quotations

like this brilliant one from C. S. Lewis:

"The cardinal difficulty," said MacPhee, " in collaboration between the sexes is that women speak a language without nouns. If two men are doing a bit of work, one will say to the other, 'Put this bowl inside the bigger bowl which you'll find on the top shelf of the green cupboard.' The female for this is, 'Put that in the other one in there.' And then if you ask them, 'in where?' they say, 'in there, of course.' There is consequently a phatic hiatus."

 -That Hideous Strength

(It's true, too. My dear friend and I were in the kitchen in the grad-school days when she said something very similar to this. I said, 'Oh, sure!' and Ryan said, 'You mean you really understood that?!')