Funny Country Quotes & Sayings

And she said it was a pity, because my father was so "keen", and what did I care about?
So I said, well, I was not quite sure, but on the whole I thought I liked having everything very tidy and calm all around me, and not being bothered to do things, and laughing at the kind of joke other people didn't think at all funny, and going for country walks, and not being asked to express opinions about things (like love, and isn't so-and-so peculiar?). So then she said, oh, well, didn't I think I could try to be a little less slack, because of Father, and I said no, I was I afraid I couldn't; and after that she left me alone. But all the others still said I was no good. — Stella Gibbons

The problem is that we live in an uptight country. Why don't we just laugh at ourselves? We are funny. Gays are funny. Straights are funny. Women are funny. Men are funny. We are all funny, and we all do funny things. Let's laugh about it. — Bob Newhart

Countries are making nuclear weapons like there is no tomorrow. — Emo Philips

You ignorant whelp. You dare to warn me away from her? I created her. Without my influence, Charlotte would be a bovine in the country with a half-dozen children at her skirts ... or spreading her legs for every man who dropped a coin between her breasts. I've spent a fortune to make her into something far better than she was ever meant to be."
"Why don't you send me a bill?"
"It would beggar you," Radnor assured him with raw contempt.
"Send it anyway," Nick invited gently. "I'll be interested to learn the cost of creating someone. — Lisa Kleypas

Women and people of color and young people especially are about to have this amazing opportunity to shift the political conversation in this country for the good of all of us, toward more progressive policies, and it's a really amazing and important time to be part of that. — Sandra Fluke

They've done away with those committees. That shows the success of what the Soviets were able to do in this country. — Ronald Reagan

Funny how the U.S. sends in the military to fight "terrorists" in any country which has resources we want ... — Ziad K. Abdelnour

She was convinced the country was about to succumb to revolutionary socialism. Her own circumstances encouraged this belief: just on the edge of the really rich country set, she shared their views and opinions but lacked the financial and architechtural insulation from real or imagined political troubles. She found crushed larger cans and cigarette packets in her front garden and interpreted these as menacing signals from the Perthshire proletariat. Every flicker and dim of electric light was a portent of class war. — James Robertson

I've been to Canada, and I've always gotten the impression that I could take the country over in about two days. — Jon Stewart

Rwandans have a funny relationship with God, which they convey through a story that anyone can tell you: "God worked very hard for six days creating the heavens and the earth. But on the seventh day, he needed a break, so he picked Rwanda as the place to take a much needed sleep. God sleeps in Rwanda, then keeps busy at work everywhere else."
This story has two meanings: The negative take is that God is not in Rwanda to protect you or answer your prayers, that He comes here only to shut His eyes. The other interpretation of "God sleeps in Rwanda" is that the country is a mile up, cooler and more beautiful than any other place, and so, naturally, this would be where God comes when He is not punching the clock. His favorite place. It was the second interpretation that we needed to believe. — Josh Ruxin

Now the country is in a terrible state and you've blamed it on a number of things - unemployment rate, the value of the pound, and all that. It's actually because the national anthem is boring. — Billy Connolly

The government of my country snubs honest simplicity but fondles artistic villainy, and I think I might have developed into a very capable pickpocket if I had remained in the public service a year or two. — Mark Twain

I think the scores for Olympic gymnastics are affected by what countries the judge and the gymnast are from. That's wrong. That type of political pandering isn't meant for gymnastic Olympic events. It's meant for the Supreme Court. — Craig Ferguson

I wouldn't be caught dead sacrificing myself for this country. — Sol Luckman

It's just amazing how long this country has been going to hell without ever having got there. — Andy Rooney

The European countries are really hoping to do well in the Olympics. If they win gold medals, they can use them as cash. — David Letterman

And in the past, Archie wondered, was it just that fewer people cheated? Were they more honest, and did they leave their front doors open, did they leave their kids with the neighbors, pay social calls, run up tabs with the butcher? The funny thing about getting old in a country is people always want to hear that from you. They want to hear it really was once a green and pleasant land. They need it. — Zadie Smith

It's not funny at all that we do all that advertising for children. Why is advertising for children allowed? What possible reason can there be for having those effing adverts on TV for all this crap that's made by poor people in poor countries that we sell our children who have too much? — Emma Thompson

