 fortune index all fortunes
| | #6621 | | We were young and our happiness dazzled us with its strength. But there was
also a terrible betrayal that lay within me like a Merle Haggard song at a
French restaurant. [...]
I could not tell the girl about the woman of the tollway, of her milk
white BMW and her Jordache smile. There had been a fight. I had punched her
boyfriend, who fought the mechanical bulls. Everyone told him, "You ride the
bull, senor. You do not fight it." But he was lean and tough like a bad
rib-eye and he fought the bull. And then he fought me. And when we finished
there were no winners, just men doing what men must do. [...]
"Stop the car," the girl said.
There was a look of terrible sadness in her eyes. She knew about the
woman of the tollway. I knew not how. I started to speak, but she raised an
arm and spoke with a quiet and peace I will never forget.
"I do not ask for whom's the tollway belle," she said, "the tollway
belle's for thee."
The next morning our youth was a memory, and our happiness was a lie.
Life is like a bad margarita with good tequila, I thought as I poured whiskey
onto my granola and faced a new day.
-- Peter Applebome, International Imitation Hemingway
Competition
| | | #6622 | | Well, anyway, I was reading this James Bond book, and right away I realized
that like most books, it had too many words. The plot was the same one that
all James Bond books have: An evil person tries to blow up the world, but
James Bond kills him and his henchmen and makes love to several attractive
women. There, that's it: 24 words. But the guy who wrote the book took
*thousands* of words to say it.
Or consider "The Brothers Karamazov", by the famous Russian alcoholic
Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It's about these two brothers who kill their father.
Or maybe only one of them kills the father. It's impossible to tell because
what they mostly do is talk for nearly a thousand pages. If all Russians talk
as much as the Karamazovs did, I don't see how they found time to become a
major world power.
I'm told that Dostoyevsky wrote "The Brothers Karamazov" to raise
the question of whether there is a God. So why didn't he just come right
out and say: "Is there a God? It sure beats the heck out of me."
Other famous works could easily have been summarized in a few words:
* "Moby Dick" -- Don't mess around with large whales because they symbolize
nature and will kill you.
* "A Tale of Two Cities" -- French people are crazy.
-- Dave Barry
| | | #6623 | | What good is an obscenity trial except to popularize literature?
-- Nero Wolfe, "The League of Frightened Men"
| | | #6624 | | What I tell you three times is true.
-- Lewis Carroll
| | | #6625 | | When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.
-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
| | | #6626 | | When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know who have gone
to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.
-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
| | | #6627 | | When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened
or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I
cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to
go to pieces like this but we all have to do it.
-- Mark Twain
| | | #6628 | | When in doubt, tell the truth.
-- Mark Twain
| | | #6629 | | When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes.
-- Dylan Thomas
| | | #6630 | | When you are about to die, a wombat is better than no company at all.
-- Roger Zelazny, "Doorways in the Sand"
| | | | ... ... |
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