CRAIG CONLEY (Prof. Oddfellow) is recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation.” He has been called a “language fanatic” by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly, a “monk for the modern age” by George Parker, and “a true Renaissance man of the modern era, diving headfirst into comprehensive, open-minded study of realms obscured or merely obscure” by Clint Marsh. An eccentric scholar, Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size. Conley’s website is OneLetterWords.com.
"There's no death like it! How would you rather kick the bucket -- slowly fading out of the world in a fog of arteriosclerosis and senility in some two-bit nursing home ... or disintegating instantly in a glorious hail of bullets? Choking on mashed turnips at the age of 93 ... or getting detonated into heaven by a magnificent explosion of TNT? Think about it." From The Getaway, 1982.
The author's name is the title, and it's not an autobiography. The explanatory text says, "Is this a title? It is not." From E. K. Means by Eldred Kurtz Means.
This is what we, too, say when "invited" to modify our writing -- "I'm afraid it's impossible. I just can't revise the manuscript." From Fantastic Adventures, 1945.
"We will drink champagne and we will ignore him!" A bit harsh, but Barnabas doesn't always remember to turn on his charm. From Dark Shadows episode 815.
It sounds ungrateful: "Nobody thanks you for your kind applause," except for the fact that Nobody is a character in the play. From Little Nobody, 1875.
We would have used not an exclamation point to symbolize "risky" but rather an asterisk, which has "risk" in its very name. From Right, Wrong, and Risky by Mark Davidson.
You knew that the Bible is the best-selling book in history, but did you know that the No Bible is the least sold book in history? (Negative five billion No Bible sales to date, and subtracting by the day.) From Bible or No Bible, 1904.