We moved to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1979, when I was five. The funny thing is that, even though Baltimore had one of the top murder rates in the country in those days, I grew up hearing about how dangerous New York was. — Philipp Meyer

I am just an old country boy in a big town trying to get along. I have been eating pretty regular and the reason I have been is because I have stayed an old country boy. — Will Rogers

I guess what I always found funny was the human condition. There is a certain comedy and pathos to trouble and accidents. Like, when a driver has parked his car crookedly and then wonders why he has the bad luck of being hit. — John Prine

Assad whistled a few notes of one of his native country's melancholic songs. It sounded as though he was whistling backwards — Jussi Adler-Olsen

I think with Sky and BBC Three and Channel 4, there are some great television platforms, and the stand-up movement in this country is phenomenal. It's like rock n' roll here. Britain's a funny place and there's a lot of funny people coming out of there and a lot of people are finding mediums to express themselves. — Brendan Coyle

Some of the events in the Olympics don't make sense to me. I don't understand the connection to any reality ... Like in the Winter Olympics they have that biathlon that combines cross-country skiing with shooting a gun. How many alpine snipers are into this? Ski, shoot a gun ... ski, bang, bang, bang ... It's like combining swimming and strangling a guy. Why don't we have that? That makes absolutely as much sense to me. Just put people in the pool at the end of each lane for the swimmers. — Jerry Seinfeld

Funny how in a city of 750,000 one could feel so utterly alone and vulnerable - half a million people and no one to protect you. It's partially the nature of the location of Winnipeg. Alone in the Prairies, in the middle of the country, where the wind blows hard and the snow can pile up around your feet while you wait to cross the street. — Jan Guenther Braun

God ... my self in the Bronx always says that God has a funny sense of humor..He has a way of treating things, he deals with each individual soul delicately, tenderly, compassionately but he deals with groups of people [country] according to certain laws and he always observes those laws and that means the innocent are punished with the evil. — Malachi Martin

Now I've wrestled alotta countries! — Scott Steiner

The first time I passed through the country (Switzerland) I had the impression it was swept down with a broom from one end to the other every morning by housewives who dumped all the dirt in Italy. — Ernesto Sabato

The United States was a big country where everybody wore funny t-shirts and ate too much. — Adam Rex

I went to rehab for alcoholism in wine country, just to keep my options open. — Robin Williams

When people visit my farm they often envision their dog, finally off-leash in acres of safely fenced countryside, running like Lassie in a television show, leaping over fallen tree trunks, shiny-eyed with joy at the change to run free in the country. While they're imagining that heartwarming scene, their dog is most likely gobbling up sheep poop as fast as he can. Dog aren't people, and if they have their own image of heaven, it most likely involves poop. — Patricia B. McConnell

I've never claimed that this is investment art. When we first started out, all the art colleges and universities across the country would sort of badmouth what we were doing. It's funny that a lot of them now are sending us letters saying, 'We may not totally agree with the way you paint, but we appreciate what you're doing, because you're sending literally thousands of people into art colleges. — Bob Ross

When I consider that the noble animals have been exterminated here - the cougar, panther, lynx, wolverine, wolf, bear, moose, deer, the beaver, the turkey, etc, etc - I cannot but feel as I lived in a tamed, and, as it were, emasculated country. — Henry David Thoreau

Then they have the audacity to go shopping and pick out their own gifts. I want to know who the first person was who said this was okay. After spending all that money on a bachelorette weekend, a shower, and often a flight across the country, they expect you to go to Williams Sonoma or Pottery Barn and do research? Then they send you a thank-you note applauding you for such a thoughtful gift. They're the one who picked it out! — Chelsea Handler

This is a free country, madam. We have a right to share your privacy in a public place. — Peter Ustinov

Relaxing at home in his 55th-floor condominium before a game, Sammy Sosa is the same as at the ball park: focused but funny, exuberant but reserved. He is in a strange country, conversing in two languages, but his every movement displays a combination of confidence and humility. — Bill Dedman

We, as Americans, at least - I mean, I love my country - but we're so self-righteous sometimes, in terms of, like, our nationality, our country. But we're people from somewhere else; the true 'Americans' are the original peoples. It's funny, but we're a very territorial species. — Peter Dinklage

