#ata

I spent the last Friday of summer vacation spreading hot, sticky tar across the roof of George Washington High. My companions were Dopey, Toothless, and Joe, the brain surgeons in charge of building maintenance. At least they were getting paid. I was working forty feet above the ground, breathing in sulfur fumes from Satan's vomitorium, for free. Character building, my father said. Mandatory community service, the judge said. Court-ordered restitution for the Foul Deed. He nailed me with the bill for the damage I had done, which meant I had to sell my car and bust my hump at a landscaping company all summer. Oh, and he gave me six months of meetings with a probation officer who thought I was a waste of human flesh. Still, it was better than jail. I pushed the mop back and forth, trying to coat the seams evenly. We didn't want any rain getting into the building and destroying the classrooms. Didn't want to hurt the school. No, sir, we sure didn't. ↗

— Laurie Halse Anderson

#community-service #hard-labor #wit #satan

I have known some horses and a good many more pigs who I believe harbored evil intent in their hearts. I will go further and say all cats are wicked, though often useful. Who has not seen Satan in their sly faces? ↗

— Charles Portis

#satan

God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal. ↗

— Samuel Butler

#god #his #own #satisfied #work

Truth, like the juice of the poppy, in small quantities, calms men; in larger, heats and irritates them, and is attended by fatal consequences in excess. ↗

— Walter Savage Landor

#calms #consequences #excess #fatal #heats

The Indians, I was now speaking of, were not content with the common Enemies that lessen and destroy their Country-men, but invented an infallible Stratagem to purge their Tribe, and reduce their Multitude into far less Numbers. ↗

— John Lawson

#content #destroy #far #far less #i

To Paradise, the Arabs say, Satan could never find the way Until the peacock led him in. ↗

— Charles Godfrey Leland

#could #find #him #led #never

While the creative works from the 16th century can still be accessed and used by others, the data in some software programs from the 1990s is already inaccessible. ↗

— Lawrence Lessig

#century #creative #creative works #data #inaccessible

It is common knowledge that smoking is considered one of the nation's leading causes of preventable death, but it's less widely known that cigarettes are also the leading cause of fatal fires. ↗

— Ed Markey

#cause #causes #cigarettes #common #common knowledge

It is not acceptable that we continue to see thousands of acres burn because of forest fires, because of poor management on our forests, big kill, and we have these catastrophic situations take place when we are not able to take action. ↗

— Cathy McMorris

#acceptable #acres #action #because #big

I now bid farewell to the country of my birth - of my passions - of my death; a country whose misfortunes have invoked my sympathies - whose factions I sought to quell - whose intelligence I prompted to a lofty aim - whose freedom has been my fatal dream. ↗

— Thomas Francis Meagher

#been #bid #birth #country #death