The problem with those honorable men, Avi says, is that they expect everyone else to be honorable in the same way.
The problem of distributing bathroom tissue to workers presents inherent challenges for any office management system due to the inherent unpredictability of usage—not every facility usage transaction...
The place was famous for always having ‘six comely maidens’ working there, I said, with air quotes, ‘serving the customers ale and aught.’ What’s aught? asked Tristan. Whatever you want it to be, I sa...
The only reason no one ever did it with humans is because it seemed ethically dodgy, as well as completely unnecessary given the willingness of men to impregnate women every chance they got.
The narration had lasted for the better part of an hour despite Markus’s increasingly frequent and obvious glances at his Swiss watch, and left all the others in a strange combination of spellbound, b...
The mystic nails a symbol to one meaning that was true for a moment but soon becomes false. The poet, on the other hand, sees that truth while it’s true but understands that symbols are always in flux...
The metavirus is everywhere. Anywhere life exists, the metavirus is there,too, propagating through it. Originally, it was spread around on comets.That's probably how life first came to the Earth, and...
The little boy in him was crestfallen that he wasn’t going on the adventure. Then he reminded himself that he was already part of the biggest adventure ever, and that, so far, it had been altogether m...
The lieutenant looks somewhat taken aback that Uncle Enzo is concerning himselfwith such a tiny detail It is as if the don were going up and down highwayspicking up litter or something. But he nods re...
The leaders of Nippon were stupid. They took all of the gold out of Tokyo and buried it in holes in the ground in the Philippines! Because they thought that The General would march into Tokyo and stea...
The last year had been an education in how little having money really mattered. A rich Vagabond was a Vagabond still, and ’twas common knowledge that King Charles, during the Interregnum, had lived wi...
The implied responsibility placed upon the officer’s shoulders by the subordinate’s unhesitating willingness to follow orders is a withering burden to any officer with half a brain, and Shaftoe has mo...
The hasty shake-and-bake nature of the Ymir expedition, which had stirred up so much controversy, had been forced by the implacable timeline of celestial mechanics. Time, tide, and comets waited for n...
The entire country of Finland (to hear Otto tell it) has been plunged into an endless night of existential despair and suicidal depression. The usual antidotes have been exhausted: self-flagellation w...
The doctor had been dousing her hands with a sort of ointment they use, scented like bad gin. It is a ritual with them.
The difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent. The difference between stupid and intell...
The correct way to think about intelligence, in this case, is as a human quality shared by just about everyone, at least until it gets beaten out of us. Not a special gift that is bestowed on only a f...
The commentary came from millions of idiots on the Internet.
The color of the land fades gradually from dark jungle green to pale green and then a sere reddish-brown as the tail extends from the fat center of the island out to the end, and the soil becomes drye...
The cat, morbidly obese from eating virtually all of Isaac’s meals, fell off the table like a four-legged haggis, and trudged away.