"A lot of fancier yarns come from people trying to tell the truth. It’s not easy once you’re out of the habit."
--
Nick CharlesDashiell Hammett
» Dashiell Hammett - all quotes »
On the bus going home I heard a most fascinating conversation between an old man and woman. "What a thing, though," the old woman said. "You'd hardly credit it." "She's always made a fuss of the whole family, but never me," the old man said. "Does she have a fire when the young people go to see her?" "Fire?" "She won't get people seeing her without warmth." "I know why she's doing it. Don't think I don't," the old man said. "My sister she said to me, 'I wish I had your easy life.' Now that upset me. I was upset by the way she phrased herself. 'Don't talk to me like that,' I said. 'I've only got to get on the phone and ring a certain number,' I said, 'to have you stopped.'" "Yes," the old woman said, "And you can, can't you?" "Were they always the same?" she said. "When you was a child? Can you throw yourself back? How was they years ago?" "The same," the old man said. "Wicked, isn't it?" the old woman said. "Take care, now" she said, as the old man left her. He didn't say a word but got off the bus looking disgruntled.
Joe Orton
I hope the next time I move I get a real easy phone number, something that's real easy to remember. Something like two two two two two two two. I would say "Sweet." And then people would say, "Mitch, how do I get a hold of you?" I'd say, "Just press two for a while and when I answer, you will know you have pressed two enough."
Mitch Hedberg
Against the window's still pallid sky I see her hair, silvered with a moonlike sheen, and her night-veiled face. Closely I look at the share of sublimity which she bears on it, and I reflect that I am infinitely attached to this woman, that it is not true to say she is of less moment to me because desire no longer throws me on her as it used to do. Is it habit? No, not only that. Everywhere habit exerts its gentle strength, perhaps between us two also. But there is more. There is not only the narrowness of rooms to bring us together. There is more, there is more! So I say to her:
"There's you."
"Me?" she says. "I'm nothing."
"Yes, you are everything, you're everything to me."Henri Barbusse
Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and nobody around them who works. So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of "I do this and you give me cash", unless it's illegal.
Newt Gingrich
My hero is every American who says "My country needs me" and answers that call to fight. I had the good fortune and opportunity to come home and to tell the truth; many soldiers, like Pat Tillman... did not have that opportunity. The truth of war is not always easy. The truth is always more heroic than the hype.
Jessica Lynch
Hammett, Dashiell
Hammett, Kirk
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