Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey
-To me, it's always a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you
walk around. That way, if anybody says, "Hey, can you give me a hand?," you can
say, "Sorry, got these sacks."
-If I ever get real rich, I hope I'm not real mean to poor people, like I am
now.
-Whenever you read a good book, it's like the author is right there, in the
room, talking to you, which is why I don't like to read good books.
-You know one thing that will really make a woman mad? Just run up and kick her
in the butt. (P.S. This also works with men.)
-You know something that would really make me applaud? A guy gets stuck in
quicksand, then sinks, then suddenly comes shooting out, riding on water skis!
How do they do that?!
-If your kid makes one of those little homemade guitars out of a cigar box and
rubber bands, don't let him just play it once or twice and then throw it away.
Make him practice on it, every day, for about three hours a day. Later, he'll
thank you.
-Sometimes I think you have to march right in and demand your rights, even if
you don't know what your rights are, or who the person is you're talking to.
Then, on the way out, slam the door.
-Anytime I see something screech across a room and latch onto someone's neck,
and the guy screams and tries to get it off, I have to laugh, because what IS
that thing?!
-What is it that makes a complete stranger dive into an icy river to save a
solid-gold baby? Maybe we'll never know.
-If you're an archaeologist, I bet it's real embarrassing to put together a
skull from a bunch of ancient bone fragments, but then it turns out it's not a
skull but just an old dried-out potato.
-To me, clowns aren't funny. In fact, they're kinda scary. I've wondered where
this started, and I think it goes back to the time I went to the circus and a
clown killed my dad.
-Whenever I need to "get away," I just get away in my mind. I go to my
imaginary spot, where the beach is perfect and the water is perfect and the
weather is perfect. The only bad thing there are the flies. They're terrible!
-Whenever someone asks me to define love, I usually think for a minute, then I
spin around and pin the guy's arm behind his back. NOW who's asking the
questions?
-There are many stages to a man's life. In the first stage, he is young and
eager, like a beaver. In the second stage, he wants to build things, like
dams, and maybe chew down some trees. In the third stage, he feels trapped,
and then "skinned." I'm not sure what the fourth stage is.
-When I was a child, there were times when we had to entertain ourselves. And
usually the best way to do that was to turn on the TV.
-I scrambled to the top of the precipice where Nick was waiting. "That was
fun," I said. "You bet it was," said Nick. "Let's climb higher." "No," I
said. "I think we should be heading back now." "We have time," Nick insisted.
I said we didn't, and Nick said we did. We argued back and forth like that for
about 20 minutes, then finally decided to head back. I didn't say it was an
interesting story.
-A man doesn't automatically get my respect. He has to get down in the dirt and
beg for it.
-I'd like to see a nature film where an eagle swoops down and pulls a fish out
of a lake, and then maybe he's flying along, low to the ground, and the fish
pulls a worm out of the ground. Now THAT'S a documentary!
-The old pool shooter had won many a game in his life. But now it was time to
hang up the cue. When he did, all the other cues came crashing to the floor.
"Sorry," he said with a smile.
-I don't pretend to have all the answers. I don't pretend to even know what the
questions are. Hey, where am I?
-One thing about my Aunt Nadie: She was gruff on the outside, but if you ever
needed something, like a spanking or a scolding, she'd give it to you.
-Instead of putting a quarter under a kid's pillow, how about a pinecone? That
way, he learns that "wishing" isn't going to save our national forests.
-You know what would make a good story? Something about a clown who makes
people happy, but inside he's real sad. Also, he has severe diarrhea.
-The old-timers around here still shake their heads and chuckle about that city
slicker who came through, trying to peddle "hair restorer." He took everyone's
money in a poker game, so when he tried to sell the bottles of hair restorer,
nobody had any money left to buy it!
-When this girl at the museum asked me who I liked better, Monet or Manet, I
said, "I like mayonnaise." She just stared at me, so I said it again, louder.
Then she left. I guess she went to try to find some mayonnaise for me.
-Despair is like a cable that is buried just under the surface of the ground.
You pull it up and pull it up, but that cable just keeps right on going, clear
across a field, until you come to a bunch of guys who are burying the cable.
Then just walk up to them and go, "Hey, have you seen Fred?" And they'll say,
"Fred who?" And you say, "Fred of snakes?" Then cover your ears, because big
laughs are coming.
