your sense of humor and you'll at least be able to take your humiliations with some measure of grace. In the end, you know, it's our own expectations that crush us.
from Skippy Dies — Paul Murray

The fiasco in the barn flashed through her mind. Yesterday she'd showered him with oats and today she'd pummeled him with a broom. At this rate, he'd be dead by the end of the week. — Karen Witemeyer

At the end of the second week they were still working and Arretapec, Conway and their patient were being talked, whistled, cheeped and grunted about in every language in use at the hospital. — James White

He'd been wrong, there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was a flamethrower. — Terry Pratchett

At the end of human; life losses is equal to life gain life earned is equal to life learned and life pain is equal to life lecture. Everything is just one; You! — O.O Michael

Life makes fools of all of us sooner or later. But keep your sense of humor and you'll at least be able to take your humiliations with some measure of grace. In the end, you know, its our own expectations that crush us. — Paul Murray

Daisy doesn't even go to his funeral, Nick and Jordan part ways, and Daisy ends up sticking with racist Tom ... you can tell Fitzgerald never took the time to look up at clouds during sunset, because there's no silver lining at the end of that book, let me tell you.
I do see why Nikki likes the novel, as it's written so well. But her liking it makes me worry now that Nikki really doesn't believe in silver linings, because she says The Great Gatsby is the greatest novel ever written by an American, and yet it ends so sadly. One thing's for sure, Nikki is going to be very proud of me when I tell her I finally read her favorite book. -Silver Linings Playbook, p. 9 — Matthew Quick

In 1945, peace broke out. It was the end of the Joke. Joke warfare was banned at a special session of the Geneva Convention, and in 1950 the last remaining copy of the joke was laid to rest here in the Berkshire countryside, never to be told again. — Graham Chapman

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And until tonight I had always felt that there was a lot in it. I had never scorned a woman myself, but Pongo Twistleton once scorned an aunt of his, flatly refusing to meet her son Gerald at Paddington and give him lunch and see him off to school at Waterloo, and he never heard the end of it. — P.G. Wodehouse

Girls," their mother interjected, "you must both stop being strange - it is unattractive. And don't forget your hats. It would be absolutely the end for me if you two came down with freckles at a time like this. — Anna Godbersen

I'll find you, don't worry. My body won't be with you all the time, but you'll always have my heart. I'm your worrier, remember?"
"I'll never forget. I promise. I'm your High Priestess and you've pledged yourself to me. That means you have my heart, too."
"Then both of us better stay safe. A heart's a hard thing to live without. I should know. I've tried it. — P.C. Cast

Half the time your kids end up hating you for at least 5 of their teenage years[.] And don't ever expect anything so mundane as a thank you — Donna Ball

The first glance at the pillow showed me a repulsive sentinel perched upon each end of it
cockroaches as large as peach leaves
fellows with long, quivering antennae and fiery, malignant eyes. They were grating their teeth like tobacco worms, and appeared to be dissatisfied about something. I had often heard that these reptiles were in the habit of eating off sleeping sailors' toe nails down to the quick, and I would not get in the bunk any more. I lay down on the floor. But a rat came and bothered me, and shortly afterward a procession of cockroaches arrived and camped in my hair. In a few moments the rooster was crowing with uncommon spirit and a party of fleas were throwing double somersaults about my person in the wildest disorder, and taking a bite every time they stuck. I was beginning to feel really annoyed. I got up and put my clothes on and went on deck.
The above is not overdrawn; it is a truthful sketch of inter-island schooner life. — Mark Twain

I never joined, but I used to go to church now and then. I liked it, because they always passed out plates of money at the end. — A. Whitney Brown

We hadn't spoken one word to each other since the death glare last night, and I couldn't help but check both of her hands for knives and shivs, hoping that if she had one, I would be able to wrestle it away from her before meeting my untimely death.
I was far too young and fun to die at the hands of my mother, and she was way too pretty to end up in prison. It would only take a matter of minutes for her to become someone's bitch, and I didn't want the responsibility for that kind of thing on my shoulders. — Laurel Ulen Curtis

I'm not sure whether that had to do with the humor, or with the unfashionable fairy-tale ending, which is very different from much of what I read in The New Yorker, where short stories seem to end with someone staring off at the white walls of a white room, and you think that something's happened but you're not quite sure what. — Jennifer Weiner

