Quotes from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“No, see what I’m trying to say is that I watch people organizing themselves into these neat little conflicts: Atheists versus Christians Jews versus Muslims Fundamentalists versus basically everybody and I feel like a kid in a broken home who can’t get Mom and Dad to stop fighting. The assumption that every one of these groups is making— and I think it’s important to acknowledge that every group, from scientist to Sikh, assumes this—is that they are right. That they are somehow behaving rationally. But the fact that we can get so angry about this stuff means that it’s not rational and I think we could get a hell of a lot further by synthesizing these beliefs than by finding more and more nuanced ways to call each other dicks.”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“Dionysus the god of drinking so hard you wake up with TWO hangovers and then they FIGHT.”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“That's all any of these myths have been trying to do. To take a huge, terrifying phenomenon, something you can only stare at and go "whoa", and turn it into something more our size. Something we can fit inside our puny brains. Something really cool, even: a story.”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“Like, a flood seems like a great way to punish every living creature in the world except for fish. What the hell is a god supposed to do when all the FISH start being assholes?”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“Hey, is there a female version of wingman? Wingwoman sounds awkward. I’m coining a new phrase: Titcaptain. Tell your friends.”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“So, basically, what it all comes down to is that we are made of tears from the disembodied eyeball of a guy who fucks his own shadow and surrounds himself with spit and puke.
I'm gonna go cry now.
I hope it doesn't turn it into babies.”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“So he calls up Loki like “LOKI SOLVE MY PROBLEMS WITH GIANTS.” And Loki is like “What? Why?” And Odin is like “REMEMBER HOW WE HAVE AN OATH OF KINSHIP THAT MEANS YOU HAVE TO DO WHAT I SAY?” And Loki is like “Oh yeah. Why did we do that again?” And Odin is like “NO TIME FOR QUESTIONS. STALL THAT GIANT.”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“So the moral of the story is that the primary ingredient for a successful nation is guns.”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“Narcissus is gorgeous. Like, imagine if someone could look exactly like bacon tastes and you have a pretty good picture of Narcissus (unless you're a vegetarian).”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“[...]when everybody starts laughing at Ra's old hair and senility he gets real pissed and when you are a god and you are real pissed there is only one solution, my friends: GENOCIDE.”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“the first thing that’s gonna tip everyone off that the world is ending is this thing called Fimbulvetr which just means THE WINTER OF WINTERS and that is exactly what it is. It is a winter MADE OF MULTIPLE WINTERS like, there is going to be a winter and then once that winter is finished there will be ANOTHER WINTER. And then after that maybe it will be spring? Think again, son. MORE WINTER.”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“So Loki
(the god of being a needless prick all the time)”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“He calls up all the gods like “HEY, GUYS YOU SHOULD COME OVER I’M HAVING A WEIRD COFFIN PARTY.”

And all the gods are like “Oh s**t, weird coffin party. We’ll be right over.”

