said the dice player, as he
slammed down another cup.
Blood is thicker than water.
The last straw that breaks the camel's back
is a big needle in a small haystack.
Too many irons in the fire?
Well then, skip the ironing.
I'll trust him no farther than I can fling him,
she said.
An omlette run afowl, is a lot of broken eggs.
Keep your eyes on the stars,
and your feet on the ground,
said Teddy Roosevelt.
The moon comes up 15 minutes later
than it did the day before, you can count on it.
Only 4% of a light bulb's energy is light,
all the rest is heat.
Politicians shed no light whatsoever.
It's all hot air.
A Russian saying: he's looking for the horse
he is riding, means he is absent-minded.
No computer can translate idioms.
In Swedish: Who stole the cash box?
means how are you? Program that one in.
There is no word for problem in Quechua.
Dust devils are called mothers-in-law by the Navajos.
To take a walk in the Malay, is to eat the wind.
He went to see a man about a dog.
The Germans are called German
because their ancient forefathers
hollered and screamed in battle,
so the Gauls called them Germani
from a Celtic word, meaning to shout.
Julius Caesar was credited with Juvernia
which became Hibernia, which is Ireland.
A 9th-century Irish saying:
love is a drowning in floodwaters.
Terra Nullis: No man's land.
The Arabs said, One is the first number
in a series of endless numbers.
Rosebush, in the Warm Springs Pomo language
translates as the mean old lady who sticks you.
Tell that to William Randolph Hearst.
Rosebud. Citizen rose Kane with thorns.
A gray whale weighs a ton at birth.
A blue whale's tongue weighs as much as an elephant.
Its heart, the size of a car, the aorta is big enough
for a child to crawl through.
The octopus hunts only at night.
for a child to crawl through.
The octopus hunts only at night.
The blue of icebergs is not a reflection
of water or sky but of old compressed ice
where all air has been squeezed out.
One tear met another tear floating down the river.
Said the first tear, I am the tear of the woman
who lost her love. The other tear replied,
And I am the tear of the woman who got him.
An old Chinese saying proves
that some things never change.
I have written only one masterpiece,
said Ravel, it is called Bolero.
Unfortunately it contains no music.
Spider silk is so light that an ounce
would stretch a thin strand 2000 miles.
There are those who weave garments
from the webs of spiders, that glisten like gold.
Scientist queried: why do snakes have forked tongues?
An Italian naturalist said the forked tongues
were used for picking the dirt out of their noses.
The better to tell lies about the Garden of Eden.
Aristotle thought it gave snakes savory pleasure,
their gustatory sensation doubled. A good thing
he didn't know about the opossums' double penis.
They say pleasure is plural and pain is singular.
Nothing is more laborious
than to fight against stupidity
for it won't be any connected to reason.
When we ask for advice
we are looking for an accomplice.
Paul Gauguin said, life, being what it is,
one dreams of revenge.
To compat the dust storms of the Gobi Desert
the Chinese planted 300 million elm trees
parallel to the Great Wall of China.
It is said that those who can't read,
sing the songs in the streets of South America
about the characters in A Hundred Years of Solitude.
You have to begin to lose your memory,
if only in bits and pieces, if only
to realize that memory is what makes our lives,
said Luis Buñuel.
Storm petrels trotting across the water
were named after St. Peter, the Apostle
who walked on water. Peter means rock.
Hummingbirds can fly upside down.
What god were they named after?
Huitzilopochtli the god of war.Warriors slain in battle
returned as hummingbirds.
Stone sink to the depths of the river.
rearranged & revised 11/17
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