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. . . MOVIE DIALOGUE see "ACTORS" for related links (Alphabetical by title of film) - "Surely you're joking" "No, I'm dead serious, and don't call me Shirley" --Jim Abrahams, David & Jerry Zucker, screenplay, "Airplane!" [1980] - That's, uh, quite a dress you almost have on. --Alan Jay Lerner (19181986) American playwright and lyricist. "An American in Paris" [1951] (Gene Kelly to Nina Foch) - [Mrs. Whitehead (Margaret Irving) :] Why, that's bigamy. [Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding Groucho Marx):] Yes, and it's big of me too. --"Animal Crackers" [1930] Screenplay by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. [Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding (Groucho Marx):] Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas, and how he got in my pajamas I'll never know. --"Animal Crackers" [1930] Screenplay by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. - Nora Charles: "It says you were shot four times in the tabloids." Nick Charles: "That's ridiculous. They never came near my tabloids." _Another Thin Man_ [1939] - You'd think I would have learned by now when you're in love with a married man, you shouldn't wear mascara. --Billy Wilder and I. Diamond, screenplay, "The Apartment" [1960] - She tried to sit in my lap while I was standing up. --Philip Marlowe (Bogart) in "The Big Sleep" [1946], novel by Raymond Chandler, script by William Faulkner. - [The Waco Kid (Gene Wilder):] You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new west. You know morons. --Mel Brooks (1926 ) American actor, writer, and director. "Blazing Saddles" [1974 movie] [Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman) describing a gang of thugs:] ... rusters, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers, and Methodists. --Mel Brooks (1926 ) American actor, writer, and director. "Blazing Saddles" [1974 movie] - [Butch Cassidy, played by Paul Newman:] If he'd just pay me what he's paying them to stop me robbing him, I'd stop robbing him! --"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" [1969] Screenplay by William Goldman. - ILSA: A franc for your thoughts. RICK: In America they bring only a penny. (laughs) I guess that's about all they're worth. ILSA: I'm willing to be overcharged. --Julius J. Epstein (19092000), Philip G. Epstein (19091952), and Howard Koch (19021995) "Casablanca" [1942]. (Dialogue between Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) and Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman.) ILSA: Play it once, Sam, for old times' sake. SAM: I don't know what you mean, Miss Ilsa. ILSA: Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.' --ibid. Spoken by Ingrid Bergman and Dooley Wilson. Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. --ibid. Rick speaking Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains) speaking: Major Strasser has been shot! . . . Round up the usual suspects. --ibid. I'm shocked, *shocked* to find that gambling is going on in here! --ibid. Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains) speaking. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine! --ibid. Rick speaking - [Mr. Bernstein (Everett Sloan) speaking:] Old age. It's the only disease . . . that you don't look forward to being cured of. --"Citizen Kane" [1941] Screenplay by Herman Mankiewicz and Orson Welles. - [Captain, played by Strother Martin:] What we've got here is failure to communicate. --"Cool Hand Luke" [1967] Screenplay by Frank R. Pierson - [Dundee is threatened by a mugger with a switchblade] Charlton: Mick, give him your wallet. Dundee: What for? Charlton: He's got a knife. Dundee: [chuckling] That's not a knife. Dundee: [Dundee draws a very large Bowie knife] Dundee: *That's* a knife. [Dundee slashes the teen mugger's jacket. He and his friends run away] Dundee: Just kids having fun. You alright? Charlton: I'm always all right when I'm with you Dundee. --Dialogue "Crocodile Dundee" [1986 movie] Screenwriters: John Cornell, Paul Hogan and Ken Shadie. - [Robert Gold (Dirk Bogarde), speaking to Diana Scott (Julie Christie):] Your idea of fidelity is not having more than one man in bed at the same time. --"Darling" [1965] - Either he's dead, or my watch has stopped. --George Seaton (19111979) American screenwriter, director, and producer. Screenplay for _A Day at the Races_ [1937], spoken by Groucho Marx (feeling for a pulse.) - Come up and see me sometime. --Mae West (18931980) American stage and film actress. "Diamond Lil" [1932 play.] - Kitty Packard (Jean Harlow): I was reading a book the other day. Carlotta Vance (Marie Dressler): Reading a book? Kitty: Yes. It's all about civilization or something. A nutty kind of a book. Do you know that the guy said that machinery is going to take the place of every profession? Carlotta: Oh my dear, that's something you need never worry about. --"Dinner at Eight" [1933] Screenplay by Frances Marion and Herman Mankiewicz. - [Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood), while holding a gun to a bank robber's head:] I know what you're thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya punk? --"Dirty Harry" [1971] Screenplay by Harry Julian Fink. - [Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx):] Will you marry me? Did he leave you any money? Answer the second question first. --"Duck Soup" [1933 film] Screenplay by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. [Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx):] I could dance with you till the cows come home. On second thought, I'd rather dance with the cows till you come home. --"Duck Soup" [1933 film] Screenplay by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. [Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx):] Chicolini here may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot, but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot. --"Duck Soup" [1933 film] Screenplay by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. [Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx):] Remember you're fighting for this woman's honor, which is probably more than she ever did. --"Duck Soup" [1933 film] Screenplay by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. - Flash! Flash! I love you but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth! --Michael Allin and Lorenzo Semple Jr, screenplay, "Flash Gordon" [1980] - You've got to go on, and you've got to give and give and give...And Sawyer, you're going out a youngster but you've *got* to come back a star! --James Seymour, screenplay, "Forty-Second Street" [1933] [Warner Baxter to Ruby Keeler] - Can I offer you anything? Frosted chocolate? Cointreau? Benedictine? Marriage? --Guy Holden (Fred Astaire), _The Gay Divorcee_ [1934 film] - I wish I could care what you do or where you go but I can't . . . My dear, I don't give a damn. --Margaret Mitchell (19001949) American novelist. "Gone with the Wind" [1936] (Spoken by Rhett Butler in ch. 57.) - [Professor Wagstaff, (Groucho Marx) :] I'd horsewhip you if I had a horse. --"Horse Feathers" [1932] Screenplay by Will B. Johnstone, Bert Kalmar, S.J. Perelman, and Harry Ruby. [Professor Wagstaff, (Groucho Marx) :] Baravelli, you've got the brain of four-year-old boy, and I bet he was glad to get rid of it. --"Horse Feathers" [1932] Screenplay by Will B. Johnstone, Bert Kalmar, S.J. Perelman, and Harry Ruby. Professor Wagstaff (Groucho Marx) [to the audience] as Chico began the play the piano: "I've got to stay here, but there's no reason why you folks can't go out into the lobby until this thing blows over." --"Horse Feathers" [1932] Screenplay by Will B. Johnstone, Bert Kalmar, S.J. Perelman, and Harry Ruby. Wagstaff (Groucho Marx): I'm fine, thanks, who are you? Baravelli (Chico Marx ): I'm fine too, but you can't come in unless you give the password. Wagstaff: Well, what is the password?... Wagstaff: I got it! Haddock! Baravelli: That's-a funny. I gotta haddock, too. Wagstaff: What do you take for a haddock? Baravelli: Well-a, sometimes I take-a aspirin, sometimes I take-a Calamel. Wagstaff: Say, I'd walk a mile for a Calamel. Baravelli : You mean chocolate calamel. I like that too, but you no guess it. Hey, what's-a matter, you no understand English? You can't come in here unless you say "swordfish." Now I'll give you one more guess. --"Horse Feathers" [1932] Screenplay by Will B. Johnstone, Bert Kalmar, S.J. Perelman, and Harry Ruby. - [Tira, played by Mae West, speaking:] She's the kind of girl who climbed the ladder of success, wrong by wrong. --Mae West (18931980) American stage and film actress. "I'm No Angel" [1933 film] - Elsa: [kissing Indiana Jones] Zat's how Austrians say goodbye. Colonel Vogel: Und zis is how ve zay goodbye in Germany, Dr. Jones. [punches Indy with the head of his cane.] Indiana Jones: I liked the Austrian way better. --Dialogue, "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" [1989] - [Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) speaking:] Oh, no. It wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast. --"King Kong" [1933] Screenplay by James Creelman and Ruth Rose. - [Reg, played by John Cleese, speaking:] All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us? --"Life of Brian" [1979 movie] - [Groucho Marx speaking:] I worked myself up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty. --"Monkey Business" [1931] Screenplay by Will B. Johnstone and S.J. Perelman. - [Flower Belle Lee (Mae West) speaking:] I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it. --Mae West (18931980) American stage and film actress. "My Little Chickadee" [1940 film] - [Narrator Mark Hellinger speaking:] There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them. --"The Naked City" [1948] Screenplay by Marvin Wald and Albert Maltz. - [In reply to 'Goodness, what beautiful diamonds!' Mandie Triplett replies:] 'Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.' --Mae West (18931980) American stage and film actress. "Night After Night" [1932 film] - You're willing to pay him a thousand dollars a night just to sing? Why, you could get a phonograph record of Minnie the Moocher for seventy-five cents! For a buck and a half you can get Minnie! --Groucho Marx (18951977) American film comedian. "A Night at the Opera" - In the world of advertising, there's no such thing as a lie. There's only expedient exaggeration. --Roger Thornhill, a character played by Cary Grant in "North By Northwest", [1959] Written by Ernest Lehman & directed by Alfred Hitchcock Eve Kendall: It's going to be a long night. Roger Thornhill: True. EK: And I don't particularly like the book I've started. RT: Ah. EK: You know what I mean? RT: Ah, let me think. Yes, I know exactly what you mean. --Eve Kendall and Roger Thornhill, characters played by Eva Marie Saint and Cary Grant in "North By Northwest." - I could've been a contender. I could've had class and been somebody. Real class. Instead of a bum, let's face it, which is what I am. --Budd Schulberg (19142009) Screenplay for "On the Waterfront" [1954], spoken by Marlon Brando. - George Taylor (Charleton Heston) speaking:] Get your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape! --"Planet of the Apes" [1968] Screenplay by Rod Serling and Michael Wilson. - [Lady Lou, played by Mae West, speaking:] Why don't you come up sometime and see me? --Mae West (18931980) American stage and film actress. "She Done Him Wrong" [1933 film] - I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti. --Ted Tally (1952 ) American playwright and screenwriter. Screenplay _The Silence of the Lambs_ [1991 film] - [Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown) forgiving his fiancιe's admission on being a man:] Well, nobody's perfect. --"Some Like It Hot" [1959] Screenplay by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond. - I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. --Tennessee Williams [Thomas Lanier Williams] (19111983) American dramatist. (Blanche DuBois' final words, in "A Streetcar Named Desire.") & note: You cannot imagine the kindness I've received at the hands of perfect strangers. --W. Somerset Maugham (18741965) English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer. _The Narrow Corner_, ch. 15 [1932] You know what luck is? Luck is believing you're lucky, that's all. --dialogue, Marlon Brando speaking in, "A Streetcar Named Desire" [1951 film]. - The day we stop playing is the day we start growing old. --"Mr. Bloom" (Scatman Crothers) [In the "Kick The Can" segment of the film, _The Twilight Zone: The Movie_ [1983]; screenplay by George Clayton Johnson, Richard Matheson and Melissa Mathison.] - [Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton):] I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too. --"The Wizard Of Oz" [1939] Screenplay by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf. [Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland):] Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh my! --"The Wizard Of Oz" [1939] Screenplay by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf. ["The Wizard" (Frank Morgan) speaking:] As for you, my galvanized friend, you want a heart. You don't know how lucky you are not to have one. Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable. --"The Wizard Of Oz" [1939] Screenplay by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf. [Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton):] I'm melting! I'm melting! Oh, what a world! What a world! --"The Wizard Of Oz" [1939] Screenplay by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf. -  . . see "ACTORS" for related links [Headline about rural filmgoers' rejection of motion pictures about rural life:] Sticks Nix Hick Pix. --Abel Green (19001973) American journalist. "Variety" [17 July 1935] ....a travel-poster panorama of fresh young faces, firm young bodies and good old Florida sunshine. --Time film review , "Where the Boys Are" Trivia: A couple of years after the release of this, the original beach party picture, leading lady Dolores Hart joined a convent and became a nun. - REVIEWS AT: http://www.mrqe.com/lookup  . . see "ACTORS" for related links see "ENTERTAINMENT, HOBBIES, & LEISURE ACTIVITIES" for related links - There's no bus'ness like show bus'ness, Like no bus'ness I know. Ev'rything about it is appealing, Ev'rything the traffic will allow. Nowhere could you get that happy feeling When you are stealing that extra bow. [...] Even with a turkey that you know will fold, You may be stranded out in the cold, Still you wouldn't trade it for a sack of gold. Let's go on with the show, Let's go on with the show! --Irving Berlin (18881989) American songwriter. "There's No Business like Show Business" [1946 song] What is the toughest thing about making film? Putting in the little holes. The sprocket holes are the worst. Everything else is easy, but all night you have to sit with that little puncher and make the holes on the side of the film. You could faint from that work. The rest is easy. The script is easy, the acting is easy, the directing is a breeze... but the sprockets will tear your heart out. --Mel Brooks (1926 ) American actor, writer, and director. If my books had been any worse, I should not have been invited to Hollywood, and if they had been any better, I should not have come. --Raymond Chandler (18881959) American