Cherryl Keisler

“I think you can tell by now that I'm not the type of man to beat around the bush. I'll tell you exactly what I want from you."
Maxon took a step closer.
My breath caught in my throat. I'd just walked into the very situation I feared. No guards, no cameras, no one to stop him from doing whatever he wanted.
Knee-jerk reaction. Literally. I kneed His Majesty in the thigh. Hard.
Maxon let out a yell and reached down, clutching himself as I backed away from him. "What was that for?"
"If you lay a single finger on me, I'll do worse!" I promised.
"What?"
"I said, if you-"
"No, no, you crazy girl, I heard you the first time." Maxon grimaced. "But just what in the world do you mean by it?"
I felt the heat run through my body. I'd jumped to the worst possible conclusion and set myself up to fight something that obviously wasn't coming.
The guards ran up, alerted by our little squabble. Maxon waved them away from an awkward, half-bent position.
We were quiet for a while, and once Maxon was over the worst of his pain, he faced me.
"What did you think I wanted?" he asked.
I ducked my head and blushed.
"America, what did you think I wanted?" He sounded upset. More than upset. Offended. He had obviously guessed what I'd assumed, and he didn't like that one bit. "In public? You thought...for heaven's sake. I'm a gentleman!"
He started to walk away but turned back.
"Why did you even offer to help if you think so little of me?"
I couldn't even look him in the eye. I didn't know how to explain I had been prepped to expect a dog, that the darkness and privacy made me feel strange, that I'd only ever been alone with one other boy and that was how we behaved.”
― Kiera Cass, The Selection

“But I’m not guilty,” said K. “there’s been a mistake. How is it even possible for someone to be guilty? We’re all human beings here, one like the other.” “That is true” said the priest “but that is how the guilty speak”
― Franz Kafka, The Trial

“A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife annual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”
― Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

“As the children were sitting there eating pears, a girl came walking along the road from town. When she saw the children she stopped and asked, "Have you seen my papa go by?"
"M-m-m," said Pippi. "How did he look? Did he have blue eyes?"
"Yes," said the girl.
"Medium large, not too tall and not too short?"
"Yes," said the girl.
"Black hat and black shoes?"
"Yes, exactly," said the girl eagerly.
"No, that one we haven't seen," said Pippi decidedly.”
― Astrid Lindgren, Pippi Longstocking