#irony

She had hit rock-bottom. She had given a blow job to a man who for all intents and purposes, was a bum. He had smelled so bad, she forced him to spray on some of the perfume she always carried in her purse. Her favorite perfume. After tonight, she was quitting. Yeah, she’d have to go back home with her two kids, grovel to her mama and work a dead-end job, but anything was better than getting down on your knees to give a guy as disgusting as Lenny a one-off. ↗

— A.T. Hicks

#humor #irony #prostitute #strip-club #home

I'm being ironic. Don't interrupt a man in the midst of being ironic, it's not polite. There! ↗

— Ray Bradbury

#irony #humor

You can put anything into words, except your own life ↗

— Max Frisch

#meaning #life

That was his mother. When she wasn't crying over the breakfast cereal, she was laughing about killing herself. ↗

— Nick Hornby

#irony #life #mothers #people #life

I am beginning to believe that nothing is quite so uncertain as facts. (Edward Curtis) ↗

— Timothy Egan

#life

She upset Billy simply by being his mother. She made him feel embarrased and ungrateful and weak because she had gone to so much trouble to give him life, and to keep that life going, and Billy didn't really like life at all. ↗

— Kurt Vonnegut

#irony #life #life

They only asked for punishments that fitted their crimes. Not ones that came like cupboards with built-in bedrooms. Not ones you spent your whole life in, wandering through its maze of shelves. ↗

— Arundhati Roy

#irony #justice #punishment #life

I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant. ↗

— Markus Zusak

#life #paradox #life

During voir dire, the interviews for jury selection, each person is asked under oath about their experience with the criminal justice system, as defendant or victim, but usually not even the most elementary effort is made to corroborate those claims. One ADA [Associate District Attorney] told me about inheriting a murder case, after the first jury deadlocked. He checked the raps for the jurors and found that four had criminal records. None of those jurors were prosecuted. Nor was it policy to prosecute defense witnesses who were demonstrably lying--by providing false alibis, for example--because, as another ADA told me, if they win the case, they don't bother, and if they lose, "it looks like sour grapes." A cop told me about a brawl at court one day, when he saw court officers tackle a man who tried to escape from the Grand Jury. An undercover was testifying about a buy when the juror recognized him as someone he had sold to. Another cop told me about locking up a woman for buying crack, who begged for a Desk Appearance Ticket, because she had to get back to court, for jury duty--she was the forewoman on a Narcotics case, of course. The worst part about these stories is that when I told them to various ADAs, none were at all surprised; most of those I'd worked with I respected, but the institutionalized expectations were abysmal. They were too used to losing and it showed in how they played the game. ↗

— Edward Conlon

#district-attorney #irony #jurors #jury-duty #pathetic

It could draw from a greater reservoir of freedom. The irony could develop an even greater ease. ↗

— Elfriede Jelinek

#develop #draw #ease #even #freedom