{EN} The Funny Thing Is – Ellen DeGeneres

Recenzie The Funny Thing Is…

1. “The fact is, I’d rather write a book than read a book. It’s like reading, only you get paid for it.”

2. “Be nice to everyone, even though you don’t want to and you may not like certain people. Be kind, friendly, and respectful even if people are not nice to you. That way, you’re not dragged down to their level. Also, there’s nothing that annoys arrogant jerks more than people being nice to them.”

3. “Try to put time aside to listen to “you.” It’s easy to forget what “you” want, who “you” are, with all the noise. Check in with “you” every day (or at least on New Year’s Eve).”

4. “The key to life is balance. Think of a seesaw. On one side is Give, the other side Take. If you just give and give and give, you’ve got nothing left. You’re empty. Which means you don’t weigh anything because empty equals weightless; so Take is just sitting on the ground bored out of its mind saying, “I’m bored, I can’t take anymore of this,” which is a pretty strong statement since that’s what Take’s job is. It is to take. […] And the same goes for taking too much. If you keep taking and taking and taking, you get loaded down. Taking equals heavy. So Give is stranded way up in the air saying, “Hey, I’m way up in the air.” And then Take is like, “So?” And Give is like, “I hate you. All you do is take.” And Take is like, “You’re the stupid poopoohead for giving all the time.” And Take gets off the seesaw to leave and Give goes crashing to the ground and then Take feels bad and rushes over to see if Give is okay and then they hug and start crying and both apologize for being so selfish. So you see, it needs to be balanced.”

5. “Work, but have playtime. Recess. We lose our play, our fun, all of our joy. We used to say, “Mom, I’m going out to play.” Now it’s, “Honey, I’m going off to work.”

6. “Sometimes, when I’m trying to get dressed, I find myself just staring at my clothes for an hour. I have not a clue as to what I should put on. It is so hard to decide what to wear. And it got me thinking: That’s why prison wouldn’t be so bad.”

7. “Now, when I say “an old friend” I mean a friend you’ve known for a long time, not someone who is really old. Someone really old is not much of a problem because one, by the time they mosey on over to you with their walker you’ll have had time to go home, look up their name in your address book, then scurry on back to the party without them noticing.”

8. “There are a few possible solutions to the “forgetting the name” problem. And I’m not talking about ridiculous ones like pretending to faint, then claiming you don’t speak English.”

9. “I’ve been lucky enough to meet the President and Oprah and Madonna and a lot of other fascinating people, so it was only a matter of time before I would meet God. And I have. What a day that was!”

10. “So, a couple of minutes later God walked in the room carrying a tray with a fondue pot and a bottle of Chablis. I would say she was about forty-seven, forty-eight years old, a beautiful, beautiful black woman, and we just immediately hugged. She smelled so good. She said it was Calvin Klein’s Obsession.”

11. ““What is the hardest thing about being God?” “Trusting people,” she said. “You never know if people really like ya or if it’s just because you’re God. And people always want something from you. They want money and then they want more money. That’s what they always ask for.” She told me nobody ever thanks her anymore. The only people who thank her are boxers and rappers, but she said she thinks it’s a little odd that rappers are doing songs like “Slap the Bitch up the Ass,” and the next thing out of their mouth is, “I’d like to thank the Lord Almighty for this award. Praise Jesus! “Nobody cares about the miracles anymore,” she continued. “The miracles just go by unnoticed.””

12. “Since we can’t, as adults, get away with throwing bad presents against a wall and bursting into tears, Christmas is the time of year when we all become really good at lying.”

13. “People are scared of silence. If you find silence, people always have to fill it with something. The world is so full of noise, it’s nearly impossible to find silence. I happen to believe that silence is golden. In life, it’s one small thing I can hold onto. Silence is where all of our answers are. It’s where our truth is. Our passion, our path, our everything… All the answers are in silence, if you can find it.”

14. “The parking situation is crazy because the world is overpopulated with the wrong kinds of people.”

15. “Life is short. If you doubt me, ask a butterfly.”

16. ““Please, tell me, what can I do to make my life count?” She thought for a second—which for her must have been an eternity—and finally said, “Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today.”