writer of detective fiction. Letter to Charles W. Morton [12 December 1945]. "Gone With the Wind" is going to be the biggest flop in Hollywood history. I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling flat on his face and not Gary Cooper. --Gary Cooper (19011961) American film actor. After Gable's acceptance of the Rhett Butler role Cooper had turned down. In Larry Swindell _The Last Hero: A Biography of Gary Cooper_ [1980]. What do you want me to do? Stop shooting now and release it as The Five Commandments? --Cecil B. DeMille (18811959) American filmmaker. (After Paramount Pictures' Adolph Zukor had protested at the escalating costs of the production of the 1923 version of "The Ten Commandments.") ^ --John Ford (18951973) American film director, notable for his westerns. While Ford was directing a film for Sam Goldwyn, the shooting schedule fell one day behind. Goldwyn visited the set, pointed out this fact, and inquired what the director was going to do about it. 'Sam, about how many script pages do you think I should shoot a day?' asked Ford. 'About five,' was the rather uncertain response. Ford picked up the script and ripped out five pages. 'Okay,' he said, 'now we're on schedule.' --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ You know, when I first went into the movies Lionel Barrymore played my grandfather. Later he played my father and finally he played my husband. If he had lived, I'm sure I would have played his mother. That's the way it is in Hollywood. The men get younger and the women get older. --Lillian Gish (18961993) American stage and movie actress. Quoted in Abby Adams _An Uncommon Scold_ [1989]. - Pictures are for entertainment, messages should be delivered by Western Union. --Samuel Goldwyn [Schmuel Gelbfisz] (18821974) American film producer. On preachy films, in Arthur Marx, _Goldwyn: The Man behind the Myth_, Ch. 15 [1976]. Why should people go out and pay to see bad movies when they can stay at home and see bad television for nothing? --Samuel Goldwyn [Schmuel Gelbfisz] (18821974) American film producer. In _Observer_ [9 September 1956]. On a film set of a tenement... Goldwyn: Why is everything so dirty here? Director: Because it's supposed to be a slum area. Goldwyn: Well, this slum cost a lot of money. It should look better than an ordinary slum. --Samuel Goldwyn [Schmuel Gelbfisz] (18821974) American film producer. - The Donald Spoto biography of Hitchcock was absolute nonsense. Hitchcock couldn't have been a nicer fellow. I whistled coming to work on his films. --Cary Grant [Alexander Archibald Leach] (19041986) English actor. In "Variety" [6 December 1983]. ^ Nigel Hawthorne (19292001) British actor. Hawthorne had played many roles before rocketing to fame in the United States in the movie "The Madness of King George III," in which he played the title role. Hawthorne's opinion of his American audience can be guessed by his comment to Samuel Goldwyn, Jr., to whom he said, 'That title is no good for America. They'll stay away thinking they've missed parts one and two.' --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ Movies are one of the bad habits that corrupted our century. They have slapped into the American mind more misinformation in one evening than the Dark Ages could muster in a decade. --Ben Hecht (18931964) American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. _A Child of the Century_ [1954] They are doing things on the screen now that I wouldn't do in bed, if I could. --Bob [Leslie Townes] Hope (19032003) British-born American entertainer and actor. 1965 attributed remark. The late Pauline Kael, many years ago, was asked how movies affected political opinions. They had no influence on politics, she said, but in private life they were crucial. She could remember when the first great performances of Cary Grant in the 1930s transformed the behavior of boys. By his example, Grant taught boys the essence of suave behavior on a date. No one ever did anything nicer for girls. "Every boy became a better date," as Kael recalled. --Robert Fulford, "Always settle scores at noon: And other lessons learned at the movies", _National Post_, [9 September 2008] The immense popularity of American movies abroad demonstrates that Europe is the unfinished negative of which America is the proof. --Mary McCarthy (19121989) American novelist. "American the Beautiful: The Humanist in the Bathtub" [1947] If we'd had as many soldiers as that, we'd have won the war! --Margaret Mitchell (19001949) American novelist. After seeing "Gone With the Wind." In W.G. Harris _Gable and Lombard_ [1976]. - Janet Leigh, Hollywood's perfect "nice girl" ingenue who memorably changed her acting image and earned an Academy Award nomination with her bloodcurdling screams as she was stabbed to death in Alfred Hitchcock's classic "Psycho," has died. She was 77. [...] "Psycho," with its fatal shower scene that tantalized viewers' imaginations, was unquestionably the zenith of Leigh's prolific motion pictures. Leigh, offered the script by Hitchcock, was so convinced the role as embezzling office worker Marion Crane would establish