The shamans are forever yacking about their snake-oil "miracles." I prefer the Real McCoy — a pregnant woman.
Robert A. Heinlein
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In the 1930s an anthropologist named Paul Radin first described it as "shamans being half mad," shamans being "healed madmen." This fits exactly. It's the shamans who are moving separate from everyone else, living alone, who talk with the dead, who speak in tongues, who go out with the full moon and turn into a hyena overnight, and that sort of stuff. It's the shamans who have all this metamagical thinking. When you look at traditional human society, they all have shamans. What's very clear, though, is they all have a limit on the number of shamans. That is this classic sort of balanced selection of evolution. There is a need for this subtype — but not too many.
The critical thing with schizotypal shamanism is, it is not uncontrolled the way it is in the schizophrenic. This is not somebody babbling in tongues all the time in the middle of the hunt. This is someone babbling during the right ceremony. This is not somebody hearing voices all the time, this is somebody hearing voices only at the right point. It's a milder, more controlled version.
Shamans are not evolutionarily unfit. Shamans are not leaving fewer copies of their genes. These are some of the most powerful, honored members of society. This is where the selection is coming from. … In order to have a couple of shamans on hand in your group, you're willing to put up with the occasional third cousin who's schizophrenic.Robert Sapolsky
When a woman get pregnant, it's an issue between her and her girlfriends. When a woman get pregnant, her and her girlfriends form an abortion tribunal, and they vote on the child like it was Survivor. Then the first girlfriend throws in her two cents: "Child, you should have that baby, that man got some good hair, it's wavy, it's wavy." Then second girlfriend throws in her two cents: "Girl, why are we even talking about this? Ain't we supposed to go to Cancun next weekend? Get rid of that baby." And that's how life is decided in America.
Chris Rock
My girl in high school had a 12 foot boa constrictor, she named it Fluffy. That's just sick in my book. Well, we go over to her house, I don't know about the snake, and she says, "Hang on while I get into something more comfortable, okay?" and I'm like, "All right! i'll be waitin right here! well maybe here, oh hell you'll see me" A few minutes later, she comes out wearing that snake around her neck, I'm backin' away, saying, "No thanks, I can drive." She says to me, "No, wait, Bill. Fluffy can wrap around us while we make love." I said, "No, he can't. 'Cause I'll kill him. Okay?"
Bill Engvall
My lucky number is four billion. That doesn't come in real handy when you're gambling. "Come on four billion!... F**k! Seven. Not even close. I need some more dice. Four billion divided by six... at least. Snake eyes!" I just said "snake eyes." That's a gambling term. Or it's a animal term too.
Mitch Hedberg
In post offices throughout the United States, Selective Service posters [reading "A Man's Gotta Do What A Man's Gotta Do] remind men that only they must register for the draft. If the Post Office had a poster saying "A Jew's Gotta Do What A Jew's Gotta Do..." or if "A Woman's Gotta Do..." were written across the body of a pregnant woman...
Warren Farrell
Heinlein, Robert A.
Heinrich, Bernd
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