Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. By Order of the Author

My band career ended late in my senior year when John Cooper and I threw my amplifier out the dormitory window. We did not act in haste. First we checked to make sure the amplifier would fit through the frame, using the belt from my bathrobe to meas

"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination."

This night methinks is but the daylight sick.

Among all savage beasts, none is found so harmful as woman.

Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made.

Termiter's argument that God is His own grandmother generated a surprising amount of controversy among Church leaders, who on the one hand considered the argument unsupported by scripture but on the other hand were unwilling to risk offending God's g

Honesty's the best policy.

Anything is possible on paper.

I think... I think it's in my basement... Let me go upstairs and check.

What one believes to be true either is true or becomes true.

A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea.

Ninety percent of the time things turn out worse than you thought they would. The other ten percent of the time you had no right to expect that much.

Some men are heterosexual, and some are bisexual, and some men don't think about sex at all... they become lawyers.

The only certainty is that nothing is certain.

Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife - chopping off what's incomplete and saying: "Now it's complete because it's ended here."

We are giving instruction to FBI agents in the various Chinese dialects ... to handle present and likely future contingencies.

Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come.

Happiness is having a scratch for every itch.

Yet creeds mean very little, Coth answered the dark god, still speaking almost gently. The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.

"Well," Brahma said, "even after ten thousand explanations, a fool is no wiser, but an intelligent man requires only two thousand five hundred."

It doesn't matter whether you win or lose

I hate dying.

Anything that is worth doing has been done frequently. Things hitherto undone should be given, I suspect, a wide berth.

If you want divine justice, die.

The ultimate game show will be the one where somebody gets killed at the end.

Do not seek death; death will find you. But seek the road which makes death a fulfillment.

What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.

Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.

Paradise is exactly like where you are right now ... only much, much better.

Genius is pain.

Who dat who say "who dat" when I say "who dat"?

A snake lurks in the grass.

I know on which side my bread is buttered.

He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him.

If reporters don't know that truth is plural, they ought to be lawyers.

It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition. There was once a man who, not being able to find any other fault with his coal, complained that there were too many prehistoric toads in it.

The best case: Get salary from America, build a house in England, live with a Japanese wife, and eat Chinese food. Pretty good case: Get salary from England, build a house in America, live with a Chinese wife, and eat Japanese food. The wo

In the first place, God made idiots; this was for practice; then he made school boards.

Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made.

(1) Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood. (2) If your stomach antagonizes you, pacify it with cool thoughts. (3) Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move. (4) Go very lightly on the vices, such as carrying on in society, as

By protracting life, we do not deduct one jot from the duration of death.

Rembrandt is not to be compared in the painting of character with our extraordinarily gifted English artist, Mr. Rippingille.

All art is but imitation of nature.

Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet?

If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars.

The confusion of a staff member is measured by the length of his memos.

Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.

Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercio

Comparing information and knowledge is like asking whether the fatness of a pig is more or less green than the designated hitter rule."

Nothing will dispel enthusiasm like a small admission fee.

Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. My advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.

"We maintain that the very foundation of our way of life is what we call free enterprise," said Cash McCall, "but when one of our citizens show enough free enterprise to pile up a little of that profit, we do our best to make him feel that he ought t

Lay off the muses, it's a very tough dollar.

What we do not understand we do not possess.

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet, you can't win.

Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal.

The philosopher's treatment of a question is like the treatment of an illness.

I need another lawyer like I need another hole in my head.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

Never promise more than you can perform.

Burnt Sienna. That's the best thing that ever happened to Crayolas.

Crucifixes are sexy because there's a naked man on them.

All this wheeling and dealing around, why, it isn't for money, it's for fun. Money's just the way we keep score.

It is so stupid of modern civilisation to have given up believing in the devil when he is the only explanation of it.

"She said, `I know you ... you cannot sing'. I said, `That's nothing, you should hear me play piano.'"

Too much of everything is just enough.

If there were a school for, say, sheet metal workers, that after three years left its graduates as unprepared for their careers as does law school, it would be closed down in a minute, and no doubt by lawyers.

I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole.

For certain people, after fifty, litigation takes the place of sex.

Work is the crab grass in the lawn of life.

"The chain which can be yanked is not the eternal chain."

The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

A highly intelligent man should take a primitive woman. Imagine if on top of everything else, I had a woman who interfered with my work.

The time spent on any item of the agenda [of a finance committee] will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved.

The Angels want to wear my red shoes.

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

She was good at playing abstract confusion in the same way a midget is good at being short.

