One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories

by B.J. Novak

the hare retreated, understandably, into a substantial period of depression and self-doubt.

“The lessons of dedication and persistence”? Had everyone forgotten that the hare had taken six naps throughout the race (!)—unequivocally guaranteeing victory to anyone—a horse, a dog, a worm, a leaf, depending on the wind—

How could anyone think the tortoise was relevant to any of this?

sad and dizzy at having all this attention given to him and then taken away,

he did it all under a wall taped full of the mean, vicious things everyone had said about him in all the years since the legendary race that had ruined his life.

the hare just said it to fuck with him.

slow and steady wins the race, till truth and talent claim their place.

This motherfucker knew exactly what dark matter was.

I grabbed the string of the tour badge around his neck and twisted it and choked him hard.

Maybe to this guy it felt like a full-size staircase.

I could imagine being his mom and loving him a lot,

whether I should hold off on making plans until I could find a way to prove definitively whether or not they had all fucked me over, in which case I would still meet up with them but only to tell them to go fuck themselves.

And also, he had lied about no one knowing what dark matter is, when he really did know, so he wasn’t exactly an angel himself.

I think it’s better to not know certain things. It gives the world an extra bit of mystery, which is important to us as human beings.

John Denver launched into a blasting rendition of “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”

Frank Sinatra covering the hits of Bruce Springsteen, Radiohead, Coldplay, and Beyoncé.

there, on the floor on her knees, was Nana, blowing Frank Sinatra.

You do what you love most, over and over.”

she’s cute too.”

They—we—bribe, kidnap, indoctrinate, torture, and … what am I forgetting? What’s the fifth one? Oh, kill—ha, that’s weird that I forgot that one—

“You know Twitter—before long everyone’s on to the next thing.”

Discussion question: Do you think Julie should fuck the warlord? Why or why not?

I’m going to abolish it.

You’ll get to high school, and you’ll be behind in math, fine. But probably not that far—the other schools in this town are shit, let’s be honest.”

I declare, no more math! This is a math-free school!

“Nobody says anything.” They nodded again. Everybody said everything.

He retired to a house by the beach in Florida and spent the rest of his days reading and writing.

“What does your gut tell you?”

I want to fuck Tony Robbins and look in his eyes and see that he’s in love with me, too.”

You’re going to sow the seeds of doubt so that the bedrock of trust that sustains my marriage will collapse.

a mirror up to Earth—amazing, unbelievable. Tricky but doable. He got it. Let’s make it.

seven hundred million dollars over budget—

When people caught sight of themselves in the mirror—individually and as a species—they thought twice about how they looked doing whatever they were doing. Crime disappeared. Wars evaporated. Meanness declined dramatically.

I’m 29 but people sometimes guess I’m anywhere from 28 to 30.

I know this sounds crazy to say after one encounter but I kind of fell for you pretty hard & it has been forever since I’ve connected to anyone like this & my heart is kind of broken in a million pieces.

You were wearing a red t-shirt with a pocket.

To each his own, I suppose.

It simply was not what I had in mind when I purchased a sex robot.

I am a romantic. That is what drives me. My dreams are about love, and my daydreams are about love.

I suddenly feel this surge of something like the combination of safety and elation knowing that every sight I see, no matter how small, is now important, because it’s shared.

Then I close the door to another room, and with relief, I drop the serious face and laugh and kiss the young artist’s mother and ask her what in the world we should do about this creature we made who wanted to put colors on the walls and is scared what we’re going to say about it.

a woman true from every angle, beautiful and spontaneous and grounded and funny and wise, a person as worthy of my permanent admiration as a sunset or a song, a partner in crime at the beginning and a partner in punishment later,

I am also a living human person, and, to put a simple desire in simple terms, I want to have sex with attractive people from time to time. Is it a shallow road compared with the road for love? Yes. Of course.

the little mark you get on you every time you open up a door to a hope and then close it fast in disappointment. It leaves a nick, or a dent, and those nicks and dents are not invisible.

I didn’t want to be tempted to compromise any of my romantic or professional ambition, and that was what the thing that people call dating had become for me.

maybe because part of love is being helpless, being out of control of your own emotions.

remember: I was not designing a human. I was designing a sex robot.

in our flawed world, what should be considered standard is actually so rare that it has to be elevated to the level of “perfect.”

“It’s just so funny that you ordered a sex robot, and it ended up being me. You know?”

“She may be able to sense what you want even more than you can about certain things.