"What one word best describes you?"

—Richard.

"This is a one-time thing – Don't tell anyone else." [Being told to do something unethical by a boss – They're trying to take you into a place you don't want to go ... "... like fabricating or destroying documents, lying to clients, or anything well outside the normal course of business." (–Eilene Zimmerman, "Does That Request Pass The Smell Test?" The New York Times, October 24, 2010) – She's not a pushover! ... Never sign anyone else's loan!]

—"Do we have a policy on that? ... How do we usually handle things like this? ... Under what circumstances would we normally destroy documents? ... I need to understand the situation correctly." ... Yeah, I'm up and adamant! ... It's never too easy ... You're a car! Jump in with both feet! ... It's like hand-me-downs ... It's automatic! ... You're so strong! ... It rattles all your bones ... No, no, that's a fate worse than death.

"Taylor Swift is angry, darn it! – Am I dealing with a complete retard?"

—Not me! ... He has one foot in his childhood.

"These are not consequential people – a confederacy of fools."

—It's Bible study computers! ... They have that already ... Is this disgusting or what? ... Pretty intense ... That's not going to save the world ... I don't have to do it, and I'm not going to do it ... Very concerned.

"I don't like your tone – If it continues, you're out."

—That's the best we can do ... That would be too easy ... You heard it here first ... There's the latest thrill.

"Do you think there are things David Daniels didn't say?"

—The secret protects itself.

"I didn't hurt you." [Telling his little sister to stop crying after throwing a rock at her]

—Not entirely! ... Not endlessly!

"So who lives in all these houses?"

—Heartbreak house ... In each room ... They don't advertise it ... Almost everyone hates their family, especially at the dinner table ... They have maids and hangers-on ... That's why they're jolly all the time.

"You Silver Laked it!" [Said something as beautiful or true as a haiku you once wrote, named At Silver Lake]

—Go spelunking! ... Why should anyone else do it? No one else lives there.

["There's a lot of joy in it."] [Trying to figure out what to say to mean people] "Seems terrible."

—Be quiet, be honest to yourself and see what's doing.

"Okay, Pollyanna."

—You can't control the whole world.

"You're a real lady killer, Phil." [Sarcastically]

—Boy, that was a waste, no?

"That's not something a real man does ... It's unsanitary."

—Hey! ... Good luck.

"Nut."

—Virginal with a child is very rare.

"My grandchildren listen to what I say, but don't hear what I'm saying."

—Shut up! No,you shut up!

"Oh my God, what are you going to do? ... Did you know this was going to happen? ... Did you see this coming? ... This could be a huge opportunity! ... You know that things happen for a reason ... When one door closes, another opens ... I'm so sorry ... Have you looked online? ... In this economy, finding a job could take awhile ... What's wrong, why is it taking this long?" [Platitudes and "moronic comments" friends say after you've been laid off, extracted from "Navigating a Delicate Subject: The Layoff of a Friend," by Alina Tugend, The New York Times, April 25, 2009]

—That's how I keep my nice slim shape ... They'll just fire all those creeps ... There's lots of room for outlaw behavior on the World Wide Web ... Maybe ... Amazingly clever ... Let's take this on the road! ... Life isn't just easy – Life is hard things, too ... What a worker, huh? ... Just give it a rest ... Do your thing ... Stick to your plans and just do it! ... That's very good to have ... Just don't send me to a Christian school!

"I'm not an artist."

—Go play in the traffic! ... Go spit in your socks! ... Do something you believe in ... Holland Cotter says, "Destroy the artist you think the world thinks you should be and you'll start to find find the artist you are." [Art critic for The New York Times]

"Can you make sense of this? This is going to sound odd but anyway, there is a website called 'non escalating verbal self defense' and like its name implies, it's supposed to teach verbal self defense; however the actual website itself makes absolutely no sense. I mean the instructions and the writing on the site does not make any sense at all. So could someone with time just go to this site and look over it quickly and tell me if they managed to make sense out of it? Here is the site http://www.taxi1010.com" (1. Home > 2. Social Science > 3. Psychology > 4. Can you make sense of this? Yahoo! Answers)

—"Psychologists have a word which is probably used more frequently than any other word in modern psychology. It is the word 'maladjusted.' This word is the ringing cry of the new child psychology. Now in a sense all of us must live the well-adjusted life in order to avoid neurotic and schizophrenic personalities. But there are some things in our social system to which I am proud to be maladjusted and to which I suggest that you, too, ought to be maladjusted. I never intend to adjust myself to the viciousness of mob rule. I never intend to adjust myself to the evils of segregation and the crippling effects of discrimination. I never intend to adjust myself to the tragic inequalities of an economic system which take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. I never intend to become adjusted to the madness of militarism and the self-defeating method of physical violence. I call upon you to be maladjusted. The challenge to you is to be maladjusted ... Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted." (–Martin Luther King)

"This is an odd website all right ... It certainly seems as though whoever wrote it invested a LOT of effort ... It's mentioned somewhere in it that the author was a taxi driver in San Francisco: Richard Ames Hart or Amoret Phillips? 'This unabridged article on "Verbal Abuse" first appeared on Wikipedia; a few hours later, most of it was deleted' ... No wonder!! Still, it's intriguing enough for me to meander through for a while & see whether there's valid insight ..." (9 hours ago)

—There's a huge prohibition against people knowing themselves ... This is the last time anybody's going to stop me.

"Don't waste your time or money." (10 hours ago)

—"The dream is the royal road to the unconscious." (–Sigmund Freud)

"I think you should go to your local library and take out a book on speech rather than trying to understand rubbish website." (10 hours ago)

—Character Analysis (Wilhelm Reich, 1933) is the best book ever written about Freudian psychology.

"It's sort of anger management, learning to verbalize your emotions rather than being abusive or leaving or whatever. However, I am not sure that I would purchase anything from this site, its setup kinda screams scam. Your local book store or library should have some real books that discuss this, look in anger management, self-help, or marriage and divorce." (10 hours ago)

—They bait people and then they get them to scream and cry.

"You are right ... Go to a book store or library ... Dr. Phil has good books on relationships & as well as other types & Dr. John Gray ... It may be spelt Grey, not sure ..." (9 hours ago)

—Just a short list ... This will liberate you ... This will liberate everyone.

"Topic: unintentionally funny -- This website I found claims to teach 'Non escalating verbal self defense' while that might sound normal you have to see what this site actually says. It is so incoherent the sentences don't make sense, browse some of the links in the column and try to make heads or tail of what this guy is saying http://www.taxi1010.com" [Link from Unknown Highway Message Forum, March 15th, 2008]

—Make suffering inform our lives.

"I think I managed to fail at interpreting that damn site! Ah well! I never really found it hard to deal with verbal abuse. Normally, a loud, clear and booming exclamation of 'Silence!!!!' will get you out of any uncomfortable situation."

—I've heard that before, especially from a Jewish woman ... Stepping out ... Well, everyone is ... Some parents ignore you, and that's not good, too.

"Whatever you're doing there looks like a complete waste of time."

—This is the next step – This is the next level.

"What a waste of bandwidth – Get a job."

—We'd rather have freedom to do what we want to do – even starve to death – than tell other people what to do.

"The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture." (–Andrew Keen)

—I don't want anyone getting bright ideas! – You have to follow orders and not add anything – Every three minutes it's worse than Fox!

"Where'd you go?"

—It's much more old-fashioned than here.

"Rule No. 34: Regarding the truisms of human nature, there are no original rules." (–William H. Swanson, CEO Raytheon)

—Rule No. 35: If Barry Bonds was sucking his thumb, would you tell him not to? (See also, William H. Swanson's 33 Homespun Fly Jokes)

"It serves to remind us that nothing is ever what it seems!"

—You know, sometimes mistakes reveal deeper truths.

"C'mon, the 'For Kids' section uses phrases like syntactic analysis and seems to do little more than reduce some 88 categories of attack & deflection to 22."

—It's getting to where you have to do things yourself.

"The basic idea seems to be finding ways to stop uncomfortable conversations in their tracks with short, noncommittal answers that are largely non-sequiturs, leaving the 'attacker' with no obvious reply."

—That's a good way to look at it.

"There's a lot of words on that site [taxi1010], but they don't seem to add up to anything."

—How do kids know what to do? You just have to go on record.

"I feel like jumping. [From the 10th-floor window]

—No! You can't hurt yourself. Your superego is expressing your death wish. Everyone has these impulses. You can't hurt yourself!

«What are ten good comebacks for kids with low self-esteem?»