-Just as bees will swarm about to protect their nest, so will I "swarm about" to
protect my nest of chocolate eggs.
-I bet one legend that keeps recurring throughout history, in every culture, is
the story of Popeye.
-Isn't it funny how we'll look out the window at the moon, and then we notice
it's not the moon but a streetlight? Also what's funny is how we do this every
night.
-There should be a detective show called "Johnny Monkey," because every week you
could have a guy say "I ain't gonna get caught by no MONKEY," but then he
would, and I don't think I'd ever get tired of that.
-I bet a fun thing would be to go way back in time to where there was going to
be an eclipse and tell the cave men, "If I have come to destroy you, may the
sun be blotted out from the sky." Just then the eclipse would start, and
they'd probably try to kill you or something, but then you could explain about
the rotation of the moon and all, and everyone would get a good laugh.
-If you're traveling in a time machine, and you're eating corn on the cob, I
don't think it's going to affect things one way or the other. But here's the
point I'm trying to make: Corn on the cob is good, isn't it?
-Do you know what happens when you slice a golf ball in half? Someone gets mad
at you. I found this out the hard way.
-Many people never stop to realize that a tree is a living thing, not that
different from a tall, leafy dog that has roots and is very quiet.
-If you saw two guys named Hambone and Flippy, which one would you think liked
dolphins the most? I'd say Flippy, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong though. It's
Hambone.
-The wise man can pick up a grain of sand and envision a whole universe. But
the stupid man will just lie down on some seaweed and roll around until he's
completely draped in it. Then he'll stand up and go, "Hey, I'm Vine Man."
-Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself.
Mankind. Basically, it's made up of two separate words---"mank" and "ind".
What do these words mean? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind.
-Probably the earliest flyswatters were nothing more than some sort of striking
surface attached to the end of a long stick.
-As the evening sun faded from a salmon color to a sort of flint gray, I thought
back to the salmon I caught that morning, and how gray he was, and how I named
him Flint.
-Like jewels in a crown, the precious stones glittered in the queen's round
metal hat.
-As the light changed from red to green to yellow and back to red again, I sat
there thinking about life. Was it nothing more than a bunch of honking and
yelling? Sometimes it seemed that way.
-Frank knew that no man had ever crossed the desert on foot and lived to tell
about it. So, he decided to get back in his car and keep driving.
-I'd rather be rich than stupid.
-The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw.
-I wish I would have a real tragic love affair and get so bummed out that I'd
just quit my job and become a bum for a few years, because I was thinking about
doing that anyway.
-It makes me mad when I go to all the trouble of having Marta cook up about a
hundred drumsticks, then the guy at the Marineland says, "You can't throw
chicken to the dolphins. They eat fish." Sure they eat fish, if that's all
you give them. Man, wise up.
-One thing kids like is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take my
little nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to an old burned-out
warehouse. "Oh, no," I said, "Disneyland burned down." He cried and cried,
but I think that deep down, he thought it was a pretty good joke. I started
to drive over to the real Disneyland, but it was getting pretty late.
-If doctors ever tell you that you've "flipped out," don't believe them, and
just keep on doing what you were doing, because something tells me "the Man" is
behind this.
-To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and
the dancers hit each other.
-If I was being executed by injection, I'd clean up my cell real neat. Then,
when they came to get me, I'd say, "Injection? I thought you said
'inspection'." They'd probably feel real bad, and maybe I could get out of it.
-Higher beings from outer space may not want to tell us the secrets of life,
because we're not ready. But maybe they'll change their tune after a little
torture.
-As I bit into the nectarine, it had a crisp juiciness about it that was very
pleasurable---until I realized it wasn't a nectarine at all, but A HUMAN HEAD!!
-Sometimes I think the so-called experts actually ARE experts.
-If you're a young Mafia gangster out on your first date, I bet it's really
embarrassing if someone tries to kill you.
-I wish my name was Todd, because then I could say, "Yes, my name's Todd. Todd
Blankenship." Oh, also I wish my last name was Blankenship.
-A funny thing is if you're out hiking and your friend gets bit by a poisonous
snake, tell him you're going for help, then go about ten feet and pretend YOU
got bit by a snake. Then start an argument about who's going to get help. A
lot of guys will start crying. That's why it makes you feel good when you tell
them it was just a joke.
