Quotations, a Clarification, and a Banjo Progress Report; Also a Question With an Implied Offer, and Bold Words Like a Gossip Columnist

Quotations

All of a sudden they run at each other once more and if you have a better phrase than like thundering elephants insert it here [_________________]. Giant Haystacks wallops Big Daddy across his flank, trips him and then stamps on his face with his feet, both of them ('See!' say Rubinfine and Adam to each other at exactly the same time), in response to which Big Daddy waits for the count to reach two, and then 'picks himself up off the floor' (and it's these fundamental clichés that wrestling is made for), stands up and shakes his head around like he's just drunk something that made him a bit woozy. As if to say: Cor, that was a heavy one.
And of course it's ridiculous, but the thing is, they are not here to express genuine feelings, or to fake them and dress them up natural like on TV - they are here to demonstrate actions. And all the kids know that. Any fool can tell a story - can't they? - but how many can demonstrate one, e.g., This is what a story is, mate, when it's stripped of all its sentiment. This afternoon these two hulking men are here to demonstrate Justice. The kind Mr Gerry Bowen [Block M, Seat 117] can't get from the courts in compensation for his son's accident; the kind Jake [Block T, Seat 59] won't get from school whether he chooses to squeal on those bastards or not; the kind Finn [Block B, Seat 10] can't seem to get from girls no matter what changes he makes to his wardrobe or record collection or personal hygiene; the kind Li-Jin [Block K, Seat 75] can't get from God.
- Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man

Otherwise the drama would make no sense.
- Dai Sijie, Mr. Muo's Travelling Couch

Every little trifle, for some reason, does seem incalculably important today and when you say of a thing that "nothing hangs on it" it sounds like blasphemy. There's never any knowing--how am I to put it?--which of our actions, which of our idlenesses won't have things hanging on it for ever.
- E. M. Forster, Where Angels Fear to Tread

I asked her to look at me and after a few moments--(pause)--after a few moments she did, but the eyes just slits, because of the glare. I bent over her to get them in the shadow and they opened. (Pause. Low.) Let me in. (Pause.) We drifted in among the flags and stuck. They way they went down, sighing, before the stem! (Pause.) I lay down across her with my face in her breasts and my hand on her. We lay there without moving. But under us all moved, and moved us, gently, up and down, and from side to side.
Pause.
Past midnight. Never knew such silence. The earth might be uninhabited.
- Samuel Beckett, Krapp's Last Tape

A Clarification

This is just to state unequivocally that I discovered it was spelled "M-e-a-b-l-e."

A Banjo Progress Report

I can play and sing the Wood Brothers' "Luckiest Man."
I can play and sing Sufjan Stevens' "Rake," though I'm having some trouble with the chorus still.
I can play "Boil Them Cabbage Down" with proper picking, i.e. well-executed forward-reverse rolls.
I'm becoming fairly fluent with the banjo neck, i.e. its size, string spacing, and tuning, and my ability to play string to string, so to speak.

A Question With an Implied Offer, and Bold Words Like a Gossip Columnist

Does anyone like orange Tic Tacs enough to eat several packages?