One thing kids like is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take my little nephew to DisneyLand, but instead I drove him to an old burned-out warehouse. "Oh, no," I said, "DisneyLand burned down." He cried and cried, but I think that deep down he thought it was a pretty good joke. I started to drive over to the real DisneyLand, but it was getting pretty late.
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I don't think I'm alone when I say I'd like to see more and more planets fall under the ruthless read more
I don't think I'm alone when I say I'd like to see more and more planets fall under the ruthless domination of our solar system.
Sometimes, when I drive across the desert in the middle of the night, with no other cars around, I start read more
Sometimes, when I drive across the desert in the middle of the night, with no other cars around, I start imagining: What if there were no civilization out there? No cities, no factories, no people? And then I think: No people or factories? Then who made this car? And this highway? And I get so confused I have to stick my head out the window into the driving rain---unless there's lightning, because I could get struck on the head by a bolt.
Children need encouragement. If a kid gets an answer right, tell him it was a lucky guess. That way he read more
Children need encouragement. If a kid gets an answer right, tell him it was a lucky guess. That way he develops a good, lucky feeling.
The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw.
The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw.
If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the read more
If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.
If I ever opened a trampoline store, I don't think I'd call it Trampo-Land, because you might think it was read more
If I ever opened a trampoline store, I don't think I'd call it Trampo-Land, because you might think it was a store for tramps, which is not the inpression we are trying to convey with our store. On the other hand, we would not prohibit tramps from browsing, or testing the trampolines, unless a tramp's gyrations seemed to be getting out of control.
Whenever I see an old lady slip and fall on a wet sidewalk, my first instinct is to laugh. But read more
Whenever I see an old lady slip and fall on a wet sidewalk, my first instinct is to laugh. But then I think, what is I was an ant, and she fell on me. Then it wouldn't seem quite so funny.
Once when I was in Hawaii, on the island of Kauai, I met a mysterious old stranger. He said he read more
Once when I was in Hawaii, on the island of Kauai, I met a mysterious old stranger. He said he was about to die and wanted to tell someone about the treasure. I said, "Okay, as long as it's not a long story. Some of us have a plane to catch, you know." He stared telling hes story, about the treasure and his life and all, and I thought: "This story isn't too long." But then, he kept going, and I started thinking, "Uh-oh, this story is getting long." But then the story was over, and I said to myself: "You know, that story wasn't too long after all." I forget what the story was about, but there was a good movie on the plane. It was a little long, though.
The people in the village were real poor, so none of the children had any toys. But this one little read more
The people in the village were real poor, so none of the children had any toys. But this one little boy had gotten an old enema bag and filled it with rocks, and he would go around and whap the other children across the face with it. Man, I think my heart almost broke. Later the boy came up and offered to give me the toy. This was too much! I reached out my hand, but then he ran away. I chased him down and took the enema bag. He cried a little, but that's the way of these people.