-If you're a blacksmith, probably the proudest day of your life is when you get
your first anvil. How innocent you are, little blacksmith.
-If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We
might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.
-If you're robbing a bank, and your pants suddenly fall down, I think it's okay
to laugh, and to let the hostages laugh too, because come on, life is funny.
-When I found the skull in the woods, the first thing I did was call the police.
But then I got curious about it. I picked it up, and started wondering who
this person was, and why he had deer horns.
-I wish I had a dollar for every time I spent a dollar, because then, yahoo!,
I'd have all my money back.
-When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie
heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if it's not, ummmm, boy.
-The tired and thirsty prospector threw himself down at the edge of the watering
hole and started to drink. But then he looked around and saw skulls and bones
everywhere. "Uh-oh," he thought. "This watering hole is reserved for
skeletons."
-If the Vikings were around today, they would probably be amazed at how much
glow-in-the-dark stuff we have, and how we take so much of it for granted.
-If you want to sue somebody, just get a little plastic skeleton and lay it in
their yard. Then tell them their ants ate your baby.
-I think a good novel would be where a bunch of men on a ship are looking for a
whale. They look and look, but you know what? They never find him. And you
know why they never find him? It doesn't say. The book leaves it up to you,
the reader, to decide. Then, at the very end, there's a page you can lick and
it tastes like Kool-Aid.
-I remember how the other kids used to say that old Mister Swenson was the
meanest man in town. But I said I thought he was nice, that he just didn't
know how to show it. The meanest man in town, I said, was the mean old guy who
lived in the big white house. "THAT'S MISTER SWENSON," they said. Oh, my
mistake.
-If you're ever stuck in some thick undergrowth in your underwear, don't stop
and start thinking of what other words have "under" in them, because that's
probably the first sign of jungle madness.
-Love is not something that you can put chains on and throw into a lake. That's
called Houdini. Love is liking someone a lot.
-We used to laugh at Grandpa when he'd head off to go fishing. But we wouldn't
be laughing that evening, when he'd come back with some whore he picked up in
town.
-Of all the warning sounds that animals make, I think the one that's the least
effective on me is a kind of clicking noise.
-I wish I lived back in the Old West days, because I'd save up my money for
about twenty years so I could buy a solid-gold pick. Then I'd go out west and
start digging for gold. When someone came up and asked what I was doing, I'd
say, "Looking for gold, ya durn fool." He'd say, "Your pick is gold." And I'd
say, "well, that was easy." Good joke, huh?
-We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients. But we can't scoff at them
personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me.
-The big, huge meteor headed toward the Earth. Could nothing stop it? Maybe
Bob could. He was suddenly on top of the meteor---through some kind of space
warp or something. "Go, Bob, go!" yelled one of the generals. "Give me that!"
said the big-guy general as he took the microphone away. "Listen, Bob," he
said. "You've got to steer that meteor away from Earth." "Yes, but how?"
thought Bob. Then he got an idea. Right next to him there was a steering
wheel sticking out of the meteor.
-You can kidnap me and force me to be your watchdog if you want to. But I'm
telling you, I will bark at any sound I hear and it will drive you crazy.
-I'm telling you, just attach a big parachute TO THE PLANE ITSELF! Is anyone
listening to me?!
-I guess of all my uncles, I liked Uncle Cave Man the best. We called him Uncle
Cave Man because he lived in a cave and because sometimes he'd eat one of us.
Later on we found out he was a bear.
-Sometimes I wonder if I'm patriotic enough. Yes, I want to kill people, but on
both sides.
-It makes me mad when people say I turned and ran like a scared rabbit. Maybe
it was like an angry rabbit, who was going to fight in another fight, away from
the first fight.
-I remember we were all horrified to see Grandpa up on the roof with his
Superman cape on. "Get down!" yelled Uncle Lou. "Don't move!" screamed
Grandma. But Grandpa wouldn't listen. He walked to the edge of the roof and
stuck out his arms, like he was going to fly. I forget what happened after
that.
-I think in one of my previous lives I was a mighty king, because I like people
to do what I say.
-It's funny that pirates were always going around searching for treasure, and
they never realized that the real treasure was the fond memories they were
creating.
