My experience in a newspaper newsroom over the years has been: The word you hear least often, the word that's hardest for people to say in that environment, is the word yes. It's safer to say no. You get second-guessed less often if you say no. Your job's not on the line if you say no. But if you're willing to say yes and you're willing to face the consequences of having said yes, then quite amazing things can happen.
— Joe Sexton
Elizabeth's Written Ambition
I'd work all night
Normally, if given the choice to do something or nothing, I choose nothing. But I will do something if it helps someone else do nothing. I’d work all night if it meant nothing got done.
— Parks and Recreation
The earth delights
And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
— Kahlil Gibran
— Kahlil Gibran
You just gotta look forward
There's a reason why they make the rearview mirror so small and the windshield so big; you just gotta look forward.
— Tim Wakefield
— Tim Wakefield
Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.
— Ayn Rand
— Ayn Rand
You owe the companies nothing
People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.
You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.
Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.
— Banksy, from Cut It Out
Who you think you're not
It’s not who you are that holds you back; it’s who you think you’re not.
— Unknown
— Unknown
She was a flapper
In the 1920s, a new woman was born. She smoked, drank, danced, and voted. She cut her hair, wore make-up, and went to petting parties. She was giddy and took risks. She was a flapper.
-- Jennifer Rosenberg
Banishment
She might banish you, or throw you into a dungeon, or banish you then throw you into a dungeon in the place that she banished you to!
— My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic s01e22
Scissors, paper, rock
[counsel]... shall meet on the front steps of the Courthouse .... At that time and location, counsel shall engage in one (1) game of 'rock, paper, scissors.' The winner of this engagement shall be entitled to select the location for the 30(b)(6) deposition ...
— Colin Rowe for Cracked.com, '6 Judges Who Went Completely Insane on the Bench'
Racehorses
A racehorse that consistently runs just a second faster than another horse is worth millions of dollars more. Be willing to give that extra effort that separates the winner from the one in second place.
— H. Jackson Brown Jr.
Through a forest wilderness
The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.
— John Muir
One crack
... one crack in that wall might be all it takes to turn things around and begin the long, tough job of tearing the whole thing down.
Christina H., '8 Tiny Things That Stopped Suicides'
Christina H., '8 Tiny Things That Stopped Suicides'
You have 30 minutes to move your cube
[Homer has taken over as Mr Burns' assistant. He is reading Mr Burns' phone messages aloud.]
Homer: Here are your messages:
"You have 30 minutes to move your car",
"You have 10 minutes to move your car",
"Your car has been impounded",
"Your car has been crushed into a cube",
"You have 30 minutes to move your cube".
[phone rings]
Homer: [answers] Yello, Mr. Burns' office.
Burns: Is it about my cube?
— The Simpsons, 'Homer the Smithers', 3F14
Homer: Here are your messages:
"You have 30 minutes to move your car",
"You have 10 minutes to move your car",
"Your car has been impounded",
"Your car has been crushed into a cube",
"You have 30 minutes to move your cube".
[phone rings]
Homer: [answers] Yello, Mr. Burns' office.
Burns: Is it about my cube?
— The Simpsons, 'Homer the Smithers', 3F14
Times are bad
Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.
— Marcus Tullius Cicero ~40 BC
— Marcus Tullius Cicero ~40 BC
Frogurt
[Homer has agreed to purchase a Krusty doll for Bart's birthday]
Shopkeeper: Take this object, but beware it carries a terrible curse!
Homer: Ooh, that's bad.
Shopkeeper: But it comes with a free frogurt!
Homer: That's good.
Shopkeeper: The frogurt is also cursed.
Homer: That's bad.
Shopkeeper: But you get your choice of toppings.
Homer: That's good!
Shopkeeper: The toppings contain potassium benzoate.
[Homer looks puzzled]
Shopkeeper: ...That's bad.
Homer: Can I go now?
— The Simpsons, 'Treehouse of Horror III'
Shopkeeper: Take this object, but beware it carries a terrible curse!
Homer: Ooh, that's bad.
Shopkeeper: But it comes with a free frogurt!
Homer: That's good.
Shopkeeper: The frogurt is also cursed.
Homer: That's bad.
Shopkeeper: But you get your choice of toppings.
Homer: That's good!
Shopkeeper: The toppings contain potassium benzoate.
[Homer looks puzzled]
Shopkeeper: ...That's bad.
Homer: Can I go now?
— The Simpsons, 'Treehouse of Horror III'
Chris Chubbuck
We suffer at our sense of loss, we are frightened by her rage, we are guilty in the face of her rejection, we are hurt by her choice of isolation and we are confused by her message.
— Minister Thomas Beason's eulogy for Chris Chubbuck
— Minister Thomas Beason's eulogy for Chris Chubbuck
Do not calle up
Do not calle up That which you cannot put downe.
— H.P. Lovecraft, 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward'
— H.P. Lovecraft, 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward'
P.S.
P.S. Shoot Dr Allen on sight and dissolve his body in acid. Don't burn it.
— H.P. Lovecraft, 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward'
— H.P. Lovecraft, 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward'
Yog-sothoth
OGTHROD AI'F
GEB'L - EE'H
YOG-SOTHOTH
'NGAH'NG AI'Y
ZHRO
— H.P. Lovecraft, 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward'
GEB'L - EE'H
YOG-SOTHOTH
'NGAH'NG AI'Y
ZHRO
— H.P. Lovecraft, 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward'
MacGuffin
[We] have a name in the studio, and we call it the 'MacGuffin'. It is the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story. In crook stories it is almost always the necklace and in spy stories it is most always the papers.
— Alfred Hitchcock
— Alfred Hitchcock
World revolving around you
Why don't you call back later, and we'll see whether we can get the world to revolve around you.
Sleep Talkin' Man
Sleep Talkin' Man
Death and writers
Death disports with writers more cruelly than with the rest of humankind. The grave can hardly make more mute those who were voiceless when alive--dust to dust, muteness to muteness. But the silence that dogs the established writer's noisy obituary, with its boisterous shock and busy regret, is more profound than any other.
— Cynthia Ozick, The New Republic
— Cynthia Ozick, The New Republic
C'est magnifique, mais
C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre. C'est de la folie.
Translation: It is magnificent, but it is not war. It is madness.
— Marshal Pierre Bosquet, commenting on the charge of the Light Brigade
Translation: It is magnificent, but it is not war. It is madness.
— Marshal Pierre Bosquet, commenting on the charge of the Light Brigade
Confidence
Confidence is what a man experiences just before he learns all the facts.
— Surviving the Cut, s01e03
— Surviving the Cut, s01e03
In their desperation
In their desperation they turned to a man they didn't fully understand.
— Alfred Pennyworth, The Dark Knight
— Alfred Pennyworth, The Dark Knight
For what you have tamed
You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.
— Antoine de Saint Exupery, 'The Little Prince'
— Antoine de Saint Exupery, 'The Little Prince'
ne plus ultra
... her forthright pursuit of an ambition to write the ne plus ultra of the genre—the thing that is more like the thing that it is than any other thing can ever hope to be.
— Wesley Yang, 'Indecent Exposure', New York magazine
— Wesley Yang, 'Indecent Exposure', New York magazine
Speaking of marvels, I am alive
together with you, when I might have been
alive with anyone under the sun,
when I might have been Abelard’s woman
or the whore of a Renaissance pope
or a peasant wife with not enough food
and not enough love, with my children
dead of the plague. I might have slept
in an alcove next to the man
with the golden nose, who poked it
into the business of stars,
or sewn a starry flag
for a general with wooden teeth.
I might have been the exemplary Pocahontas
or a woman without a name
weeping in Master’s bed
for my husband, exchanged for a mule,
my daughter, lost in a drunken bet.
I might have been stretched on a totem pole
to appease a vindictive god
or left, a useless girl-child,
to die on a cliff. I like to think
I might have been Mary Shelley
in love with a wrong-headed angel,
or Mary’s friend. I might have been you.
