"What's this?  Trix?  Aunt!  Trix?  You?  You're after the prize!  What
is it?"  He picked up the box and studied the back.  "A glow-in-the-dark
squid!  Have you got it out of there yet?"  He tilted the box, angling the
little colored balls of cereal so as to see the bottom, and nearly spilling
them onto the table top.  "Here it is!"  He hauled out a little cream-colored,
glitter-sprinkled squid, three-inches long and made out of rubbery plastic.
		-- James P. Blaylock, "The Last Coin"


You will be called upon to help a friend in trouble.


You see, I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty
attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.  A fool
takes in all the lumber of every sort he comes across, so that the knowledge
which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with
a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty in laying his hands upon it.
Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his
brain-attic.  He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing
his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect
order.  It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and
can distend to any extent.  Depend upon it there comes a time when for every
addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before.  It is of
the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out
the useful ones.
		-- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Study in Scarlet"


People are beginning to notice you.  Try dressing before you leave the house.


A horse!  A horse!  My kingdom for a horse!
		-- Wm. Shakespeare, "Richard III"


Q:	How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	One.  He gives it to six Californians, thereby reducing the problem
	to the earlier joke.


You will be Told about it Tomorrow.  Go Home and Prepare Thyself.


Tuesday After Lunch is the cosmic time of the week.


FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #19
A:	To be or not to be.
Q:	What is the square root of 4b^2?


You have the capacity to learn from mistakes.  You'll learn a lot today.


The smallest worm will turn being trodden on.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI"


Q:	Why do WASPs play golf ?
A:	So they can dress like pimps.


Q:	Why did Menachem Begin invade Lebanon?
A:	To impress Jodie Foster.


Q:	What do you call 15 blondes in a circle?
A:	A dope ring.

Q:	Why do blondes put their hair in ponytails?
A:	To cover up the valve stem.


You will be advanced socially, without any special effort on your part.


You will be awarded a medal for disregarding safety in saving someone.


You like to form new friendships and make new acquaintances.


You will lose your present job and have to become a door to door mayonnaise
salesman.


Your fly might be open (but don't check it just now).


You will be surrounded by luxury.


Your goose is cooked.
(Your current chick is burned up too!)


Q:	Why was Stonehenge abandoned?
A:	It wasn't IBM compatible.


You may get an opportunity for advancement today.  Watch it!


Cheer Up!  Things are getting worse at a slower rate.


	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."


If your life was a horse, you'd have to shoot it.


You have an unusual equipment for success.  Be sure to use it properly.


Q:	What's tan and black and looks great on a lawyer?
A:	A doberman.


Q:	What do you call a principal female opera singer whose high C
	is lower than those of other principal female opera singers?
A:	A deep C diva.


The camel died quite suddenly on the second day, and Selena fretted
sullenly and, buffing her already impeccable nails -- not for the first
time since the journey begain -- pondered snidely if this would dissolve
into a vignette of minor inconveniences like all the other holidays spent
with Basil.
		-- Winning sentence, 1983 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.


Next Friday will not be your lucky day.  As a matter of fact, you don't
have a lucky day this year.


FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #13
A:	Doc, Happy, Bashful, Dopey, Sneezy, Sleepy, & Grumpy
Q:	Who were the Democratic presidential candidates?


For there are moments when one can neither think nor feel.  And if one can
neither think nor feel, she thought, where is one?
		-- Virginia Woolf, "To the Lighthouse"

	[Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when
	 referring to powerfail recovery.]


You will be aided greatly by a person whom you thought to be unimportant.


Fortune: You will be attacked next Wednesday at 3:15 p.m. by six samurai
sword wielding purple fish glued to Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

Oh, and have a nice day!
		-- Bryce Nesbitt '84


You are destined to become the commandant of the fighting men of the
department of transportation.


Learn to pause -- or nothing worthwhile can catch up to you.


"I understand this is your first dead client," Sabian was saying.  The
absurdity of the statement made me want to laugh but they don't call me
Deadpan Allie and lie.
		-- Pat Cadigan, "Mindplayers"


Try to get all of your posthumous medals in advance.


Q:	How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	One.  He gives it to six Californians, thereby reducing the problem
	to the earlier joke.


Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
		-- "Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


You will gain money by a fattening action.


Q:	How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?
A:	One.  Only it's his light bulb when he's done.


FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #19
A:	To be or not to be.
Q:	What is the square root of 4b^2?


Are you making all this up as you go along?


Q:	Why don't Scotsmen ever have coffee the way they like it?
A:	Well, they like it with two lumps of sugar.  If they drink
	it at home, they only take one, and if they drink it while
	visiting, they always take three.


The better part of valor is discretion.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Henry IV"


You look tired.


You will step on the night soil of many countries.


Every cloud engenders not a storm.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI"


Stay away from flying saucers today.


Hope that the day after you die is a nice day.


I got a hint of things to come when I overheard my boss lamenting, 'The
books are done and we still don't have an author! I must sign someone
today!
		-- Tamim Ansary, "Edutopia Magazine, Issue 2, November 2004"
		   on the topic of school textbooks


	"...The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes'!"
	"Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to
feel interested.
	"No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little
vexed.  "That's what the name is called.  The name really is, 'The Aged
Aged Man.'"
	"Then I ought to have said "That's what the song is called'?"
Alice corrected herself.
	"No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing!  The song is
called 'Ways and Means':  but that's only what it is called you know!"
	"Well, what is the song then?" said Alice, who was by this
time completely bewildered.
	"I was coming to that," the Knight said.  "The song really is
"A-sitting on a Gate": and the tune's my own invention."
		-- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"


Good news.  Ten weeks from Friday will be a pretty good day.


It is right that he too should have his little chronicle, his memories,
his reason, and be able to recognize the good in the bad, the bad in the
worst, and so grow gently old all down the unchanging days and die one
day like any other day, only shorter.
		-- Samuel Beckett, "Malone Dies"


It is so very hard to be an
on-your-own-take-care-of-yourself-because-there-is-no-one-else-to-do-it-for-you
grown-up.


If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would
be a merrier world.
		-- J.R.R. Tolkien


Your motives for doing whatever good deed you may have in mind will be
misinterpreted by somebody.


You are standing on my toes.


You will be winged by an anti-aircraft battery.


You may worry about your hair-do today, but tomorrow much peanut butter will
be sold.


You should emulate your heros, but don't carry it too far.  Especially
if they are dead.


Delay not, Caesar.  Read it instantly.
		-- Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar" 3,1

Here is a letter, read it at your leisure.
		-- Shakespeare, "Merchant of Venice" 5,1

	[Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when
	 referring to I/O system services.]


You'll be called to a post requiring ability in handling groups of people.


Have a place for everything and keep the thing somewhere else; this is not
advice, it is merely custom.
		-- Mark Twain


This is the first age that's paid much attention to the future, which is a
little ironic since we may not have one.
		-- Arthur Clarke


Your depth of comprehension may tend to make you lax in worldly ways.


Beware of a tall black man with one blond shoe.


Just to have it is enough.


Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can read.
		-- Mark Twain


Afternoon very favorable for romance.  Try a single person for a change.


Q:	How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
A:	Only one, but it takes a long time, and the light bulb has
	to really want to change.


Change your thoughts and you change your world.


Don't you wish you had more energy... or less ambition?


If two people love each other, there can be no happy end to it.
		-- Ernest Hemingway


Q:	What's the difference between a duck and an elephant?
A:	You can't get down off an elephant.


You have taken yourself too seriously.


There will be big changes for you but you will be happy.


You will give someone a piece of your mind, which you can ill afford.


Q:	Do you know what the death rate around here is?
A:	One per person.


It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
		-- Mark Twain


You fill a much-needed gap.


You need more time; and you probably always will.


The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
		-- Mark Twain


Steady movement is more important than speed, much of the time.  So long
as there is a regular progression of stimuli to get your mental hooks
into, there is room for lateral movement.  Once this begins, its rate is
a matter of discretion.
		-- Corwin, Prince of Amber


Just because the message may never be received does not mean it is
not worth sending.


Writing is turning one's worst moments into money.
		-- J.P. Donleavy


He hath eaten me out of house and home.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Henry IV"


Q:	What looks like a cat, flies like a bat, brays like a donkey, and
	plays like a monkey?
A:	Nothing.


Tell the truth or trump--but get the trick.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more
deadly in the long run.
		-- Mark Twain


You are confused; but this is your normal state.


Q:	Know what the difference between your latest project
	and putting wings on an elephant is?
A:	Who knows?  The elephant *might* fly, heh, heh...


He is now rising from affluence to poverty.
		-- Mark Twain


All I know is what the words know, and dead things, and that
makes a handsome little sum, with a beginning and a middle and
an end, as in the well-built phrase and the long sonata of the dead.
		-- Samuel Beckett


You are magnetic in your bearing.


Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed
down-stairs a step at a time.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar


A hundred years from now it is very likely that [of Twain's works] "The
Jumping Frog" alone will be remembered.
		-- Harry Thurston Peck (Editor of "The Bookman"), January 1901.


You're growing out of some of your problems, but there are others that
you're growing into.


