To me,
it's a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around.
That way, if anybody says, "Hey, can you give me a hand?" - you can
say, "Sorry, got these sacks."
Most
of the time in the Middle Ages it was probably real bad being stuck down in a
dungeon. But some days, when there was a bad storm outside, you'd look out
your little window and think, "Boy, I'm glad I'm not out in that."
When
I found the skull in the woods, the first thing I did was call the police. But
then I got curious about it. I picked it up, and started wondering who this
person was, and why he had deer horns.
The
first thing was, I learned to forgive myself. Then, I told myself, "Go
ahead and do whatever you want, it's okay by me."
You
know what would be the most terrifying thing that could ever happen to a flea?
Getting caught inside a watch somehow. You don't even care, do you.
If
you make ships in a bottle, I bet the thing that really makes your heart sink
is when you look in, and there at the wheel is Captain Termite.
I'm
telling you, just attach a big parachute TO THE PLANE ITSELF! Is anyone
listening to me?!
I
wish I had a dollar for every time I spent a dollar, because then, yahoo! I'd
have all my money back.
When
this girl at the art museum asked me whom I liked better, Monet or Manet, I
said, "I like mayonnaise." She just stared at me, so I said it
again, louder. Then she left. I guess she went to try to find some mayonnaise
for me.
If
there was a terrible storm outside, but somehow this dog lived through the
storm, and he showed up at your door when the storm was finally over, I think
a good name for him would be Carl.
As
the snow started to fall, he tugged his coat tighter around himself. Too
tight, as it turned out. "This is the fourth coat crushing this
year", said the sergeant as he outlined the body with a special pencil
that writes on snow.
Here's
a good trick: Get a job as a judge at the Olympics. Then, if some guy sets a
world record, pretend that you didn't see it and go, "Okay, is everybody
ready to start now?"
It's
amazing to me that one of the world's most feared diseases would be carried by
one of the world's smallest animals: the real tiny dog.
One
thing that makes me believe in UFOs is, sometimes I lose stuff.
If
you're ever shipwrecked on a tropical island and you don't know how to speak
the natives' language, just say "Poppy-oomy." I bet it means
something.
Instead of studying for
finals, what about just going to the Bahamas and catching some rays? Maybe
you’ll flunk, but you might have flunked anyway; that's my point.
I wish scientists would come
up with an ear of corn that was big and round, because then when you were
eating it, it'd be fun to make chew marks in the shape of continents.
I
bet what happened was, they discovered fire and invented the wheel on the same
day. Then, at night, they burned the wheel.
If
you ever crawl inside an old hollow log and go to sleep, and while you're in
there some guys come and seal up both ends and then put it on a truck and take
it to another city, boy, I don't know what to tell you.
The
wise man can pick up a grain of sand and envision a whole universe. But
the stupid man will just lay down on some seaweed and roll around until he's
completely draped in it. Then he'll stand up and go, "Hey, I'm vine
man."
I
remember how, in college, I got that part-time job as a circus clown, and how
children would laugh at me. I vowed then and there, that I would get
revenge.
If
I could be a bird, I think I'd be a penguin, because then I could walk around
on two feet with a lot of other guys like me.
We
like to praise birds for flying. But how much of it is actually flying,
and how much of it is just sort of coasting from that last flap?
It
makes me mad when people say I turned and ran like a scared rabbit.
Maybe it was like an angry rabbit, who was running to go fight in another
fight, away from the first fight.
Maybe in order to understand
mankind, we have to look at the word itself: "Mankind". Basically,
it's made up of two separate words -- "mank" and "ind".
What do these words mean? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind.
If you go to a party, and
you want to be the popular one at the party, do this: Wait until no one is
looking, then kick a burning log out of the fireplace onto the carpet. Then
jump on top of it with your body and yell, "Log o' fire! Log o'
fire!" I've never done this, but I think it'd work.
Any man, in the right
situation, is capable of murder. But not any man is capable of being a good
camper. So, murder and camping are not as similar as you might think.