Now ordinary people are born forwards in Time, if you understand what I mean, and nearly everything in the world goes forward too. This makes it quite easy for the ordinary people to live, just as it would be easy to join those five dots into a W if you were allowed to look at them forwards, instead of backwards and inside out. But I unfortunately was born at the wrong end of Time, and I have to live backwards from in front, while surrounded by a lot of people living forwards from behind. Some people call it having second sight.
~Merlin — T.H. White

It would be like a cleansing diet. The problem was, the only diet I'd ever been on backfired. Once I tried to go an entire month without chocolate. Not one bite. At the end of two weeks, I broke down and binged on more chocolate that I would have eaten in three months. I hoped my chocolate-free diet didn't foreshadow what would happen if I tried to avoid Patch. — Becca Fitzpatrick

That was what he wanted to tell his audience at Cambridge. He divided classical satirists into two classes - fierce men starving in garrets, and renouncing popularity and circulation to dwell in tubs, and calm good-livers "who tell amusingly the kind of truth that no one has ever denied." But for the present century the right spirit, he believed, was self-satire, the ability to see humor in the constant small defeats of life, and "the power to be startled by nothing, however extravagant." The subject, in the end, turned out to be more relevant than it had seemed, as anyone could have told who had heard Eddie and Wilfred laughing together. — Penelope Fitzgerald

You gotta fight. You gotta get out the negative energy. Don't let it build up. You end up screaming at each other over something totally stupid, like, 'Well, why'd you put this spoon in this drawer then?' 'Just to p-s you off, that's why! I got spoons hidden all over this house! Keep it up, and your napkin rings are gonna start disappearing.' — Adam Ferrara

New Rule: If the guy who makes up the poll questions at CNN doesn't want to do it anymore more, he should just quit. This is an actual recent poll question: "Would you like to live on the moon?" And the shocking results: No, as it turns out, we would not like to live on the moon. This is the cable news equivalent of being in a dead-end relationship with an idiot. "What are you thinking?" "I dunno, honey, I guess I was just wondering how many Americans would like to live on the moon. — Bill Maher

Every fairy tale, it seems, concludes with the bland phrase "happily ever after." Yet every couple I have ever known would agree that nothing about marriage is forever happy. There are moments of bliss, to be sure, and lengthy spans of satisfied companionship. Yet these come at no small effort, and the girl who reads such fiction dreaming her troubles will end ere she departs the altar is well advised to seek at once a rational women to set her straight. — Catherine Gilbert Murdock

The expected battle hadn't taken place, yet something else had. Images of the entertainment which had just gone down were already coming back into Rat's head. It had been wonderful to watch, unbelievably wonderful, the enactment of several plays at once on a single stage, and Rat was sorry it was over, but in a way it was even better to relive it now in the privacy of his mind. He hadn't believed the boy-doctor and that stuff about the condom being used or warm, but he had gone along with it and the emotion which it powered. Everybody had. The emotion was the most important thing. He wondered how he could ever put such a chaotic, hilarious, sad thing down on paper, organise it into scenes or verses and fix his own pewiod at the end. He could never do it justice. He would never get that emotion back. — Graham Spaid

Another holiday, another murder. At least no one got murdered at Thanksgiving dinner! How did I end up, in the season of peace and goodwill toward men, investigating another homicide?"
~ Kay Driscoll

Murder Under the Tree (A Kay Driscoll Mystery Book 2) - Coming November 14. — Susan Bernhardt

I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT KING TRITON. Specifically, King, why are you elderly but with the body of a teenage Beastmaster? How do you maintain those monster pecs? Do they have endocrinologists under the sea? Because I am scheduling you some bloodwork ...
... Question: How come, when they turn back into humans at the end of Beauty and the Beast, Chip is a four-year-old boy, but his mother, Mrs. Potts, is like 107? Perhaps you're thinking, "Lindy, you are remembering it wrong. That kindly, white-haired, snowman-shaped Mrs. Doubtfire situation must be Chip's grandmother." Not so, champ! She's his mom. Look it up. She gave birth to him four years ago ... As soon as you become a mother, apparently, you are instantly interchangeable with the oldest woman in the world, and / or sixteen ounces of boiling brown water with a hat on it. Take a sec and contrast Mrs. Pott's literally spherical body with the cut-diamond abs of King Triton, father of seven. — Lindy West

