“Smiling is a glorious pastime and should be encouraged - try it!”
“I promised in my head to leave you be. And when I saw you…I was supposed to be man enough to turn you away. Fuck, I’m not a horny teenager. It’s just you.” He finally did stand. “You break me. You break everything I think I stand for.”
Source: Return to Poughkeepsie
“...you mustn’t pun, Brumm, puns are produced only in vacant minds. Keep high thoughts and visions of delightful things before you and you won’t pun.”
Source: A Full and True Account of the Wonderful Mission of Earl Lavender, which Lasted One Night and One Day; with a History of the Pursuit of Earl Lavender and Lord Brumm by Mrs. Scamler and Maud Emblem
“It is the observer of the pun that makes it, my dear Brumm. Of course, when the word is distorted, as in Evilution, the most preoccupied notice it, but in this instance which you try to fasten upon me the crime is yours. There is nothing more contrary to the Evolutionary will than puns. Bloodshed and desolation follow in their wake. Their English heyday, which was in the reign of James I, caused the great civil war; in France they flourished most rankly under Louis XV, and produced the French Revolution. I have considered puns, and apart altogether from their hateful effect, as shown in history, it is certain that they are quite unevolutionary, because I, the fittest of men, am unable to make them. You will consult your own welfare, and that of the nation, Brougham, by refraining in future.”
Source: A Full and True Account of the Wonderful Mission of Earl Lavender, which Lasted One Night and One Day; with a History of the Pursuit of Earl Lavender and Lord Brumm by Mrs. Scamler and Maud Emblem
“Cotter stood on the lake shore, surveying an immense sheet of water. Its surface, ruffled to an ocean by a stiff westerly, teemed with birdlife – native ducks, great black swans, and seagulls in flocks of hundreds. A small group of emus grazed at a discreet distance. From the far shore rose an abrupt, dark-clad escarpment. This was a place to stir a man’s soul." (page 104)”
Source: Cotter
“Toward the end of Carmel's life, the perception of super talls shifted dramatically, thanks largely to televised NBA games, By 1975, pretty much everyone had seen super tall people on TV, in the context of being celebrated in front of sold-out basketball arenas. This new frame of reference could not have been more positive. By 1995 Shaquille O'Neal was known as The Man of Steel, not the Traveling Human Giant. The idea of super tall people as freaks was replaced by the idea of super tall people as amazing athletes.”
Source: The Tall Book: A Celebration of Life from on High
“Kid Flash: Have all four sidekicks ever been in the same place at the same time?Speedy: Don’t call us sidekicks. Not after today.Kid Flash: First time at the Hall. I’m a little overwhelmed.
Robin: You’re overwhelmed, Freeze was underwhelmed-why isn’t anyone ever just whelmed?
[They enter the Hall]
Robin: Oh, maybe that’s why.”
“A thorn defends the rose, harming only those who would steal the blossom.”
“Why the mad hair, girl?"
"Because damn you," growled Thorn, "that's why.”
Source: Half the World
“It was either bluster or look weak and Thorn reckoned that no choice at all, so she puffed herself up and snapped out, "How did you get the scar?"
"How did you get the scar?"
Thorn frowned. "What scar?"
"That's the face the gods gave you?" And with the faintest of smiles the Vansterman went back to coiling rope.”
Source: Half the World