You may be gone tomorrow, but that doesn't mean that you weren't here today.


You will visit the Dung Pits of Glive soon.


Don't look back, the lemmings are gaining on you.


Learn to pause -- or nothing worthwhile can catch up to you.


Bridge ahead.  Pay troll.


All generalizations are false, including this one.
		-- Mark Twain


In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Mississippi has
shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles.  Therefore ... in the Old
Silurian Period the Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred
thousand miles long ... seven hundred and forty-two years from now the
Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long.  ... There is
something fascinating about science.  One gets such wholesome returns of
conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
		-- Mark Twain


A gift of a flower will soon be made to you.


FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #15
A:	The Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Q:	What was the greatest achievement in taxidermy?


Good news.  Ten weeks from Friday will be a pretty good day.


The Least Perceptive Literary Critic
	The most important critic in our field of study is Lord Halifax.  A
most individual judge of poetry, he once invited Alexander Pope round to
give a public reading of his latest poem.
	Pope, the leading poet of his day, was greatly surprised when Lord
Halifax stopped him four or five times and said, "I beg your pardon, Mr.
Pope, but there is something in that passage that does not quite please me."
	Pope was rendered speechless, as this fine critic suggested sizeable
and unwise emendations to his latest masterpiece.  "Be so good as to mark
the place and consider at your leisure.  I'm sure you can give it a better
turn."
	After the reading, a good friend of Lord Halifax, a certain Dr.
Garth, took the stunned Pope to one side.  "There is no need to touch the
lines," he said.  "All you need do is leave them just as they are, call on
Lord Halifax two or three months hence, thank him for his kind observation
on those passages, and then read them to him as altered.  I have known him
much longer than you have, and will be answerable for the event."
	Pope took his advice, called on Lord Halifax and read the poem
exactly as it was before.  His unique critical faculties had lost none of
their edge.  "Ay", he commented, "now they are perfectly right.  Nothing can
be better."
		-- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"


Living your life is a task so difficult, it has never been attempted before.


Your life would be very empty if you had nothing to regret.


Q:	How many Californians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	Five.  One to screw in the light bulb and four to share the
		experience.  (Actually, Californians don't screw in
		light bulbs, they screw in hot tubs.)

Q:	How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	Three.  One to screw in the light bulb and two to fend off all
		those Californians trying to share the experience.


Talkers are no good doers.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI"


Q:	What's yellow, and equivalent to the Axiom of Choice?
A:	Zorn's Lemon.


Q:	How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	Three.  One to screw in the light bulb and two to fend off all those
	Californians trying to share the experience.


Water, taken in moderation cannot hurt anybody.
		-- Mark Twain


"I wonder", he said to himself, "what's in a book while it's closed.  Oh, I
know it's full of letters printed on paper, but all the same, something must
be happening, because as soon as I open it, there's a whole story with people
I don't know yet and all kinds of adventures and battles."
		-- Bastian B. Bux


There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted
armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.
		-- Ernest Hemingway


There are three infallible ways of pleasing an author, and the three form a
rising scale of compliment: 1, to tell him you have read one of his books; 2,
to tell him you have read all of his books; 3, to ask him to let you read the
manuscript of his forthcoming book.  No. 1 admits you to his respect; No. 2
admits you to his admiration; No. 3 carries you clear into his heart.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


You will forget that you ever knew me.


Q:	What's the difference between an Irish wedding and an Irish wake?
A:	One less drunk.


Your boss climbed the corporate ladder, wrong by wrong.


Q:	What's a WASP's idea of open-mindedness?
A:	Dating a Canadian.


Q:	What's the difference between a duck and an elephant?
A:	You can't get down off an elephant.


Today is what happened to yesterday.


Your business will go through a period of considerable expansion.


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


A Tale of Two Cities LITE(tm)
	-- by Charles Dickens

	A lawyer who looks like a French Nobleman is executed in his place.

The Metamorphosis LITE(tm)
	-- by Franz Kafka

	A man turns into a bug and his family gets annoyed.

Lord of the Rings LITE(tm)
	-- by J. R. R. Tolkien

	Some guys take a long vacation to throw a ring into a volcano.

Hamlet LITE(tm)
	-- by Wm. Shakespeare

	A college student on vacation with family problems, a screwy
	girl-friend and a mother who won't act her age.


Gone With The Wind LITE(tm)
	-- by Margaret Mitchell

	A woman only likes men she can't have and the South gets trashed.

Gift of the Magi LITE(tm)
	-- by O. Henry

	A husband and wife forget to register their gift preferences.

The Old Man and the Sea LITE(tm)
	-- by Ernest Hemingway

	An old man goes fishing, but doesn't have much luck.


ROMEO:		Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.
MERCUTIO:	No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide
			as a church-door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve.


Beware of a tall blond man with one black shoe.


Be careful!  UGLY strikes 9 out of 10!


Q:	Why did the lone ranger kill Tonto?
A:	He found out what "kimosabe" really means.


Q:	How many IBM 370's does it take to execute a job?
A:	Four, three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off.


You are scrupulously honest, frank, and straightforward.  Therefore you
have few friends.


But, for my own part, it was Greek to me.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"


Your motives for doing whatever good deed you may have in mind will be
misinterpreted by somebody.


Q:	Why haven't you graduated yet?
A:	Well, Dad, I could have finished years ago, but I wanted
	my dissertation to rhyme.


Questionable day.

Ask somebody something.


Q:	Know what the difference between your latest project
	and putting wings on an elephant is?
A:	Who knows?  The elephant *might* fly, heh, heh...


You will be honored for contributing your time and skill to a worthy cause.


You are wise, witty, and wonderful, but you spend too much time reading
this sort of trash.


Q:	What do you call 15 blondes in a circle?
A:	A dope ring.

Q:	Why do blondes put their hair in ponytails?
A:	To cover up the valve stem.


Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is
oblivion.
		-- Mark Twain


Q:	How many college football players does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	Only one, but he gets three credits for it.


What I tell you three times is true.
		-- Lewis Carroll


Q:	What's hard going in and soft and sticky coming out?
A:	Chewing gum.


If you sow your wild oats, hope for a crop failure.


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


Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues
of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping houses, and the blessed sun himself
a fair, hot wench in flame-colored taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst
be so superfluous to demand the time of the day.  I wasted time and now doth
time waste me.
		-- William Shakespeare


Q:	How many Harvard MBA's does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	Just one.  He grasps it firmly and the universe revolves around him.


Better hope the life-inspector doesn't come around while you have your
life in such a mess.


When you are about to die, a wombat is better than no company at all.
		-- Roger Zelazny, "Doorways in the Sand"


Blow it out your ear.


Q:	Why do people who live near Niagara Falls have flat foreheads?
A:	Because every morning they wake up thinking "What *is* that noise?
	Oh, right, *of course*!


You dialed 5483.


Its name is Public Opinion.  It is held in reverence.  It settles everything.
Some think it is the voice of God.
		-- Mark Twain


He was part of my dream, of course -- but then I was part of his dream too.
		-- Lewis Carroll


You will be surprised by a loud noise.


FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #31
A:	Chicken Teriyaki.
Q:	What is the name of the world's oldest kamikaze pilot?


Q:	How many bureaucrats does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	Two.  One to assure everyone that everything possible is being
	done while the other screws the bulb into the water faucet.


Harp not on that string.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI"


Never commit yourself!  Let someone else commit you.


If two people love each other, there can be no happy end to it.
		-- Ernest Hemingway


You will be the last person to buy a Chrysler.


You have many friends and very few living enemies.


Save energy: be apathetic.


You will be advanced socially, without any special effort on your part.


Among the lucky, you are the chosen one.


You have Egyptian flu: you're going to be a mummy.


A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining
and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.
		-- Mark Twain


Next Friday will not be your lucky day.  As a matter of fact, you don't
have a lucky day this year.


You have been selected for a secret mission.


Q:	What do Winnie the Pooh and John the Baptist have in common?
A:	The same middle name.


I think we are in Rats' Alley where the dead men lost their bones.
		-- T.S. Eliot


The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact...
		-- Wm. Shakespeare, "A Midsummer Night's Dream"


Your love life will be... interesting.


One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has
only nine lives.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


Don't look back, the lemmings are gaining on you.


Your business will go through a period of considerable expansion.


A day for firm decisions!!!!!  Or is it?


Mind!  I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is
particularly dead about a door-nail.  I might have been inclined, myself,
to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade.
But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands
shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for.  You will therefore permit
me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
		-- Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol"


Your lucky number has been disconnected.


Look afar and see the end from the beginning.


Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at the blank sheet of paper until
drops of blood form on your forehead.
		-- Gene Fowler


A Tale of Two Cities LITE(tm)
	-- by Charles Dickens

	A lawyer who looks like a French Nobleman is executed in his place.

The Metamorphosis LITE(tm)
	-- by Franz Kafka

	A man turns into a bug and his family gets annoyed.

Lord of the Rings LITE(tm)
	-- by J. R. R. Tolkien

	Some guys take a long vacation to throw a ring into a volcano.

