Ernest Hemingway

Love is a beast that slumbers, and when it is wronged, love is a beast that charges, seeking to upend all life’s truths and leave only the silent, erstwhile melody of unimpressive endings. Knowing this to be immutable law of which there can be no escape, what would be your perfect date?

Ice cream and Netflix!

Cat cafe!

Weighing the virtues and injustices of a quiet and noble death.

Ice-skating!

Jonathan Franzen

Which inherent disfigurement of the American middle class arouses you the most?

Their impingement of authentic self-discovery in exchange for the fleeting mirage of financial opportunity.

Their telescopic vision of themselves as culture warriors and sexual Columbuses.

Twitter.

J.K. Rowling

Which do you find more offensive: underage magic or pledging your eternal allegiance to the Dark Lord?

Underage magic.

Pledging your eternal allegiance to the Dark Lord.

It depends whether the one pledging their allegiance to the Dark Lord is in truth acting as a double-agent in order to sabotage the Death Eaters, atone for past sins, and illuminate the latent themes of moral ambiguity, shifting loyalties, and true sacrifice.

Edgar Allen Poe

What is your favorite color?

Anguish

Despair

Bleak

Skull

Agatha Christie

Your husband has just been discharged from the war with a severe leg injury and is put into your care. One morning you wake to discover that your hound, Mr. Jibbles, has died from consuming a vat of chocolate pudding you had prepared for a forthcoming dinner party. You go to inform your husband of the unfortunate news, but see that his mouth is smeared with the very same chocolate pudding. How do you proceed?

I would contact the family solicitor and inquire about any lingering land disputes.

I would acknowledge the possibility that Mr. Jibbles took his own life and framed my husband for murder.

I would accuse my husband of having an affair with an army nurse, then bury Mr. Jibbles in the yard and swear vengeance.

Dr. Seuss

Your ideal match, are they quirky or bland? Do they like to flip pancakes while reading Ayn Rand? Are they silly or thoughtful or cocky or gruff? Do they fart in your car but won’t let you touch their stuff? Can they juggle or yodel or jump rope or ski? Is it weird if they cover their ears while you pee?

No it’s not weird.

No it’s not wrong.

People have told me my stream is quite strong.

James Joyce

If, while baying about with that sheepsnouted cur Thomas Gallagher, a fair young thing slips in a festering green pool of sluggish bile, would you provide assistance despite the probability of any rescue attempt resulting in the kicking up of said sluggish bile and said sluggish bile spraying like a swiftly slit throat to dirty the edges of your threadbare cuffedge?

I would ponder the matter over a nice pint of stout.

I would freeze like an animal choking up a wobbly cud, immobile in the face of such a trenchant intersection, for is love – seeking it, succumbing to it, ruing it – really worth its inevitable absence?

Are you mad boy? Have old Thomas do it.

Kurt Vonnegut

In a certain light, wouldn’t the total annihilation of the human race, interspersed with dry, shoulder-shrugging, fatalistic commentary on mankind’s many flaws and ultimate virtues, be somewhat exciting?