Not so great in England at the moment; in an online poll we came last, we actually came bottom of European countries for quality of life, because of things like the weather, obviously, late retirement, poor holiday, poor public services, poor health service; it's basically just a kind of grey, godless wilderness, full of cold pies and broken dreams. — Bill Bailey

Pop culture. Nobody does bullshit better than us. Right? China took over manufacturing. And the Middle East has us on fossil fuels. That's just geography and politics. We're a nation of whacko immigrants. Scavengers and con men. We crossed the ocean on faith, stole some land and stone-cold made up a whole country out of nothing but balls and bullshit. Superhero comics got invented by crazy genius Jews who showed up and revamped the refugee experience into a Man of Steel sent from Krypton with a secret identity. — Damon Suede

But you see, a rich country like America can perhaps afford to be stupid. — Barack Obama

I think back to some of the things Harry said and some of the things I said trying to be funny. If I said them now, it would be on the front page of every newspaper in the country. — Jack Buck

Every Day Is for the Thief, by turns funny, mournful, and acerbic, offers a portrait of Nigeria in which anger, perhaps the most natural response to the often lamentable state of affairs there, is somehow muted and deflected by the author's deep engagement with the country: a profoundly disenchanted love. Teju Cole is among the most gifted writers of his generation. — Salman Rushdie

Because my musical background is so diverse, it lends me to have very much my own style and it helps me to relate to the music as I'm going to play it. I just write. And if it comes out country, it's a country song. The funny thing is, I write all across the board. I just write what hits me at the time. — Casey James

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

Trying to assassinate the president should not be funny. It really shouldn't. It's not like I was cracking up when we read about Lincoln or JFK. But let's face it, they were real presidents. Gerald Ford ranks right up there with Millard Fillmore and Bush the First on the list of unexciting white men who have run this country, made their way into history books, and otherwise been human sleeping pills. If all the presidents had been television shows, Gerald Ford would probably have been a PBS fund drive. So I'd bet the fact that anyone would try to kill Gerald Ford, Gerald Rudolph Ford, was kind of hard to get excited about, even back in the day. — Alison Umminger

The way this country deals with drugs is just not funny. What a waste of everyone's time and effort. What a waste of a lot of people's lives. — Dave Barry

I wonder, what's in a book while it's closed. Oh, I know it's full of letters printed on paper, but all the same, something must be happening, because as soon as I open it, there's a whole story with people I don't know yet and all kinds of adventures, deeds and battles. And sometimes there are storms at sea, or it takes you to strange cities and countries. All those things are somehow shut in a book. Of course you have to read it to find out. But it's already there, that's the funny thing. I just wish I knew how it could be. — Michael Ende

Who knows what kind of marriage they have? The kinds of marriage people have in this country, Bo, very strange. It's not like back home where a man can do as he sees fit and a woman follows him. Over here it's reversed. Women tell their men what they want and the men do it, because they say happy wife, happy life. This society is funny. — Imbolo Mbue

She turns to us, acts surprised to see us, then does the bit with the back of the hand to the forehead. "You're lost!" "You're angry!" "You're in the wrong school!" "You're in the wrong country!" "You're on the wrong planet! — Laurie Halse Anderson

Do you know what happens when you play a country song backwards? You get your wife back, your dog back and your job back. — Richard Belzer

The U.S. team has swept all the medals in the skeet shooting event. So despite our bad economy, it's nice to know our country has never been safer from an attack of skeets. — Conan O'Brien

On the whole I thought I liked having everything very tidy and calm all around me, and not being bothered to do things, and laughing at the kind of joke other people didn't think at all funny, and going for country walks, and not being asked to express opinions about things (like love, and isn't so-and-so peculiar?) — Stella Gibbons

If this were a courageous country,
it would ask Gloria to lead it
since she is sane and funny and beautiful and smart
and the National Leaders we've always had
are not.
When I listen to her talk about women's rights
children's rights
men's rights
I think of the long line of Americans
who should have been president, but weren't.
Imagine Crazy Horse as president. Sojourner Truth.
John Brown. Harriet Tubman. Black Elk or Geronimo.
Imagine President Martin Luther King confronting
the youthful "Oppie" Oppenheimer. Imagine President
Malcolm X going after the Klan. Imagine President Stevie
Wonder dealing with the "Truly Needy."
Imagine President Shirley Chisholm, Ron Dellums, or
Sweet Honey in the Rock
dealing with Anything.
It is imagining to make us weep with frustration,
as we languish under real estate dealers, killers,
and bad actors. — Alice Walker

But our country's equivalent of gritty reality is more like "Look out Sarge, he's got a shooter!" — Bill Bailey

Mitt Romney will travel to London where he will attend the Olympics opening ceremony. Of course it's going ot be weird when they're announcing all the countries, and he's like 'Got a bank account there, got one there, two bank accounts there.' — Jimmy Fallon

The fish is that perfect, amazing guy it can never work out with - you know, a bird and a fish may fall in love - but where would they live? . . . So the fish is your total dream guy, he's smart, he's handsome, he gets all your jokes, he loves to talk, he gives you a nine-hour orgasm and then makes you homemade chocolate chip pancakes and serves you breakfast in bed - but he lives all the way across the country and neither of you can move, or he's married, or next in line for the throne, or he has a terminal disease or something . . . the fish. — Lisa Daily

It's about something that strikes you as funny but I do it with a Christian world view: why we think the way we do based on God's plan. I lift up my God and my country and I resist political correctness. — Brad Stine

Coca-Cola remains emblematic of the best and worst of America and Western civilization. The history of Coca-Cola is the often funny story of a group of men obsessed with putting a trivial soft drink "within an arm's reach of desire." But at the same time, it is a microcosm of American history. Coca-Cola grew up with the country, shaping and shaped by the times. The drink not only helped to alter consumption patterns, but attitudes toward leisure, work, advertising, sex, family life, and patriotism. — Mark Pendergrast

The South has more of a disproportionate amount of irony on T-shirts than any other region in the country. — David Cross

I'm pretty open to all music. Its pretty funny because I've spent time in Germany and now I'm in Dallas where Country is a big thing. I used to hate it but now I can actually go through a song. — Steve Purdy

I wil not calm down. My baby girl is moving halfway across the country."
"She's been moved away before," Dad pointed out.
"Yeah, but that was with Billy. We all knew he wouldn't work out. We're talking about Hank here. Look at him," she pointed to Hank.
"She's never coming home. Never. — Kristen Ashley

We had always known that ours is a small country and that America is very big. But even as a seven-year-old, I was surprised that so many Americans has never noticed us on the map. Perhaps it's like driving a Yugo and realizing that the eighteen-wheeler can's see you. — Firoozeh Dumas

People need external activity because they have no internal activity ... [Hence] the restlessness of those who have nothing to do, and their aimless traveling. What drives them from country to country is the same boredom which at home drives them together into such crowds and heaps it is funny to see. — Arthur Schopenhauer

I showed what I can do with butter, right? Eighty-five percent increase in sales. I'm very proud of them Country Life ads. They were funny and clever and classy like the Toblerone ads I grew up with. — John Lydon

America is a magical place, and I think my job, or the job of a lot of us European filmmakers is to just hold up America to Americans and present it to you in a new way. All I wanted to do is in a funny way say, "Look at your country. It's magnificent." — Hans Zimmer

I always thought of this as God's country. — Jack Granatstein

A lot of movies that come from Israel are about war, but there is such good, funny, rounded writing that comes from the country that I wish more people would discover. — Odeya Rush

I dream of starting a three-man country trio called the Chixie Dicks. — Zach Galifianakis

I thought the trees down in Lady Zelana's country were about as big as a tree could get," he said, "but the ones around here are so tall that they probably tickle the moon's tummy when she goes by. — David Eddings

Then with Lucy [Hale], her little thing that I kind of learned from her is her country music because she's obsessed with country and at the beginning, I wasn't a huge fan of it, but I was listening to some songs that she plays in the hair and makeup room and she's also so funny, too. She does these character impersonations and they're just so funny. Made up characters of course, but she can switch into someone else so fast. I'm always laughing at Lucy and she's like a little Polly Pocket, you know? The tiny one. — Shay Mitchell

Veil, you see, if I vas to say something portentous like "zer dark eyes of zer mind" back home in Uberwald, zer would be a sudden crash of thunder,' said Otto. 'And if I vas to point at a castle on a towering crag and say "Yonder is ... zer castle" a volf would be bound to howl mournfully.' He sighed. 'In zer old country, zer scenery is psychotropic and knows vot is expected of it. Here, alas, people just look at you in a funny vay. — Terry Pratchett

In my own country, I play light comedies and funny parts. — Carice Van Houten

I was employed as a salesman, selling a marvelous tea that could cure all ills. Funny, don't you think? I have never lied so much in my life, I traveled all over the country, selling my miraculous tea to whoever would believe me. I never felt guilty about it. The tea didn't do any harm, I can assure you, and my words gave such hope to those who bought it that I reckon they might still owe me money, because hope is beyond price. — Jose Saramago

If you're ever feeling a lack of middle-aged white men, just pop into the Capitol. Not so much the House of Representatives, which has a bit more color and texture, but the Senate
jeez. Yes, let's have more testosterone running the country.
Maximum Ride, School's Out
Forever — James Patterson

Look here, cousin," Big Country's drawled in the background. "This here's a car. We just got off a plane, and no matter how fast you push this bitch, she ain't gon' fly, so believe me when I say, I refuse to die over some foolishness you call love, not today. — Shay Rucker

It was the last town in what was then a civilized country. Once Tim asked his father what civilized meant. "Taxes," Big Ross said, and laughed - but not in a funny way. — Stephen King

Last year we drove across the country ... We had one cassette tape to listen to on the entire trip ... I don't remember what it was ... — Steven Wright

There's lots of sides. The CD doesn't really create a mood. It creates more of a journey. It starts out with a simple bluegrass tune, sort of melancholy and sad, like "Lovin' and Lyin'," then it's sexy and there's some funny songs in there where I'm talking, like "Designated Drunk." There's a humor side, a sexy side, but there's also a pretty sad side, the country side. It's the backwards side of me! — Laura Bell Bundy

Money in property is dead money. It doesn't help the country. It's funny how the U.K., Ireland and Spain are the most property-obsessed nations in Europe and yet are also the ones suffering the most. — Peter Hargreaves

Funny how a melody sounds like a memory. — Eric Church

In a funny way, nothing makes you feel more like a native of your own country than to live where nearly everyone is not. — Bill Bryson

I think one of the problems in this country is that too many people are screwing things up, committing crimes and then getting on with their lives. What is really needed for public officials who shame themselves is ritual suicide. — George Carlin

SHE WAS JUST LIKE OUR WHOLE COUNTRY - NOT QUITE YOUNG ANYMORE, BUT NOT OLD EITHER; A LITTLE BREATHLESS, VERY BEAUTIFUL, MAYBE A LITTLE STUPID, MAYBE A LOT SMARTER THAN SHE SEEMED. AND SHE WAS LOOKING FOR SOMETHING - I THINK SHE WANTED TO BE GOOD. LOOK AT THE MEN IN HER LIFE - JOE DIMAGGIO, ARTHUR MILLER, MAYBE THE KENNEDYS. LOOK AT HOW GOOD THEY SEEM! LOOK AT HOW DESIRABLE SHE WAS! THAT'S WHAT SHE WAS: SHE WAS DESIRABLE. SHE WAS FUNNY AND SEXY - AND SHE WAS VULNERABLE, TOO. SHE WAS NEVER QUITE HAPPY, SHE WAS ALWAYS A LITTLE OVERWEIGHT. SHE WAS JUST LIKE OUR WHOLE COUNTRY, — John Irving

American voices, country voices, high-pitched and without mercy. He lies freezing, wondering if the bedsprings will give him away. For possibly the first time he is hearing America as it must sound to a non-American. Later he will recall that what surprised him most was the fanaticism, the reliance not just on flat force but on the rightness of what they planned to do ... he'd been told long ago to expect this sort of thing from Nazis, and especially from Japs - we were the ones who always played fair - but this pair outside the door now are as demoralizing as a close-up of John Wayne (the angle emphasizing how slanted his eyes are, funny you never noticed before) screaming BANZAI! — Thomas Pynchon

When D's cabin caught fire, D was out of the country. Half the town-Christians and drinkers alike-came out to fight the fire and loot the cabin. There were individual piles of loot, and fights over the piles. "That's my pile." "The hell it is, it's mine. — John McPhee

Let's be honest, this is a consumer based economy in America. That's all we manufacture here is need and appetite. We are the world's mouth. They make things in other countries, and they're like, 'Send it to America; they'll eat it.' — Marc Maron

The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government. — Thomas Paine

So the president is like, "Well, once upon a time it was Congress's job to decide whether or not we attacked countries, so let's let them decide." Which is funny, because, as we all know, if Congress were on fire, Congress could not pass the "Pour Water on Congress Act". — Hank Green

Ohio is a scale model of the entire country, jammed into 43,000 square miles. Cleveland views itself as the intellectual East (its citizens believe they have a rivalry with Boston and unironically classify the banks of Lake Erie as the North Coast). Cincinnati is the actual South (they fly Confederate flags and eat weird food). Dayton is the Midwest. Toledo is Pittsburgh, before Pittsburgh was nice. Columbus is a low-altitude Denver, minus the New World Order airport. Ohio experiences all possible US weather, sometimes simultaneously. — Chuck Klosterman

How he died hadn't been funny, Newt thought.
"It's all right, though," Augustus said. "It's mostly bones we're riding over anyway. Why, think of all the buffalo that have died on these plains. Buffalo and other critters too. And the Indians have been here forever; their bones are down there in the earth. I'm told that over in the Old Country you can't dig six feet without uncovering skulls and leg bones and such. People have been living there since the beginning, and their bones have kinda filled up the ground. It's interesting to think about, all the bones in the ground. But it's just fellow creatures, it's nothing to shy from. — Larry McMurtry

Frankly, most of my friends hold very different political beliefs. It's just a funny thing in this country that supposedly you can't sit down and have dinner and enjoy another person's company if you don't have the same beliefs. It's ridiculous. — Patricia Heaton

And regardless of the fact that in this country, certainly in the arts, we treat comedy as a second-class citizen, I've never thought of it that way. I've always thought it to be important. The last time I looked, the Greeks were holding up two masks. I've always thought of it not only as having equal value, but as the craft of it, being funny. — Jeff Daniels

Roosevelt could always keep ahead with his work, but I cannot do it, and I know it is a grievous fault, but it is too late to remedy it. The country must take me as it found me. Wasn't it your mother who had a servant girl who said it was no use for her to try to hurry, that she was a "Sunday chil" and no "Sunday chil" could hurry? I don't think I am a Sunday child, but I ought to have been; then I would have had an excuse for always being late. — William Howard Taft

Are you wearing space pants?" Miranda asked him.
"What?"
How did it end? oh, right. "Because your butt is fine."
He gazed at her in that way he had like he was measuring her for straitjacket. "I think-" he started, then stopped and seemed to be having trouble talking. Cleared his throat three times before saying, "I think the line is 'because your butt is out of this world."
"Oh. That makes a lot more sense. I can see that. See, I read this book about how to get guys to like you and they said it was a line that never failed but i got interrupted in the middle and the line before it was about china-not the country, the kind you eat off of-and that is where the fine part was but i must have gotten them confused. He just kept staring at her. — Michele Jaffe

Trample the weak. Hurdle the dead. — Attila The Hun

Playing in Italy was like being in a foreign country. — Ian Rush

A traveling salesman was driving in the country when his car broke down. He hiked several miles to a farmhouse and asked the farmer if there was a place he could stay overnight. "Sure," said the farmer, "My wife died several years ago, and my two daughters are twenty-one and twenty-three, but they're off to college, and I'm all by myself, so I have lots of room to put you up."
Hearing this, the salesman turned around and started walking back toward the highway.
The farmer called after him, "Didn't you hear what I said? I have lots of room."
"I heard you," said the salesman, "but I think I'm in the wrong joke. — Thomas Cathcart

It's so funny because people always think of me as being a little bit country or assume that I am from the South - I don't know why! — Megan Hilty

What's great about stand-up is that you can say whatever you want and go around the country, and sometimes the world, and work on it and see how people react. You don't need Standards & Practices or notes from lawyers or producers to tell you what's funny. — Natasha Leggero

This is indeed a funny country. Yesterday, for example, we were in a cafe which is one of the best in Cairo, and there were, at the same time as ourselves, inside, a donkey shitting, and a gentleman who was pissing in a corner. No one finds that odd; no one says anything. — Gustave Flaubert