Hamlet LITE(tm)
	-- by Wm. Shakespeare

	A college student on vacation with family problems, a screwy
	girl-friend and a mother who won't act her age.


Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.
		-- Wm. Shakespeare


For a light heart lives long.
		-- Shakespeare, "Love's Labour's Lost"


There's small choice in rotten apples.
		-- William Shakespeare, "The Taming of the Shrew"


You'll feel much better once you've given up hope.


The whole world is a tuxedo and you are a pair of brown shoes.
		-- George Gobel


Don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon.


O, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive.
		-- Sir Walter Scott, "Marmion"


Don't read any sky-writing for the next two weeks.


Wagner's music is better than it sounds.
		-- Mark Twain


Domestic happiness and faithful friends.


A tall, dark stranger will have more fun than you.


Excellent day to have a rotten day.


Sometimes I wonder if I'm in my right mind.  Then it passes off and I'm
as intelligent as ever.
		-- Samuel Beckett, "Endgame"


All generalizations are false, including this one.
		-- Mark Twain


If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you.
This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


You are capable of planning your future.


Best of all is never to have been born.  Second best is to die soon.


I've touch'd the highest point of all my greatness;
And from that full meridian of my glory
I haste now to my setting.  I shall fall,
Like a bright exhalation in the evening
And no man see me more.
		-- Shakespeare


Delay not, Caesar.  Read it instantly.
		-- Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar" 3,1

Here is a letter, read it at your leisure.
		-- Shakespeare, "Merchant of Venice" 5,1

	[Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when
	 referring to I/O system services.]


You will experience a strong urge to do good; but it will pass.


You tread upon my patience.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Henry IV"


Q:	Why do the police always travel in threes?
A:	One to do the reading, one to do the writing, and the other keeps
	an eye on the two intellectuals.


Awash with unfocused desire, Everett twisted the lobe of his one remaining
ear and felt the presence of somebody else behind him, which caused terror
to push through his nervous system like a flash flood roaring down the
mid-fork of the Feather River before the completion of the Oroville Dam
in 1959.
		-- Grand Panjandrum's Special Award, 1984 Bulwer-Lytton
		   bad fiction contest.


October 12, the Discovery.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss
it.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


Q:	What's the difference betweeen USL and the Graf Zeppelin?
A:	The Graf Zeppelin represented cutting edge technology for its time.


Q:	How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?
A:	One.  Only it's his light bulb when he's done.


Q:	What's the difference between Bell Labs and the Boy Scouts of America?
A:	The Boy Scouts have adult supervision.


Try to relax and enjoy the crisis.
		-- Ashleigh Brilliant


Your best consolation is the hope that the things you failed to get weren't
really worth having.


You get along very well with everyone except animals and people.


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


Q:	What's the difference between the 1950's and the 1980's?
A:	In the 80's, a man walks into a drugstore and states loudly, "I'd
	like some condoms," and then, leaning over the counter, whispers,
	"and some cigarettes."


Like an expensive sports car, fine-tuned and well-built, Portia was sleek,
shapely, and gorgeous, her red jumpsuit moulding her body, which was as warm
as seatcovers in July, her hair as dark as new tires, her eyes flashing like
bright hubcaps, and her lips as dewy as the beads of fresh rain on the hood;
she was a woman driven -- fueled by a single accelerant -- and she needed a
man, a man who wouldn't shift from his views, a man to steer her along the
right road: a man like Alf Romeo.
		-- Rachel Sheeley, winner

The hair ball blocking the drain of the shower reminded Laura she would never
see her little dog Pritzi again.
		-- Claudia Fields, runner-up

It could have been an organically based disturbance of the brain -- perhaps a
tumor or a metabolic deficiency -- but after a thorough neurological exam it
was determined that Byron was simply a jerk.
		-- Jeff Jahnke, runner-up

Winners in the 7th Annual Bulwer-Lytton Bad Writing Contest.  The contest is
named after the author of the immortal lines:  "It was a dark and stormy
night."  The object of the contest is to write the opening sentence of the
worst possible novel.


While you recently had your problems on the run, they've regrouped and
are making another attack.


"... an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite often
picturesque liar."
		-- Mark Twain


My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
		-- William Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet"


People are beginning to notice you.  Try dressing before you leave the house.


Truth is the most valuable thing we have -- so let us economize it.
		-- Mark Twain


You have a deep interest in all that is artistic.


You have literary talent that you should take pains to develop.


You will gain money by a speculation or lottery.


Today is what happened to yesterday.


To be or not to be.
		-- Shakespeare
To do is to be.
		-- Nietzsche
To be is to do.
		-- Sartre
Do be do be do.
		-- Sinatra


Beware of Bigfoot!


You will live a long, healthy, happy life and make bags of money.


All the troubles you have will pass away very quickly.


Q:	How do you catch a unique rabbit?
A:	Unique up on it!

Q:	How do you catch a tame rabbit?
A:	The tame way!


Q:	Why don't lawyers go to the beach?
A:	The cats keep trying to bury them.


	"You have heard me speak of Professor Moriarty?"
	"The famous scientific criminal, as famous among crooks as --"
	"My blushes, Watson," Holmes murmured, in a deprecating voice.
	"I was about to say 'as he is unknown to the public.'"
		-- A. Conan Doyle, "The Valley of Fear"


You will stop at nothing to reach your objective, but only because your
brakes are defective.


You will have good luck and overcome many hardships.


You never know how many friends you have until you rent a house on the beach.


You will forget that you ever knew me.


I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know.
		-- Mark Twain


Steady movement is more important than speed, much of the time.  So long
as there is a regular progression of stimuli to get your mental hooks
into, there is room for lateral movement.  Once this begins, its rate is
a matter of discretion.
		-- Corwin, Prince of Amber


... A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he
was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity.
		-- Mark Twain


You prefer the company of the opposite sex, but are well liked by your own.


Q:	What do agnostic, insomniac dyslexics do at night?
A:	Stay awake and wonder if there's a dog.


You will be attacked by a beast who has the body of a wolf, the tail of
a lion, and the face of Donald Duck.


I've touch'd the highest point of all my greatness;
And from that full meridian of my glory
I haste now to my setting.  I shall fall,
Like a bright exhalation in the evening
And no man see me more.
		-- Shakespeare


Q:	How many supply-siders does it take to change a light bulb?
A:	None.  The darkness will cause the light bulb to change by itself.


What I tell you three times is true.
		-- Lewis Carroll


Don't plan any hasty moves.  You'll be evicted soon anyway.


"Life, loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it."
		-- Marvin, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"


You have an ambitious nature and may make a name for yourself.


The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and
enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to
lend money.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


Noise proves nothing.  Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles
as if she laid an asteroid.
		-- Mark Twain


A morgue is a morgue is a morgue.  They can paint the walls with aggressively
cheerful primary colors and splashy bold graphics, but it's still a holding
place for the dead until they can be parted out to organ banks.  Not that I
would have cared normally but my viewpoint was skewed.  The relentless
pleasance of the room I sat in seemed only grotesque.
		-- Pat Cadigan, "Mindplayers"


You'll wish that you had done some of the hard things when they were easier
to do.


You have the capacity to learn from mistakes.  You'll learn a lot today.


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


But, for my own part, it was Greek to me.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"


Stay away from hurricanes for a while.


A long-forgotten loved one will appear soon.

Buy the negatives at any price.


Q:	How many Harvard MBA's does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	Just one.  He grasps it firmly and the universe revolves around him.


This will be a memorable month -- no matter how hard you try to forget it.


Q:	What do Winnie the Pooh and John the Baptist have in common?
A:	The same middle name.


Q:	How many college football players does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	Only one, but he gets three credits for it.


Like an expensive sports car, fine-tuned and well-built, Portia was sleek,
shapely, and gorgeous, her red jumpsuit moulding her body, which was as warm
as seatcovers in July, her hair as dark as new tires, her eyes flashing like
bright hubcaps, and her lips as dewy as the beads of fresh rain on the hood;
she was a woman driven -- fueled by a single accelerant -- and she needed a
man, a man who wouldn't shift from his views, a man to steer her along the
right road: a man like Alf Romeo.
		-- Rachel Sheeley, winner

The hair ball blocking the drain of the shower reminded Laura she would never
see her little dog Pritzi again.
		-- Claudia Fields, runner-up

It could have been an organically based disturbance of the brain -- perhaps a
tumor or a metabolic deficiency -- but after a thorough neurological exam it
was determined that Byron was simply a jerk.
		-- Jeff Jahnke, runner-up

Winners in the 7th Annual Bulwer-Lytton Bad Writing Contest.  The contest is
named after the author of the immortal lines:  "It was a dark and stormy
night."  The object of the contest is to write the opening sentence of the
worst possible novel.


Your present plans will be successful.


Kiss me, Kate, we will be married o' Sunday.
		-- William Shakespeare, "The Taming of the Shrew"


The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
		-- Mark Twain


Always do right.  This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
		-- Mark Twain


A Tale of Two Cities LITE(tm)
	-- by Charles Dickens

	A man in love with a girl who loves another man who looks just
	like him has his head chopped off in France because of a mean
	lady who knits.