Then there is the tamarind. I thought tamarinds were made to eat, but that was probably not the idea. I ate several, and it seemed to me that they were rather sour that year. They pursed up my lips, till they resembled the stem-end of a tomato, and I had to take my sustenance through a quill for twenty-four hours. They sharpened my teeth till I could have shaved with them, and gave them a "wire edge" that I was afraid would stay; but a citizen said no, it will come off when the enamel does" - which was comforting, at any rate. I found, afterward, that only strangers eat tamarinds - but they only eat them once. — Mark Twain

Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop. — Lewis Carroll

Mairi stared at Parlabane with an expression he had seen too often down the years: that look of distress at having discovered precisely how deep the rabbit hole goes, and what darkness lay at its end. — Christopher Brookmyre

You are more than likely thinking by now that all of this sounds somewhat fanciful, perhaps over the top, all too complicated and even perhaps at times chaotic. It may seem so at first glance, but life here is a complex and intriguing happening, with never a dull moment to be had. And why should it not be so? "Death" as you have named it, is not the end of life. It is to us a birth back here once again to our side, to our true home. So it is a rebirth in a sense. — Natasha Rendell

So it was that my most impressionable years of boyhood were spent gazing at not a whale, but a whale's penis. Whenever I tired of strolling through the chill aisles of the aquarium, I'd steal off to my place on the bench of the high-ceilinged stillness of the exhibition room and spend hours on end there contemplating this whale's penis. — Haruki Murakami

But the most amazing thing is the sight I'm looking at right now, and I don't need the binoculars to see it either: Michael wearing nothing but board shorts as he lies in the hammock across from mine, reading a book on microprocessing (I do hope the micros and the processors end up happily ever after at the end) — Meg Cabot

Today he wore a burnt-orange shirt, black pants, and a tie that looked like a street fight at the south end of the color wheel. — Kathy Reichs

That's our cue," Dr. Chadwick noted, managing to approximate a cheerful smile, addressing the room at large. "Everyone please stand behind the yellow line until the doors open. No food, drink, flash photography, or video cameras are permitted. Once aboard the ride, please keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times until we come to a full and complete stop. Otherwise, they're apt to end up in another universe somewhere without ya, and wouldn't that fry your noggin? — Stephanie Osborn

As a comedian, you have to start the show strong and you have to end the show strong. Those are the two key elements. You can't be like pancakes. You're all happy at first, but then by the end, you're sick of 'em. — Mitch Hedberg

A bright light at the end of a tunnel can seem warm and inviting, or it can seem mysterious and terrifying. People of the world "all working on their arts and crafts" can seem like heaven or, if you're me, hell. — Mary Roach

Each time we had a visiting writer, I asked what she thought of women and humor. By the end of the year, I had perfected my question and asked Adrienne Rich why there was so little written about women and humor. She looked at me right in the eye and said, 'You write it.' I took that as an order. — Kate Clinton

Oh, yeah, this girl was going down. She had no idea who she was messing with. And, sadly, she didn't seem to care.
I hoped her drawer came up short at the end of her shift. Karma's a bitch. — Darynda Jones

The creative process is a love story that never ends. The ideas are like suitors competing for your attention. You may have relationships, with multiple ideas, at once. You may devote yourself completely to one idea, for a awhile, but the affairs will never end. There will always be more ideas to romance and more concepts to develop. And all for that wonderful moment when you get to gaze at the complete creation and hold perfection in your arms, for one blissful moment ... before your inner-critic starts tearing it to shreds. — Jaeda DeWalt

On George W Bush: That man sits at that desk in the White House with the button that can end the world. My father's younger than him and we don't give him the controls for the television. — Billy Connolly

There's a metal train that a mile long and at the very back end a lightning bolt struck her. How long til it reaches and kills the driver, provided that he's a good conductor? — Bo Burnham

And make no mistake, my friend, your pointless life will end; but before you go, can you look at the truth? — Morrissey

Suddenly the Professor started as if he had been electrified. "Why, I had nearly forgotten the most important part of the entertainment! The Other Professor is to recite a Tale of a Pig I mean a Pig-Tale," he corrected himself. "It has Introductory Verses at the beginning, and at the end."
It can't have Introductory Verses at the end, can it?" said Sylvie.
Wait till you hear it," said the Professor: "then you will see. I'm not sure it hasn't some in the middle, as well. — Lewis Carroll