I hate it when people say
somebody has a "speech impediment", even if he does, because it
could hurt his feelings. So instead, I call it a "speech
improvement", and I go up to the guy and say, "Hey, Bob, I like your
speech improvement." I think this makes him feel better.
I think there should be
something in science called the "reindeer effect." I don't know what
it would be, but I think it'd be good to hear someone say, "Gentlemen,
what we have here is a terrifying example of the reindeer effect."
If I had a mineshaft, I
don't think I would just abandon it. There's got to be a better way.
As the light changed from
red to green to yellow and back to red again, I sat there thinking about life.
Was it nothing more than a bunch of honking and yelling? Sometimes it seemed
that way.
I can picture in my mind a
world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that
world, because they'd never expect it.
Here's a good thing to do if
you go to a party and you don't know anybody: First take out the garbage. Then
go around and collect any extra garbage that people might have, like a
crumpled napkin, and take that out too. Pretty soon people will want to meet
the busy garbage guy.
Sometimes you have to be
careful when selecting a new name for yourself. For instance, let's say you
have chosen the nickname "Fly Head." Normally you would think that
"Fly Head" would mean a person who has beautiful swept-back
features, as if flying through the air. But think again. Couldn't it also mean
"having a head like a fly"? I'm afraid some people might actually
think that.
The crows seemed to be
calling his name, thought Caw.
I bet the main reason the
police keep people away from a plane crash is they don't want anybody walking
in and lying down in the crash stuff, then, when somebody comes up, act like
they just woke up and go, "What was THAT?!"
Ambition is like a frog
sitting on a Venus Flytrap. The flytrap can bite and bite, but it won't bother
the frog because it only has little tiny plant teeth. But some other stuff
could happen and it could be like ambition.
If you ever teach a yodeling
class, probably the hardest thing is to keep the students from just trying to
yodel right off. You see, we build to that.
The memories of my family
outings are still a source of strength to me. I remember we'd all pile into
the car - I forget what kind it was - and drive and drive. I'm not sure where
we'd go, but I think there were some trees there. The smell of something was
strong in the air as we played whatever sport we played. I remember a bigger,
older guy we called "Dad." We'd eat some stuff, or not, and then I
think we went home. I guess some things never leave you.
As we were driving, we saw a
sign that said "Watch for Rocks." Marta said it should read
"Watch for Pretty Rocks." I told her she should write in her
suggestion to the highway department, but she started saying it was a joke -
just to get out of writing a simple letter! And I thought I was lazy!
If you saw two guys named
Hambone and Flippy, which one would you think liked dolphins the most? I'd say
Flippy, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong, though. It's Hambone.
As the evening sky faded
from a salmon color to a sort of flint gray, I thought back to the salmon I
caught that morning, and how gray he was, and how I named him Flint.
If you're robbing a bank and
you're pants fall down, I think it's okay to laugh and to let the hostages
laugh too, because, come on, life is funny.
If you ever catch on fire,
try to avoid looking in a mirror, because I bet that will really throw you
into a panic.
You know something that
would really make me applaud? A guy gets stuck in quicksand, then sinks, then
suddenly comes shooting out, riding on water skis! How do they do that?!
Instead of a trap door, what
about a trap window? The guy looks out it, and if he leans too far, he falls
out. Wait. I guess that's like a regular window.
Anytime I see something
screech across a room and latch onto someone's neck, and the guy screams and
tries to get it off, I have to laugh, because what IS that thing?!
When you go ice-skating, try
not to swing your arms too much, because that really annoys me.
I think that a hat which has
a little cannon that fires and then goes back inside the hat is at least a
decade away
I scrambled to the top of
the precipice where Nick was waiting. "That was fun," I said.
"You bet it was," said Nick. "Let's climb higher."
"No," I said. "I think we should be heading back now."
"We have time," Nick insisted. I said we didn't, and Nick said we
did. We argued back and forth like that for about 20 minutes, then finally
decided to head back. I didn't say it was an interesting story.
The old pool shooter had won
many a game in his life. But now it was time to hang up the cue. When he did,
all the other cues came crashing to the floor. "Sorry," he said with
a smile.
One thing about my Aunt
Nadie: She was gruff on the outside, but if you ever needed something, like a
spanking or a scolding, she'd give it to you.
