An adventure story is fear recalled in comfort.

From Dickens's cockneys to Salinger's phonies, from Kerouac's beatniks to Cheech and Chong's freaks, and on to hip hop's homies, dialect has always been used as a way for generations to distinguish themselves.

Charlie Asher: Mrs. Ling, is that duck wearing trousers? Mrs. Ling: Could be . . . . You hear of paper-wrap chicken? This duck in pants.

Not unlike the toaster, I control darkness.

Science, you don't know, looks like magic.

In business, as in politics, the public is ever so tolerant of those who slime.

Don't bruise the Foo!