Not That You Asked (9780307822215) (2 page)

56. It seems wrong for a state to take money from the poor and
ignorant by selling them lottery tickets to collect money to help the state provide welfare and education to the poor and ignorant.

57. People talk as though they like the country better than the city but they move to the city.

58. Farmers have been quitting the farm and moving to the city for years but you never see any of them there.

59. There's an acute shortage of well-known people in America. The same ones keep appearing on television talk shows. Of course, maybe what we need is not more well-known people but fewer talk shows.

60. Ronald Reagan wasn't as successful reducing the size of government as Franklin Roosevelt was in increasing it.

61. No one wants to read a lot of good writing. There's just so much good writing a reader can take.

62. If the reviews talk about how good the acting is in the movie, I don't go see it. Like writing, there's just so much good acting I can take. Acting and writing shouldn't call attention to themselves.

63. It no longer makes any sense to bother to use an apostrophe between the
n
and
t
in words like
dont
and
isnt
.

64. Most evenings I have two drinks of bourbon before dinner even though I am uneasily aware that the practice is difficult to defend against the charge that drinking is no different from using drugs. Drinking also isn't compatible with my belief that our best hope for happiness is clear thinking, but I try to have my thinking out of the way for the day by the time I have my first drink.

65. Journalists are more honest than other businesspeople because honesty is a hobby with them. They're amused by it. They talk about honesty at lunch. They aren't naturally any more honest, but it's on their minds.

66. There are more beauty parlors than there are beauties.

67. It's harder to avoid listening to something you don't want to hear than it is to avoid seeing something you'd rather not see.

68. We're all proud of admitting little mistakes. It gives us the feeling we don't make any big ones.

69. I'm always surprised when a light bulb burns out.

70. It's amazing that bees keep making honey, cows keep giving milk and hens keep laying eggs all their lives. There certainly isn't much in it for them.

71. It's too bad Jesus didn't have a family.

72. Getting up early in the morning is a good way to gain respect without ever actually having to do anything.

73. It sounds funny in the house without the television set on.

74. I'd get a lot more reading done in bed if I read when I woke up in the morning instead of when I crawled in at night.

75. People who are wrong seem to talk louder than anyone else.

76. I don't like any music I can't hum.

77. Ice cream was just as good when they only had three flavors, vanilla, chocolate and strawberry.

78. The middle of the night seems longer than it used to.

79. I'm satisfied with the money I make until I read how much baseball players are making.

80. No matter how big the umbrella you carry or how good your raincoat is, if it rains you get wet.

81. When the telephone rings in a store, the person behind the counter will spend five minutes explaining something to the caller while all the customers who have bothered to come to the store stand there waiting.

82. They keep talking about how low the rate of inflation is but I notice that when I buy something that cost me only $1.98 last year, it costs $2.42 now.

83. If I'd known how many problems I was going to run into before I finished, I can't remember a single project I would have started.

84. Computers may save time but they sure waste a lot of paper. About 98 percent of everything printed out by a computer is garbage that no one ever reads.

85. Lawyers are more interested in winning than in justice.

86. There aren't many times in your life when your body has absolutely nothing wrong with it.

87. Vacations aren't necessarily better than other times, they're just different.

88. When someone tells you, “It was my fault,” they don't expect you to agree with them. When they say, “You're the boss,” they don't mean it.

89. No one who goes to prison ever admits he did it.

90. It gives you confidence in America to hear so many people talk who know how to run the country better than the President.

91. Doctors ought to think of some name for their outer office other than “waiting room.”

92. It's lucky glass makes a loud noise when it breaks.

93. If dogs could talk, it would take a lot of the fun out of owning one.

94. People aren't called “the working class” much anymore unless they're unemployed.

95. Most people don't care where they're going as long as they're in something that gets them there in a hurry.

96. Blue jeans cost less when they were called dungarees.

97. When I get sleepy driving, the only thing that really wakes me up is starting to fall asleep.

98. People in Florida talk more about the weather than people anywhere else in the world. I think it's because weather is what they're paying for and if it's good they feel it justifies the expense. If it's bad they like to think it isn't as bad as it is some places.

99. Never trust the food in a restaurant on top of the tallest building in town that spends a lot of time folding the napkins.

100. After thinking something through as well and as completely as I am able, to be sure I'm right, it often turns out that I'm wrong.

CHANGES
 

A Text for Textbook Writers