her as a major dramatic actress that she agreed to work for one-quarter of her usual $100,000 fee. The gamble paid off. [. . . ] To shoot the scene, Leigh spent seven days in the shower on camera while Hitchcock amassed more than 70 takes of two and three seconds each. The work was easy, she said in her book, until the last 20 seconds, when her face had to reflect her realization that her bloody death was imminent. Once she saw the finished picture, Leigh often said, she abandoned showers for life. --By Myrna Oliver _Los Angeles Times_ [October 5, 2004] "Janet Leigh, 77; Memorable Shower Scene in 'Psycho' Established Her as a Major Star" - - kap goes to the movies in this 2000 post to USENET: One Friday in 1960 my mother took me to the movie 'Psycho' we both loved Hitchcock movies and I'm sure she didn't realize the macabre nature of that film. Anyway, after the movie we had plans to drive to Vermont. We stopped at a small motel which was eerily similar to the 'Bates Motel'. If you ever saw 'Psycho', you will believe that neither mother nor son slept a wink that night. kap - South Sea natives who have been exposed to American movies classify them into two types, 'kiss-kiss' and 'bang-bang'. --Hortense Powdermaker (18961970) American anthropologist. _Hollywood, The Dream Factory_, introduction [1950] To be completely candid, I think most movies nowadays are trash, and many strike me as unhealthy. The explicit sex, pointless violence, and crude language appeal only to our lowest instincts. They have taken away our idealism, our sense of fun and joy. It's chic to be cynical and tear our heroes down. What has happened to us? And what are we doing to our young people? --Nancy Reagan nθe Davis (1923 ) Wife of President Ronald Reagan. _Nancy_ [1980] The Communist plan for Hollywood was remarkably simple. It was merely to take over the motion picture business. Not only for its profit, as the hoodlums had tried but also for a grand worldwide propaganda base. --Ronald Reagan (19112004) American President [19811989] and former Hollywood actor. _Where's the Rest of Me?_ [1965] Some of my best leading men have been dogs and horses. --Elizabeth Taylor (1932 ) American motion-picture actress. I wouldn't pay $50,000 for any damn book, any time. --Jack Warner [John Leonard Eichelbaum] (18921978) Canadian-born co-founder of Warner Brothers. Turning down the chance to film "Gone With the Wind," quoted in Max Wilk _The Wit and Wisdom of Hollywood_ [1971]. When celluloid and fags first embarked on their epic journey together, cigarettes signified all kinds of things. Sometimes they signified that you were cool (Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story); other times they implied that you were a red-hot she-cat (Rita Hayworth in Gilda). They were called upon to denote age, wisdom, rough and toughness, weary nonchalance (Humphrey Bogart), and simultaneously though not usually in the same film to bestow youthful, almost adolescent, innocence, naivety and elfin charm (Audrey Hepburn). In old movies, in other words, everyone with a personality smokes. Not smoking in a 1940s film is like being black in a 1990s film: it means you're evil, or you're not very important and you'll probably die halfway through. --Zoe Williams, "Fag End of Fashion", _The New Statesman_ [19 April 2004] They shoot too many pictures and not enough actors. --Walter Winchell (18971972) American journalist. - SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES - Russian censors permitted John Ford's classic 1940 film "The Grapes of Wrath" to be shown because of its grim depiction of America's Great depression. It was soon banned, however, because Russian audiences were impressed by the fact that, in America, even a poverty-stricken family in the Dust Bowl could afford to own an automobile. --anecdotage.com We thought a gun was too violent an image. --Colombia Pictures spokesman explaining why promotions for "The Last Action Hero" showed Schwarzenegger holding a fistful of dynamite. --- Everything about movies . . To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new. --John Milton (16081674) English poet. _Lycidas_ l. 193 [1638] - In a 2001 post kap writes to USENET about annoying people: Last Friday was our first day in our new home. It was an interesting day. As you may recall I had purchased an entertainment center and desk *already assembled* so that I wouldn't have to do it myself. Because I *couldn't* do it myself, no way, no how. So when the Lowe's truck pulled up to the door I was rife with anticipation as they unloaded my appliances and two big boxes of.....what's this? *unassembled* furniture. For the moment Lowe's wasn't my new favorite store, nor was I the new favorite person of the manager of the furniture department who fielded my irate telephone calls. At any rate, while they were unloading the truck I spotted the wife of a neighbor I had met previously and as protocol demanded I say hello, I wandered over and introduced myself and had a brief but pleasant conversation about her niece and my grandkids (schoolmates), and as I made two steps backward while bidding farewell my second