What an author likes to write most is his signature on the back of a cheque.

"I understand this is your first dead client," Sabian was saying. The absurdity of the statement made me want to laugh but they don't call me Deadpan Allie and lie.

Competence, like truth, beauty, and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder.

The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not.

"Hi, I'm Preston A. Mantis, president of Consumers Retail Law Outlet. As you can see by my suit and the fact that I have all these books of equal height on the shelves behind me, I am a trained legal attorney. Do you have a car or a job? Do you ever

My daddy's brains was so scrambled he thought he was Jesus. They put him in a nut house for 5 years and when he got out, he didn't think he was Jesus, he thought he was *God*! ... Which made me Jesus.

Don't get mad, get even.

Ask not for whom the Bell tolls, and you will pay only the station-to-station rate.

Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.

God is Dead.

To be or not to be.

Diary of a Young Girl LITE(tm)

The Priest's grey nimbus in a niche where he dressed discreetly. I will not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go. A voice, sweetened and sustained, called to him from the sea. Turning the curve he waved his hand. A sleek brown head, a seal's,

Like ya know? Rock 'N Roll is an esoteric language that unlocks the creativity chambers in people's brains, and like totally activates their essential hipness, which of course is like totally necessary for saving the earth, like because the first th

"Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company."

The last thing one knows in constructing a work is what to put first.

When I have one foot in the grave I will tell the truth about women. I shall tell it, jump into my coffin, pull the lid over me, and say, "Do what you like now."

Harp not on that string.

If I were a grave-digger or even a hangman, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment.

In India, "cold weather" is merely a conventional phrase and has come into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy.

We know all about the habits of the ant, we know all about the habits of the bee, but we know nothing at all about the habits of the oyster. It seems almost certain that we have been choosing the wrong time for studying the oyster.

There is a secret person undamaged within every individual.

As to Jesus of Nazareth... I think the system of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissent

And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.

The optimist thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist knows it.

"Life is too important to take seriously."

Goals... Plans... they're fantasies, they're part of a dream world...

What you want, what you're hanging around in the world waiting for, is for something to occur to you.

If happiness is in your destiny, you need not be in a hurry.

Inglish Spocken Hier: some mangled translations Sign on a cathedral in Spain: It is forbidden to enter a woman, even a foreigner if dressed as a man. Above the enterance to a Cairo bar: Unaccompanied ladies not admitted unless with husb

Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other.

How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?

Objectivity is to a newspaper what virtue is to a woman.

When the ax entered the forest, the trees said, "The handle is one of us!"

It looks like it's up to me to save our skins. Get into that garbage chute, flyboy!

You cannot see the wood for the trees.

What does it take for Americans to do great things; to go to the moon, to win wars, to dig canals linking oceans, to build railroads across a continent? In independent thought about this question, Neil Armstrong and I concluded that it takes a coinci

The Worst Jury A murder trial at Manitoba in February 1978 was well advanced, when one juror revealed that he was completely deaf and did not have the remotest clue what was happening. The judge, Mr. Justice Solomon, asked him if he had heard any

Mother is far too clever to understand anything she does not like.

Destiny is a good thing to accept when it's going your way. When it isn't, don't call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck.

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.

Dying is easy. Comedy is difficult.

"You've got to have a gimmick if your band sucks."

If it were thought that anything I wrote was influenced by Robert Frost, I would take that particular work of mine, shred it, and flush it down the toilet, hoping not to clog the pipes. A more sententious, holding- forth old bore who expected every

Work Hard. Rock Hard. Eat Hard. Sleep Hard. Grow Big. Wear Glasses If You Need 'Em.

In the long run we are all dead.

Texas is Hell on woman and horses.

You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred.

It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed.

The human instinct to censor thrives, as it always will, living in irrepressible conflict with the human instinct to speak. Outrage, self-righteousness, and paranoia feed the maw of censorship. Squelching speech, however, never reduces society's net

I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole.

It's not Camelot, but it's not Cleveland, either.

The world is your exercise-book, the pages on which you do your sums. It is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish. You are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or to tear the pages.

The idea there was that consumers would bring their broken electronic devices, such as television sets and VCR's, to the destruction centers, where trained personnel would whack them (the devices) with sledgehammers. With their devices thus permanent

Grig (the navigator): ... so you see, it's just the two of us against the entire space armada. Alex (the gunner): What?!? Grig: I've always wanted to fight a desperate battle against overwhelming odds. Alex: It'll be a slaughter! Grig: That'

Art is a lie which makes us realize the truth.