So, at the end of the day, humor works by distracting a person long enough to lower his resistance to the new information and then makes a positive association with the person/brand/computer screen that provided that humor to him. The reality is that people want to be entertained more than they want to be educated. Brand owners have gotten wise to this and now connect with consumers by providing information in an entertaining manner. It's what the ad agency world has dubbed "infotainment." The new school of business teaches that if you do not deliver your information via infotainment, you lose out to those who do. — Marshall Chiles

Personally, I don't mind a good cry. In fact, if I cry while chopping onions, I'll run to the bathroom mirror and recite one of my favorite lines from Poltergeist: "Don't you touch my babies!!!" It's the part where the kids are being sucked into the bedroom closet for the second time and JoBeth Williams is at HER WIT'S END! It's very dramatic. — Clinton Kelly

When I shoot, the ball bounces hard against the backboard, and flies wildly through the air, knocking the coach in the head. I slap a hand over my mouth. The coach barely catches herself from falling. Several students laugh. She glares at me and readjusts her cap. With a small wave of apology, I head back to the end of the line. Will's there fighting laughter. "Nice," he says. "Glad I'm downcourt of you." I cross my arms and resist smiling, resist letting myself feel good around him. But he makes it hard. I want to smile. I want to like him, to be around him, to know him. "Happy to amuse you. — Sophie Jordan

The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it: 'No room! No room!' they cried out when they saw Alice coming. 'There's plenty of room!' said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.
'Have some wine,' the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.
Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. 'I don't see any wine,' she remarked.
'There isn't any,' said the March Hare.
'Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer it,' said Alice angrily.
'It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being invited,' said the March Hare. — Lewis Carroll

I'll be right behind you"
behind her? Thirty-two steps with him looking at her butt?
"No, you wont."
"Look, it's late, i'm tired, can we just-"
"it'll be a cold day in hell when you follow me up those steps. You want to go up, you go first."
"Why?" he said mystified
"you're not looking at my rear end all the way up that hill."
Cal sighed and took the first step. "wait a minute. Now you'll be looking at my butt all the way up the steps."
"yes but you probably have a great butt," Min said. "it's an entirely different dynamic. — Jennifer Crusie

The gods have a great sense of humor, don't they? If you lack the iron and the fizz to take control of your own life, if you insist on leaving your fate to the gods, then the gods will repay your weakness by having a grin or two at your expense. Should you fail to pilot your own ship, don't be surprised at what inappropriate port you find yourself docked. The dull and prosaic will be granted adventures that will dice their central nervous systems like an onion, romantic dreamers will end up in the rope yard. — Tom Robbins

I'm not really sure what makes a book a 'classic' to begin with, but I think it has to be at least fifty years old and some person or animal has to die at the end. — Jeff Kinney

And then there's the perverse joy of subtly working in references to marathon training in daily life, say at the post office or while waiting outside my first-graders' classrooms at the end of the school day. — Sarah Bowen Shea

To what extent does anybody control his destiny? Life is very much like falling of the edge of a cliff. You have complete freedom to make all the choices you want to take on your way down. My characters choose to yearn and not lose hope even when the odds are completely against them. It doesn't make the landing at the end of that fall any less painful but, somehow, it helps them keep a little dignity their bone broken body. — Etgar Keret

The swing of his nature took him from extreme languor to devouring energy; and as I knew well, he was never so truly formidable as when, for days on end, he had been lounging in his armchair amid his improvisations and his black-letter editions. Then it was that the lust of the chase would suddenly come upon him, and that his brilliant reasoning power would rise to the level of intuition, until those who were unacquainted with his methods would look askance at him as on a man whose knowledge was not that of other mortals. When I saw him that afternoon so enwrapped in the music of St. James's Hall I felt that an evil time might be coming upon those whom he had set himself to hunt down. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Math. It's your favorite subject. Which surprises you. Last year your teacher tried to convince you that you had a real "aptitude" for math, but all you got in the end was a B minus. The truth is you weren't even trying. But then you got low Cs and Ds in all your other classes and you weren't trying there, either, so maybe you are good at math after all.
You like it because either you're right or you're wrong. Not like social studies and definitely not like English, where you always have to explain your answers and support your opinions. With math it's right or it's wrong and you're done with it. But even that's changing, my teacher said now you have to explain how you solved the problem and support your answer, saying that having the right answer isn't as important as explaining how you got it and bam, just like that, you hate math. — Charles Benoit