step smashed her outdoor patio lights. "Crunch!" A most terrible sound. Smashed the poor thing to smithereens I did. Clutz, you say? Yes, but a prepared clutz because we had bought the same set and as I didn't think just one light could be replaced I gave her the entire set. Next to the home of the irate, thoughtful, prepared clutz came the cable man. First, you must understand that there is very little that can prevent the cable man from completing his installation. One pratfall would be if all the TV's weren't present. They weren't, they were all at the old apartment. Now you would think that the cable company might have told me this when I set up the appointment but no, they wait until the guy gets here and then they tell me. And I think I saw a smirk. The reason they can't set up, without the TV's, is a good one! Seems the cable lines leak something - don't know what - he didn't explain. Radiation? Cable ooze? CBS eyes or NBC peacocks oozing out of the lines? Don't rightly know, do know that we won't have cable until Tuesday, the next available appointment. The last helpful person to visit this uninformed, irate, thoughtfully prepared clutz last Friday was the gas man. No, he didn't blow the house to kingdom come. How could he, he turned the gas *off.* Don't ask! And so, as moving day was the following day, we froze our asses off Saturday night. Now, five days later, I'm pretty much over my frozen, irate, uninformed, thoughtfully prepared clutz state of being and just back to being me, such as me is. Oh, the furniture was finally assembled on Tuesday but on Monday, in a burst of enthusiasm I figured I might try to conquer the entertainment center. I opened the box and ensured the presence of all pieces and then read the first page - no words actually, only pictures - showing piece F being atttached to piece C. I mean, really, couldn't they at least have the decency to start with A and B. I gave up. kap ----- acclimate [uh-KLY-mit; AK-luh-mayt], transitive and intransitive verb: To accustom or become accustomed to a new climate, environment, or situation. Ex.: The Korbels did not have much time to pull their lives together and acclimate themselves to English culture. --Ann Blackman, _Seasons of Her Life_ galumph [guh-LUHM(P)F], intransitive verb: To move in a clumsy manner or with a heavy tread. Then he climbed up the little iron ladder that led to the wharf's cap, placed me once more upon his shoulders and galumphed off again. --Alistair MacLeod, _Island: The Complete Stories_ Galumph is probably an alteration of gallop. It was coined by Lewis Carroll in the nonsense poem "Jabberwocky." migrate (verb) ['mI-greyt] To move from one location or locality to another. migration (noun) migratory (adj.) immigrate - to migrate to a place emigrate - migrate from a place . . see: "LOVE & MARRIAGE (OR NOT)" for related links Finish each day and be done with it ... You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it well and serenely. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new. --John Milton (16081674) English poet. . . see "MUSIC" for related links see "PEOPLE" for related links Mozart's music is so pure and beautiful that I see it as a reflection of the inner beauty of the universe. --Albert Einstein (18791955) German-American physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. In Armin Hermann's _Albert Einstein_ [1994]. . . The 1960s, the decade that became a state of mind, is finally over. With each new terrorist horror in London, as we learn more and more about British homeboy terrorists, it seems safe to declare that age of innocence is dead. It was an age where wide-eyed all-you-need-is-love romanticism inevitably spawned moral and cultural relativism. But when boys, born in British hospitals, develop allegiances that demand death to their countrymen, you know that the utopian vision of multiculturalism, urged on us with the best of intentions, has not gone as planned. Three years ago, to suggest that multiculturalism was slowly killing us, or at least killing some of us, brought down a heavy rain of criticism. Back in September 2002, to mark the approaching first anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, I wrote on this page that the West's multiculturalism created conditions that encouraged the West's fanatical enemies. We were so busy being inclusive, denigrating our own culture, that we were not noticing what was happening. I suggested that Multicultural Man and his lazy cultural relativist thinking needed to be dismantled. A few others were saying the same thing. But not many. [...] How times have changed. When four young British Muslims set off from Luton, detonating four bomb blasts in London, most people were shaken out of their reverie. Eventually, it seems, reality bites. Sometimes slowly. Sometimes cruelly. Now, more than a few people are saying that tolerance is not as safe as it seems. That too much of the stuff can be a problem because it suggests to those who detest our values and our societies that we will not make judgments about what is right and what is wrong. [...] Advocating multiculturalism for people