Jan 31

“Should I make out a will? Isn’t that generally what one does in situations like this?”

“Wash, you’re not going to die. We’ll find a way to help you, so no, you do not need to make a will. Besides, I’ve seen your things. No one wants them.”

Jan 31

“Just between you and me, though, tossing me off the boat from atmo isn’t the best idea. I get caught in the engines, you folks are going to have a hell of a time scraping me out. You know how hard it is to get guts off your thrusters? Man, you’ve got to get out there with a toothbrush and a spray can of industrial strength cleanser. Takes a long time, ‘specially if it starts getting crusty.”

Jan 30

457.

Jan 29

Oh, it only hurts when the pain meds wear off, sir, when it hurts with a fiery blazing agony the like of which shouldn’t be visited upon the hordes of the damned.

Jan 29

“Now won’t you be cold?”

“No, ‘cause, you see, women get cold.”

“And what do men get?”

“Ruggedly uncomfortable.”

“Well, aren’t you ruggedly uncomfortable?”

“A little,” he admitted. “But it’s fine.”

Jan 28

456.

Jan 27

“Remember? I was afraid to roller-skate. I was afraid I would fall.”

“Yeah, you were five. You drew these diagrams of how your ankles would be broken. You labelled the muscles.”

Jan 27

“Then I suppose you aren’t really life’s punching bag, now are you?” the lieutenant said, raising his eyebrow in what might have been a facial expression.

Jan 26

455.

Jan 25

“Hey, I’m all about the sanctity of the marriage bed,” Wash said brightly.

“That’s because you have a marriage bed,” Simon snapped.

“And a marriage floor, and a marriage chair... Really, I’m just a big fan of any marriage surface.”

Jan 25

“Captain, I know that you haven’t exactly been pleased, exactly. About me and Kaylee—”

“Whatever gave you that idea?”

“The part where you threatened to break my kneecaps?”

“Well, there is that.” Mal smiled at the memory.

Jan 24

454.

Jan 23

Wash was beginning to suspect that he was identifying a mite too strongly with the triceratops, whom he called “Joel” inside his head when left completely to his own devices.

Jan 23

“Don’t mind him. He was dropped on his head repeatedly as a child. And raised by wolves. Baby-head-dropping wolves.”

Jayne gestured with the knife. “Don’t you be sassing my mamma.”

Jan 22

453.

Jan 21

“I’ve been falsely accused of theft. Why are you in here?”

“I’ve been rightly accused of theft.”

Jan 21

“Mal, what are you doing?”

“Bleeding I believe.”

“That doesn’t seem like a very good plan to me.”

“Well none of mine really are.”

Jan 20

452.

Jan 19

“Ship like this will be with you until the day you die.”

“Because it’s a death trap.”

Jan 19

“I just didn’t want you to get all sad and sentimental. Anyone on the ship walks round with a rain cloud over their head and Kaylee’s cheerfulness alarm goes off. She starts planning ‘community activities’ and forcing everyone to play Twister.”

Jan 18

451.

Jan 17

“That’s always your response. You always want to have this discussion ‘later’. When does later come?”

“When we’re not in the middle of an emergency, when we’re not being chased by good guys or bad guys or any guys at all, when the ship isn’t falling down around our ears, when I’m not bleeding and you’re not bleeding and no one in the general vicinity is bleeding.”

“So, basically, never, right?”

Jan 17

“That girl is...”

“Yes. Whatever word you were going to use, I agree completely.”

Jan 16

450.

Jan 15

“Look at this. What is this?”

“I’m surprised you’ve forgotten, Milord.”

“I haven’t forgotten, it’s a rhetorical question.”

“No, it’s a potato.”

Jan 15

“The Prince wants to take your daughter for his wife.”

“His wife can’t have her!”

Jan 14

449.

Jan 13

“Some pleasant word game perhaps?”

“OK make a sentence from these words, face sodding your shut”

Jan 13

“My every path is strewn with cowpats from the devil’s own satanic herd.”

Jan 12

448.

Jan 11

“An unwise action, Baldrick, since Mad McAdder is a homicidal maniac.”

“My mother told me to stand up to homicidal maniacs.”

“Yes. If this is the same mother who confidently claimed that you were a tall handsome stallion of a man, I should treat her opinions with extreme caution.”

“I love my mum.”

“And I love chops and sauce but I don’t seek their advice.”

Jan 11

As my tutor, old bubble face, used to say: “make love and be merry, for tomorrow you may catch some disgusting skin disease.”

Jan 10

447.

Jan 9

"Baldrick, your brain is like the four headed, man-eating haddock fish beast of Aberdeen"

"In what way?"

"It doesn’t exist."

Jan 9

“Fashion strays towards the tiny. Tiny dog, tiny skirt tiny heels.”

“In that case, you have the most fashionable brain in London.”

Jan 8

446.

Jan 7

“Unhappily Blackadder, the Lord High Executioner is dead.”

“Oh woe! Murdered of course.”

“No, oddly enough no. They usually are but this one just got careless one night and signed his name on the wrong dotted line. They came for him while he slept.”

“He should have told them they’d gotten the wrong man.”

“Oh he did, but they had the right man and they had the form to prove it.”

Jan 7

“I’d like to see the Spaniard who could make his way past me.”

“Well, go to Spain. There are millions of them.”

Jan 6

445.

Jan 5

“Trial by axe. The accused places his head on a stump of wood and an axe is swung down towards his neck. In the cases of the very guilty, the axe bounces off, and then we burn him.”

Jan 5

“They’re coming. Run! Run for your lives. Run for the hills.”

“Milord, they’re coming from the hills.”

“Oh, sorry. Run away from the hills. If you see the hills, run the other way.”

Jan 4

444.

Jan 3

The knockkneed flinx is one of those creatures that its friends describe as “a great guy, but not the sharpest knife in the drawer.” Good-natured and not terribly bright, the flinx’s slowness of wit is more than made up for by its swiftness of foot. When startled by something (alarm calls, scary clouds, its own feet), the flinx can achieve speeds of up to fifty miles an hour, unless it gets distracted and blunders into something. While few predators can outrace the flinx, they can virtually all outwit it, to the point where most self-respecting carnivores consider hunting flinx to be unsportsmanlike. The leading cause of death for flinx therefore continues to be mishaps, like falling off cliffs, running into trees, and sticking their heads in geyers to see where that noise is coming from.

Jan 3

His mind raced...unfortunately, it did not race particularly well, and failed to even place at the Cerebral Derby. Dreams of a Triple Crown dashed, and after disappointing showings on several tracks, it was put out to pasture on a ranch out west, where it became a favourite of the ranch hands for its good nature and willingness to gallop. In later years, small children fed it sugar, it had several other brains to loaf around the pasture with, and was probably about as happy as a mind gets. So that worked out.

Jan 2

443.

Jan 1

“You can’t keep her shut out of your life forever.”

“Actually, I can. All I have to do is turn back time, make it so this little mishap never occurred. I’d need a few supplies, and maybe some help from Calcifer—We’d have to become fugitives, of course—running from universe to universe to evade the magical authorities, surrounding ourselves with cloaking spells at all times—”

Jan 1

“Only words with more than four syllables can properly express how enchanting you are.”