Literature Stuff

Every once in a while, I get an e-mail forward that I really like. This was one.


> "I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up
> where I intended to be." - Douglas Adams

> The Bulwer-Lytton Contest ….
>
>
> This year's 10 winners of the Bulwer-Lytton contest, aka "Dark
> and Stormy Night Contest" (run by the English Dept. of San
> Jose State University), wherein one writes only the first line
> of a bad novel:
>
>
> 10) "As a scientist, Throckmorton knew that if he were ever to
> break wind in the echo chamber, he would never hear the end of
> it."
>
>
> 9) "Just beyond the Narrows , the river widens."
>
>
> 8) "With a curvaceous figure that Venus would have envied, a
> tanned, unblemished oval face framed with lustrous thick brown
> hair, deep azure-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes,
> perfect teeth that vied for competition, and a small straight
> nose, Marilee had a beauty that defied description."
>
>
> 7) "Andre, a simple peasant, had only one thing on his mind as
> he crept along the East wall: 'Andre creep... Andre creep...
> Andre creep.'"
>
>
> 6) "Stanislaus Smedley, a man always on the cutting edge of
> narcissism, was about to give his body and soul to a back
> alley sex-change surgeon to become the woman he loved."
>
>
> 5) "Although Sarah had an abnormal fear of mice, it did not
> keep her from eeking out a living at a local pet store."
>
>
> 4) " Stanley looked quite bored and somewhat detached, but
> then penguins often do."
>
>
> 3) "Like an over-ripe beefsteak tomato rimmed with cottage
> cheese, the corpulent remains of Santa Claus lay dead on the
> hotel floor."
>
>
> 2) "Mike Hardware was the kind of private eye who didn't know
> the meaning of the word 'fear'; a man who could laugh in the
> face of danger and spit in the eye of death -- in short, a
> moron with suicidal tendencies."
>
>
> AND THE WINNER IS...
>
>
> 1) "The sun oozed over the horizon, shoved aside darkness,
> crept along the greensward, and, with sickly fingers, pushed
> through the castle window, revealing the pillaged princess,
> hand at throat, crown asunder, gaping in frenzied horror at
> the sated, sodden amphibian lying beside her, disbelieving the
> magnitude of the frog's deception, screaming madly, 'You
> lied!"
>
>
> ***************************************************************************
>
> GREAT LITERARY TAUNTS
>
>
> "I feel so miserable without you, it's almost like having you
> here." -- Stephen Bishop "
>
>
> "A modest little person, with much to be modest about." ---
> Winston Churchill (about Clement Atlee)
>
>
> "I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing
> trivial." --- Irvin S. Cobb "
>
>
> I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries
> with great pleasure." --- Clarence Darrow "
>
>
> He has never been known to use a word that might send a
> reader to the dictionary." --William Faulkner (about Ernest
> Hemingway)
>
>
> "He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in
> others." --- Samuel Johnson "
>
>
> He had delusions of adequacy."--- Walter Kerr
>
>
> "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
> --- Groucho Marx
>
>
> "They never open their mouths without subtracting from the
> sum of human knowledge." --- Thomas Brackett Reed
>
>
> "He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." --- Forrest
> Tucker "
>
>
> "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying
> I approved of it." --- Mark Twain
>
>
> "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
> --- Mae West
>
>
> "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they
> go." --- Oscar Wilde
>
>
> "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his
> friends." --- Oscar Wilde
>
>
> "He has Van Gogh's ear for music." --- Billy Wilder
>