from cultures with similar values was never going to be problematic. But when cultures differ sharply, multicultural policies that promote all cultures as equal lead us in all sorts of wrong directions. A young Aboriginal woman points to tribal law to excuse her for killing her philandering husband. An educated man, the father of a group of Pakistani gang rapists, claims they did not understand our culture. Finally, more of us are saying "Hang on, some values are non- negotiable." Perhaps we can draw a shade on the '60s view that all cultures are equal. That utopian-driven decade is drawing to a close on other fronts too. Welfare is not all it's cracked up to be. No- fault divorce has not been the blessing it promised to be. It seems we may be growing up, learning to draw a line in at least some of the right places. Who knows which of the '60s sacred cows will be next? --Janet Albrechtsen, "End of an innocent age," _The Australian_  MURDER . . see "CRIME & PUNISHMENT" for related links Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society has to take the place of the victim and on his behalf demand atonement or grant forgiveness; it is the one crime in which society has a direct interest. --W.H. [Wystan Hugh] Auden (19071973) English-born poet and man of letters. "The Guilty Vicarage" _Harpers_ [May 1948] Outside of the killings [Washington, D.C.] has one of the lowest crime rates in the country. --Marion Barry (1936 ) Mayor of Washington DC [19791991 & 19951999]. Quoted in "Chicago Tribune" [28 March 1989]. I never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with a lot of pleasure. --Clarence Darrow (18571938) American lawyer. If once a man indulges himself in Murder, very soon he comes to think little of Robbing, and from Robbing he comes next to Drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to Incivility and Procrastination. --Thomas De Quincey (17851859) English essayist and critic. "On Murder, Considered as One of the Fine Arts" [1839] Willie poisoned his father's tea; Father died in agony Mother came, and looked quite vexed: "Really, Will," she said, "what next?!" --Harry Graham (18741936) British writer and journalist. _Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes_ [1899] Television has brought back murder into the home where it belongs. --Alfred Hitchcock (18991980) British-born film director. In "Observer" [19 December 1965]. In that case, if we are to abolish the death penalty, let the murderers take the first step. --Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (18081890) French novelist and journalist. In "Les Guκpes" [January 1849]. Murder is a crime. Describing murder is not. Sex is not a crime. Describing sex *is*. --Gershon Legman (19171999) American folklorist. _Love & Death_ "A Study in Censorship" [1949] ^^ In Texas, when Orvell Lloyd was asked why he had killed his mother-in-law, he said he had mistaken her for a raccoon. _The Folio Book of Humorous Anecdotes_ Introduced by Edward Leeson [2005], "Crime and the Law" ^^ ^ Dwarfing all known records for matrimonial homicide, Mr Peter Scott of Southsea made seven attempts to kill his wife without her once noticing that anything was wrong. In 1980 he took out an insurance policy on his good lady which would bring him £250,000 in the event of her accidental death. Soon afterward, he placed a lethal dose of mercury in her strawberry flan, but it all rolled out. Not wishing to waste the lethal substance, he then stuffed her mackerel with the entire contents of the bottle. This time she ate it, but with no side effects whatsoever. Warming to the task, he then took his wife on holiday to Yugoslavia. Recommending the panoramic views, he invited her to sit on the edge of a cliff she declined to do so, prompted by what she later described as some 'sixth sense.' The same occurred only weeks later when he urged her to savour the view from Beachy Head. When his spouse was in bed with chicken-pox he started a fire outside the bedroom door, but some interfering busybody put it out. Undeterred, he started another fire and burnt down the whole flat in Turswell Road, Southsea: the wife of his bosom escaped uninjured. Another time he asked her to stand in the middle of the road so that he could drive towards her and check if his brakes were working. At no time did Mrs Scott feel that the magic had gone out of their marriage. Since it appeared that nothing short of a small nuclear bomb would have alerted this good woman to her husband's intentions, he eventually gave up and confessed all to the police. After the case, a detective said Mrs Scott was absolutely shattered when told of her husband's plot to kill her. She had not clued it at all and she was dumbstruck. --John Mortimer (1923 ) English barrister and author. In _The Best After-Dinner Stories_ Selected and introduced by Tim Heald [2003]. ^ Roast beef and Yorkshire, or roast pork and apple sauce, followed up by suet pudding and driven home, as it were, by a cup of mahogany-brown tea, have put you in just the right mood. Your pipe is drawing sweetly, the sofa cushions are soft underneath you, the fire is well alight, the