Crime and Punishment LITE(tm)
	-- by Fyodor Dostoevski

	A man sends a nasty letter to a pawnbroker, but later
	feels guilty and apologizes.

The Odyssey LITE(tm)
	-- by Homer

	After working late, a valiant warrior gets lost on his way home.


At once it struck me what quality went to form a man of achievement,
especially in literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously
-- I mean negative capability, that is, when a man is capable of being
in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching
after fact and reason.
		-- John Keats


You mentioned your name as if I should recognize it, but beyond the
obvious facts that you are a bachelor, a solicitor, a freemason, and
an asthmatic, I know nothing whatever about you.
		-- Sherlock Holmes, "The Norwood Builder"


Q:	What do you call a principal female opera singer whose high C
	is lower than those of other principal female opera singers?
A:	A deep C diva.


Q:	Why is it that the more accuracy you demand from an interpolation
	function, the more expensive it becomes to compute?
A:	That's the Law of Spline Demand.


Today is National Existential Ennui Awareness Day.


Good day for a change of scene.  Repaper the bedroom wall.


You plan things that you do not even attempt because of your extreme caution.


You have a strong appeal for members of your own sex.


Q:	What do you call 15 blondes in a circle?
A:	A dope ring.

Q:	Why do blondes put their hair in ponytails?
A:	To cover up the valve stem.


It's lucky you're going so slowly, because you're going in the wrong direction.


You will be given a post of trust and responsibility.


Q:	Know what the difference between your latest project
	and putting wings on an elephant is?
A:	Who knows?  The elephant *might* fly, heh, heh...


Advancement in position.


"... an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite often
picturesque liar."
		-- Mark Twain


Your step will soil many countries.


Your business will assume vast proportions.


Today is what happened to yesterday.


You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here.


Your reasoning powers are good, and you are a fairly good planner.


There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by
ridicule, howsoever poor and witless.  Observe the ass, for instance: his
character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler
animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to.  Instead of feeling
complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


Q:	How many gradual (sorry, that's supposed to be "graduate") students
	does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	"I'm afraid we don't know, but make my stipend tax-free, give my
	advisor a $30,000 grant of the taxpayer's money, and I'm sure he
	can tell me how to do the gruntwork for him so he can take the
	credit for answering this incredibly vital question."


For years a secret shame destroyed my peace--
I'd not read Eliot, Auden or MacNiece.
But now I think a thought that brings me hope:
Neither had Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope.
		-- Justin Richardson.


Chicken Little only has to be right once.


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


You will be successful in love.


Is that really YOU that is reading this?


You will overcome the attacks of jealous associates.


Knock, knock!
	Who's there?
Sam and Janet.
	Sam and Janet who?
Sam and Janet Evening...


Q:	How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	None.  The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out
	of the way.


Tomorrow, you can be anywhere.


Be cautious in your daily affairs.


The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the
difference between lightning and the lightning bug.
		-- Mark Twain


You work very hard.  Don't try to think as well.


Too much is just enough.
		-- Mark Twain, on whiskey


Ships are safe in harbor, but they were never meant to stay there.


You are taking yourself far too seriously.


Beware of a tall black man with one blond shoe.


Knucklehead:	"Knock, knock"
Pee Wee:	"Who's there?"
Knucklehead:	"Little ol' lady."
Pee Wee:	"Liddle ol' lady who?"
Knucklehead:	"I didn't know you could yodel"


You'd like to do it instantaneously, but that's too slow.


All the troubles you have will pass away very quickly.


October 12, the Discovery.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss
it.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


I do desire we may be better strangers.
		-- William Shakespeare, "As You Like It"


Water, taken in moderation cannot hurt anybody.
		-- Mark Twain


Advancement in position.


Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more
deadly in the long run.
		-- Mark Twain


Behold, the fool saith, "Put not all thine eggs in the one basket"--which is
but a manner of saying, "Scatter your money and your attention;" but the wise
man saith, "Put all your eggs in the one basket and--WATCH THAT BASKET."
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


Stay away from hurricanes for a while.


One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has
only nine lives.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


Q:	Why did the lone ranger kill Tonto?
A:	He found out what "kimosabe" really means.


The lovely woman-child Kaa was mercilessly chained to the cruel post of
the warrior-chief Beast, with his barbarian tribe now stacking wood at
her nubile feet, when the strong clear voice of the poetic and heroic
Handsomas roared, 'Flick your Bic, crisp that chick, and you'll feel my
steel through your last meal!'
		-- Winning sentence, 1984 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.


Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
		-- Mark Twain


Try to get all of your posthumous medals in advance.


Celebrate Hannibal Day this year.  Take an elephant to lunch.


I fell asleep reading a dull book, and I dreamt that I was reading on,
so I woke up from sheer boredom.


FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #21
A:	Dr. Livingston I. Presume.
Q:	What's Dr. Presume's full name?


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


You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here.


You seek to shield those you love and you like the role of the provider.


	My dear People.
	My dear Bagginses and Boffins, and my dear Tooks and Brandybucks,
and Grubbs, and Chubbs, and Burrowses, and Hornblowers, and Bolgers,
Bracegirdles, Goodbodies, Brockhouses and Proudfoots.  Also my good
Sackville Bagginses that I welcome back at last to Bag End.  Today is my
one hundred and eleventh birthday: I am eleventy-one today!"
		-- J. R. R. Tolkien


Tonight's the night: Sleep in a eucalyptus tree.


You have an unusual understanding of the problems of human relationships.


You'll feel devilish tonight.  Toss dynamite caps under a flamenco dancer's
heel.


You may worry about your hair-do today, but tomorrow much peanut butter will
be sold.


Q:	What do little WASPs want to be when they grow up?
A:	The very best person they can possibly be.


Lay on, MacDuff, and curs'd be him who first cries, "Hold, enough!".
		-- Shakespeare


Q:	Why do firemen wear red suspenders?
A:	To conform with departmental regulations concerning uniform dress.


You will have a long and boring life.


Don't look now, but there is a multi-legged creature on your shoulder.


You will experience a strong urge to do good; but it will pass.


You may be infinitely smaller than some things, but you're infinitely
larger than others.


I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a
week sometimes to make it up.
		-- Mark Twain, "The Innocents Abroad"


Tell the truth or trump--but get the trick.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


You'll feel much better once you've given up hope.


Don't tell any big lies today.  Small ones can be just as effective.


Many a writer seems to think he is never profound except when he can't
understand his own meaning.
		-- George D. Prentice


The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and
enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to
lend money.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


You will become rich and famous unless you don't.


No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of
absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.
Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness
within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more.
Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and
doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone
of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.
		-- Shirley Jackson, "The Haunting of Hill House"


Clothes make the man.  Naked people have little or no influence on society.
		-- Mark Twain


A kind of Batman of contemporary letters.
		-- Philip Larkin on Anthony Burgess


You have a truly strong individuality.


Many pages make a thick book.


Keep it short for pithy sake.


You will be awarded some great honor.


Knucklehead:	"Knock, knock"
Pee Wee:	"Who's there?"
Knucklehead:	"Little ol' lady."
Pee Wee:	"Liddle ol' lady who?"
Knucklehead:	"I didn't know you could yodel"


Better hope the life-inspector doesn't come around while you have your
life in such a mess.


Sheriff Chameleotoptor sighed with an air of weary sadness, and then
turned to Doppelgutt and said 'The Senator must really have been on a
bender this time -- he left a party in Cleveland, Ohio, at 11:30 last
night, and they found his car this morning in the smokestack of a British
aircraft carrier in the Formosa Straits.'
		-- Grand Panjandrum's Special Award, 1985 Bulwer-Lytton
		   bad fiction contest.


Q:	What do you have when you have a lawyer buried up to his neck in sand?
A:	Not enough sand.


All I know is what the words know, and dead things, and that
makes a handsome little sum, with a beginning and a middle and
an end, as in the well-built phrase and the long sonata of the dead.
		-- Samuel Beckett


A hundred years from now it is very likely that [of Twain's works] "The
Jumping Frog" alone will be remembered.
		-- Harry Thurston Peck (Editor of "The Bookman"), January 1901.


Q:	How many Marxists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	None:  The light bulb contains the seeds of its own revolution.


You are sick, twisted and perverted.  I like that in a person.


Blow it out your ear.


Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted;
persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting
to find a plot in it will be shot.  By Order of the Author
		-- Mark Twain, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"


A day for firm decisions!!!!!  Or is it?


You may my glories and my state dispose,
But not my griefs; still am I king of those.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Richard II"


Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed
down-stairs a step at a time.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar


The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd
And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;
The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth
And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change.
These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.
		-- Wm. Shakespeare, "Richard II"


If you can read this, you're too close.


We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is
in it - and stay there, lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot
stove-lid.  She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again - and that
is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more.
		-- Mark Twain


You would if you could but you can't so you won't.


I'll burn my books.
		-- Christopher Marlowe


Behold, the fool saith, "Put not all thine eggs in the one basket"--which is
but a manner of saying, "Scatter your money and your attention;" but the wise
man saith, "Put all your eggs in the one basket and--WATCH THAT BASKET."
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


Your object is to save the world, while still leading a pleasant life.


Your love life will be... interesting.


You tread upon my patience.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Henry IV"


Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with.


You will experience a strong urge to do good; but it will pass.


Bank error in your favor.  Collect $200.


If your life was a horse, you'd have to shoot it.


The Least Perceptive Literary Critic
	The most important critic in our field of study is Lord Halifax.  A
most individual judge of poetry, he once invited Alexander Pope round to
give a public reading of his latest poem.
	Pope, the leading poet of his day, was greatly surprised when Lord
Halifax stopped him four or five times and said, "I beg your pardon, Mr.
Pope, but there is something in that passage that does not quite please me."
	Pope was rendered speechless, as this fine critic suggested sizeable
and unwise emendations to his latest masterpiece.  "Be so good as to mark
the place and consider at your leisure.  I'm sure you can give it a better
turn."
	After the reading, a good friend of Lord Halifax, a certain Dr.
Garth, took the stunned Pope to one side.  "There is no need to touch the
lines," he said.  "All you need do is leave them just as they are, call on
Lord Halifax two or three months hence, thank him for his kind observation
on those passages, and then read them to him as altered.  I have known him
much longer than you have, and will be answerable for the event."
	Pope took his advice, called on Lord Halifax and read the poem
exactly as it was before.  His unique critical faculties had lost none of
their edge.  "Ay", he commented, "now they are perfectly right.  Nothing can
be better."
		-- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"


Don't worry.  Life's too long.
		-- Vincent Sardi, Jr.


You will never know hunger.


I reverently believe that the maker who made us all  makes everything in New
England, but the weather.  I don't know who makes that, but I think it must be
raw apprentices in the weather-clerks factory who experiment and learn how, in
New England, for board and clothes, and then are promoted to make weather for
countries that require a good article, and will take their custom elsewhere
if they don't get it.
		-- Mark Twain


You will obey or molten silver will be poured into your ears.


Q:	Why did the astrophysicist order three hamburgers?
A:	Because he was hungry.


In the first place, God made idiots; this was for practice; then he made
school boards.
		-- Mark Twain


You are going to have a new love affair.


Living your life is a task so difficult, it has never been attempted before.


There is a 20% chance of tomorrow.


Do something unusual today.  Pay a bill.


It's lucky you're going so slowly, because you're going in the wrong direction.


Try to value useful qualities in one who loves you.


Keep it short for pithy sake.


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


Is this really happening?


So this is it.  We're going to die.


He was part of my dream, of course -- but then I was part of his dream too.
		-- Lewis Carroll


It may or may not be worthwhile, but it still has to be done.


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


Save energy: be apathetic.


Try to have as good a life as you can under the circumstances.


Don't relax!  It's only your tension that's holding you together.


In India, "cold weather" is merely a conventional phrase and has come into
use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather
which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy.
		-- Mark Twain


After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations.
		-- H. L. Mencken, on Shakespeare


Ships are safe in harbor, but they were never meant to stay there.


Tempt not a desperate man.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet"


The lovely woman-child Kaa was mercilessly chained to the cruel post of
the warrior-chief Beast, with his barbarian tribe now stacking wood at
her nubile feet, when the strong clear voice of the poetic and heroic
Handsomas roared, 'Flick your Bic, crisp that chick, and you'll feel my
steel through your last meal!'
		-- Winning sentence, 1984 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.


Green light in A.M. for new projects.  Red light in P.M. for traffic tickets.


Your heart is pure, and your mind clear, and your soul devout.


Q:	Why don't Scotsmen ever have coffee the way they like it?
A:	Well, they like it with two lumps of sugar.  If they drink
	it at home, they only take one, and if they drink it while
	visiting, they always take three.


Q:	What do you have when you have a lawyer buried up to his neck in sand?
A:	Not enough sand.


You now have Asian Flu.


The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
		-- William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice"


Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is
oblivion.
		-- Mark Twain


You can do very well in speculation where land or anything to do with dirt
is concerned.


Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not
original and the part that is original is not good.
		-- Samuel Johnson


You have the capacity to learn from mistakes.  You'll learn a lot today.


Everything will be just tickety-boo today.


Q:	How many college football players does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	Only one, but he gets three credits for it.


Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


I think we are in Rats' Alley where the dead men lost their bones.
		-- T.S. Eliot


The only people for me are the mad ones -- the ones who are mad to live,
mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time,
the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn
like fabulous yellow Roman candles.
		-- Jack Kerouac, "On the Road"


You are number 6!  Who is number one?


Steady movement is more important than speed, much of the time.  So long
as there is a regular progression of stimuli to get your mental hooks
into, there is room for lateral movement.  Once this begins, its rate is
a matter of discretion.
		-- Corwin, Prince of Amber


You will always have good luck in your personal affairs.


Must I hold a candle to my shames?
		-- William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice"


Don't kiss an elephant on the lips today.


Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can read.
		-- Mark Twain


You will soon forget this.


A is for Apple.
		-- Hester Pryne


So this is it.  We're going to die.


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


You are deeply attached to your friends and acquaintances.


I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a
week sometimes to make it up.
		-- Mark Twain, "The Innocents Abroad"


Water, taken in moderation cannot hurt anybody.
		-- Mark Twain


Q:	How did you get into artificial intelligence?
A:	Seemed logical -- I didn't have any real intelligence.


Gratitude and treachery are merely the two extremities of the same procession.
You have seen all of it that is worth staying for when the band and the gaudy
officials have gone by.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


You will obey or molten silver will be poured into your ears.


The time is right to make new friends.


Today is the first day of the rest of the mess.


He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.
		-- William Shakespeare, "The Taming of the Shrew"


The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that
will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful.
		-- Mark Twain


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"


It is a wise father that knows his own child.
		-- William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice"


He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his
argument.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Love's Labour's Lost"


Q:	Who cuts the grass on Walton's Mountain?
A:	Lawn Boy.


Your best consolation is the hope that the things you failed to get weren't
really worth having.


You will gain money by an immoral action.


Clothes make the man.  Naked people have little or no influence on society.
		-- Mark Twain


Do nothing unless you must, and when you must act -- hesitate.


Good day to let down old friends who need help.


Q:	Why do firemen wear red suspenders?
A:	To conform with departmental regulations concerning uniform dress.


Q:	What's tiny and yellow and very, very, dangerous?
A:	A canary with the super-user password.


It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely
the most important.
		-- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Case of Identity"


You will win success in whatever calling you adopt.


You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.


You will be recognized and honored as a community leader.


There is a great discovery still to be made in Literature: that of
paying literary men by the quantity they do NOT write.


Q:	What is purple and commutes?
A:	An Abelian grape.


Q:	What do you call a principal female opera singer whose high C
	is lower than those of other principal female opera singers?
A:	A deep C diva.


All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"--a strange complaint to come from
the mouths of people who have had to live.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


	My dear People.
	My dear Bagginses and Boffins, and my dear Tooks and Brandybucks,
and Grubbs, and Chubbs, and Burrowses, and Hornblowers, and Bolgers,
Bracegirdles, Goodbodies, Brockhouses and Proudfoots.  Also my good
Sackville Bagginses that I welcome back at last to Bag End.  Today is my
one hundred and eleventh birthday: I am eleventy-one today!"
		-- J. R. R. Tolkien


One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has
only nine lives.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


Always do right.  This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
		-- Mark Twain


Q:	What do you call a half-dozen Indians with Asian flu?
A:	Six sick Sikhs (sic).


Your love life will be... interesting.


You attempt things that you do not even plan because of your extreme stupidity.


You will hear good news from one you thought unfriendly to you.


But, for my own part, it was Greek to me.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"


Ships are safe in harbor, but they were never meant to stay there.


Q:	What do you call the money you pay to the government when
	you ride into the country on the back of an elephant?
A:	A howdah duty.


Exercise caution in your daily affairs.


We know all about the habits of the ant, we know all about the habits of the
bee, but we know nothing at all about the habits of the oyster.  It seems
almost certain that we have been choosing the wrong time for studying the
oyster.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


Is that really YOU that is reading this?


You are so boring that when I see you my feet go to sleep.


Today is what happened to yesterday.


No group of professionals meets except to conspire against the public at large.
		-- Mark Twain


You will wish you hadn't.


Q:	Why did Menachem Begin invade Lebanon?
A:	To impress Jodie Foster.


Good night to spend with family, but avoid arguments with your mate's
new lover.


I've touch'd the highest point of all my greatness;
And from that full meridian of my glory
I haste now to my setting.  I shall fall,
Like a bright exhalation in the evening
And no man see me more.
		-- Shakespeare


Avoid reality at all costs.


Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do.
Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
		-- Mark Twain


Q:	Why did the programmer call his mother long distance?
A:	Because that was her name.


Big book, big bore.
		-- Callimachus


Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be
sorry.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


	You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the
Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the
parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day.
		-- Sherlock Holmes


Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Henry IV"


Be careful!  Is it classified?


You're not my type.  For that matter, you're not even my species!!!