17. “If you want to know the truth, I blame the microwave for most of our problems. Anything that gets food that hot without fire is from the devil.”

18. “Modern life requires hardly any physical activity. We just push a button and stand there.”

19. “Yes, we’re lazy. Yet we also can’t seem to sit still. So we’ve started making things like GO-GURT. That’s yogurt for people on the go.”

20. “There are certain things that they’re coming up with that I just don’t think we need. Top of the list is that moving sidewalk you find in airports. It’s like a little ride in the middle of nowhere, but I don’t know what function it really serves. I mean, it’s fun because it moves, so if you walk while you’re on it you’re almost like the Bionic Woman, just flying past the people trudging beside you on the ground. But you know how hard it is to adjust to walking again once you get off that thing? And what about those people who get on there and just stand? I guess we have to thank God they found the moving sidewalk. Without it, I don’t know how they’d get anywhere.”

21. “Batteries are also packaged as though the manufacturers never want you to get to them. What could possibly happen to batteries that they need to be packaged like that? On the other hand, take a good look at a package of lightbulbs. Thin, thin, thin cardboard that’s open on both ends. What are those packagers thinking?”

22. “On the other hand, some things that don’t need to be made easier are being made easier. They’re making these automated toilets that flush entirely on their own schedule. Sometimes they just go off randomly. You’re still sitting down and suddenly it just flushes. “How dare you! I’ll decide when I’m done!” And then other times it won’t go off when you want it to. You stand up and stare at the toilet. Sometimes you have to fake it out. You sit back down … stand up! Sit down … stand up!”

23. “Then, when you go to wash your hands, you don’t have any control of that either. The faucet has to see your hands first so it can decide how much water it’s going to give you. It gives out only a certain amount of water. You don’t know how much you’re getting, so you’re like a little raccoon under there, rubbing your little paws together. It gives you some, then it decides that’s enough, and it’s not. So you have to pull out and pretend like you are a new set of hands going back in again.”

24. “One surefire sign that things are going the wrong way? Now we have the hands-free phone so you can concentrate on the thing you’re really supposed to be doing. My thought is this: Chances are, if you need both of your hands to do something, your brain should be in on it too.”

25. ““When life gives you lemons, use the juice to bleach your moustache.””

26. “Dieting has to be one of the hardest things for a human being to do—that is, besides parallel parking.”

27. “When you decide to go on a diet, it’s never because you feel great and want to reward yourself by reducing your food intake and exercising more. The idea usually comes to you after you’ve gone bathing suit shopping or right before your high school reunion. You feel ugly, depressed, and totally unlovable. Let’s face it: These are not healthy states of mind for a major lifestyle change. These are feelings that make you want to curl up with a quart of Haagen-Dazs and watch the Lifetime network all day.”

28. “Rico told me in all sincerity one day, “You can go to any restaurant. Just don’t order bread, potatoes, rice, fatty meats, dessert, or wine.” “Let’s see, that leaves water and carrots. Sounds delicious.””

29. “I was very excited to perform in Canada again. It’s like a whole different country! Learning about new cultures is so interesting. It’s very important when visiting other countries to at least try to speak their language. During my set I made sure to pronounce “about” as “aboot.” It’s the key to winning over Canadian audiences.”

30. “Okay, here’s more proof that everything’s bigger in Texas. You know those teeny tiny miniature shampoo bottles you get in hotels? In Texas they come in five-gallon jugs—which makes stealing them a logistical nightmare.”

31. “The other day I had an epiphany while eating a bag of potato chips. The bag was so full of air, I had to burst it like a balloon to get it open, and inside were only five or six measly freeze-dried spud slivers. It got me thinking how people fill conversations with trite expressions and phrases, creating the illusion they’ve said something significant, just like a deceptively puffed-up bag of chips.”

32. “How many people can honestly say they’re completely honest? Not too many. That’s why people have to put their hand on a Bible and take an oath to testify in court. Everyone just assumes that people lie. We have to say “I swear to God” or “I swear on my mother’s life, may God strike me dead!” if we really want to be believed.”

