Understanding

Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy ready-made things in the shops. But since there are no shops where you can buy friends, men no longer have any friends.

― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince, 1943

What Is a Mirror?

Then the cow asked:

“What is a mirror?”

“It is a hole in the wall,” said the cat. “You look in it, and there you see the picture, and it is so dainty and charming and ethereal and inspiring in its unimaginable beauty that your head turns round and round, and you almost swoon with ecstasy.”

— Mark Twain, “A Fable”, collected in Charles Neider (Ed.), The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain, 1902

Red Riding Hood with a Twist

The wolf said, “You know, my dear, it isn’t safe for a little girl to walk through these woods alone.”

Red Riding Hood said, “I find your sexist remark offensive in the extreme, but I will ignore it because of your traditional status as an outcast from society, the stress of which has caused you to develop your own, entirely valid, worldview. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must be on my way.”

— James Finn Garner, Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, 1994

Handwriting

[…] there was practically one handwriting common to the whole school when it came to writing lines. It resembled the movements of a fly that had fallen into an ink-pot, and subsequently taken a little brisk exercise on a sheet of foolscap by way of restoring the circulation.

— P. G. Wodehouse, The Uncollected Wodehouse, 1976