Why the Toast Always Lands Butter Side Down
Author: Richard Robinson
Release: January 1, 2005
Tagline: The Scientific Reasons Everything Goes Wrong
Publisher: Barnes & Noble
ISBN-10: 0760774714
ISBN-13: 978-0760774717
Main Character(s):
Synopsis: “The hidden science behind Murphy’s Law! Why is the tune you hate most the one you can’t get out of your head? Why do you keep making the same wrong turn? Why, when you lose something, do you keep looking for it in the same place, over and over? Why is it suddenly there the twentieth time you look? You’re not crazy. Science and psychology have reasonable explanations for all of these conundrums.”
Declassified by Agent Palmer: It’s not Murphy’s law. Robinson proves you’re just Toast
Quotes and Lines
Contributors to this book have been nearly everyone I have met, and most inanimate objects I have ever come across.
Like all great laws it is awesomely simple in its formulation. Like all great laws it is, once uttered, a self-evident truth. The longer you live with it, the more you realize what a vice-like grip it has on the planet.
Time and space are more warped in your mind than even Einstein could have ever dreamt.
In youth the days are short and the years are long; in old age the years are short and the days are long (Nikita Ivanovish Panin)
We fancy that what we see is based on rational observation, but because of our suitcase of expectations we are much more likely to see what we want to see.
Life can only be understood backwards, and can only be lived forwards (Soren Kierkegaard)
The most regular division of emotions gives six categories: surprise, happiness, disgust, fear, anger and sadness. Four out of six of those are unpleasant, so it’s no surprising that most of our life is concerned with unpleasant things.
Most women select their husbands in lightning they would not shoes a car by
We are gregarious animals. Sitting in a traffic jam all Saturday afternoon because everyone else is trying to get to the same shopping mall at the same time – we love it. We love hating it.
James Laver’s universal “Law of Fashion”
Indecent 10 years before its time
Shameless 5 years before its time
Daring 1 year before its time
Smart just right for now
Dowdy 1 year after its time
Hideous 10 years after its time
Ridiculous 20 years after its time
Amusing 30 years after its time
Quaint 50 years after its time
Charming 70 years after its time
Romantic 100 years after its time
Beautiful 150 years after its time
“…a group that keeps minutes and loses hours.” – Milton Berle on Committees
You cannot stop the love affair between pasta sauce and a white shirt
It seems churlish to say, ‘just add up the number of times the sauce didn’t splash over your shirt,’ but it’s true that successful meals are forgotten. Only the disasters count.
Ironically, the more purse science explains the world’s oddities, the more it drains the life from it. Truth, like Mars, is grey, dull and lifeless. We want it to be red, romantic and populated. Sorry!