Scold's Bridle

"Create her child of spleen, that it may live

And be a thwart disnatur'd torment to her!

Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth;

With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks;

Turn all her mother's pains and benefits

To laughter and contempt; that she may feel

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is

To have a thankless child!"

-Shakespeare, King Lear

"Forty-two!" yelled Loonquawl. "Is that all you've got to show for seven and a half million years' work?"

"I checked it very thoroughly," said the computer, "and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never really known what the question is ... Once you know what the question is, you'll know what the answer means."

-Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy