If something smells fishy, it might be a fish.

I’ve probably been boring a lot of people for a long time. Strange to find comfort in the idea. There have always been things I felt I must tell them, even if no one listened or understood.

— Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

I’m writing this in part to tell you that if you ever wonder what you’ve done in your life, and everyone does wonder sooner or later, you have been God’s grace to me, a miracle, something more than a miracle. You may not remember me very well at all, and it may seem no great thing to have been the good child of an old man in a shabby little town you will no doubt leave behind. If only I had the words to tell you.

— Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

“You must really be a glutton for punishment,” he said.

“A gourmet, actually,” I said. “If it isn’t perfect, I send it back.”

— Jonathan Lethem, Gun, with Occasional Music

Obama dogged by protesters on bay visit — SFGate

Dogged by protesters?! If he ever comes to Orange County, he’ll be PROTESTED BY DOGS!

My owner pays so many taxes that there’s hardly any money left for pug treats!

— Lightning

A commercial for Cox Communications comes on the TV, the gist of which is that no one knows what the young woman in the ad likes. A sushi chef, for example, serves her an oddball concoction that she doesn’t like, and I forget the rest, but you get the idea.

“But here at Cox,” the ad goes on to say, “we know what you like.”

I say, “She likes Cox.”

My kid gives me a look.

“C-O-X. Cox. Come on, man.”

I wish more people staring at cell phones while walking would fall into holes . . .

Paul Boag: Do users care about your latest news? (Spoiler: No.)

Robbie Rogers, on in the 77th minute, makes American sports history as the first openly gay male athlete in a major U.S. sport.

— Deadspin

This came as shocking news to me . . . not the gay aspect, but the fact that someone considers soccer a major U.S. sport . . .

The best advice to reduce stress in your life is to stop screwing up . . .

1. Strive for clarity and distinctness.
2. Ask “What do you mean, and how do you know?”

here was an old woman tossed up in a basket,
Nineteen times as high as the moon;
Where she was going I couldn’t but ask it,
For in her hand she carried a broom.

“Old woman, old woman, old woman,” quoth I,
“Oh whither, oh whither, oh whither so high?”
“To brush the cobwebs off the sky!”
“Shall I go with thee?”
“Aye, by-and-by.”

My idea of a good picture is one that’s in focus and of a famous person.

— Andy Warhol

My whole life, I’ve tried to be for Michelle and my girls what my father wasn’t for my mother and me. I want to break that cycle — where a father’s not at home, where a father’s not helping to raise that son and daughter. I want to be a better father, a better husband, a better man. . . .

Growing up, I made quite a few [bad choices] myself. Sometimes I wrote off my own failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down. I had a tendency to make excuses for me not doing the right thing.

We’ve got no time for excuses.

In today’s hyper-connected, hyper-competitive world, with millions of young people from China and India and Brazil, many of whom started with a whole lot less than all of you did, all of them entering the global workforce alongside you, nobody is going to give you anything you haven’t earned. Nobody cares how tough your upbringing was. Nobody cares if you suffered some discrimination.

Moreover, you have to remember that whatever you’ve gone through, it pales in comparison to the hardships previous generations endured — and if they overcame them, you can overcome them, too.

Morehouse College is a historically black, all-male college in Atlanta.

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• Obama gets personal about race and manhood in Morehouse speech (washingtonpost.com)

“He’s a joker, he’s a smoker, he’s a midnight toker,” Obama added.