If they were going to be like that, then I just wished they hadn't actually been German. It was too easy. Too obvious. It was like coming across an Irishman who actually was stupid, a mother-in-law who actually was fat, or an American businessman who actually did have a middle initial and smoked a cigar. You feel as if you are unwillingly performing in a music-hall sketch and wishing you could rewrite the script. If Helmut and Kurt had been Brazilian or Chinese or Latvian or anything else at all, they could then have behaved in exactly the same way and it would have been surprising and intriguing and, more to the point from my perspective, much easier to write about. Writers should not be in the business of propping up stereotypes. I wondered what to do about it, decided that they could simply be Latvians if I wanted, and then at last drifted off peacefully to worrying about my boots.

But the loneliness was still on Danny and demanded an outlet.'Here we sit,' he began at last.' - broken-hearted,' Pilon added rhythmically.'No, this is not a poem,' Danny said. 'Here we sit, homeless. We gave our lives for our country, and now we have no roof over our head.''We never did have,' Pilon added helpfully.Danny drank dreamily until Pilon touched his elbow and took the bottle.'That reminds me,' Danny said, 'of a story of a man who owned two whore-houses--' His mouth dropped open. 'Pilon! my little fat duck of a baby friend. I had forgotten! I am an heir! I own two houses.''Whore-houses?' Pilon asked hopefully. 'Thou art a drunken liar,' he continued.'No, Pilon. I tell the truth. The viejo died. I am the heir. I, the favourite grandson.''Thou art the only grandson,' said the realist Pilon.

Let us find the dam snack bar," Zoe said. "We should eat while we can."Grover cracked a smile. "The dam snack bar?"Zoe blinked. "Yes. What is funny?""Nothing," Grover said, trying to keep a straight face. "I could use some dam frenchfries."Even Thalia smiled at that. "And I need to use the dam restroom."Maybe it was the fact that we were so tired and strung out emotionally, but I startedcracking up, and Thalia and Grover joined in, while Zoe just looked at us. "I do notunderstand.""I want to use the dam water fountain," Grover said."And…" Thalia tried to catch her breath. "I want to buy a dam T-shirt."I busted up, and I probably would've kept laughing all day, but then I heard a noise:"Moooo."The smile melted off my face. I wondered if the noise was just in my head, but Groverhad stopped laughing too. He was looking around, confused. "Did I just hear a cow?""A dam cow?" Thalia laughed.

A towel, [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

As the year goes on, certain deputies—and others, high in public life—will appear unshaven, without coat or cravat; or they will jettison these marks of the polite man, when the temperature rises. They affect the style of men who begin their mornings with a splash under a backyard pump, and who stop off at their street-corner bar for a nip of spirits on their way to ten hours’ manual labor. Citizen Robespierre, however, is a breathing rebuketo these men; he retains his buckled shoes, his striped coat of olive green. Can it be the same coat that he wore in the first year of the Revolution? He is not profligate with coats.While Citizen Danton tears off the starched linen that fretted his thick neck, Citizen Saint-Just’s cravat grows ever higher, stiffer, more wonderful to behold. He affects a single earring, but he resembles less a corsair than a slightly deranged merchant banker.

You do believe it,' he said. 'You do believe everything. We all believe everything, even when we deny everything. The denyers believe. The unbelievers believe. Don't you feel in your heart that these contradictions do not really contradict: that there is a cosmos that contains them all? The soul goes round upon a wheel of stars and all things return; perhaps Strake and I have striven in many shapes, beast against beast and bird against bird, and perhaps we shall strive for ever. But since we seek and need each other, even that eternal hatred is an eternal love. Good and evil go round in a wheel that is one thing and not many. Do you not realize in your heart, do you not believe behind all your beliefs, that there is but one reality and we are its shadows; and that all things are but aspects of one thing: a centre where men melt into Man and Man into God?' 'No,' said Father Brown.

Is it time for your period, or something?" With unerring instinct, he'd found a great big red button, and pushed it. Wyatt fights to win, which means he fights dirty. I understand the concept because that's how I fight, too, but understanding it didn't stop me from reacting. I could practically feel my blood bubbling with steam. "What?" He turned around, all controlled aggression, and damned if he didn't push the button again. "What is it about having a period that makes women so bitchy?" ... It was an effort, but I said as sweetly as possible, "It isn't that we're bitchier, it's that having a period makes us feel all tired and achy, so we have less tolerance for all the bullshit we normally SUFFER IN SILENCE." By the time the sentence ended the sweetness was long gone, my jaw was clenched, and I think my eyes were bugging out. Wyatt took a step back, belatedly looking alarmed.

Come on. I know you're not a stupid man.''I'm quite stupid. Ask anyone.''Finbar, are there superheroes living among us?' Finbar snorted with laughter and Kenny started to feel a little thick. 'Superheroes? In tights and capes, flying around? If there were superheroes, Mr. Journalist, don't you think they'd be in New York or somewhere like that? There's not that many tall buildings for Spiderman to swing from in Dublin, you know? He'd have maybe two good swings and then hang there looking disappointed.' 'These people don't wear tights and capes, Finbar.''So they're naked superheroes? That's grand for now, but when the good weather is over they're going to regret it.''They look like us. They dress like us. But they're not like us. They're different.''You,' Finbar said. 'Are sounding very racist right now.