He might have mocked himself if he hadn't been tired of always mocking at what others took seriously. It was easier to mock, of course, but other people refrained, and not always because they lacked the imagination or sense of humor required to mock. Sometimes they refrained because they dared to long for something that was not easily grasped, something that might slip away if one did not pay it the proper respect - prayerful respect, the sort that moved one to remove one's hat by the side of a grave, or to bow one's head to soldiers marching off to war, even while damning the fat MPs that sent them to die. Life was not all for mockery. Nor was laughter. But it was harder to spot the prayerful moments when they called for laughter instead of tears. Tears spelled an end. Laughter could spell a beginning. — Meredith Duran

Cheese and crackers? Really?" She looks at me skeptically. "Besides, he's not a gigolo, you prude! He's an escort. Big difference."
"An escort who, at the end of the night for a little more cash, will have sex with people. What do you call that?"
Sara's laugh has a wicked edge to it "I call it my good fortune. — Courtney Cole

If you raise a daughter to be both independent and an excellent marksman, you have to accept the fact that your control over her actions is at an end. — Martha Wells

A world where no child need cry because you didn't buy him that ring pop at checkout, even though you know that he'll never finish it and it will just end up a sticky mass of carpet lint and hair somewhere under the seat of the car. A world where no child need cry for want of shelter or love. A world where that child will finally just shut his cake hole. — Benjamin Wallace

Stand-up is an art but since it's humor and it's funny - a lot of guys that don't think it's art are probably coming from the angle that they don't want to take it so seriously. I've always looked at it as an art but I don't look at it as a pretentious art. I understand it has to be taken lightly because it is just comedy in the end, but the good stand-up comics are someone with something to say. — Mitch Hedberg

Hapi?" I asked.
"Why, yes, I am happy!" Hapi beamed. "I'm always happy because I'm Hapi! Are you happy?"
Zia frowned up at the giant. "Does he have to be so big?"
The god laughed. Immediately he shrank down to human size, though the crazy cheerful look on his face was still pretty unnerving.
"Oh, Setne!" Hapi chuckled and pushed the ghost playfully. "I hate this guy. Absolutely despise him!"
Hapi's smile became painfully wide. "I'd love to rip off your arms and legs, Setne. That would be amazing!"
Setne ... drifted a little farther away from the smiling god.
"Oh!" Hapi clapped excitedly. "The world is going to end tomorrow. I forgot!"
"You'd never get to Memphis without my help. You'd get torn into a million pieces!"
He seemed genuinely pleased to share that news. — Rick Riordan

Do not put statements in the negative form.
And don't start sentences with a conjunction.
If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a
great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.
De-accession euphemisms.
If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague. — William Safire

Must you always speak with so many pop culture references?"
"I must, yes, but no one's making pop culture anymore, so I'm starting to feel dated. I haven't seen a new movie in two years. And you know what else I just realized?"
The doctor stared at him.
"I'm never going to find out what the hell was going on with Lost. I mean, was it just sheer coincidence their plane crashed on the island or was it this Jacob guy pulling the strings all along? And how did most of them end up back in the 1970s with the Dharma people? — Peter Clines

Frankenswine:

Like an old crazy quilt, I'm pieces and parts from nine different bodies and five different hearts. My brain is a poet's, my snout's from a thief, my hooves all belonged to the old fire chief, I'm slogging thru swamps and mist covered bogs, hunted by farmers with torches and dogs. Thru mountains and towns, over oceans and snow, I've landed here on this arctic ice floe. So I sit here alone at the world frozen end, just looking for someone whom I can call friend. — Doug Cushman

Elvira, as befitting one who represented a magazine, registered first and demanded a room and bath. She pronounced it "bawth." The clerk seemed aghast at the request. However, in that hotel, any lady got whatever she asked for. It was her unquestioned right, as a lady. But there was no bath in the hotel, nor running water for that matter. The clerk faltered out something about a nice bowl and pitcher in every room, and said he thought they could provide a foot tub. He was sorry; there was no bath. Elvira couldn't grasp the situation. She thought the clerk was stupid--a hotel without a bath was a contradiction in terms. When she explained that she wanted something for complete immersion, the clerk seemed embarrassed. At his wits' end, he suggested (blushing like fire) that the colored boy could bring up the hog scalder. — Beatrice Fairfax

Baptists:
I'm a pious guy, but even I have my limits. I draw the line right around spending 8 hours in church every Sunday. Church should be a solemn 45 minutes to sit quietly and feel guilty, with donuts at the end to make you feel better. I don't go in for a full day of singing and dancing and rejoicing, no matter how nice the hats are. I prefer my Gospel monotonously droned to me from a pulpit, thank you very much. — Stephen Colbert

Rupert: " ... At this rate, somebody is bound to upset the Warlock once too often, and we'll end up with a Court full of bemused looking toads."
"He wouldn't dare use his magic here," said the Champion.
"Don't bet on it," said Rupert. "The High Warlock has all the practicality and self-preservation instincts of a depressed lemming. — Simon R. Green

In life we have our trophy people. These are the ones we work hard for, we are proud of. We want to show them off to our family, our friends, we want them on our arm at company functions. We take pictures with them to let everyone know we feel like a winner and we are happy.

Then you have your participation ribbons, the ribbons you get just for simply showing up. You didn't have to earn it, it was just given to you. These things usually end up in a drawer somewhere, maybe you pick them up again when you are bored and say "that was a fun night, I wonder if they are still handing out these things?" but you don't tell people about it, nothing to be proud of. — Brittany Williams

It seems that the young woman made some indelicate suggestion of a threesome ... When I got there, Miss Nash was standing by the hot tub in a small bikini, pointing the business end of a SIG-Sauer P-226 at her fella and concerned members of the hotel staff, while dunking the scantily clad female's head under the water and asking, Who's diving for clams now, bitch? — Ilona Andrews

In Ireland, you go to someone's house, and she asks you if you want a cup of tea. You say no, thank you, you're really just fine. She asks if you're sure. You say of course you're sure, really, you don't need a thing. Except they pronounce it ting. You don't need a ting. Well, she says then, I was going to get myself some anyway, so it would be no trouble. Ah, you say, well, if you were going to get yourself some, I wouldn't mind a spot of tea, at that, so long as it's no trouble and I can give you a hand in the kitchen. Then you go through the whole thing all over again until you both end up in the kitchen drinking tea and chatting.
In America, someone asks you if you want a cup of tea, you say no, and then you don't get any damned tea.
I liked the Irish way better. — C.E. Murphy

Tommy looked blank. "What's a flashlight?"
"You don't have flashlights?" Jessup said. "Jeeze! A cylinder, like, with batteries inside it, and a light bulb behind glass at one end
"
Tommy's blue eyes glinted dangerously. "We have a thing in Scotland that's a cylinder too. Very thin, made of wood, with graphite in the center. We call it a pencil."
Jessup hooted. "You think we don't have pencils?"
"You think we don't have flashlights?" Tommy snapped. "That's just American dialect. In the English language they're called torches."
Emily said mildly, "Actually we're Canadians. — Susan Cooper

At the other end of the room, Grandma had the lid up on Larry Lipinski. She was standing one foot on a folding chair, one foot on the edge of the casket, and she was taking pictures with a disposable camera. — Janet Evanovich

At the end of the warehouse was a dais constructed from pallets of books: stack of vampire novels, walls of James Patterson thrillers, and a throne from about a thousand copies of something called The Five Habits of Highly Aggressive Women. — Rick Riordan

There are gators, thousands of them. " said Rashawn.
" Then we better get out of here before we end up as a feast for gators." said Nicole. " What are going to do with him?" looking at the dead driver. " Let's get out of here and let him be the feast — Roland Smith

Her hands shot up. "See that's exactly what I'm saying. You're seeing what you want, and what you see you explain away and excuse things like you're fixing me. I'm not perfect, Ephraim and I really wish you would see that."
"You drool."
"What?" That caught her off guard.
"When you're asleep you drool. I've woken up more than a few times with a little puddle forming on my chest." After a thought he added. "And you snore. Not a delicate snore either mind you."
"I do not!" Her face colored with indignation.
He sighed heavily as if the knowledge pained him. "Oh, but you do. I've even heard Jill talk about it. Did you know that's the main reason she was happy about her room. Actually, she and Joshua thanked your Grandmother for putting you at the other end of the house, something about finally getting a decent night's sleep. They compared your snore to a chainsaw. I can see why they'd say that. — R.L. Mathewson

Jehovah's Witness are welcomed into my home ... You gotta respect anybody who gets all dressed up in Sunday clothes and goes door-to-door on days so hot their high heels sink a half-inch into the pavement.
The trick is to do all the talking yourself. Pretty soon, they'll look at their watches and say, 'Speaking of end times, wouldja look at what time it is now! — Celia Rivenbark

