Some people say the business about the jolly fat person is a myth, that all of us chubbies are neurotic, sick, sad people. I disag...ree. Fat people may not be chortling all day long, but they're a hell of a lot nicer than the wizened and shriveled. Thin people turn surly, mean and hard at a young age because they never learn the value of a hot fudge sundae for easing tension. Thin people don't like gooey soft things because they themselves are neither gooey nor soft. They are crunchy and dull, like carrots. They go straight to the heart of the matter while fat people let things stay all blurry and hazy and vague, they way things actually are. Thin people want to face the truth. Fat people know there is no truth.... Thin people believe in logic. Fat people see all sides. The sides fat people see are rounded blobs, usually gray, always nebulous and truly not worth worrying about. But the thin person persists. "If you consume more calories than you burn," says one of my thin friends, "you will gain weight. It's that simple." Fat people always grin when they hear that. They know better.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When a person is born, he can embark on only one of three roads of life: if you go right, the wolves will eat you; if you go left,... you'll eat the wolves; if you go straight, you'll eat yourself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... if it be true that death is annihilation, then the man who believes that he will certainly go straight to heaven when he dies,... provided he has fulfilled certain simply observances in this life, has a cheap pleasure which will not be followed by the least disappointment.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The modern Christian is a man who has consented to say all the prayers in the liturgy, provided you will let him go straight to be...d and sleep quiet afterward. All his prayers begin with "Now I lay me down to sleep," and he is forever looking forward to the time when he shall go to his "long rest." He has consented to perform certain old-established charities, too, after a fashion, but he does not wish to hear of any new-fangled ones; he does n't wish to have any supplementary articles added to the contract, to fit it to the present time. He shows the whites of his eyes on the Sabbath, and the blacks all the rest of the week. The evil is not merely a stagnation of blood, but a stagnation of spirit as well.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Polis had evidently more curiosity respecting the few settlers in those woods than we. If nothing was said, he took it for granted... that we wanted to go straight to the next log hut. Having observed that we came by the log huts at Chesuncook, and the blind Canadian's at the Mud Pond carry, without stopping to communicate with the inhabitants, he took occasion now to suggest that the usual way was, when you came near a house, to go to it, and tell the inhabitants what you had seen or heard, and then they tell you what they had seen; but we laughed, and said that we had had enough of houses for the present, and had come here partly to avoid them.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
You're driving along the highway licketty-split, see. You're in a hurry and you're worried about whether you're goin' to lose your... job and whether that blonde's going to be at that drug store tonight like she said she would an' about whether there's enough oil an' that knock in the motor. You see modern man lives in conditions of strain, affect we students of psychology call it. You go along staring straight in front of you, crazy to get someplace and what do you see?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Next to being right in this world, the best of all things is to be clearly and definitely wrong, because you will come out somewhe...re. If you go buzzing about between right and wrong, vibrating and fluctuating, you come out nowhere; but if you are absolutely and thoroughly and persistently wrong, you must, some of these days, have the extreme good fortune of knocking your head against a fact, and that sets you all straight again.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »