In one kingdom the jackets given the palace guards had two pockets,
in one of which was a hand-sized explosive device,
and in the other, a small book of extremely bad poetry.
(His Grace being constantly in search of a certain indefinable balance to things.)
Through consciousness does man come to know many things troubling,
but its redemption is in its tunnel-vision and propensity to focus almost exclusively on
just the most immediate distress.

From within a particular part of his brain, this thought emerged:
“Regardless of what history says: The feudal system is alive and well.”

Trying to explain humans by their individual background
is like attempting to explain mountains via geology.

In locales with multiple angles, not knowing what’s going on
won’t keep it from going on.
(Even angels in the pinhead galaxy understand this.)

When you’re from way  --  and we’re talkin’ WAY out of town,
you don’t have to call ahead.

In his continuing efforts to be more amusing (if not inequitable)
one king declared that henceforth the taxes of the land would be borne solely by those who call-upon-the-gods, and immediately the local deities asked for an appointment to meet with His Excellency.
(Even bread knows which butter it’s side’s on.)

A real enemy never sleeps.

From one perspective, the matter men call life is so simple that it is not surprising they have verbally made it out to seem extraordinarily complex.
(Only dumb polar bears are satisfied to live in a sea so boring that it looks the same from every angle.)

Hearing the tone deaf make fun of a particular piece of music is witnessing civilization at its pretentious best.

Seen carved on a tree near the outskirts of one city:
“He has not loved who has not experienced the love that comes at first sight, and
he has not thought who has not been struck by the thought that was instantly right.”

To assist the son, one father committed faux suicide.

A real enemy never sleeps   --  which is why a real man sleeps so well  --
he has no enemy.

To assist the son, one father committed faux suicide (which proved to aid him as well).

One man says he doesn’t mind having to face-the-world (just as long as he doesn’t have to do it out of his kitchen window).

One man’s advice to the young: “Act like Bach  –  think like Wagner.”
(Though he won’t elaborate.)

A blind king makes everyone nervous.

Another man’s advice to the young: “Grow up.”

In city affairs: if you had to wait for proof, there would be no facts.

Yet another man’s advice to the young: “Stay that way.”

In the first reality: if you had to wait for proof, there would be no facts,
while the mere existence of an act IS its verification.

And still another man’s advice to the young: “Ignore all advice.”

One man admits that he would probably never get in bed with the truth
if the lights were on.

One childless chap says that as long as he has his self he doesn’t need a kid.

Look on the shiny side: If the bad guys can’t win, at least neither can the good ones.
Some nascent solar systems never get off the ground because of their attempt to
turn in multiple directions.
The gang that can’t shoot straight will never get straight  (the neural gang that is).

One guy wants to know why it is so difficult to fake being aggressive,
but so easy to do so being submissive.
(“Is that why there’s so much more geology than there is mountains?”)

Some men mistake words for facts  –  and then let ‘em buffalo ‘em.
(But not wild bill shutup.)
And the children began to sing:
    “There was an old man who swallowed a priest;
      he swallowed a psychiatrist to catch the priest;
      he swallowed a philosopher to catch the psychiatrist;
      he swallowed a mystic to catch the philosopher…..”

Many people picture life to be harder than it is,
and many picture it to be easier than it is,
but hardly anyone sees it as it is.
(“Hey, aren't you forgetting about wild bill tellmeaboutit.”)
Consciousness’ constant urge to construct a model of reality wherein every single feature perfectly fits & properly functions arises from the fact that this is how reality is.

Whenever it would rain, one man would get wet.
(At one juncture he had six billion kin folks.)

In second reality races  –  everyone comes in second.

Whenever it would rain, one man would get wet  --  but never mentioned it.
(Will you be shocked to hear that he was an orphan?)

In his exertion to short circuit his personal troubles once and for all,
one man announced that he no longer had any background or history.
(“Let ‘em try to continue from there.”)

Conversation In The World Of Man’s Second Reality.
“Hey, that’s easy for you to say!”
    “That’s why I said it.”

It’s a long way (but a short trip) from here to Obviousville.

One man used to have the time-of-his-life   --  every time he’d die.

A kid who didn’t yet know enough to keep his trap shut, once said at a party of adults: “Everyone has a tree growing inside of them.”
Later in life his increased understanding demanded a revision:
“Everyone has a tree growing inside of them, but only the extraordinarily astute realize it.”

Upon closer scrutiny: one man was so taken-aback by his self
that he almost took his self back.

The spiritual leader of one thoroughly modern city said:
“Certainly the less sophisticated people of the world have their own quaint proverbs and truisms  –  but who gives a shit.”

Reflected one man as he lounged in the sunshine:
“What’s really neat about Life is that even when it comes in late, drunk and horny,
it still won’t tiptoe.”

(A sad city commentary on this, and any other time):
One sensitive fighter says he could’ve been a contender  –  a possible champ even,
if only he’d been able to find gloves in a color that more fashionably coordinated with his blood.

There was once a planet so poor and backward that the only myth they could afford told of a man to whom the gods offered the chance to tell his life story  –
and he declined.

In the supermarket of ideas, brand loyalty is a matter solely for dunces.

(The circular sense of salient justice has little to do with cyclone fencing
[at least not as little as you might think] to wit):
The king of one land publicly admitted that it was: “A-sad-day-for-all
when the king had to publicly admit that it was a sad-day-for-all,” and this email just in:
“At times I will find the preface to one of your stories as illuminating and obfuscating as the story itself –  while at other times my mind tells me that I have fallen into the midst of an insane wild-west-show.
Yours,” etc.

Mental knights who fall into jaws of verbal dragons were never more than
children playing.

When one man would receive written inquiries to which he did not want to respond, he would reply under the guise of being his own assistant who would inform the letter writer that he was presently out of the country and thus unable to reply to the inquiry;
he finally did this one time too many and suddenly found his self (if not out of the country) certainly out of something.

Those who set out to solve-the-case, but eventually fall victim to the clues,
do so by not realizing that they made up the clues.
Man's intangible reality only hasfactsby virture of the fact that (let's not insult you
by bothering to finish this).

At a recent reception, in lieu of a business card, one chap passed out slips of paper with this neatly printed message: “Possessions are a disease  –
                                                             and greed my personal physician.”

Soon after dying and discovering there was no afterlife this one guy whined:
“And there’s probably no ketchup either.”

Submission overcomes aggression half the time  –  in half the places  –  that is:
All the time in some places, and none of the time in others.
If the reality of man’s second reality had to compete with the reality of his first  –