—(1.) Everything cheap you can think of; (2.) My idea of self is much simpler than yours; (3.) Anybody can; (4.) Very interested, are you? (5.) On the Avenue of Dreams; (6.) When you've got a routine, stick with it; (7.) A lot of people, their entire self-esteem is built upon hating other people; (8.) Why live in one dimension? (9.) I'm a little reckless; (10.) If you never intended to, and don't even have to, then you don't even have to, right?

«Ten ways to say no to a boy asking you out»

—(1.) If a girl likes you, she'll let you know; they won't come up to you and bug you; (2.) I'm not getting into that; (3.) I'm living with my family; (4.) As long as you're smart enough to hide; (5.) Ten thousand dollars an hour; (6.) You know, you'd be a great Pope; (7.) No one should take another person's job; (8.) Maybe it'll go away by Wednesday; (9.) I could do it, but I don't think I want to; (10.) The last and final insult – It's not real.

[Mix & match! Ten ways to say no .. ten good comebacks]

1..6, 2..9, 3..2, 4..8, 5..1, 6..3, 7..5, 8..4, 9..10, 10..7!

«What are the top ten ways for dealing with mean people?»

—To observe is to learn.

"You must / obviously / clearly have low self-esteem."

—You hang it in your office.

"So, for anyone else interested, here are the most useful things I've found googling around thus far: 'what to yell if you're being attacked,' and 'rhetorical responses to harassment' [link to taxi1010.com] (hard to figure out, but has some interesting ideas). Posted by salvia." [1st link from "I just moved down the street from a crack house ... Safety tips?"]

—Watch out for entanglements ... A lot of people are like that ... I don't know about now ... There's things in life I can't afford ... Wishful thinking doesn't change anything ... I can't afford one.

"Salvia - if you haven't figured it out already, the second link you provided [to taxi1010.com] is to a batshitinsane website. Read this thread [in metafilter.com] about it if that isn't already obvious. In no circumstances should you attempt any of these responses against someone who may decide to shoot you if he thinks he's being made fun of. Posted by Gortuk." [2nd link from "I just moved down the street from a crack house ... Safety tips?"]

—Well, whatever ... If you turn on a light switch, are you providing the electricity?

"What have you done for me lately?"

—It's not going to do YOU much good.

[Strip-o-gram at the office]

—Can you point out the person who paid for this?

"The deed is done."

—If I'm not back in five minutes, just wait longer.

[Obscene phone call]

—Blow the dust off the driveway! – That's something useless.

[Prank phone call]

—Stick to your own kind! – Easy to forget.

[Satanic phone call]

—There is no dark man – There is no room.

"Why didn't you like Boston?"

—That's proof enough.

"I thought you didn't like opera."

—It's called whistling in the dark.

"Didn't you ask me to take you to this movie?"

—Too bad you don't have a Producer's Knob.

"You didn't eat all your food."

—I am so good, I can have anything I want.

"We were just upset. It's disconcerting that the man who is supposed to have your best interest in mind and is the leader of your education community thinks less of us." (–Thea Daniels, Harvard senior majoring in sociology, after Harvard president Lawrence H. Summers suggested that innate sex differences may leave women less capable in tenacious pursuit of math and science)

—Well, everyone is in everyone else's clutches now, right? ... It's a great talent to be driven to solve problems, too.

"If someone makes a sarcastic comment, I don't even have time to acknowledge it – Things are moving too fast."

—You have a gift for color.

"No way! – A tiny fly buzzing distracted you from concentration? Oh, no!" [Insult from Japanese Zen tutorial]

—If you just write things, the mind will wiggle.

"Good evening, Could I speak to the head of the home?"

—Please take me off your telephone calling list.

"Oh! I was expecting a machine!"

—Eight ball in the left pocket!

"Are you the head of the home?"

—I must be going ... Good-bye!

"What are the conclusions?"

—Watch and wait, and maybe it will become apparent.

[Someone plunking down at your table uninvited]

—I have the Italian disease, MyFUNDSarelow.

"I want to play with those dogs!"

—Can you loan me any money?

"The first ride of the day."

—I'm not going to fool around anymore.

"Going home? – Can I get a ride?"

—I'm doing something for my father.

"You wouldn't be heading for San Pablo, would you?"

—Someplace else.

["What do you do for a living?] "It's not interesting."

—It doesn't have to be.

"Interesting."

—How could it hurt?