Say, darling, I'm giving you this wonderful present, it's a machine that eats at one end and shits out the other, it's going to run for fifteen years, give or take, merry fucking Christmas. — Stephen King

When you get to the end of the road and feel like you've arrived at a place where you don't want to be, for pity sakes, turn around, back up and move in a different direction. There's no road in life that is a dead end unless you stop there permanently. — Toni Sorenson

I'm 100% certain of the quality of story I'm writing until I finish the outline and actually begin to write. At this point, I'm 100% certain the story sucks and I will never show it to another living soul. Until I type "THE END." At this point, I'm 50% certain it sucks, 50% certain it's brilliant, and 100% certain if I don't show it to someone I will spontaneously combust. — Renee Miller

You think me foolish to call instruction a torment, but if you had been as much used as myself to hear poor little children first learning their letters and then learning to spell, if you had ever seen how stupid they can be for a whole morning together, and how tired my poor mother is at the end of it, as I am in the habit of seeing almost every day of my life at home, you would allow that to torment and to instruct might sometimes be used as synonymous words. — Jane Austen

This column was an attempt to convey to British readers something of the flavor of high-school graduation, a ritual largely unknown across the Atlantic and one at odds with the basic organizing principle of English education: The continual assurances by commencement speakers that yours is the most awesome generation ever to walk the earth ring a little odd if you're a survivor of some grim Dotheboys Hall where the prevailing educational philosophy was to lower your self-esteem to undetectable levels by the end of the first week. — Mark Steyn

Even though I can't tell others whether they should chase their marathon dreams, I highly recommend they do something completely out of character, something they never in a million years thought they'd do, something they may fail miserably at. Because sometimes the places where you end up finding your true self are the places you never thought to look. That, and I don't want to be the only one who sucks at something. — Dawn Dais

The Colonel explained to me that 1. this was Alaska's room, and that 2. she had a single room because the girl who was supposed to be her roommate got kicked out at the end of last year, and that 3. Alaska had cigarettes, although the Colonel neglected to ask whether 4. I smoked, which 5. I didn't. — John Green

You mean that because I have no name I cannot die and that you cannot be held answerable for death even if you kill me?"
"That is about the size of it," said the Sergeant.
I felt so sad and so entirely disappointed that tears came into my eyes and a lump of incommunicable poignancy swelled tragically in my throat. I began to feel intensely every fragment of my equal humanity. The life that was bubbling at the end of my fingers was real and nearly painful in intensity and so was the beauty of my warm face and the loose humanity of my limbs and the racy health of my red rich blood. To leave it all without good reason and to smash the little empire into small fragments was a thing too pitiful even to refuse to think about. — Flann O'Brien

And you know," Jeanne said, looking down at Sylvia with her hands on her hips, "that's how I want to go. Taking my own way out ... and totally pissing everybody off at the end. — L.J.Smith

Jack didn't fully get Jesus. Audrey tried to explain it, and he could repeat it back to her, word for word, but he still didn't comprehend most of it. The best he could gather was that Jesus lived long ago, told people to be nice, and they killed him for it. At the end, he asked who was Jesus' necromancer and if he was in the Bible, then Kaldar couldn't stop laughing and had to sit down. — Ilona Andrews

Mike stood in-line, waiting for the mealtime muck that passed for lunch at his school canteen. He knew he was getting close to the front now, as he tightly held his tray. Not just because he could see this as you might expect, but because he could smell Margery the school cook's body odour. The children at the front were already holding their breath. You could see a line of pink faces close to him, to red, then purple closest to Margery. Only when they left at the end did they breathe for air and turn back to their normal colour again, like a deep sea diver after a long plunge.

"Margery the Meal Murderer" was her name for most school kids. — L.P. Donnelli

I'm going to be cremated from the neck down. And at my funeral, when people are talking about me, they have to hold my head. And then at the end, they have to kick me into the audience and the audience has to keep me up for at least three hits or you have to start the whole service over. No cradling it - I want legit sets. — Daniel Tosh

CHAPTER THE FIRST
(AND LAST)
The Golden Rule of Dragon Training is to ...
YELL AT IT!
(The louder the better,)
THE END. — Cressida Cowell

In second grade my second love wrote "I love you" on a scrap of paper and dropped it on my desk as he passed by. He was very shy and sullen. When he moved to another school at the end of the term, I was heartsick. I thought about him all summer. But I learned then that we do outgrow people and our tastes do change. One should not marry until one is older. At least ten. — Jane Russell