American culture is based on the automobile, and any young man of promise
is going to own one and want to travel great distances in it. Consequently,
any young woman of aspiration should expect to spend most of her vacations
in a car, probing into unfamiliar corners. She is not required to know how
to drive but she will certainly be expected to read the road map while her
husband drives, and if she can't, or if she's abnormally slow in giving him
help, she's bound to cause trouble. Therefore, you'd think that colleges
which train the bright young women who're going to marry the bright young
men who are going to own the Cadillacs that roar back and forth across this
continent would teach the girls to read maps. None do. They teach a hundred
other useless things, but never a word about the one that will cause the
greatest friction.
-- James Michener, "Space"
"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak --
Pray, how did you manage to do it?"
"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life."
"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose --
What made you so awfully clever?"
"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!"
Grig (the navigator):
... so you see, it's just the two of us against the entire space
armada.
Alex (the gunner):
What?!?
Grig: I've always wanted to fight a desperate battle against
overwhelming odds.
Alex: It'll be a slaughter!
Grig: That's the spirit!
-- The Last Starfighter