So we wait?” asked Severard.“We wait, and we look to our defences. That and we try to find some money. Do you have any cash, Severard?”“I did have some. I gave it to a girl, down in the slums.”“Ah. Shame.”“Not really, she fucks like a madman. I’d thoroughly recommend her, if you’re interested.”Glokta winced as his knee clicked. “What a thoroughly heartwarming tale, Severard, I never had you down for a romantic. I’d sing a ballad if I wasn’t so short of funds.”“I could ask around. How much are we talking about?”“Oh, not much. Say, half a million marks?”One of the Practical’s eyebrows went up sharply. He reached into his pocket, dug around for a moment, pulled his hand out and opened it. A few copper coins shone in his palm.“Twelve bits,” he said. “Twelve bits is all I can raise.

Honestly, Evie," I huffed, flopping back to the centre of my bed and glaring at the ceiling. "Why don't you whine some more instead of actually doing anything?""Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness," Arianna volunteered, leaning on the frame of my open door."Yeah, so's seeing things no one else can, but people seem to like that about me.""Good point. Odds are, you've been crazy for years now. I'm probably nothing more than a figment of your imagination.""If that were true, I'd imagine you as less of a slob."She sighed. "Isn't it sad that you hate yourself so much you can't even dream up a pleasant roommate?""Not as sad as the fact that you admit how bad you suck as one."Flashing a wicked grin, she narrowed her eyes. “ I'd use the term 'suck' sparingly around me.  Don't want to go planting ideas in my pretty,  dead head."I threw a pillow at her.

He leaned forward to inspect her closer. "Is that all hair?"... Sudden, overwhelming panic clawed up Cress's throat. With a squeak, she ducked out of view of the camera and scrambled beneath the desk. Her back struck the wall with a thud that rattled her teeth. She crouched there, skin burning hot and pulse thundering as she took in the room before her— the room that he was now seeing too, with the rumpled bedcovers and the mustached man on all the screens telling her to grab her imaginary partner and swing them around."Wha—where'd she go?" Thorne's voice came to her through the screen."Honestly, Thorne." A girl. Linh Cinder? "Do you ever think before you speak?""What? What did I say?"" 'Is that all hair?' ""Did you see it? It was like a cross between a magpie nest and ball of yarn after it's been mauled by a cheetah."A beat. Then, "A cheetah?""It was the first big cat that came to mind.

Along with the standard computer warranty agreement which said that if the machine 1) didn't work, 2) didn't do what the expensive advertisements said, 3) electrocuted the immediate neighborhood, 4) and in fact failed entirely to be inside the expensive box when you opened it, this was expressly, absolutely, implicitly and in no event the fault or responsibility of the manufacturer, that the purchaser should consider himself lucky to be allowed to give his money to the manufacturer, and that any attempt to treat what had just been paid for as the purchaser's own property would result in the attentions of serious men with menacing briefcases and very thin watches. Crowley had been extremely impressed with the warranties offered by the computer industry, and had in fact sent a bundle Below to the department that drew up the Immortal Soul agreements, with a yellow memo form attached just saying: 'Learn, guys...

First of all, you must never speak of anything by its name -- in that country. So, if you see a tree on a mountain, it will be better to say 'Look at the green on the high'; for that's how they talk -- in that country. And whatever you do, you must find a false reason for doing it -- in that country. If you rob a man, you must say it is to help and protect him: that's the ethics -- of that country. And everything of value has no value at all -- in that country. You must be perfectly commonplace if you want to be a genius -- in that country. And everything you like you must pretend not to like; and anything that is there you must pretend is not there -- in that country. And you must always say that you are sacrificing yourself in the cause of religion, and morality, and humanity, and liberty, and progress, when you want to cheat your neighbour -- in that country."Good heavens!" cried Iliel, 'are we going to England?

I've done this sort of thing before. Not prophecies so much, but you'd be surprised how many people want to realign their ancestral lines to seem nobler, or rewrite their family history to remove more morally questionable episodes." He paused to recall a recent rewrite. "One lord wanted the murderers removed from his family line. His family was so corrupt, he ended up with three virgin births, two generations removed entirely and a lady who gave birth at the age of two. Still, no one questions it as there is evidence in the archives." Bubo smugly tapped a book. "There is one thing though, faking a prophecy in the past is easy, you already know the result. How will you make this come true in the future?""I have someone in mind for it, but I'm not sure he'll go for it. But then prophecy is all optional anyway." Corvid looked up as if a thought had occurred to him. "I'd best go check on my man, I've not met him yet.

His Majesty needs a can-I girl anyway. And I'm not it.""A can-I girl?" Andrea frowned. I leaned back. "'Can I fetch your food, Your Majesty? Can I tell you how strong and mighty you are, Your Majesty? Can I pick your fleas, Your Majesty? Can I kiss your ass, Your Majesty? Can I..." It dawned on me that Raphael was sitting very still. Frozen, like a statue, his gaze fixed on the point above my head. "He's standing behind me, isn't he?" Andrea nodded slowly."Technically it should be 'may I'," Curran said, his voice deeper than I remembered. "Since you're asking for permission." Why me? "To answer your question, yes, you may kiss my ass. Normally I prefer maintain my personal space, but you're a Friend of the Pack and your services have proven useful once or twice. I strive to accommodate the wishes of persons friendly to my people. My only question is, would kissing my ass be obeisance, grooming, or foreplay?