So they all get there and Set is like “All right I made this coffin. Whoever fits perfectly inside it gets candy.”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“THIS IS WHAT TOM CRUISE BELIEVES IN”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“Loki sees her and he is like “Oh man that chick looks like she is about to get some TREASURE I want to RUIN THAT ACCOMPLISHMENT FOR HER because I am Loki and that is what I DO.”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“And then Loki gets jealous of how pretty Thor is and is like “I wanna dress up too.”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“(He tells fortunes by throwing palm nuts and reading their patterns but I failed to clarify that because I was looking for an excuse to write “stare at my nuts.”)”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“...so the Americans just get a whole bunch of guns and shoot at England until it goes away and then they shoot at the conquistadors until they go away too. Then they shoot at the natives and then when they run out of natives they shoot at each other. Then they’ve still got a lot of bullets left over so they have to keep finding more people to shoot. Also, I think someone writes a constitution? Anyway, that’s where America comes from.
So the moral of the story is that the primary ingredient for a successful nation is guns.”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“Throughout this section, I’m gonna be calling the United States of America “AMERICA” and you are going to deal with this because America is just flat out easier to type than “The States” or “The U.S. of A.” or “That Big Basket of Jerks under Canada”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“and Enkidu shows up like “Dude what the hell are you doing?
WANNA BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF EACH OTHER INSTEAD?”
And Gilgamesh is like “YESSSS.”
so they punch at each other until they get tired of gargling their own teeth and then decide to be BFFs.
I am not a scientist, but this may be why women live longer than men.”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“So as our story begins everything is going pretty good
the giants are leaving everyone alone for a minute
and everything is pretty okay
so obviously Odin has to go and fuck it all up by making a shitty deal with a giant.”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“So Isis shows up in Byblos like "Hey queen my husband is embedded in your palace may I please extract him?"
And the queen is like "sure, go ahead. It's not like he's a major structural support or anything, right?" and Isis is like "haha, sucker".
And she goes and removes the pillar WITHOUT DAMAGING THE PALACE AT ALL
Thus inventing Jenga.”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“Is it just me, or is spooge the single least attractive synonym for dickglue?”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“BUT ENOUGH SPIRITUALITY. BACK TO TITS AND BAD DECISIONS.”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“So considering how the current official religion of China seems to be something like “Stand still while we bulldoze your house to build this dam” it’s hard to put a finger on the relationship between ancient Chinese tales and any specific religion.”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“So the moral of the story
is that God hates vegetarians.”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“See, this is what the United States of America is all about.
You can wrestle a thousand bears and chew on a billion knives but in the end, you are only as good as the dude who stops you from dying of a gunshot while fucking a coyote.”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“to Freyja.” and Odin is like “Can I at least have the octohorse?” and Loki is like “Only if I don’t have to do what you say anymore.” and Odin is like “FINE.” and Loki is like “HAHA, I PRANKED YOU THAT HORSE CAME OUT OF MY HORSE VAGINA.” And Odin is like “Ew, ick. I still want the horse though.” So the moral of the story is that only a sucker pays full price for masonry. Oh, speaking of which let me tell you about another really gross thing Loki had sex with . . . FENRIR IS A DILF So one day, Loki’s wandering around Jotunheim and he sees this chick Angrboða pronounced ANGER BOW THE and he is like “Well, I know she’s pretty ugly and her name is kinda like a reference book entry for THE ANGER BOW but you know what? I’m gonna tap that and have three kids with that and all three of those kids are going to be horrible beasts that bring on the apocalypse. I see no problems with this.” So for now, let’s just focus on the first kid: a giant wolf named Fenrir. Now Loki brings baby Fenrir to Asgard and the Aesir all instantly know that this wolf is gonna be the death of them mainly because it is a GIANT WOLF NAMED FENRIR. But instead of doing anything about it they decide to see if they can just raise it as their own presumably because they don’t want to hurt Loki’s feelings. So this god Tyr the god of single combat and being awesome gets put in charge of feeding Fenrir because he’s the only person with sufficient testicular mass to actually go near the wolf and Fenrir gets bigger and bigger and holy shit bigger until the gods start to be like “Uhh . . . we should really do something about this wolf.” So what they do is they make a big metal chain. This chain is so incredibly massive that they don’t feel right until they give it a name that name is Leyding. So they go up to Fenrir like “Hey, man I bet you totally can’t break out of this chain.” And Fenrir is like “Okay, bring it.” So they tie him up and he pretty much just breaks the chains like cobwebs and he gets famous because of that and the gods are like “Fuck, that backfired. Okay, let’s make a better chain.” so they make a chain that is TWO TIMES AS STRONG and they name it Dromi and they go back to Fenrir like “Bet you can’t break THIS chain.” And Fenrir is like “I don’t know if I want to let you tie me up again.” And the gods are like “Don’t you want to be double famous?” and Fenrir is like “Ugh, okay.” So he lets them tie him up again and he flexes a little, but the chain doesn’t break so then he kicks the chain, and it does break and the gods are all like “Okay we definitely need a better chain. Somebody call some dwarves.” So the dwarves are like “Okay the mistake you guys have been making is you have been trying to make a chain out of actual things that exist such as metal instead of abstract concepts such as the sound of a cat’s footfall.” So what the dwarves do is they take the sound of a cat’s footfall along with the roots of a mountain the sinews of a bear the beard of a woman— remember, these are dwarves— and the breath of a fish, and the spit of a bird so that’s why you can’t hear cats walking around and mountains don’t have roots and fish don’t breathe, and birds don’t spit but I think bears still probably have sinews and I have definitely met me some bearded ladies so I guess the dwarves were not that thorough. But anyway somehow they manage to distill all this shit into THE ULTIMATE”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“So the moral of the story is that we don’t need to worry about global warming as long as we have guns.
The end.”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

“God is like “Look, dude, I made you a chick.
She is made of your rib, so she might be kinda dumb
I tried just making one out of clay, like how I made you
but she was harboring all these problematic delusions of equality
so I had to find a workaround
anyway, she’s totally hot, so don’t worry about it.”
― Cory O'Brien, quote from Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

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