Sheriff Chameleotoptor sighed with an air of weary sadness, and then
turned to Doppelgutt and said 'The Senator must really have been on a
bender this time -- he left a party in Cleveland, Ohio, at 11:30 last
night, and they found his car this morning in the smokestack of a British
aircraft carrier in the Formosa Straits.'
-- Grand Panjandrum's Special Award, 1985 Bulwer-Lytton
bad fiction contest.
The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart, and not to be mentioned with
commoner things. It is chief of the world's luxuries, king by the grace of God
over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the
angels eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took; we know it because
she repented.
-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by
ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his
character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler
animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling
complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt.
-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"