Necessary quotes:

I divide the causes of human laughter into Joy, Fun, the Joke Proper, and Flippancy ... Flippancy is the best of all.

In the first place it is very economical. Only a clever human can make a real Joke about virtue, or indeed about anything else; any of them can be trained to talk as if virtue were funny. Among flippant people the Joke is always assumed to have been made. No one actually makes it; but every serious subject is discussed in a manner which implies that they have already found a ridiculous side to it.

If prolonged, the habit of Flippancy builds up around a man the finest armour-plating against the Enemy that I know, and it is quite free from the dangers inherent in the other sources of laughter. It is a thousand miles away from joy; it deadens, instead of sharpening, the intellect; and it excites no affection between those who practice it. -- CS Lewis (as Screwtape), The Screwtape Letters

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Sometimes a joke is the only way I can open my mouth without screaming. -- various sources, Alan Alda (as Hawkeye Pierce) among them.

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You can't handle the truth!

Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls need to be guarded --- by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and curse the Marines; you have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And that my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.

You don't want the truth because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall!

We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use them as the backbone of a life trying to defend something. You use them as a punchline.

I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said "thank you," and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest that you pick up a weapon and stand a post.

Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to! -- Jack Nicholson (as Col Jessep), A Few Good Men

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That's when you know you've found somebody special. When you can just shut the **** up for a minute and comfortably enjoy the silence. -- Uma Thurman (as Mia Wallace), Pulp Fiction

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It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society. -- Krishnamurti

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It is best to use discretion when confronting an emotionally shattered man, especially if he's holding a semiautomatic rifle. -- Brendan Koerner, Now the Hell Will Start

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I'll see your 2 Chronicles 7:14, and raise you Revelation 9:21. -- me (my original choice for a tagline)

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And the evil spirit answered [the seven sons of Sceva] and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you? -- Acts 19:15

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Onward we go and some day in the distant future, we will stop and turn around in astonishment to see all the places we've been and the heroes we were. -- Garrison Keillor

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Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes.) -- Walt Whitman, Song of Myself (canto 51)

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Every time I try to talk to someone it's "sorry this" and "forgive me that" and "I'm not worthy" ... what are you doing now, averting your eyes? Well, don't! It's just like those miserable Psalms, always so depressing! Now knock it off! -- Graham Chapman (as the Voice of God), Monty Python and the Holy Grail

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The name on the sign out front is no guarantee as to the name on the heart within. -- HKMk23, August 5, 2010

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On the page, it was as nothing.
The beginning? Simple, almost comic.
Just a pulse ... bassoons, basset horns,
like a ... rusty squeezebox.
Then suddenly - high above it - an oboe!
A single note, hanging there unwavering,
until a clarinet took it over
and sweetened it into a phrase of such delight!
This was no composition by a performing monkey!
This was a music I'd never heard.
Filled with such longing,
such unfulfillable longing,
it had me trembling.
It seemed to me that I
was hearing a voice of God!

-- F Murray Abraham (as Antonio Salieri, describing Mozart's Serenade for 13 Wind Instruments, K 361), Amadeus

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The best of Douglas Adams.

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Footnote from Ch 4, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

The President is very much in particular a figurehead -- he wields no real power whatsoever ... his job is not to wield power, but to draw attention away from it.

Very, very few people realise that the President and the Government have virtually no power at all, and of these few people, only six know whence ultimate political power is wielded. Most of the rest secretly believe the ultimate decision-making process is handled by a computer; they couldn't be more wrong.


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from Ch 19, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe:

The population of the Universe is -- zero.

It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited; therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds.

Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of the Universe can be said to be zero. From this, it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.

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from Ch 7, Life, the Universe, and Everything:


There is a moment in every dawn when the light floats, when there exists the real possiblity of magic. Creation holds its breath.

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My Conservative Identity:

You are an Anti-government Gunslinger, also known as a libertarian conservative. You believe in smaller government, states’ rights, gun rights, and that, as Reagan once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

Take the quiz at www.FightLiberals.com