{"quotes":[{"text":"Issib wasn't thrilled to see him. I'm busy and don't need interruptions.' 'This is the household library,' said Nafai. 'This is where we always come to do research.' 'See? You're interrupting already.' 'Look, I didn't say anything, I just came in here, and you started picking at me the second I walked in the door.' 'I was hoping you'd walk back out.' 'I can't. Mother sent me here.' Nafai walked over behind Issib, who was floating comfortably in the air in front of his computer display. It was layered thirty pages deep, but each page had only a few words on it, so he could see almost everything at once. Like a game of solitaire, in which Issib was simply moving fragments from place to place. The fragments were all words in weird languages. The ones Nafai recognized were very old. 'What language is that?' Nafai asked pointing, to one. Issib signed. 'I'm so glad you're not interrupting me.' 'What is it, some ancient form of Vijati?' 'Very good. It's Slucajan, which came from Obilazati, the original form of Vijati. It's dead now.' 'I read Vijati, you know.' 'I don't.' 'Oh, so you're specializing in ancient, obscure languages that nobody speaks anymore, including you?' 'I'm not learning these languages, I'm researching lost words.' 'If the whole language is dead, then all the words are lost.' 'Words that used to have meanings, but that died out or survived only in idiomatic expressions. Like 'dancing bear.' What's a bear, do you know?' 'I don't know. I always thought it was some kind of graceful bird.' 'Wrong. It's an ancient mammal. Known only on Earth, I think, and not brought here. Or it died out soon. It was bigger than a man, very powerful. A predator.' 'And it danced?' 'The expression used to mean something absurdly clumsy. Like a dog walking on its hind legs.' 'And now it means the opposite. That's weird. How could it change?' 'Because there aren't any bears. THe meaning used to be obvious, because everybody knew a bear and how clumsy it would look, dancing. But when the bears were gone, the meaning could go anywhere. Now we use it for a person who's extremely deft in getting out of an embarrassing social situation. It's the only case that we use the word bear anymore. And you see a lot of people misspelling it, too.' 'Great stuff. You doing a linguistics project?' 'No.' 'What's this for, then?' 'Me.' 'Just collection old idioms?' 'Lost words.' 'Like bear? The word isn't lost, Issya. It's the bears that are gone.' 'Very good, Nyef. You get full credit for the assignment. Go away now.","author":"Orson Scott Card","tags":["amusing","book-clip","sci-fi"],"id":750,"author_id":"Orson+Scott+Card"},{"text":"What a cool name. Where'd you get it?'I've always had it.","author":"Marie Landry","tags":["amusing","funny","funny","hilarious","laugh","lol","love-it"],"id":21587,"author_id":"Marie+Landry"},{"text":"The Devil answer'd: bray a fool in a morter with wheat, yet shall not his folly be beaten out of him; if Jesus Christ is the greatest man, you ought to love him in the greatest degree; now hear how he has given his sanction to the law of ten commandments: did he not mock at the sabbath, and so mock the sabbaths God? Murder those who were murder'd because of him? Turn away the law from the woman taken in adultery? Steal the labor of others to support him? Bear false witness when he omitted making a defense before Pilate? Covet when he pray'd for his disciples, and when he bid them shake off the dust of their feet against such as refused to lodge them? I tell you, no virtue can exist without breaking these ten commandments; Jesus was all virtue, and acted from impulse, not from rules.","author":"William Blake","tags":["amusing","heresy","iconoclasm","intuitive-ethics","religion","sophistry"],"id":27330,"author_id":"William+Blake"},{"text":"The coining of their new catch-phrase 'homophiliac' displayed in contrast to 'homophobic' was rather amusing, though to think that they believe it means anything different to 'homophobic' is just facetious. It's like someone trying to create a difference in definition between 'genocide' and 'ethnic cleansing' - or to make the one look better or less reprehensible than the other.","author":"Christina Engela","tags":["amusing","believe","catch-phrase","coining","contrast","definition","difference","different","displayed","ethnic-cleansing","facetious","genocide","homophiliac","homophobic","reprehensible"],"id":30801,"author_id":"Christina+Engela"},{"text":"The rules of physics are, in some cases, suspiciously anthropic.","author":"Charles Stross","tags":["amusing","physics","science","science-fiction"],"id":65441,"author_id":"Charles+Stross"},{"text":"When a new baby is expected mother has 9 months to prepare the family and the kitchen for her departure!","author":"Nursing Mothers' Association of Australia","tags":["1970s","amusing","baby","family"],"id":71921,"author_id":"Nursing+Mothers%27+Association+of+Australia"},{"text":"April 43rd 2000Today is the day of great triumph. There is a king of Spain. He has been found at last. That king is me. I only discovered this today. Frankly, it all came to me in a flash.","author":"Nikolai Gogol","tags":["amusing","insanity","madness","sad"],"id":72196,"author_id":"Nikolai+Gogol"},{"text":"Allah protect us,' Bold said politely. Then, in Arabic, 'In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate.' In his years in Temur's army he had learned to be as much a Muslim as anyone. The Buddha did not mind what you said to be polite.","author":"Kim Stanley Robinson","tags":["amusing","buddhism","religion"],"id":107572,"author_id":"Kim+Stanley+Robinson"},{"text":"There was a spring in his carefully measured step. He opened the door and let the sunlight in, as if opening himself up, letting pent-up energy out and, letting the world enter inside- letting the light illuminate him. It was strange to see him like that, a tad amusing perhaps. He had thought it over. He had decided to welcome me with happiness and joy and to present his best self to me, whenever I decide to come.","author":"Ashay Abbhi","tags":["amusing","happiness","joy","self","strange","wait","welcome"],"id":110185,"author_id":"Ashay+Abbhi"},{"text":"His fingers lightly grazed my cheek. 'I didn't know you before. When you're not there, I can't concentrate. I'm wondering where you are, what you're doing...If you're there and I can see you, I can see you, I can focus. I know it's crazy, but that's how it is.' 'And crazy is exactly the way I like it,' I said, leaning up to kiss his lips.'Obviously,' America muttered under breath.","author":"Jamie McGuire","tags":["amusing","beautiful-disaster","crazy","funny","humour","love"],"id":112170,"author_id":"Jamie+McGuire"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":37,"pages":4,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}