Fractured Adages

• Birds of a feather flock together, for they are bound by that pesky feather. Corollary: Birds of a feather aren't aerodynamic anymore, so they shuffle together more than truly "flock."
• Opposites attract. They also cancel each other out. Ooops.
• Don't judge a book by its cover, instead look at the Amazon reviews.
• The clothes make the man. This is awfully coy, as it never quite says what the clothes made the man do. I suspect something the woman wouldn't like, and thus the man seeks to blame the clothes.
• The early bird gets the worm, but the even earlier worm gets away. Corollary: The on-time cat gets an awesome breakfast.
• Better late than never, except when it is better never than late. Corollary: Context is everything.
• Nothing ventured, nothing gained, unless you play the lottery, in which case something ventured, nothing gained.
• Better safe than sorry, and better say sorry to be safe.
• Curiosity killed the cat. It killed the person curious about the cat, too.
• What you don't know can't hurt you, except for just about everything you don't know.
• Seek and ye shall find. Unless it is a lost sock in the dryer, a child's shoe, or your youth.
• Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. Unless you are Greek, in which case, have a happy birthday, and beware everyone else bearing gifts.
• Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Never look a horse in the mouth, period. Eeeew. Bad breath.
• There's no such thing as a free lunch, unless you are a child on certain days at Denny's.
• The best things in life are free, except for lunches, apparently.
• Two wrongs don't make a right, but several more might just do the trick, especially if you failed to make that right turn.
• Practice makes perfect, unless you are a talentless hack, like most of us.
• You are never too old to learn . . . that you aren't as young as you used to be. Damn whippersnappers.
• You can't teach an old dog new tricks. Wait, I thought you are never too old to learn! Damn whippetsnappers.
• A rolling stone gathers no moss, unless it rolls through something really sticky first.
• Stop and smell the roses, unless you are on the way to the hospital with a critically ill patient. Then it can wait. Really.
• He who hesitates is lost. He who doesn't hesistate long enough to get directions is also lost.
• Strike while the iron is hot, although this really is a poor way to treat someone nice enough to dewrinkle your shirts, though.
• Look before you leap. Actually, look before you do leap, run, walk, or flail about. Just a good idea in most circumstances.
• Many hands make light work, mainly because with so many hands, you really can't do the heavy lifting, as they extra hands just get in the way.
• Two heads are better than one, although three would be better, as then you can break a tie. Corollary: Two heads are not better than one on the same body. Emphatically so.
• Too many cooks spoil the broth.  A single cook can spoil a broth, too. The trick is finding one who knows what they are doing and ask them to make lunch. But don't expect it to be free or one of the best things in life.
• Measure twice, cut once: the motto of that cook who spoiled the broth.
• You can't have your cake and eat it too, except pretty much all the time, when you are served cake and you eat it. Fortunately, there are very few stories of cake theivery in the annals of history.
• A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. The two birds in the bush can be killed by a stone in that one hand, though, so that would even be better, especially if you found that good cook to prepare some chicken soup.
• Pride cometh before a fall, especially if you were foolish enough to have ticked off that bevy of lions and tigers, oh my!
• Don't count your chickens before they're hatched, and for heaven's sake, don't count your eggs after they've hatched.