Ross Macdonald

Private eye Lew Archer asks an acquaintance to introduce him to a woman he sees in a restaurant:

"Introduce me to her."

"Why?"

"I've always wanted to meet her."

"I don't get it, Lew. She's old enough to be your wife."

From The Moving Target, a novel from 1949.

Paula Poundstone

From her book "There's Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say"

"I selected my seat on the self-service ticket machine at the airport the other day. The screen showed the seating chart and said, "Touch where you would like to sit." Looking around for surveillance cameras, I sheepishly touched my butt. What an odd command. Is that part of the PATRIOT Act?"

Nutrition

From Antonya Nelson's story "Rear View," in which a woman goes into a bar one morning to have a Bloody Mary:

The drunk on my right said, "That's a good breakfast drink. It's got food value. Beer has food value as well." He indicated his own glass. "This Guinness, here." We watched the creamy portion roil into the deep brown, mesmerizing as a geologic event. "But food, you know, does not have beer value." He, alone among the group, didn't even pretend to eat.

--From the book Some Fun.