air is warm and stagnant. In these blissful circumstances, what is it that you want to read about? Naturally, about a murder. --George Orwell [Eric Blair] (19031950) English novelist. "Decline of the English Murder" [written 1946] - "I don't know. What kind of things usually provide motives?" "For murder? Because that's what we're dealing with in this case. [...] If it's unpremeditated, then anger. Lust. Money, if the killing occurs during a hold-up. Stupidity, if it happens in a hijacking. But this was premeditated. We don't know how it was done, but it called for advance planning. So then the motives are different. Jealousy. Envy. Greed. Revenge." "You sound like you're running through the list of the seven deadly sins." "Why do you think they're called deadly?" --dialogue, Charles Sheffield "The Waste Land", _Asimov's Science Fiction_ [March 2003] - Murder most foul, as in the best it is. --William Shakespeare (15641616) English dramatist. _Hamlet_ [1601], I, 5, 27 CAESAR: To the end of history, murder shall breed murder, always in the name of right and honor and peace, until the gods are tired of blood and create a race that can understand. --George Bernard Shaw (18561950) Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist propagandist, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925 [he didn't accept it.] _Caesar and Cleopatra_ [1899] I didn't want to hurt the man. I thought he was a very nice gentleman. Soft-spoken. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat. --Perry Smith Confession. In Truman Capote _In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences_ [1966]. Whoever destroys a single life is as guilty as though he had destroyed the entire world; and whoever rescues a single life earns as much merit as though he had rescued the entire world. --Talmud (A.D.1st6th cent.) _Mishnah_ "Sanhedrin" 4:5 If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill came always together, who would escape hanging? --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. - Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword! --Oscar Wilde (18541900) Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet. _The Ballad of Reading Gaol_, pt. 1, st. 7 [1898] & see: [Bassanio asks Shylock:] Do all men kill the things they do not love? --William Shakespeare (15641616) English dramatist. _The Merchant of Venice_ [15961598] - The aged hold far too obstinately to their outmoded ideas. Perhaps that is why the natives of the Fiji Islands kill their parents when they grow old. They facilitate evolution by garroting their ancestors. --unattributed in "The New Freeman" [1930-1931 U.S. magazine]. Lizzie Borden took an axe And gave her mother forty whacks; And when she saw what she had done She gave her father forty-one. --anon. There was a young lady of Malta Who strangled her aunt with a halter. She said, 'I won't bury her; She'll do for my terrier; She'll keep for a month if I salt her.' --anon. - If a Ripuarian kills a Frankish foreigner, let him be held liable for 200 solidi ... 3, If a Ripuarian kills a Roman foreigner, let him be fined twice 50 solidi ... 5 If anyone kills a freeborn clerk, let him be held liable for twice 50 solidi 8. If anyone kills a free-born priest [or bishop], let him be fined thrice 200 solidi. 10. If anyone kills the foetus within a woman or a newborn before he has a name, let him be held liable for twice 50 solidi. If he kills the mother along with the foetus, let him be fined 700 solidi. --_The Laws of the Salian and Ripuarian Franks_ (5th or 6th century; 1986 trans.) Ripuarian pt. 40, in M.J. Cohan and John Major {ed.} _History in Quotations_ [2004]. Cohan & Major note: The blood-feud was a feature of barbarian life. All law codes included wergeld, a price by which the taking of life could be redeemed without further killing. The social status of the victim affected the price. ----- amok [uh-MUHK], adjective: 1. In or into a jumbled or confused state. 2. In or into an uncontrolled state or a state of extreme activity. 3. In a frenzy to do violence or kill. vendetta (noun) [ven-'de-tκ] A blood feud between families that usually begins with a murder and continues with violent reciprocation on both sides. . . see "FOOD & DRINK" for related links I confess, that nothing frightens me more than the appearance of mushrooms on the table, especially in a small provincial town. --Alexandre Dumas (which?) ----- mycology (noun) [mI-'ka-lκ-ji] The study of mushrooms and other fungi or the growth of fungi in a particular region. end page | MACARTHUR (DOUGLAS) - MALICE | MAN - MARINES | MARRIAGE | MARTYRS - MAUGHAM (WILLIAM SOMERSET) | McCARTHY - MEANNESS | MEDIA (THE) | MEDICINE - MEMORIAL DAY | MEMORIES - MEMORY | MEN - MEN v. WOMEN | MENTAL ILLNESS - MILK | MIND (THE) - MISERY | MISFORTUNE - MISSOURI | MISTAKES | MISTAKEN IDENTITY - MODESTY | MONEY | MONROE - MOON | MORAL ASSASINATION - MORALITY | MORNING - MOUNTAINS | MOVIE DIALOGUE - MUSHROOMS | MUSIC - MYTHOLOGY | | H | I - J | K - L | M | N - O | P - Q | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The Reviews | |
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