Speech baffled my machine. Helen made all well-formed sentences. But they were hollow and stuffed--linguistic training bras. She sorted nouns from verbs, but, disembodied, she did not know the difference between thing and process, except as they func...
You have to be very specific when it comes to magic,” A-Through-L said sheepishly. “You must say things as carefully as you can. Magic is like a machine that only does exactly what you tell it to do. So you have to speak to it in a way it can und...
My name is Ferrum. I was the first, born of the forges, when mankind first began to experiment with iron. I rose from their imagination, from their ambition to conquer the world with a metal that could slice through bronze like paper. I was there whe...
We were poor back then. Not living in a cardboard carton poor, not “we might have to eat the dog” poor, but still poor. Poor like, no insurance poor, and going to McDonald's was a really big excitement poor, wearing socks for gloves in the winter...
Humans are often credited with having real foresight, in distinction to the rest of biology which does not. For example, Dawkins compares the 'blind watchmaker' of natural selection with the real human one. 'A true watchmaker has foresight: he design...
Kessler depicts his developing intimacy with a handful of dairy goats and offers an enviable glimpse of the pastoral good life. Yet he also cautions, "Wherever the notion of paradise exists, so does the idea that it was lost. Paradise is always in th...
Give me a scholar, therefore, who is able to think and to write, to look with an eye of discernment into things, and to do business himself, if called upon, who hath both civil and military knowledge; one, moreover, who has been in camps, and has see...
Whose truth do you want to know, Dr. Amin Jaafari? The truth of a Bedouin who thinks he’s free and clear because he’s got an Israeli passport? The truth of a serviceable Arab per excellence who’s honored wherever he goes, who gets invited to fa...
Keys: Elliot, that machine, what does it do? Elliot: [in a sickly voice] The communicator? Is it still working? Keys: It's doing *something*. What? Elliot: I really shouldn't tell. He came to me, he came to me. Keys: Elliot, he came to me too. I've b...
Westley: Where am I? The Albino: [raspy voice] The Pit of Despair! Don't even think... [clears throat] The Albino: ... don't even think about trying to escape. The chains are far too thick. Don't dream of being rescued, either; the only way in is sec...
Detective Hal Vukovich: [Traxler comes into the office, spits his gum on the floor, and lights a cigarette while picking up a cup of coffee] That coffee's two hours cold. Lieutenant Ed Traxler: [drinking the coffee] Mm-hmm. Detective Hal Vukovich: I ...
Evey Hammond: What is that you're making? Gordon Deitrich: We call it "eggie in the basket". My mum used to make them. Evey Hammond: This is weird. Gordon Deitrich: What? Evey Hammond: The first morning I was with him, he made me eggs just like this....
Willy Wonka: Well, fortunately, small boys are extremely springy and elastic. So I think we'll put him in my special taffy-pulling machine. That should do the trick. [to an Oompa Loompa] Willy Wonka: To the taffy-pulling room. You'll find the boy in ...
Lt. James Gordon: The Narrows is tearing itself to pieces. Batman: This is just the beginning. If they hit the whole city with toxin, there's nothing to stop Gotham tearing itself apart through mass panic. Lt. James Gordon: How are they gonna do that...
Dr. Emmett Brown: [the DeLorean has just made the first time-jump] Ah! What did I tell you? 88 miles per hour! The temporal displacement occurred exactly 1:20 a.m. and zero seconds! Marty McFly: Ah, Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ, Doc, you disintegrated ...
The philosopher Odo Marquard has noted a correlation in the German language between the word zwei, which means 'two,' and the word zweifel, which means 'doubt' - suggesting that two of anything brings the automatic possibility of uncertainty to our l...
Just say it, she thought. Say what everyone in this bunker is thinking. Say what we all know to be true. The truth that we are all going to die down here, and death is the end. Nobody wakes up to a heaven or paradise. Your life will be gone. You will...
Our guy has a property office, John. And I don't mean the Property Office here in One PP. I mean the huge fucking storage facility. A guy in there, with access to thousands of fucking handguns. Even the ones that other people would be keeping an eye ...
Heart as collapsed time, as a dug-up grave, as simple machine. Heart as big black bugs bleed blue blood. Heart as MI frozen as seen from airplane, everything still and white and beautiful. Heart as the Day the Music Died. Heart as love being made, as...
Along with the standard computer warranty agreement which said that if the machine 1) didn't work, 2) didn't do what the expensive advertisements said, 3) electrocuted the immediate neighborhood, 4) and in fact failed entirely to be inside the expens...
Often things happen to race cars in the heat of the race. A square-toothed gear in a transmission may break, suddenly leaving the driver without all of his gears. Or perhaps a clutch fails. Brakes go soft from overheating. Suspensions break. When fac...
