[Image: backglass from a new(ish) pinball game by Stern,
currently available from Premier Amusements]
From whiskey river‘s archive (a/k/a the commonplace book):
A physicist visits a colleague and notices a horseshoe hanging on the wall above the entrance.
“Do you really believe that a horseshoe brings luck?” he asks.
“No,” replies the colleague, “but I’ve been told that it works even if you don’t believe in it.”
(Niels Bohr)
…and:
Strangers
A man and a woman happened to sit next to one another on a train. The woman took out a book and began reading. The train stopped at a half dozen stations, but she never looked up once.
The man watched her for awhile, then asked, “What are you reading?”
“It’s a ghost story,” she said. “It’s very good, very spooky.”
“Do you believe in ghosts?” he asked.
“Yes, I do,” she replied. “There are ghosts everywhere.”
“I don’t believe in them,” he said. “It’s just a lot of superstition. In all my years I’ve never seen a ghost, not one.”
“Haven’t you?” the woman said, and disappeared.
(Alvin Schwartz)
…and (plus the last sentence):
“I see nobody on the road,” said Alice.
“I only wish I had such eyes,” the King remarked in a fretful tone. “To see Nobody! And at that distance too! Why, it’s as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!”
(Lewis Carroll [source])
