|
afa2f60
|
As usual, he saves his wife's for last. He leans on the cane and he looks at the headstone and he thinks about many things. Taffy. He thinks about taffy. He thinks it would take his teeth out now, but he would eat it anyhow, if it meant eating it with her.
|
|
death
graveyard
headstone
humour
love
memory
sacrifice
taffy
teeth
widower
|
Mitch Albom |
|
ee7f544
|
Now according to German logic, a declaration of war was found to be unnecessary because of imaginary bombings
|
|
humour
worldwar-i
|
Barbara W. Tuchman |
|
518d0fe
|
You do not know the madness of scholarly curiosity, Mr Webster. To be interested, and at the same time disinterested...
|
|
humorous
humour
scholarly
scholars
scholarship
|
Muriel Spark |
|
012dc40
|
But it is infamous that they have not told you!' declared Eustacie. 'Je n'en reviendrai jamais!' 'If it's all the same to you, miss, I'd just as soon you'd talk in a Christian language,' said Mr. Stubbs.
|
|
comedy
french-language
humor
humour
humourous
humourous-quote
idiocy
idiotic
idiots
|
Georgette Heyer |
|
719929a
|
"Hey! Give that back!" Panic started to set in. Ignoring the fact that I was only in my panties, I jumped up out of bed and grabbed at the sweatshirt, trying to pull it back to me. I couldn't lose it, I just couldn't. But then his jaw dropped. "You're not wearing pants!" He slapped his hand over his eyes and let me pull the shirt out of his grip. "Damn it, put some clothes on." That gave me pause, and might have made me laugh if I wasn't so freaked out. The demon from hell was unnerved by me being half-dressed?"
|
|
erin-mccarthy
humour
liana
the-coming-dark
|
Erin McCarthy |
|
54b9c93
|
"A jaw like a mastiff's, a frame like a giant's, eyes like two daggers, a smile like a tiger's snarl,"Bernard murmured. "Aye, he is all that!!" Master Herbert said."A murrain be on him! And when I came to him,what did I do? I did bow in all politeness, yet stiffly withal to show him I'd not brook his surliness." "I did hear ye did bow so low that your head came below your knees,"Bernard said."
|
|
humour
|
Georgette Heyer |
|
c57977e
|
As a youth I enjoyed -- indeed, like most of my contemporaries, revered -- the agitprop plays of Brecht, and his indictments of Capitalism. It later occurred to me that his plays were copyrighted, and that he, like I, was living through the operations of that same free market. His protestations were not borne out by his actions, neither could they be. Why, then, did he profess Communism? Because it sold. The public's endorsement of his plays kept him alive; as Marx was kept alive by the fortune Engels's family had made selling furniture; as universities, established and funded by the Free Enterprise system -- which is to say by the accrual of wealth -- house, support, and coddle generations of the young in their dissertations on the evils of America.
|
|
communism
humour
irony
playwriting
|
David Mamet |
|
9304f83
|
"It was supposed to say "Great Artist" on my tombstone, but if I died right now it would say "such a good teacher/daughter/friend" instead; and what I really want to shout, and want in big letters on that grave, too, is FUCK YOU ALL."
|
|
humour
humourosly-inspirational
strength
stress
women
|
Claire Messud |
|
6e315b0
|
"The woman behind the bar called out: 'Why do you stand like hypnotized fish? Did you come to drink beer or to eat food?' 'Be patient,' said Gersen. 'We are making our decision.' The remark annoyed the woman. Her voice took on a coarse edge. "Be patient,' you say? All night I pour beer for crapulous men; isn't that patience enough? Come over here, backwards; I'll put this spigot somewhere amazing, at full gush, and then we'll discover who calls for patience!"
|
|
barmaid
humour
pub
|
Jack Vance |
|
459ec61
|
She seems somewhat morose and out of sorts. Do you beat her often?' 'I must admit that I do not.' 'There is the answer! Beat her well; beat her often! It will bring roses to her cheeks! There is nothing better to induce good cheer in a woman than a fine constitutional beating.
|
|
humour
wife-beating
|
Jack Vance |
|
35aebdd
|
Henry, you mustn't mind. It is really a kindness to have him.' 'Well, I do mind, Emily,' said Mr Leslie, getting up. 'Kindness is one thing and your family is another. You treat this house as if it were the Ark, Emily, inviting everyone in.' 'At least she doesn't ask them in couples, sir,' said David. 'A female Holt would be appalling.' 'That's enough,' said his father. 'If Mr Holt comes into this house, I go out of it.' He took a cigar from the sideboard and went out, almost slamming the door.
|
|
humour
|
Angela Thirkell |
|
488c74e
|
Philippe also brought along musicians - mainly trumpeters and drummers - to scare the enemy. Even then, French music was known to terrify the English.
|
|
humour
philippe-vi
|
Stephen Clarke |
|
abfc1de
|
He wondered often how he would ever recognize the first chill, flush, twinge, ache, belch, sneeze, stain, lethargy, vocal slip, loss of balance or lapse of memory that would signal the inevitable beginning of the inevitable end.
|
|
humour
|
Joseph Heller |
|
e364dba
|
I have no doubt that you could have flung bricks by the hour in England's most densely populated districts without endangering the safety of a single girl capable of becoming Mrs. Augustus Fink-Nottle without an anaesthetic.
|
|
humour
marriage
|
P.G. Wodehouse |
|
5508941
|
We all shook hands, and the policeman, having retrieved a piece of chewing-gum from the underside of a chair, where he had parked it against a rainy day, went off into a corner and began to contemplate the infinite.
|
|
dry-humour
humour
policemen
|
P.G. Wodehouse |
|
15ee7e2
|
"Well, dearest, what would you tell a farmer who had an over-abundant harvest? To plant less, of course!"... "I am not complaining about the frequency of the planting," she said. "I'd just rather not reap a crop every year."
|
|
harvest
humour
sex
|
Sharon Kay Penman |
|
8890cb4
|
"I said, 'Don't talk rot, Old Tom Travers." "I am not accustomed to talk rot," he said. "Then, for a beginner," I said, "you do it dashed well."
|
|
humor
humour
jeeves
jeeves-and-wooster
retort
|
P.G. Wodehouse |
|
6269564
|
"It was a morning when all nature shouted "Fore!" The breeze, as it blew gently up from the valley, seemed to bring a message of hope and cheer, whispering of chip-shots holed and brassies landing squarely on the meat. The fairway, as yet unscarred by the irons of a hundred dubs, smiled greenly up at the azure sky; and the sun, peeping above the trees, looked like a giant golf-ball perfectly lofted by the mashie of some unseen god and about to drop dead by the pin of the eighteenth." --
|
|
humour
|
P.G. Wodehouse |
|
606c6ef
|
The thing about a diversion is that it has to be diverting.
|
|
diversion
funny
humour
|
Eoin Colfer |
|
0020c15
|
Whenever Elliot Norther's wife was nervous she baked. With the murder of Harriet Mason, her husband's close colleague at the Faculty, she had been unable to resist a couple of Victoria sponges. During the frenzied press speculation about the identity of the murderer, a Dundee cake had appeared, followed swiftly by a Battenberg and a Lemon Drizzle. Since news of the Wildencrust murder broke, the kitchen, dining room and study had come to resemble the storerooms of an industrial bakery, every surface heaving with the weight of sponge and cream. Yesterday, having at last been overwhelmed by the fear and rumour that swept the town, she had taken herself off to her mother's house in Hampstead, leaving her husband to soldier on alone. When he had last seen his wife, Elliot Norther noticed that she had been putting the finishing touches to an impressive, triple-tiered wedding cake, beating a batch of royal icing into a sickly paste.
|
|
humor
humour
thriller
|
Robert Clear |
|
abf1c9a
|
"I don't remember the whole thing, because it was very long, but Atticus recited it for me once, and there was a line that went like this: "Cry ham hock and let slip the hogs of war!" I know you might not agree, but for me that was the best thing Shakespeare ever wrote." You mean, "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war" from Julius Caesar? "No, I don't think that's it. There was ham in there; I'm sure he was talking about ham. They were going to battle hunger." I think you might have been hungry when you heard it, Oberon."
|
|
granuaile
humour
iron-druid
kevin-hearne
oberon
shakespeare
|
Kevin Hearne |
|
f25d3e8
|
And it's no use putting her on her honour, because----' 'Because she hasn't any,' Philip finished. 'I wouldn't say that,' said the parrot, 'of anybody. I'd only say we haven't come across it.
|
|
humour
nesbit
|
E. Nesbit |
|
4ae2576
|
"The menu at the Hug Deli included, among other items, the Warm and Fuzzy Hug, the Beverly Hills Air Kiss Hug, and the Gangsta Hug, with side orders of Pinch, Tickle, and Back Scratch. She ordered the Long Uncomfortable Hug, because she thought that was funny, thereby prompting a nut-brown Venice Beach-looking dude to hold on to her, earnestly pokerfaced, for a seeming eternity. "Are you uncomfortable yet?" "Fairly, yes." "Excellent. My work here is done." She laughed and mounted on her bike, pedalling away from the zany mirage as her gratuitous hugger shouted "Namaste" in her direction."
|
|
humour
|
Armistead Maupin |
|
a3066f7
|
"There's a saying in Hardorn," she continued. "'You shouldn't attempt to teach a goat to sing. It will waste your time, hurt your ears, and annoy the goat.' I can say without fear of contradiction that the goat is getting annoyed."
|
|
goats
humour
|
Mercedes Lackey |
|
c1fc6f5
|
Mma Ramotswe tucked the cheque safely away in her bodice. Modern business methods were all very well, she thought, but when it came to the safeguarding of money there were some places which had yet to be bettered.
|
|
humour
life-lessons
philosophy
|
Alexander McCall Smith |
|
23ba380
|
I tried to make sense of things. Now that I think about it, I have always tried. It could be my epitaph. LEO GURSKY: HE TRIED TO MAKE SENSE.
|
|
humour
|
Nicole Krauss |
|
c9449fa
|
People said-- though this felt like a heresy-- that they had seen Camille make Robespierre laugh.
|
|
humour
|
Hilary Mantel |
|
05aa57a
|
"Good morning," she said. "Are you drunk?" She noticed what a split second it took for him to flare into aggression. "Do I look it?" "No. Where is Citizen Danton?" "I've done away with him. I've been busy dismembering him for the last three hours. Would you like to help me carry his remnants down to the concierge? Oh really, Louise! He's in bed and asleep, where do you think he is?" "And is he drunk?" "Very. What is all this harping on intoxication?"
|
|
friendship
humour
|
Hilary Mantel |
|
c582636
|
Of course I have had to rearrange the text a bit-- bugger about with it, as Hebert would say.
|
|
humour
jurnalism
|
Hilary Mantel |
|
520570d
|
As the year goes on, certain deputies--and others, high in public life--will appear unshaven, without coat or cravat; or they will jettison these marks of the polite man, when the temperature rises. They affect the style of men who begin their mornings with a splash under a backyard pump, and who stop off at their street-corner bar for a nip of spirits on their way to ten hours' manual labor. Citizen Robespierre, however, is a breathing rebuke to these men; he retains his buckled shoes, his striped coat of olive green. Can it be the same coat that he wore in the first year of the Revolution? He is not profligate with coats. While Citizen Danton tears off the starched linen that fretted his thick neck, Citizen Saint-Just's cravat grows ever higher, stiffer, more wonderful to behold. He affects a single earring, but he resembles less a corsair than a slightly deranged merchant banker.
|
|
humour
|
Hilary Mantel |
|
287ef01
|
Georges told me he would be back, and I have no reason to disbelieve him--but perhaps you'd like to sit down here and write him a letter? Tell him you can't manage the thing without him, which is true. Tell him Robespierre says he can't get along without him. And when you're done, you might go and find Robespierre and ask him to call. He is such a steadying influence when Camille is killing himself.
|
|
humour
|
Hilary Mantel |
|
f367e07
|
"Mirabeau: "If you have been told to clear us from this hall, you must ask for orders to use force. We shall leave our seats only at bayonet point. The King can cause us to be killed; tell him we all await death; but he need not hope that we shall separate until we have made the constitution." Audible only to his neighbor, he adds, "If they come, we bugger off, quick."
|
|
humour
|
Hilary Mantel |
|
33d2665
|
"So a good man can be a bad Christian?" "I suppose so." "Then a bad man," I said, "can be a good Christian?"
|
|
humour
religion-christianity
|
Bernard Cornwell |
|
dfc25b2
|
Yossarian was moved by such intense pity for his poverty that he wanted to smash his pale. sad, sickly face with his fist and knock him out of existence
|
|
humor
humour
|
Joseph Heller |
|
15956d6
|
"The Robespierre women (as one tended to think of them now) were all on display. Madame looked actively, rather intimidatingly benevolent; it was her aim in life to find a Jacobin who was hungry, then to go into the kitchen and make extravagant efforts, and say, "I have fed a patriot!"."
|
|
humour
|
Hilary Mantel |
|
d1a1f70
|
"Lord Daner isn't my boyfriend," Eleret said, annoyed. She'd let it go by once, but after two mentions, she had to correct him. Karvonen would drive her crazy if he kept referring to Daner that way. "Huh." Karvonen pursed his lips skeptically. "I'll bet it's not because he didn't try."
|
|
eleret
humor
humour
karvonen
|
Patricia C. Wrede |
|
4cf63c3
|
FEE, FI-- Magnus begins. Oh wait, I already said that, he adds.
|
|
humour
|
Sarah Mlynowski |
|
b61155b
|
"Please ejaculate", I silently urged the man, "so I can go to sleep". (In this way I imagine I was like millions of women before me"
|
|
humour
joke
sex
|
Jon Ronson |
|
72350db
|
In a nobler age one could have answered such impertinence by jostling his lordship as he stood holding open the door, so that he would have been obliged to demand a meeting. Or did one, even in that age, refrain from jostling people in doorways when a lady was present?
|
|
humour
regency
|
Georgette Heyer |
|
07838f1
|
You were not acquainted with my father, Mr Morville. I have often been sorry that you were not, for you would have been excessively pleased with one another. My father was a great reader, though not, of course, during the hunting-season.
|
|
humour
|
Georgette Heyer |
|
5d3f8cf
|
"May 29, the Central Committee of the Sections goes into "permanent session" -- what a fine, crisis-ridden sound it has, that term!"
|
|
humour
|
Hilary Mantel |
|
d99d9a2
|
Aye, it could', Ian added. 'It's many a time when I've walked alone on the misty moors of Scotland, the fog creeping in, the waves pounding against the shore, and then the lone, eerie call of a dead chicken. Caaa-cluck. Caaa-cluck
|
|
humour
scotland
|
Terri Reid |
|
1bcd6d8
|
I can tell you that if there's nothing wrong with you except fat it is easy to get thin. You eat and drink the same as always, only half. If you are handed a plate of food, leave half; if you have to help yourself, take half. After a while, if you are a perfectionist, you can consume half of that again ... On the question of will-power, if that is a factor, you should think of will-power as something that never exists in the present tense, only in the future and the past. At one moment you have decided to do or refrain from an action and the next moment you have already done or refrained; it is the only way to deal with will-power.
|
|
dieting-humour
easiest-diet
eat-half
humour
weight-loss
weight-loss-humour
will-power
|
Muriel Spark |
|
f946fc4
|
.. when all this started, I asked myself, 'Am I going to withdraw from the world, like most people do, or am I going to live?' I decided I'm going to live - or at least try to live - the way I want, with dignity, with courage, with humour, with composure.
|
|
cope
courage
death
decision
dignity
humour
life
way-of-life
withdraw
|
Mitch Albom |
|
0bbaf08
|
"I think back to those days after the Bastille fell, the Mercure Nationale run from the back of the shop, that little Louise sticking her well-bred nose in the air and flouncing off to bawl out their printer--and you know, he was a good lad, Francois. I'd say, 'Go and do this, this, this, go and tie some bricks to your boots and jump in the Seine,' and he'd"-- Danton touched an imaginary forelock--'right away, Georges-Jacques, and do you need any shopping while I'm out?' Jesus, what a way to end up. When you see him, tell him I'd be obliged if he forgets he knows me."
|
|
humour
|
Hilary Mantel |
|
b37efb6
|
Rock and roll, big band, the blues. He loved them all. He would close his eyes and with a blissful smile begin to move to his own sense of rhythm. It wasn't always pretty.
|
|
funny
humor
humour
music
rhythm
|
Mitch Albom |
|
01e0b3e
|
Humour, if one looks into it, is principally a matter of retrospect.
|
|
humour
p-g-wodehouse
theprinceandbetty
wodehouse
|
P.G. Wodehouse |
|
94e8122
|
On the other side of St John's house is a fake egg timer who can't maintain an erection. He shares the property with a glossy beef burger called Tom, who has been painted by a seven year old magistrate in order to be entered for this year's Miss East Lancashire competition. Next door to them is a Dundee cake with a lisp.
|
|
humour
non-sequitur
satire
surreal
|
St. John Morris |
|
cac1d8c
|
"I do no damage. This is damage, this." He picked up a paper from Camille's desk. "I can't read your writing, but I take it the general tenor is that Brissot should go and hang himself."
|
|
humour
|
Hilary Mantel |
|
9b32cc8
|
Absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder. It makes people think you're dead.
|
|
death
humor
humour
loss
|
Christopher Fowler |
|
4c90047
|
"What I still don't get though," ventured John. "Is why you did it?" "Did what?" "Put that dress on in the first place." "I don't know really," said Dennis, a puzzled look crossing his face. "I suppose it's because it was fun." "Fun?" said John. "Well you know when we were younger and we used to run around the garden pretending to be Daleks or Spiderman or whatever?"
|
|
humour
|
David Walliams |
|
cc9d2ba
|
Hobbes: UGH! something under the bed is drooling. Calvin: Start tying the sheets. We'll go out the window.
|
|
humour
|
Bill Watterson |
|
20b50e7
|
It's like George always says: being in a rock 'n' roll band is very sexy, even when you're only the keyboard player and your idea of the perfect Saturday night actually amounts to a bubble bath, a Richard Curtis boxset and a seafood linguine.
|
|
humour
music
rock-and-roll
|
Christopher Russell |
|
a2005e3
|
I click to buy it and I'm furious to discover that it's not available in Ireland and they won't post it from abroad and the only place that sells it is Harrods and it's impossible for me to go to Harrods because it's like being trapped in an Escher painting.
|
|
humour
ireland
london
make-up
shopping
trapped
|
Marian Keyes |
|
e23b684
|
Dessert was an over baked chocolate chip cookies the size of a hockey puck and just about as tasty.
|
|
dessert
food
funny
humour
joke
|
Carl Hiaasen |
|
2f061cf
|
He didn't look as if he'd been through a whirlwind exactly but he'd certainly endured a stiff breeze.
|
|
breeze
humour
messy
untidy
whirlwind
|
Sara Sheridan |
|
3d8ef7e
|
Perhaps a sense of death is like a sense of humour. We all think the one we've got - or haven't got - is just about right, and appropriate to the proper understanding of life. It's everyone else who's out of step.
|
|
humour
julian-barnes
|
Julian Barnes |
|
05c70f3
|
"The entire time Albie followed Beverly around the house doing what the children referred to as "the stripper soundtrack": When their mother stopped walking the soundtrack stopped. If she took a single step it was accompanied by Albie saying only "boom" in a voice that was weirdly sexual for a six-year-old."
