Jorge de Burgos: Laughter is a devilish wind which deforms, uh, the lineaments of the face and makes men look like monkeys. William of Baskerville: Monkeys do not laugh. Laughter is particular to men. Jorge de Burgos: As is sin. Christ never laughed....
By exiling human judgment in the last few decades, modern law changed role from useful tool to brainless tyrant. This legal regime will never be up to the job, any more than the Soviet system of central planning was, because ti can't think. The comed...
A silent Library is a Library. A Library without patrons on whom to pile books and tales and knowing and magazines full of up-to-the-minute politickal fashions and atlases and plays in pentameter! A Library should be full of exclamations! Shouts of d...
It always pisses me off when I’m calling in to some Morning Zoo radio show to promote God-only-knows what—probably this book, so get ready, I’m comin’—when the DJ actually tries to convince me that there are as many female comics as male on...
Jerry Langford: Alright, look pal, I gotta tell you... this is a crazy business, but it's not unlike any other business. There are ground rules, and you don't just walk on to a network show without experience. Now I know it's an old, hackneyed expres...
Art has no immediate future because all art is collective and there is no more collective life(there are only dead collections of people), and also because of this breaking of the true pact between the body and the soul. Greek art coincided with the ...
For a while, Criticism travels side by side with the Work, then Criticism vanishes and it's the Readers who keep pace. The journey may be long or short. Then the Readers die one by one and the Work continues on alone, although a new Criticism and new...
All real estate agents should be put on a decommissioned naval frigate which is then towed out into the deepest part of the Atlantic and sunk. It's rather unfortunate that, in recent years, real estate agents have become comedy betes-noires. Rather l...
BOTTOM There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that? SNOUT By'r lakin, a parlous fear. STARVELING I believe we must ...
Not only to myself or before the mirror or at the hour of my death, which I hope will be long in coming, but in the presence of my children and my wife and in the face of the peaceful life I’m building, I must acknowledge: (1) That under Stalin I w...
Calling a book "Young Adult" is just a fancy way of saying the book is censored. People used to say they like to read books about romance, true crime, comedy, horror or science fiction. But these days people simply say they like to read "Young Adult"...
The young man, who does not know the future, sees life as a kind of epic adventure, an Odyssey through strange seas and unknown islands, where he will test and prove his powers, and thereby discover his immortality. The man of middle years, who has l...
Rupert Pupkin: [arguing with Masha] What about things that I did for you that no money can buy, no money can buy? What about the time I gave you my spot! You came over there, I gave you my spot! You stood there and I let you get right next to Jerry. ...
Jerry Langford: I'm sure you can understand. Doing the kind of show I'm doing, it's mind-boggling. There's so much stuff that comes down... you can't keep your head clear. And if that's the case, I'm wrong. You're right. I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, I ap...
Woman in Telephone Booth: [on the phone at a booth] Morris, you will not believe who is coming down here! [stops Jerry] Woman in Telephone Booth: Jerry Langford, right? Jerry Langford: Right. Woman in Telephone Booth: [talks on the phone again] Oh, M...
Rebecca: Oh! It's that comedian I was telling you about. [she turns up the volume on her television, which is showing an odd-looking man performing stand-up comedy] Rebecca: See this bit, it's the absolute worst. Joey McCobb, the Stand Up Comic: [on ...