33. “1. What doesn’t kill you puts you in a whole lot of pain and makes you cry a lot and want to crawl into a hole forever and live with rodents.
2. Adversity builds character. Translation: You become bitter and angry and then people hate you even more.
3. God doesn’t give you anything you can’t handle… unless God’s in on it and doesn’t like you either.”

34. ““Take care” is short for “take care of yourself.” What does “take care” mean? Where’s the care? I’ll take it.”

35. ““He (or she) wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Everyone hurts flies. Someone realized the hatred of flies is so universal that they actually came up with a device to kill them. They tried to disguise it with a nice gentle name: a “fly swatter.” No, it’s a fly squasher. Nobody buys it just to swat at them playfully.”

36. “Ultimately my journey led me to The Funny Thing Is. I liked this title because when you hear it you know you’re going to hear an entertaining story. Perfect for essays written by a comic or even a book on the state of Social Security. But it also has another meaning. It’s used to explain an ironic situation. Like someone might say, “John just asked me for the money I owed him. Funny thing is, I already paid him back.” In this case it’s not funny because John may have just forgotten the debt had been paid. Or if someone says, “The funny thing is, when I deliberately set fire to the house, the couch was the first thing to go up in flames”; again, that’s not funny. That’s arson, and it’s a felony.”

37. “Seven hundred channels—when did this happen? I can remember when I was a kid, we had five channels. And we didn’t have a remote. You had to hate something so much that you would be willing to get up and walk five feet to change the channel.”

38. “People in commercials are happy all the time. Especially that woman in the shampoo commercial. She’s too happy. I don’t think our children should see people that happy on television. I fell for it, though—I bought the shampoo. I’ve got to tell you, I was shampooing for a good half hour…and I never got that happy. Finally I just had to fake it.”

39. “The weather is the happiest part of the news. It really is. You know, weathermen are usually very happy people. And at some point they’re going to say, “It’s a beautiful day” or “It’s gonna be a beautiful day.” Usually that moment’s associated with the weather and sunshine, but it’s nice to hear that positive reinforcement even when the crawl underneath the weatherman is telling us unpleasant news. I’d like it if they could incorporate “It’s a beautiful day” into the crawl.”

40. “The imagination is very important in reading. Books are not like television, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. You have to do a lot of imagining when you read. I bet that’s why more people watch TV than read books these days. It’s so much easier to have a machine do your imagining for you.”

41. “Jean shirt, khaki pants, curled up on your couch with a parrot on your shoulder and your Pekinese, Muffin, panting furiously in your lap. Man, those dogs breathe a lot, don’t they? I mean, I know they have to breathe, but I think they overdo it just to get attention. It works, too.”

42. “Gratitude is about taking that frown and turning it upside down. How can you turn a frown upside down when it is already down? It should be upside up. Gratitude is looking on the brighter side of life, even if it means hurting your eyes. Gratitude is something we can learn from others if they will talk to you.”

43. “The ass is such an important thing now. We check out our ass like crazy when we try on clothes. Not only do we check out our ass, but our entire facial expression changes when we do. We make the ass face. That is my ass. You turn a different way. That is my ass that way. Then you start to walk away. I’m going to walk away and that is my ass. We don’t make the ass face when we are at home naked looking at ourselves in the mirror. Totally different face then.”

44. “Sex should bring people together but sometimes it really separates them. We have this huge debate going on right now about same-sex marriage. There are people who are against it. There are people who are for it. And the people who are against it say marriage is a union between a man and a woman and it has always been that way and it should always remain that way. If we change the law to include two people of the same sex, they say, then what will be next? Someone could marry an animal. That is where they go right away. These people scare me. They think we’re weird.”

45. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, there are a lot of self-righteous people out there. And if you try to adjust your life to please them—by the way you dress, your sexuality, or the ass faces you like to make—you’re just going to go crazy and risk being as unhappy as these self-righteous kooks are. So enjoy your life. God gave us our bodies as a gift. (Granted, to some of us it’s kind of a gag gift, but that’s okay too.) Wear what you want, love who you want, and have fun.”