|
|
humour
|
Ann Patchett |
|
8645aaf
|
"This may interest you. A letter from my dear cousin Fouquier-Tinville." Camille cast an eye over his relative's best handwriting. "Squirm, flattery, abasement, squirm, dearest sweetest Camille, squirm squirm squirm ... 'the election of the Patriot Ministers ... I know them all by reputation, but I am not so happy as to be known by them--"
|
|
humour
|
Hilary Mantel |
|
e88575f
|
Psipsina emerged from inside the tunic, and jumped up on the table in order to curl up inside the cap, which had been her favourite resting place ever since she discovered the joys of contortionism; she filled it and overflowed from it in such a tangle and jumble of whiskers, ears, tail and paws that it was impossible to tell which part of her was which, and she slept in it because it reminded her of gifts of salami and chicken skins.
|
|
humour
pets
|
Louis de Bernières |
|
2e0f8aa
|
"During the next week, everyone noticed that my appetite had improved, even Toddy. "Are you done with your hunger strike?" he asked me curiously, one morning. "Toddy, eat your breakfast." "But I thought that was what it was called. When people don't eat." "No, a hunger strike is for people in prison," Kitsey said coolly. "Kitten," said Mr. Barbour, in a warning tone. "Yes, but he ate three waffles yesterday," said Toddy, looking eagerly between his uninterested parents in an attempt to engage them. "I only ate two waffles. And this morning he ate a bowl of cereal and six pieces of bacon, but you said five pieces of bacon was too much for me. Why can't I have five pieces, too?"
|
|
humour
|
Donna Tartt |
|
69d2f27
|
Peyton, I'm not married and you're not a lesbian. Think of the possibilities.
|
|
funny
humour
romance
|
Robyn Carr |
|
81832a3
|
"No one's stopping you," said Jess. "But you've got to make it more interesting. That's why why we drift off and talk about biscuits."
|
|
funny
humour
|
Nick Hornby |
|
5f77a30
|
"Bucks, doe -- thank God everything boils down to money, I always say." "During mating season the doe constructs a bed for herself, and then she urinates all around the outside of it. That's how she gets her mate." "So that's it," murmured Odette. "I was always peeing in the bed."
|
|
humour
|
Lorrie Moore |
|
2c0e67f
|
We'd be the Joystick Order. Out motto would be High Score for One, Pizza for All.
|
|
humour
joystick
pizza
|
Meg Cabot |
|
720acb7
|
"But when she was annoyed with me, she had a cold way of saying "Apparently" in answer to almost anything I said, making me feel stupid. "Um, I can't find the can opener." "Apparently." "There's going to be a lunar eclipse tonight." "Apparently." "Look, sparks are coming out of the wall socket." "Apparently."
|
|
humor
humour
|
Donna Tartt |
|
d9b7ca4
|
But just as everything was going along politely, quietly and wonderfully -- in poured Citizen Danton and his crew.
|
|
humour
|
Hilary Mantel |
|
e619188
|
Trevor wondered if anyone in the outside world could even guess at the horror of working in the Planning Department
|
|
humour
work
|
Terry Jones |
|
682f531
|
"Ivy looked up, clearly embarrassed. "I'm sorry about your men at the car. I didn't recognize them. They tried to stop me from coming in." My eyebrows rose, and Rynn Cormel's laughter shocked both Ivy and me. "If you bested them, they deserved it and needed the reminder. Thank you for correcting their poor interpretation of your skills." Ivy licked her lips. It was a nervous habit I didn't see often, and my tension rose. "Um," she hedged, trying to tuck her short hair behind an ear. "I think I ought to call an ambulance. I broke a few things."
|
|
humour
|
Kim Harrison |
|
df6be01
|
Arguing whether or not God exists is like fleas arguing whether or not the dog exists. Arguing over the correct name of God is like fleas arguing over the name of the dog. And arguing over whose notion of God is correct is like fleas arguing over who owns the dog.
|
|
humor-inspirational
humorous
humour
spirituality
spirituality-quotes
|
Robert Fulghum |