Now, you might ask, "How do I get one of those complete home tool sets for under $4?" An excellent question. Go to one of those really cheap discount stores where they sell plastic furniture in colors visible from the planet Neptune and where they

A morgue is a morgue is a morgue. They can paint the walls with aggressively cheerful primary colors and splashy bold graphics, but it's still a holding place for the dead until they can be parted out to organ banks. Not that I would have cared nor

One, with God, is always a majority, but many a martyr has been burned at the stake while the votes were being counted.

Let's say your wedding ring falls into your toaster, and when you stick your hand in to retrieve it, you suffer Pain and Suffering as well as Mental Anguish. You would sue: * The toaster manufacturer, for failure to include, in the instructions

Naked children have never played in _o_u_r fountains, and I.M. Pei will never be happy on Route 66.

The last vestiges of the old Republic have been swept away.

Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.

Judges, as a class, display, in the matter of arranging alimony, that reckless generosity which is found only in men who are giving away someone else's cash.

The Least Successful Equal Pay Advertisement In 1976 the European Economic Community pointed out to the Irish Government that it had not yet implemented the agreed sex equality legislation. The Dublin Government immediately advertised for an equal

If men are not afraid to die, it is of no avail to threaten them with death. If men live in constant fear of dying, And if breaking the law means a man will be killed, Who will dare to break the law? There is always an official executioner. If

A woman who is unfaithful deserves to be shot.

Perhaps no person can be a poet, or even enjoy poetry without a certain unsoundness of mind.

Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.

Don't tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done.

Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.

The big cities of America are becoming Third World countries.

I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.

Kindness is the beginning of cruelty.

... Our second completely true news item was sent to me by Mr. H. Boyce Connell Jr. of Atlanta, Ga., where he is involved in a law firm. One thing I like about the South is, folks there care about tradition. If somebody gets handed a name like "H.

With women, I've got a long bamboo pole with a leather loop on the end of it. I slip the loop around their necks so they can't get away or come too close. Like catching snakes.

He that bringeth a present, findeth the door open.

Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge.

Ed Sullivan will be around as long as someone else has talent.

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.

A definition of teaching: casting fake pearls before real swine.

Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death.

With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter.

Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had

A Tale of Two Cities LITE(tm)

Every young man should have a hobby: learning how to handle money is the best one.

To restore a sense of reality, I think Walt Disney should have a Hardluckland.

Money can't buy love, but it improves your bargaining position.

If a guru falls in the forest with no one to hear him, was he really a guru at all?

If there really was a Jewish conspiracy to run the world, my rabbi would have let me in on it by now. I contribute enough to the shule.

The Anglo-Saxon conscience does not prevent the Anglo-Saxon from sinning, it merely prevents him from enjoying his sin.

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased.

The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and a seal.

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now I'm beginning to believe it.

Today's thrilling story has been brought to you by Mushies, the great new cereal that gets soggy even without milk or cream. Join us soon for more spectacular adventure starring... Tippy, the Wonder Dog!

Ninety percent of everything is crap.

The greatest productive force is human selfishness.

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

Suffering alone exists, none who suffer; The deed there is, but no doer thereof; Nirvana is, but no one is seeking it; The Path there is, but none who travel it.

"Not Hercules could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none."

It is only the man whose intellect is clouded by his sexual impulse that could give the name of the fair sex to that undersized, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped, and short-legged race.

When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.

We'll be recording at the Paradise Friday night. Live, on the Death label.

If you know the answer to a question, don't ask.

God help those who do not help themselves.

Ignorance is never out of style. It was in fashion yesterday, it is the rage today, and it will set the pace tomorrow.

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know.

It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish.

Sho' they got to have it against the law. Shoot, ever'body git high, they wouldn't be nobody git up and feed the chickens. Hee-hee.

Just once I would like to persuade the audience not to wear any article of blue denim. If only they could see themselves in a pair of brown corduroys like mine instead of this awful, boring blue denim. I don't enjoy the sky or sea as much as I used

The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.

No evil can happen to a good man.

I always wake up at the crack of ice.

Those who do things in a noble spirit of self-sacrifice are to be avoided at all costs.

Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat.

There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what rid

There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.

A rolling stone gathers no moss.

I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer.

Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.

The [Ford Foundation] is a large body of money completely surrounded by people who want some.

Never buy what you do not want because it is cheap; it will be dear to you.

Prizes are for children.

The goys have proven the following theorem...

"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination."

The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.

The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum.

Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves.

A good name lost is seldom regained. When character is gone, all is gone, and one of the richest jewels of life is lost forever.