Quotes about humor

Air Chrysalis had long since disappeared from the bestseller lists. Number one on the list now was a diet book entitled Eat as Much as You Want of the Food You Love and Still Lose Weight. What a great title. The whole book could be blank inside and it would still sell.

“I’d like to wish you luck, but I am afraid a good luck wish from me won’t do any good,” Tamaru said.

“Because you don’t believe in luck.”

“Even if I wanted to, I don’t know what it’s like,” Tamaru said. “I’ve never seen it.”

Komatsu was good at keeping a straight face when saying things he didn’t believe, though this was a skill mastered by all experienced editors to some degree.

The trouble with turning a blind eye is that people often take the opportunity to punch you in the face.

“Are there aliens?” Simon asks Indigo.

“Not that I know of,” she says. “Unless you count cats.”

“Isn’t the internet wonderful?” she said. “Better than dragons any day.”

“Giant squids are pretty alien,” I said.

“Not to another giant squid,” said Beverley.

This is what’s known as operational flexibility, and definitely not making it up as you go along.

According to my therapist, attaching conditionals to your past is a classic distancing technique indicating an unwillingness to face your memories directly. Or, I pointed out, it could be a rhetorical device designed to add a humorous note to enliven a story. To which she said, “Or both.” You can’t win with therapists, you know. And even if you do, they just tell you it’s part of the process.

After that I was up and ready for action. It might have been a Saturday, but below the rank of chief inspector weekends are an entirely notional concept.

He’d obviously wanted to tell someone about it for a long time and I was a convenient ear.

I get that a lot. Stephanopoulos calls it my secret weapon.

“It’s that vacant expression,” she said. “People just want to fill the empty void.”

“But I want you to be cautious.”

“Hey,” I said. “Cautious is my middle name.”

“But your first name is Never Knowingly,” said Stephanopoulos. Which got all the laughs it deserved.