The Slaughtered Lamb

[Samuel Johnson]

LONDON. n. That which is missed.

[Wolfgang Pauli]

I once made an exploding cigar for Einstein, but he smoked pipes. He regifted it to Feyman, who sensed a practical joke in the works but was a good sport and lit up anyway. Pauli snatched it from his mouth and threw it out the window, where Oppenheimer was chatting with General Groves. It landed on Groves's hat. The quick-thinking Oppie grabbed the hat off his head – a severe breach of protocol regardless of the situation – and was just about to stomp on when it POPPED, ruining the hat. They docked my pay for that, which caused a bitter row with Laura on the home front, let me tell you.

Those were crazy times.

I hate to be that guy, but Pauli wasn't there.

Actually I was. Wolfgang Panofsky lent me his security pass and hat. All Wolfgangs looked alike to the guards.

I once had lunch with him and Wolfgang Paul, hoping to get an unforgettable anecdote out of it. Alas, all that happened was an argument over who should leave the tip. In the kerfuffle we ended up inadvertently stiffing the waitress.

[Dorothy L. Sayers]

The only mystery is why it took me so long to find this place. It would make a fine setting for my next book, Wimsey Rides Again, wherein a Tail End Charlie meets his final end in a pub.

[Don Marquis]

No faster way to attract cockroaches.

[Ida Tarbell]

[graffiti found in the toilet]
Give a fuck: rake muck

[Katherine Mansfield]

Here for the garden party.

[David Bowie]

It's ch-ch-ch-ch-chilly out.

[Edmund Hillary]

I have nothing to offer about gardens or parties, but you don't know cold until you've been blanked by a sherpa because you forgot his birthday.

[Capability Brown]

I'm actually a big fan of gnomes.

[Fyodor Dostoevsky]

Me too! Tolstoy kept stealing my best ones, the bounder.