If you think last Tuesday was a drag, wait till you see what happens tomorrow!


A visit to a strange place will bring fresh work.


You will receive a legacy which will place you above want.


Are you sure the back door is locked?


Q:	Why do ducks have big flat feet?
A:	To stamp out forest fires.

Q:	Why do elephants have big flat feet?
A:	To stamp out flaming ducks.


Truth is the most valuable thing we have -- so let us economize it.
		-- Mark Twain


Always the dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits.
		-- William Shakespeare, "As You Like It"


You're growing out of some of your problems, but there are others that
you're growing into.


Q:	What is the difference between Texas and yogurt?
A:	Yogurt has culture.


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


He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.
		-- J.R.R. Tolkien


Tuesday is the Wednesday of the rest of your life.


Awash with unfocused desire, Everett twisted the lobe of his one remaining
ear and felt the presence of somebody else behind him, which caused terror
to push through his nervous system like a flash flood roaring down the
mid-fork of the Feather River before the completion of the Oroville Dam
in 1959.
		-- Grand Panjandrum's Special Award, 1984 Bulwer-Lytton
		   bad fiction contest.


Questionable day.

Ask somebody something.


If you learn one useless thing every day, in a single year you'll learn
365 useless things.


Q:	What do you call a principal female opera singer whose high C
	is lower than those of other principal female opera singers?
A:	A deep C diva.


Q:	Why does Washington have the most lawyers per capita and
	New Jersey the most toxic waste dumps?
A:	God gave New Jersey first choice.


If your life was a horse, you'd have to shoot it.


Many changes of mind and mood; do not hesitate too long.


All generalizations are false, including this one.
		-- Mark Twain


You will be attacked by a beast who has the body of a wolf, the tail of
a lion, and the face of Donald Duck.


Q:	How much does it cost to ride the Unibus?
A:	2 bits.


The Least Perceptive Literary Critic
	The most important critic in our field of study is Lord Halifax.  A
most individual judge of poetry, he once invited Alexander Pope round to
give a public reading of his latest poem.
	Pope, the leading poet of his day, was greatly surprised when Lord
Halifax stopped him four or five times and said, "I beg your pardon, Mr.
Pope, but there is something in that passage that does not quite please me."
	Pope was rendered speechless, as this fine critic suggested sizeable
and unwise emendations to his latest masterpiece.  "Be so good as to mark
the place and consider at your leisure.  I'm sure you can give it a better
turn."
	After the reading, a good friend of Lord Halifax, a certain Dr.
Garth, took the stunned Pope to one side.  "There is no need to touch the
lines," he said.  "All you need do is leave them just as they are, call on
Lord Halifax two or three months hence, thank him for his kind observation
on those passages, and then read them to him as altered.  I have known him
much longer than you have, and will be answerable for the event."
	Pope took his advice, called on Lord Halifax and read the poem
exactly as it was before.  His unique critical faculties had lost none of
their edge.  "Ay", he commented, "now they are perfectly right.  Nothing can
be better."
		-- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"


A light wife doth make a heavy husband.
		-- Wm. Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice"


Q:	Why haven't you graduated yet?
A:	Well, Dad, I could have finished years ago, but I wanted
	my dissertation to rhyme.


He jests at scars who never felt a wound.
		-- Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet, II. 2"


The fashion wears out more apparel than the man.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Much Ado About Nothing"


A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining
and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.
		-- Mark Twain


Good day to deal with people in high places; particularly lonely stewardesses.


This night methinks is but the daylight sick.
		-- William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice"


Zounds!  I was never so bethumped with words
since I first called my brother's father dad.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Kind John"


You will reach the highest possible point in your business or profession.


Long life is in store for you.


Your lucky number has been disconnected.


You have a strong desire for a home and your family interests come first.


You will experience a strong urge to do good; but it will pass.


Day of inquiry.  You will be subpoenaed.


Too much is just enough.
		-- Mark Twain, on whiskey


Be cheerful while you are alive.
		-- Phathotep, 24th Century B.C.


You have a strong appeal for members of your own sex.


Write yourself a threatening letter and pen a defiant reply.


Never be led astray onto the path of virtue.


Don't relax!  It's only your tension that's holding you together.


Q:	What is the sound of one cat napping?
A:	Mu.


It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition.  There was once a man
who, not being able to find any other fault with his coal, complained that
there were too many prehistoric toads in it.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


Look afar and see the end from the beginning.


An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI"


Never look up when dragons fly overhead.


Your goose is cooked.
(Your current chick is burned up too!)


"Speak, thou vast and venerable head," muttered Ahab, "which, though
ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak,
mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee.  Of all divers,
thou has dived the deepest.  That head upon which the upper sun now gleams has
moved amid the world's foundations.  Where unrecorded names and navies rust,
and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate
earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful
water-land, there was thy most familiar home.  Thou hast been where bell or
diver never went; has slept by many a sailer's side, where sleepless mothers
would give their lives to lay them down.  Thou saw'st the locked lovers when
leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting
wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them.  Thou saw'st the
murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell
into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed
on unharmed -- while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would
have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms.  O head! thou has
seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one
syllable is thine!"
		-- H. Melville, "Moby Dick"


Perilous to all of us are the devices of an art deeper than we ourselves
possess.
		-- Gandalf the Grey [J.R.R. Tolkien, "Lord of the Rings"]


You look like a million dollars.  All green and wrinkled.


Blow it out your ear.


You should emulate your heros, but don't carry it too far.  Especially
if they are dead.


Today is the first day of the rest of the mess.


Knock, knock!
	Who's there?
Sam and Janet.
	Sam and Janet who?
Sam and Janet Evening...


Never reveal your best argument.


It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely
the most important.
		-- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Case of Identity"


You'll never see all the places, or read all the books, but fortunately,
they're not all recommended.


Are you ever going to do the dishes?  Or will you change your major to biology?


In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Mississippi has
shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles.  Therefore ... in the Old
Silurian Period the Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred
thousand miles long ... seven hundred and forty-two years from now the
Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long.  ... There is
something fascinating about science.  One gets such wholesome returns of
conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
		-- Mark Twain


Never commit yourself!  Let someone else commit you.


We know all about the habits of the ant, we know all about the habits of the
bee, but we know nothing at all about the habits of the oyster.  It seems
almost certain that we have been choosing the wrong time for studying the
oyster.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


You have many friends and very few living enemies.


You will soon forget this.


You have an ability to sense and know higher truth.


The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what
you don't like, and do what you'd rather not.
		-- Mark Twain


Of course you have a purpose -- to find a purpose.


Don't you wish you had more energy... or less ambition?


Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed
down-stairs a step at a time.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar


Always do right.  This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
		-- Mark Twain


Q:	How many journalists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	Three.  One to report it as an inspired government program to bring
	light to the people, one to report it as a diabolical government plot
	to deprive the poor of darkness, and one to win a Pulitzer prize for
	reporting that Electric Company hired a light bulb-assassin to break
	the bulb in the first place.


Good day to let down old friends who need help.


Today is what happened to yesterday.


Be careful!  UGLY strikes 9 out of 10!


You'll feel much better once you've given up hope.


Q:	How many WASPs does it take to change a light bulb?
A:	One.


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


Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must
have somebody to divide it with.
		-- Mark Twain


Everything will be just tickety-boo today.


Q:	How many IBM 370's does it take to execute a job?
A:	Four, three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off.


O, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive.
		-- Sir Walter Scott, "Marmion"


Q:	Why do mountain climbers rope themselves together?
A:	To prevent the sensible ones from going home.


Beware of a tall blond man with one black shoe.


Q:	What's yellow, and equivalent to the Axiom of Choice?
A:	Zorn's Lemon.


You have an ambitious nature and may make a name for yourself.


You're not my type.  For that matter, you're not even my species!!!


Q:	What's the difference between a dead dog in the road and a dead
	lawyer in the road?
A:	There are skid marks in front of the dog.


Is that really YOU that is reading this?


Cold hands, no gloves.


Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
		-- "Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


No violence, gentlemen -- no violence, I beg of you!  Consider the furniture!
		-- Sherlock Holmes


It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
		-- Mark Twain


Fortune: You will be attacked next Wednesday at 3:15 p.m. by six samurai
sword wielding purple fish glued to Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

Oh, and have a nice day!
		-- Bryce Nesbitt '84


Good day for a change of scene.  Repaper the bedroom wall.


I got a hint of things to come when I overheard my boss lamenting, 'The
books are done and we still don't have an author! I must sign someone
today!
		-- Tamim Ansary, "Edutopia Magazine, Issue 2, November 2004"
		   on the topic of school textbooks


FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #19
A:	To be or not to be.
Q:	What is the square root of 4b^2?


Do not sleep in a eucalyptus tree tonight.


Caution: breathing may be hazardous to your health.


All generalizations are false, including this one.
		-- Mark Twain


You will be recognized and honored as a community leader.


You can do very well in speculation where land or anything to do with dirt
is concerned.


Q:	How do you shoot a blue elephant?
A:	With a blue-elephant gun.

