Linux Literature

The notes blatted skyward as they rose over the Canada geese, feathered
rumps mooning the day, webbed appendages frantically pedaling unseen
bicycles in their search for sustenance, driven by cruel Nature's maxim,
'Ya wanna eat, ya gotta work,' and at last I knew Pittsburgh.
                -- Winning sentence, 1987 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.

The only people for me are the mad ones -- the ones who are mad to live,
mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time,
the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn
like fabulous yellow Roman candles.
                -- Jack Kerouac, "On the Road"

The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what
you don't like, and do what you'd rather not.
                -- Mark Twain

        The Priest's grey nimbus in a niche where he dressed discreetly.
I will not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go.
        A voice, sweetened and sustained, called to him from the sea.
Turning the curve he waved his hand.  A sleek brown head, a seal's, far
out on the water, round.  Usurper.
                -- James Joyce, "Ulysses"

The Public is merely a multiplied "me."
                -- Mark Twain

The ripest fruit falls first.
                -- William Shakespeare, "Richard II"

The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven.
                -- Mark Twain

The smallest worm will turn being trodden on.
                -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI"

The surest protection against temptation is cowardice.
                -- Mark Twain

The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart, and not to be mentioned with
commoner things.  It is chief of the world's luxuries, king by the grace of God
over all the fruits of the earth.  When one has tasted it, he knows what the
angels eat.  It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took; we know it because
she repented.
                -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"