At Swim-Two-Birds

by Flann O'Brien

I saw that my witticism was unperceived and quietly replaced it in the treasury of my mind.

The mind may be impaired by alcohol, I mused, but withal it may be pleasantly impaired.

The modern novel should be largely a work of reference. Most authors spend their time saying what has been said before—usually said much better.

Evil, it seemed to him, was the most contagious of all known diseases. Put a thief among honest men and they will eventually relieve him of his watch.

The old Dublin custom of utilizing imported negroid labour for operating the fine electrically-equipped cooking-galley is still observed in this time-hallowed house. On the land adjacent, grazing is available for 10,000 steers and 2,000 horses, thanks to the public spirit of Mr. William Tracy, the indefatigable novelist, who had 8,912 dangerous houses demolished in the environs of Irishtown and Sandymount to make the enterprise possible.

I would not be in the least surprised to learn that my wife is a kangaroo, for any hypothesis would be more tenable than the assumption that she is a woman.

Further Synopsis, being a summary of what has gone before, for the benefit of new readers:

It was the late summer, a humid breathless season that is inimical to comfort and personal freshness.

The gift of flight without the sister-art of landing, answered Trellis, that is always a doubt.

The two lads in the air came to a sudden stop by order of his Satanic Majesty. The Pooka himself stopped where he was, never mind how it was done. The other fell down about a half a mile to the ground on the top of his snot and broke his two legs in halves and fractured his fourteen ribs, a terrible fall altogether. Down flew the Pooka after a while with a pipe in his mouth and the full of a book of fancy talk out of him as if this was any consolation to our friend, who was pumping blood like a stuck pig and roaring out strings of profanity and dirty foul language, enough to make the sun set before the day was half over.