Q:	How do you shoot a pink elephant?
A:	Twist its trunk until it turns blue, then shoot it with
	a blue-elephant gun.


At once it struck me what quality went to form a man of achievement,
especially in literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously
-- I mean negative capability, that is, when a man is capable of being
in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching
after fact and reason.
		-- John Keats


Q:	What's a light-year?
A:	One-third less calories than a regular year.


Don't look now, but the man in the moon is laughing at you.


What no spouse of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working
when he's staring out the window.


Be careful!  UGLY strikes 9 out of 10!


The camel died quite suddenly on the second day, and Selena fretted
sullenly and, buffing her already impeccable nails -- not for the first
time since the journey begain -- pondered snidely if this would dissolve
into a vignette of minor inconveniences like all the other holidays spent
with Basil.
		-- Winning sentence, 1983 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.


Q:	What do you call a principal female opera singer whose high C
	is lower than those of other principal female opera singers?
A:	A deep C diva.


Be free and open and breezy!  Enjoy!  Things won't get any better so
get used to it.


When you are about to die, a wombat is better than no company at all.
		-- Roger Zelazny, "Doorways in the Sand"


I've touch'd the highest point of all my greatness;
And from that full meridian of my glory
I haste now to my setting.  I shall fall,
Like a bright exhalation in the evening
And no man see me more.
		-- Shakespeare


Q:	What is orange and goes "click, click?"
A:	A ball point carrot.


A visit to a fresh place will bring strange work.


Everything will be just tickety-boo today.


You can rent this space for only $5 a week.


You are as I am with You.


You will be run over by a bus.


Familiarity breeds contempt -- and children.
		-- Mark Twain


Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


All the troubles you have will pass away very quickly.


Beware of a dark-haired man with a loud tie.


Q:	What looks like a cat, flies like a bat, brays like a donkey, and
	plays like a monkey?
A:	Nothing.


You will be singled out for promotion in your work.


Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
		-- Wm. Shakespeare, "The Tempest"


"Speak, thou vast and venerable head," muttered Ahab, "which, though
ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak,
mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee.  Of all divers,
thou has dived the deepest.  That head upon which the upper sun now gleams has
moved amid the world's foundations.  Where unrecorded names and navies rust,
and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate
earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful
water-land, there was thy most familiar home.  Thou hast been where bell or
diver never went; has slept by many a sailer's side, where sleepless mothers
would give their lives to lay them down.  Thou saw'st the locked lovers when
leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting
wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them.  Thou saw'st the
murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell
into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed
on unharmed -- while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would
have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms.  O head! thou has
seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one
syllable is thine!"
		-- H. Melville, "Moby Dick"


Long life is in store for you.


Don't get stuck in a closet -- wear yourself out.


Caution: breathing may be hazardous to your health.


You will pioneer the first Martian colony.


You'd like to do it instantaneously, but that's too slow.


If two people love each other, there can be no happy end to it.
		-- Ernest Hemingway


Q:	How many Californians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	Five.  One to screw in the light bulb and four to share the
		experience.  (Actually, Californians don't screw in
		light bulbs, they screw in hot tubs.)

Q:	How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	Three.  One to screw in the light bulb and two to fend off all
		those Californians trying to share the experience.


Q:	How was Thomas J. Watson buried?
A:	9 edge down.


Are you a turtle?


Many enraged psychiatrists are inciting a weary butcher.  The butcher is
weary and tired because he has cut meat and steak and lamb for hours and
weeks.  He does not desire to chant about anything with raving psychiatrists,
but he sings about his gingivectomist, he dreams about a single cosmologist,
he thinks about his dog.  The dog is named Herbert.
		-- Racter, "The Policeman's Beard is Half-Constructed"


There is an old time toast which is golden for its beauty.
"When you ascend the hill of prosperity may you not meet a friend."
		-- Mark Twain


You are fairminded, just and loving.


Q:	What do they call the alphabet in Arkansas?
A:	The impossible dream.


You will hear good news from one you thought unfriendly to you.


Of course you have a purpose -- to find a purpose.


Afternoon very favorable for romance.  Try a single person for a change.


You had some happiness once, but your parents moved away, and you had to
leave it behind.


You will contract a rare disease.


Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to.
		-- Mark Twain


You will be surprised by a loud noise.


Better hope the life-inspector doesn't come around while you have your
life in such a mess.


Keep it short for pithy sake.


You are destined to become the commandant of the fighting men of the
department of transportation.


Sometimes I wonder if I'm in my right mind.  Then it passes off and I'm
as intelligent as ever.
		-- Samuel Beckett, "Endgame"


Learn to pause -- or nothing worthwhile can catch up to you.


You plan things that you do not even attempt because of your extreme caution.


You will have a long and boring life.


I think we are in Rats' Alley where the dead men lost their bones.
		-- T.S. Eliot


Good news from afar can bring you a welcome visitor.


You see, I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty
attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.  A fool
takes in all the lumber of every sort he comes across, so that the knowledge
which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with
a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty in laying his hands upon it.
Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his
brain-attic.  He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing
his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect
order.  It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and
can distend to any extent.  Depend upon it there comes a time when for every
addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before.  It is of
the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out
the useful ones.
		-- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Study in Scarlet"


It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three benefits:
freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never to use either.
		-- Mark Twain


You will be run over by a bus.


Q:	Why did the lone ranger kill Tonto?
A:	He found out what "kimosabe" really means.


Your love life will be... interesting.


Condense soup, not books!


The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
		-- Mark Twain


The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the
difference between lightning and the lightning bug.
		-- Mark Twain


Give your very best today.  Heaven knows it's little enough.


You will attract cultured and artistic people to your home.


Noise proves nothing.  Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles
as if she laid an asteroid.
		-- Mark Twain


Never laugh at live dragons.
		-- Bilbo Baggins [J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Hobbit"]


Q:	How do you play religious roulette?
A:	You stand around in a circle and blaspheme and see who gets
	struck by lightning first.


Fortune: You will be attacked next Wednesday at 3:15 p.m. by six samurai
sword wielding purple fish glued to Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

Oh, and have a nice day!
		-- Bryce Nesbitt '84


Q:	"What is the burning question on the mind of every dyslexic
	existentialist?"
A:	"Is there a dog?"


Just to have it is enough.


Be security conscious -- National defense is at stake.


You're at the end of the road again.


Beware of low-flying butterflies.


Q:	Why is it that the more accuracy you demand from an interpolation
	function, the more expensive it becomes to compute?
A:	That's the Law of Spline Demand.


Your sister swims out to meet troop ships.


No violence, gentlemen -- no violence, I beg of you!  Consider the furniture!
		-- Sherlock Holmes


If you stand on your head, you will get footprints in your hair.


Are you a turtle?


Tell the truth or trump--but get the trick.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


Your society will be sought by people of taste and refinement.


You will live a long, healthy, happy life and make bags of money.


Don't you wish you had more energy... or less ambition?


Today is the first day of the rest of the mess.


Swerve me?  The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails,
whereon my soul is grooved to run.  Over unsounded gorges, through
the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush!
		-- Captain Ahab, "Moby Dick"


Excellent time to become a missing person.


You love peace.


Don't go surfing in South Dakota for a while.


Don't read any sky-writing for the next two weeks.


You have taken yourself too seriously.


Good news from afar can bring you a welcome visitor.


Q:	How many existentialists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	Two.  One to screw it in and one to observe how the light bulb
	itself symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective
	reality in a netherworld of endless absurdity reaching out toward a
	maudlin cosmos of nothingness.


Q:	Why do people who live near Niagara Falls have flat foreheads?
A:	Because every morning they wake up thinking "What *is* that noise?
	Oh, right, *of course*!


You will be recognized and honored as a community leader.


I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know.
		-- Mark Twain


You're being followed.  Cut out the hanky-panky for a few days.


Look afar and see the end from the beginning.


Don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon.


You will be the victim of a bizarre joke.


Today is what happened to yesterday.


Fine day for friends.
So-so day for you.


You will step on the night soil of many countries.


Questionable day.

Ask somebody something.


In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of
24 hours.
		-- Mark Twain, on New England weather


You learn to write as if to someone else because NEXT YEAR YOU WILL BE
"SOMEONE ELSE."


Just to have it is enough.


You have a strong desire for a home and your family interests come first.


Your heart is pure, and your mind clear, and your soul devout.


As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


Every cloud engenders not a storm.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI"


Q:	What is green and lives in the ocean?
A:	Moby Pickle.


Don't go around saying the world owes you a living.  The world owes you
nothing.  It was here first.
		-- Mark Twain


The time is right to make new friends.


Q:	Why did the germ cross the microscope?
A:	To get to the other slide.


You're ugly and your mother dresses you funny.


Chicken Little only has to be right once.


The notes blatted skyward as they rose over the Canada geese, feathered
rumps mooning the day, webbed appendages frantically pedaling unseen
bicycles in their search for sustenance, driven by cruel Nature's maxim,
'Ya wanna eat, ya gotta work,' and at last I knew Pittsburgh.
		-- Winning sentence, 1987 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.


