Quotes
Mrs. Allen was one of that numerous class of females, whose society can raise no other emotion than surprise at there being any men in the world who could like them well enough to marry them. p. 34, 2013, en:s:Northanger Abbey/Chapter 2
“As far as I have had opportunity of judging, it appears to be that the usual style of letter-writing among women is faultless, except in three particulars.”
“And what are they?”
“A general deficiency of subject, a total inattention to stops, and a very frequent ignorance of grammar.” p. 52, 2013
Her family was slower to forgive a failure of discretion than they were to forgive most things actually prohibited in Scripture.
I said I liked being half-educated; you were so much more surprised at everything when you were ignorant.
I managed to fail Arts I, a course that a moderately intelligent amoeba could have passed without special coaching.
The first words I ever heard the alcohol rehab counselor say were 'Good morning, assholes!' With that, I liked him right away.
The wiser you get on the inside, the uglier you get on the outside. The world's great gurus have beautiful things to say but they generally look like shit.
While McMurphy laughs. Rocking farther and farther backward against the cabin top, spreading his laugh out across the water — laughing at the girl, at the guys, at George, at me sucking my bleeding thumb, at the captain back at the pier... and the Big Nurse and all of it. Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. He knows there's a painful side; he knows my thumb smarts and his girlfriend has a bruised breast and the doctor is losing his glasses, but he won't let the pain blot out the humor no more'n he'll let the humor blot out the pain.
He was not lying, merely organizing events more sensibly.
That's a good curse, that's a professional job. I always say, whatever you're having done, go to an expert. It pays in the long run.
I am what I am. I would tell you what you want to know if I could, for you have been kind to me. But I am a cat, and no cat anywhere ever gave anyone a straight answer.
He is an extraordinary animal is the house fly. Go where you will you find him, and so it must have been always. I have seen him enclosed in amber, which is, I was told, quite half a million years old, looking exactly like his descendant of to-day, and I have little doubt but that when the last man lies dying on the earth he will be buzzing round – if this event should happen to occur in summer – watching for an opportunity to settle on his nose.
