Wolcott Gibbs on Thomas Dewey

"Dewey, whose indifference to money is such that he can remember offhand how much he was making at any given day in his life . . . ."

[Dewey, District Attorney at the time, responded to Gibbs' criticism by having Gibbs' bank account impounded.]


from "Backwards Ran Sentences: The Best of Wolcott Gibbs"

is it me, or the universe?

Philip K. Dick's daughter on the arrogant component of her father's mystical experience:

"Wouldn't you have gone to the doctor? I'd have thought something was wrong with me."

On Irony Highway

Truck stopped, out of gas, on freeway off-ramp, with logo: West Coast Logistics, Inc.

"There are hardly five critics in America, and several of them are asleep." -- Herman Melville

(cited by Sam Allingham at The Millions)

Where are the sexy policemen, nurses & firemen the rest of the year when you really need them?

                            -- Sarah Silverman.

"oh, that's right . . ."

Grant Brisbee on Game 5 of 2011 World Series:

Let's say there's a guy with some known quirks and flaws. For La Russa, it's compulsive bullpenning and small ball. For the analogy, say it's a guy who is scared of spiders. Doesn't like spiders. Can't deal with spiders. Most of the time, no one cares too much. It's caused some embarrassment here and there, but that's about it.


Then one day, our arachnophobe is making a delivery to the Sistine Chapel while it's being restored, and he sees a spider, and he freaks out and jumps back right into the scaffolding, and the workers restoring the Sistine Chapel tumble down screaming, but not before someone, desperately grabbing at the air, knocks a can of paint up and it splatters all over The Last Judgment, and the scaffolding crashes into a heap with people flying everywhere, with the screaming, oh god, the screaming, and stained glass windows are shattering, and there are also banana cream pies flying everywhere because, oh, that's right, the guy who was scared of spiders was delivering banana cream pies at the time.

That was Game 5. It was the perfect storm to magnify Tony La Russa's strategic quirks. With two straight wins, everyone will forget about this. Without those wins, they're the story of the World Series.
 
http://mlb.sbnation.com/2011/10/25/2512429/2011-world-series-tony-la-russa-decisions-genius

Richard Stark: Simple and pure.

"Be right back honey." She twisted the last word like a knife.

Bad dreams.

Bad dream tonight, but a bad dream with some really cute baby chicks thrown in.

Favorite lyric from the band Andrew Jackson Jihad:

"Angels are hating on you."

One good thing about having a Mormon President: we'd have a First Lady, and a Second Lady, and a Third . . . .

"I wish I had more fun in college.  Today's students are more lighthearted, which should stand them in good stead when they are unemployed."

    Walter Mondale on the life of the college student today.

Robert Benchley says . . .

"If Mr. Einstein doesn't like the natual laws of the universe, let him go back to where he came from."

OTSOG

I was thrilled that you put it in footnotes, because every generous footnote now is a blow to reclaim footnotes from the judgment of an ill-informed audience that believes that David Foster Wallace invented them and therefore no one else gets to use them. This in a world where Nicholson Baker plainly invented the footnote!

Jonathan Lethem, to Geoff Dyer in BOMB Magazine #117, temporarily online:  http://bombsite.com/issues/117/articles/5988

But also

His tongue was a more potent weapon than his penis, or so it seemed to be during this period of his life . . . his tongue was always capable of thrusting, curling and whirling its way into her good graces; and as his mouth was upon her he was conscious not only of the luxuriance of her loins but also that he was making a literary connection with Henry Miller.

Gay Talese, describing a college-aged Al Goldstein.

Telephone conversation overheard on line in a museum:
Do you have those little signs that you put on cheeses?