Afternoon very favorable for romance.  Try a single person for a change.


By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity.  Another man's, I mean.
		-- Mark Twain


You possess a mind not merely twisted, but actually sprained.


Q:	What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming over the hill?
A:	"The elephants are coming over the hill."

Q:	What did he say when saw them coming over the hill wearing
		sunglasses?
A:	Nothing, for he didn't recognize them.


Do not overtax your powers.


Excellent time to become a missing person.


Q:	How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	None.  The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out
	of the way.


Q:	What do you call the scratches that you get when a female
	sheep bites you?
A:	Ewe nicks.


Your boss climbed the corporate ladder, wrong by wrong.


At once it struck me what quality went to form a man of achievement,
especially in literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously
-- I mean negative capability, that is, when a man is capable of being
in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching
after fact and reason.
		-- John Keats


Sometimes I wonder if I'm in my right mind.  Then it passes off and I'm
as intelligent as ever.
		-- Samuel Beckett, "Endgame"


You don't become a failure until you're satisfied with being one.


The last thing one knows in constructing a work is what to put first.
		-- Blaise Pascal


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


The only people for me are the mad ones -- the ones who are mad to live,
mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time,
the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn
like fabulous yellow Roman candles.
		-- Jack Kerouac, "On the Road"


Q:	How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	Three.  One to screw in the light bulb and two to fend off all those
	Californians trying to share the experience.


Tempt not a desperate man.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet"


Q:	How many elephants can you fit in a VW Bug?
A:	Four.  Two in the front, two in the back.

Q:	How can you tell if an elephant is in your refrigerator?
A:	There's a footprint in the mayo.

Q:	How can you tell if two elephants are in your refrigerator?
A:	There's two footprints in the mayo.

Q:	How can you tell if three elephants are in your refrigerator?
A:	The door won't shut.

Q:	How can you tell if four elephants are in your refrigerator?
A:	There's a VW Bug in your driveway.


For a light heart lives long.
		-- Shakespeare, "Love's Labour's Lost"


It's lucky you're going so slowly, because you're going in the wrong direction.


Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must
have somebody to divide it with.
		-- Mark Twain


The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.
		-- John Milton


Celebrate Hannibal Day this year.  Take an elephant to lunch.


Too much is just enough.
		-- Mark Twain, on whiskey


You will be winged by an anti-aircraft battery.


Perfect day for scrubbing the floor and other exciting things.


You now have Asian Flu.


Hope that the day after you die is a nice day.


October.

This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in.

The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June,
December, August, and February.

		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


You are farsighted, a good planner, an ardent lover, and a faithful friend.


Q:	What's the difference betweeen USL and the Graf Zeppelin?
A:	The Graf Zeppelin represented cutting edge technology for its time.


Your boyfriend takes chocolate from strangers.


Q:	What do you call the money you pay to the government when
	you ride into the country on the back of an elephant?
A:	A howdah duty.


Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more
deadly in the long run.
		-- Mark Twain


Don't get to bragging.


Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy.


Anyone who has had a bull by the tail knows five or six more things
than someone who hasn't.
		-- Mark Twain


Q:	How many hardware engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
A:	None.  We'll fix it in software.

Q:	How many system programmers does it take to change a light bulb?
A:	None.  The application can work around it.

Q:	How many software engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
A:	None.  We'll document it in the manual.

Q:	How many tech writers does it take to change a light bulb?
A:	None.  The user can figure it out.


Living your life is a task so difficult, it has never been attempted before.


You are not dead yet.  But watch for further reports.


A visit to a fresh place will bring strange work.


You could live a better life, if you had a better mind and a better body.


Patch griefs with proverbs.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Much Ado About Nothing"


If you think last Tuesday was a drag, wait till you see what happens tomorrow!


What happened last night can happen again.


You will be held hostage by a radical group.


Q:	How many Harvard MBA's does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	Just one.  He grasps it firmly and the universe revolves around him.


O, it is excellent
To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
		-- Shakespeare, "Measure for Measure", II, 2


It is a wise father that knows his own child.
		-- William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice"


For years a secret shame destroyed my peace--
I'd not read Eliot, Auden or MacNiece.
But now I think a thought that brings me hope:
Neither had Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope.
		-- Justin Richardson.


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


Your lucky number is 3552664958674928.  Watch for it everywhere.


Go not to the elves for counsel, for they will say both yes and no.
		-- J.R.R. Tolkien


Q:	Why do mountain climbers rope themselves together?
A:	To prevent the sensible ones from going home.


Q:	How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?
A:	Two, one to hold the giraffe, and the other to fill the bathtub
	with brightly colored machine tools.

	[Surrealist jokes just aren't my cup of fur.  Ed.]


You plan things that you do not even attempt because of your extreme caution.


If your life was a horse, you'd have to shoot it.


Q:	How many Californians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	Five.  One to screw in the light bulb and four to share the
		experience.  (Actually, Californians don't screw in
		light bulbs, they screw in hot tubs.)

Q:	How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	Three.  One to screw in the light bulb and two to fend off all
		those Californians trying to share the experience.


Your talents will be recognized and suitably rewarded.


Your temporary financial embarrassment will be relieved in a surprising manner.


The camel died quite suddenly on the second day, and Selena fretted
sullenly and, buffing her already impeccable nails -- not for the first
time since the journey begain -- pondered snidely if this would dissolve
into a vignette of minor inconveniences like all the other holidays spent
with Basil.
		-- Winning sentence, 1983 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.


It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion
that makes horse-races.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


Extreme fear can neither fight nor fly.
		-- William Shakespeare, "The Rape of Lucrece"


Better hope the life-inspector doesn't come around while you have your
life in such a mess.


You're currently going through a difficult transition period called "Life."


Things past redress and now with me past care.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Richard II"


Your love life will be happy and harmonious.


Give your very best today.  Heaven knows it's little enough.


If you sow your wild oats, hope for a crop failure.


Wagner's music is better than it sounds.
		-- Mark Twain


Think twice before speaking, but don't say "think think click click".


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


Is this really happening?


You have had a long-term stimulation relative to business.


Your life would be very empty if you had nothing to regret.


Q:	How did you get into artificial intelligence?
A:	Seemed logical -- I didn't have any real intelligence.


Q:	How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:	None.  The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out
	of the way.


Many enraged psychiatrists are inciting a weary butcher.  The butcher is
weary and tired because he has cut meat and steak and lamb for hours and
weeks.  He does not desire to chant about anything with raving psychiatrists,
but he sings about his gingivectomist, he dreams about a single cosmologist,
he thinks about his dog.  The dog is named Herbert.
		-- Racter, "The Policeman's Beard is Half-Constructed"


The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"


When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


Q:	How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?
A:	One.  Only it's his light bulb when he's done.


You are confused; but this is your normal state.


You will be imprisoned for contributing your time and skill to a bank robbery.


There is an old time toast which is golden for its beauty.
"When you ascend the hill of prosperity may you not meet a friend."
		-- Mark Twain


You will have a long and unpleasant discussion with your supervisor.


Your aim is high and to the right.


There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted
armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.
		-- Ernest Hemingway


It may or may not be worthwhile, but it still has to be done.


But, for my own part, it was Greek to me.
		-- William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"


Good day for overcoming obstacles.  Try a steeplechase.


Don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon.


It's all in the mind, ya know.


"What's this?  Trix?  Aunt!  Trix?  You?  You're after the prize!  What
is it?"  He picked up the box and studied the back.  "A glow-in-the-dark
squid!  Have you got it out of there yet?"  He tilted the box, angling the
little colored balls of cereal so as to see the bottom, and nearly spilling
them onto the table top.  "Here it is!"  He hauled out a little cream-colored,
glitter-sprinkled squid, three-inches long and made out of rubbery plastic.
		-- James P. Blaylock, "The Last Coin"


All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"--a strange complaint to come from
the mouths of people who have had to live.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


Beware the one behind you.


Sheriff Chameleotoptor sighed with an air of weary sadness, and then
turned to Doppelgutt and said 'The Senator must really have been on a
bender this time -- he left a party in Cleveland, Ohio, at 11:30 last
night, and they found his car this morning in the smokestack of a British
aircraft carrier in the Formosa Straits.'
		-- Grand Panjandrum's Special Award, 1985 Bulwer-Lytton
		   bad fiction contest.


Excellent day to have a rotten day.


Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be
sorry.
		-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


Q:	What is green and lives in the ocean?
A:	Moby Pickle.


Q:	What do you say to a New Yorker with a job?
A:	Big Mac, fries and a Coke, please!


Your sister swims out to meet troop ships.


Don't look now, but the man in the moon is laughing at you.


You will stop at nothing to reach your objective, but only because your
brakes are defective.


Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late.
		-- Mark Twain


The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven.
		-- Mark Twain


A gift of a flower will soon be made to you.


Your mode of life will be changed for the better because of new developments.


Q:	How can you tell when a Burroughs salesman is lying?
A:	When his lips move.


Truth is the most valuable thing we have -- so let us economize it.
		-- Mark Twain


Good day to let down old friends who need help.


You get along very well with everyone except animals and people.