“They sell botch-it-yourself kits”
Another of mine, from April 4, 2006, about a spray insulation system.
“so he goes ‘Do you dislike Scottish people?’ and Florence goes, ‘Don’t think small.’”
Florence King in National Review March 22, 1999 [pretending to be Bill Clinton standing in for her and talking to Vernon Jordan].
He’d “sooner turn you into a lampshade than give you the steam off his shit.”
Tom Kakonis Double Down (the opinion of one Jewish character about the German main villain in this seamy novel - and yes, it breaks my rule about vulgarity but once in a while it’s appropriate)
“Though the phrase ‘easy-to-use’ on a home repair product is always a lie. No matter how easy it is to use, it will never be as easy as not using it.”
P.J. O’Rourke The Bachelor Home Companion
“This place is a hive of inactivity.”
Another of mine, from September 17, 2004, on being disappointed to see nothing happening on the roadwork outside our house… again.
“But we have a saying out here [in the suburbs of Richmond] about people like Al [Gore]; they’ll steal your chaw of tobacco if you so much as yawn.”
David Shiflett in National Review March 22, 1999
Journalist W.R. “Titterton tells of an interview with the Aga Khan, in which His Highness said that if a wall fell and crushed his foot he would exclaim: ‘This is the best thing that could have happened to me.’ To which Chesterton responded, ‘Then I feel inclined to retort that the Persian language must be singularly deficient in expletives.’”
An author whose name I failed to record in Gilbert! Magazine Vol. 2 #6 Issue 15 (April-May, 1999)
“More than 1,500 pieces of graffiti were preserved in Pompeii when that Roman city was buried in volcanic ash 1,922 years ago. They include: ‘Aufidius was here.’ ‘Marcus loves Spendusa.’ ‘I am amazed, O wall, that you have not collapsed and fallen, since you must bear the tedious stupidities of so many scrawlers.’ Source: The Washington Post.”
Globe & Mail July 12, 2001 p. A16