Despair is like a cable that
is buried just under the surface of the ground. You pull it up and pull it up,
but that cable just keeps right on going, clear across a field, until you come
to a bunch of guys who are burying the cable. Then just walk up to them and
go, "Hey, have you seen Fred?" And they'll say, "Fred
who?" And you say, "Fred of snakes?" Then cover your ears,
because big laughs are coming.
If you see an animal and you
can't tell if it's a skunk or a cat, here's a good saying to help:
"Black-and-white, stinks all right. Tabby-colored, likes a fella."
Here's a good gag if you go
swimming in a swamp and when you come out you're all covered with leeches.
Just say, "Hey, has anybody seen my raisins?" (Because leeches kind
of look like big raisins.)
Consider the daffodil. And
while you're doing that, I'll be over here, looking through your stuff.
My new millionaire idea is
one regular shoe and one "swollen" shoe, for when you get bit by a
rattlesnake.
I think there probably
should be a rule that if you're talking about how many loaves of bread a
bullet will go through, it's understood that you mean lengthwise loaves.
Otherwise, it makes no sense.
I bet a fun thing would be
to go way back in time to where there was going to be an eclipse and tell the
cave men, "If I have come to destroy you, may the sun be blotted out from
the sky." Just then the eclipse would start, and they'd probably try to
kill you or something, but then you could explain about the rotation of the
moon and all, and everyone would get a good laugh.
If you're traveling in a
time machine, and you're eating corn on the cob, I don't think it's going to
affect things one way or the other. But here's the point I'm trying to make:
Corn on the cob is good, isn't it.
I can still recall old
Mister Barnslow getting out every morning and nailing a fresh load of tadpoles
to the old board of his. Then he'd spin it round and round, like a wheel of
fortune, and no matter where it stopped he'd yell out, "Tadpoles!
Tadpoles is a winner!" We all thought he was crazy. But then, we had some
growing up to do.
Here's a good joke to do
during an earthquake: Straddle a big crack in the ground, and if it opens
wider, go "Whoa! Whoa!" and flail your arms around, like you're
going to fall in.
If you ever go temporarily
insane, don't shoot somebody, like a lot of people do. Instead, try to get
some weeding done, because you'd really be surprised.
People think it would be fun
to be a bird because you could fly. But they forget the negative side, which
is the preening.
During the Middle Ages,
probably one of the biggest mistakes was not putting on your armor because you
were "just going down to the corner."
If I was being executed by
injection, I'd clean up my cell real neat. Then, when they came to get me, I'd
say, "Injection? I thought you said `inspection'." They'd probably
feel real bad, and maybe I could get out of it.
I wish my name was Todd,
because then I could say, "Yes, my name's Todd. Todd Blankenship."
Oh, also I wish my last name was Blankenship.
I'm just guessing, but
probably one of the early signs that your radarscope is wearing out is
something I call "image fuzz-out." But I've never even seen a
radarscope, so I wouldn't totally go by what I've just said here.
I think a good novel would
be where a bunch of men on a ship are looking for a whale. They look and look,
but you know what? They never find him. And you know why they never find him?
It doesn't say. The book leaves it up to you, the reader, to decide. Then, at
the very end, there's a page you can lick and it tastes like Kool-Aid.
If you're ever stuck in some
thick undergrowth in your underwear, don't stop and start thinking of what
other words have "under" in them, because that's probably the first
sign of jungle madness.
I wish I lived back in the
Old West days, because I'd save up my money for about twenty years so I could
buy a solid-gold pick. Then I'd go out west and start digging for gold. When
someone came up and asked what I was doing, I'd say, "Looking for gold,
ya durn fool." He'd say, "Your pick is gold." And I'd say,
"well, that was easy." Good joke, huh?
I remember we were all
horrified to see Grandpa up on the roof with his Superman cape on. "Get
down!" yelled Uncle Lou. "Don't move!" screamed Grandma. But
Grandpa wouldn't listen. He walked to the edge of the roof and stuck out his
arms, like he was going to fly. I forget what happened after that.