-If aliens from outer space ever come and we show them our civilization and they
make fun of it, we should say we were just kidding, that this isn't really our
civilization, but a gag we hoped they would like. Then we tell them to come
back in twenty years to see our REAL civilization. After that, we start a
crash program of coming up with an impressive new civilization. Either that,
or just shoot down the aliens as they're waving good-bye.
-I'd like to see a nude opera, because when they hit those high notes I bet you
can really see it in those genitals.
-If the captain invited me to his party, after he had whipped me earlier in the
day, up on deck, I guess I'd go, but I'd try to find some excuse to leave
early.
-I think my favorite monster movie is "Gone With the Wind", because it has that
ear monster and that big-dress monster.
-Sometimes the beauty of the world is so overwhelming, I just want to throw back
my head and gargle. Just gargle and gargle, and I don't care who hears me,
because I am beautiful.
-If you go to a costume party at your boss's house, wouldn't you think a good
costume would be to dress up like the boss's wife? Trust me, it's not.
-It's not good to let any kid near a container that has a skull and crossbones
on it, because there might be a skeleton costume inside and the kid could put
it on and really scare you.
-I remember how, in college, I got that part-time job as a circus clown, and how
the children would laugh and laugh at me. I vowed, then and there, that I
would get revenge.
-It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.
-If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let 'em go, because,
man, they're gone.
-I can't stand cheap people. It makes me real mad when someone says something
like "Hey, when are you going to pay me that hundred dollars you owe me?" or
"Do you have that fifty dollars you borrowed?" Man, quit being so cheap!
-If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at some guys, throw one
of those little baby-type pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think of how
crazy war is, and while they're thinking, you can throw a real grenade.
-If I was a cowboy in a lynch mob, I think I'd try to stay near the back. That
way, if somebody shamed us into disbanding, I could sort of slip off to the
side and pretend I was window-shopping or something.
-Something tells me that the first mousetrap wasn't designed to catch mice at
all, but to protect little cheese "gems" from burglars.
-Sometimes I think the world has gone completely mad. And then I think, "Aw,
who cares?" And then I think, "Hey, what's for supper?"
-If you define cowardice as running away at the first sign of danger, screaming
and tripping and begging for mercy, then yes, Mister Brave Man, I guess I am a
coward.
-Many people do not realize that the snowshoe can be used for a great many
things besides walking on snow. For instance, it can be used to carry pancakes
from the stove to the breakfast table. Also, it can be used to carry uneaten
pancakes from the table to the garbage. Finally, it can be used as a kind of
stainer, where you force pancakes through the strings to see if a piece of gold
got in a pancake somehow.
-One thing a computer can do that most humans can't is be sealed up in a
cardboard box and sit in a warehouse.
-When Rick told me he was having trouble with his wife, I had to laugh. Not
because of what he said, but because of a joke I thought of. I told him the
joke, but he didn't laugh very much. Some friend HE is.
-If you want to be the popular one at a party, here's a good thing to do: Go up
to some people who are talking and laughing and say, "Well, technically that's
illegal." It might fit in with what somebody just said. And even if it
doesn't, so what, I hate this stupid party.
-I guess one of the funniest memories of my grandfather was the time I was at
his house and that tied-up man with the gag in his mouth came hopping out of
the closet and started yelling that HE was really my grandfather and the other
guy was an imposter and to run for help. Who was that guy?! Oh well, never
saw HIM again.
-Once when I was in Hawaii, on the island of Kauai, I met a mysterious old
stranger. He said he was about to die and wanted to tell someone about the
treasure. I said, "Okay, as long as it's not a long story. Some of us have a
plane to catch, you know." He started telling his story, about the treasure and
his life and all, and I thought: "This story isn't too long." But then, he
kept going, and I started thinking, "Uh-oh, this story is getting long." But
then the story was over, and I said to myself: "You know, that story wasn't too
long after all." I forget what the story was about, but there was a good movie
on the plane. It was a little long, though.
-If you ever have to steal money from your kid, and later on he discovers it's
gone, I think a good thing to do is to blame it on Santa Claus.
-When I think back on all the blessings I have been given in my life, I can't
think of a single one, unless you count that rattlesnake that granted me all
those wishes.
-Marta was watching the football game with me when she said, "You know, most of these sports are based on the idea of one group protecting its territory from invasion by another group." "Yeah," I said, trying not to laugh. Girls are funny.
ONTO:
The Lost Deep Thoughts