Q: Why did the WASP cross the road? A: To get to the middle.

Day of inquiry. You will be subpoenaed.

You have the power to influence all with whom you come in contact.

Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform. -- Mark Twain

"... all the modern inconveniences ..." -- Mark Twain

Your reasoning is excellent -- it's only your basic assumptions that are wrong.

You will be surrounded by luxury.

You're working under a slight handicap. You happen to be human.

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

So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf to make an apple pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street pops its head into the shop. "What! no soap?" So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they all fell to playing the game of catch as catch can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots. -- Samuel Foote

Q: What do you call a WASP who doesn't work for his father, isn't a lawyer, and believes in social causes? A: A failure.

Let me take you a button-hole lower. -- William Shakespeare, "Love's Labour's Lost"

"... all the modern inconveniences ..." -- Mark Twain

The bone-chilling scream split the warm summer night in two, the first half being before the scream when it was fairly balmy and calm and pleasant, the second half still balmy and quite pleasant for those who hadn't heard the scream at all, but not calm or balmy or even very nice for those who did hear the scream, discounting the little period of time during the actual scream itself when your ears might have been hearing it but your brain wasn't reacting yet to let you know. -- Winning sentence, 1986 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.

Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain't that a big enough majority in any town? -- Mark Twain, "Huckleberry Finn"

Q: How many Martians does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: One and a half.

You will always get the greatest recognition for the job you least like.

And do you think (fop that I am) that I could be the Scarlet Pumpernickel?

A man was reading The Canterbury Tales one Saturday morning, when his wife asked "What have you got there?" Replied he, "Just my cup and Chaucer."

Q: What's the contour integral around Western Europe? A: Zero, because all the Poles are in Eastern Europe! Addendum: Actually, there ARE some Poles in Western Europe, but they are removable! Q: An English mathematician (I forgot who) was asked by his very religious colleague: Do you believe in one God? A: Yes, up to isomorphism! Q: What is a compact city? A: It's a city that can be guarded by finitely many near-sighted policemen! -- Peter Lax