Ha ha, only serious

     "And don't succumb too much to the spell of these cases. I have seen many other fragments of the cross, in other churches. If all were genuine, our Lord's torment could not have been on a couple of planks nailed together, but on an entire forest."
     "Master! I said, shocked.
     "So it is, Adso. And there are even richer treasuries. Some time ago, in the cathedral of Cologne, I saw the skull of John the Baptist at the age of twelve."
     "Really? I exclaimed, amazed. Then, seized by doubt, I added, "But the Baptist was executed at a more advanced age!"
     "The other skull must be in another treasury," William said, with a grave face. I never understood when he was jesting. In my country, when you joke you say something and then you laugh very noisily, so everyone shares in the joke. But William laughed only when he said serious things, and remained very serious when he was presumably joking.

Umberto Eco
The Name of the Rose (1983)
Sixth Day, Prime

A liberal perspective

   Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
   This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
   It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

President Dwight Eisenhower
speech: "The Chance for Peace"
April 16, 1953
Quoted in Eisenhower: The White House Years by Jim Newton

Eisenhower on Social Security

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

President Eisenhower
Nov. 8, 1954
letter to his brother, Edgar

http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/1147.cfm

Too late

She had a pale face, rather taut, dark hair that was a little wild. She was wearing a double-breasted scarlet coat with brass buttons, gray flannel slacks, pigskin clog sandals, and no stockings. There was a necklace of cloudy amber around her throat and a bandeau of old-rose material in her hair. She was in her middle thirties, so it was too late for her to learn how to dress herself.

Raymond Chandler
"No Crime in the Mountains" (1941)

A 90-minute film that plays for two hours

If the Coens have taken two hours to do what hardly anyone else could do at all, isn't it churlish to ask why they didn't take less time to do what everyone can do?

Roger Ebert
--the last line from his review of The Man Who Wasn't There

A geography lesson from Keith Richards

   "One thing was playing Chicago blues; that was where we took everything that we knew, that was our kickoff point, Chicago. Look at that Mississippi River. Where does it come from? Follow that river all the way up and you'll end up in Chicago."

Keith Richards with James Fox
Life (2010)

The unreliable narrator

     "Yes, he is intelligent. But we must be more intelligent. We must be so intelligent that he does not suspect us of being intelligent at all."
     I acquiesced.
     "There, mon ami, you will be of great assistance to me."
     I was pleased with the compliment. There had been times when I hardly thought that Poirot appreciated me at my true worth.
     "Yes," he continued, staring at me thoughtfully, "you will be invaluable."

Agatha Christie
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1916)