This poem is endless, the odds against us are endless,
our chances of being alive together
statistically nonexistent;
still we have made it, alive in a time
when rationalists in square hats
and hatless Jehovah’s Witnesses
agree it is almost over,
alive with our lively children
who—but for endless ifs—
might have missed out on being alive
together with marvels and follies
and longings and lies and wishes
and error and humor and mercy
and journeys and voices and faces
and colors and summers and mornings
and knowledge and tears and chance.
— Lisel Mueller, 'Alive Together'
together with you, when I might have been
alive with anyone under the sun,
when I might have been Abelard’s woman
or the whore of a Renaissance pope
or a peasant wife with not enough food
and not enough love, with my children
dead of the plague. I might have slept
in an alcove next to the man
with the golden nose, who poked it
into the business of stars,
or sewn a starry flag
for a general with wooden teeth.
I might have been the exemplary Pocahontas
or a woman without a name
weeping in Master’s bed
for my husband, exchanged for a mule,
my daughter, lost in a drunken bet.
I might have been stretched on a totem pole
to appease a vindictive god
or left, a useless girl-child,
to die on a cliff. I like to think
I might have been Mary Shelley
in love with a wrong-headed angel,
or Mary’s friend. I might have been you.
This poem is endless, the odds against us are endless,
our chances of being alive together
statistically nonexistent;
still we have made it, alive in a time
when rationalists in square hats
and hatless Jehovah’s Witnesses
agree it is almost over,
alive with our lively children
who—but for endless ifs—
might have missed out on being alive
together with marvels and follies
and longings and lies and wishes
and error and humor and mercy
and journeys and voices and faces
and colors and summers and mornings
and knowledge and tears and chance.
— Lisel Mueller, 'Alive Together'
Seeking a sexual tyrannosaur for a romp in the park
I am a very career-focused, attractive, 5'9, 120lb woman who is seeking a man who is willing to fulfill my ultimate sexual fantasy. I am an executive with a very successful corporation that keeps me very busy and I sometimes have difficulty finding men who share similar interests to my own in the bedroom.
Nothing turns me on more then Jurassic Park themed role play. You must be the animatronic dinosaur, and I must be the helpless child (Tim or Lex) stuck in the park at your mercy.
You will growl mechanically into my ear and stare threateningly. I will feign panic and search for the flash light in the back seat of the visitor jeep. You will sniff at the window slowly and then release a robotic roar into the night air. I scream for Alan Grant, but your over sized robot jaws come crashing down through the overhead window, pinning me to the floor.
I cannot stress this enough however, you must play as a ROBOTIC dinosaur. This is very specific, my interest lie entirely in animatronic dinosaurs, not real ones. I thought I should mention this as there have been unfortunate miscommunications in the past, leading to performances that have left me without an orgasm.
Other situations could include you being the dilophasaurus and spitting in my face and then going for my jugular. Or you could be the ill and moaning triceratops, and I would be Ellie Sadler, digging through your stool to find the source of the ailment. More or less any scene from the film involving a mechanical dinosaur interacting with a human will do fine.
I don't like wasting my time, so make sure you do your homework and watch the film and make sure you can fully embrace the mindset of an animatronic dinosaur. I am an incredibly sexual person and I would make it a blockbuster night that you would never forget.
— 'Seeking a sexual tyrannosaur for a romp in the park', craigslist.org
Nothing turns me on more then Jurassic Park themed role play. You must be the animatronic dinosaur, and I must be the helpless child (Tim or Lex) stuck in the park at your mercy.
You will growl mechanically into my ear and stare threateningly. I will feign panic and search for the flash light in the back seat of the visitor jeep. You will sniff at the window slowly and then release a robotic roar into the night air. I scream for Alan Grant, but your over sized robot jaws come crashing down through the overhead window, pinning me to the floor.
I cannot stress this enough however, you must play as a ROBOTIC dinosaur. This is very specific, my interest lie entirely in animatronic dinosaurs, not real ones. I thought I should mention this as there have been unfortunate miscommunications in the past, leading to performances that have left me without an orgasm.
Other situations could include you being the dilophasaurus and spitting in my face and then going for my jugular. Or you could be the ill and moaning triceratops, and I would be Ellie Sadler, digging through your stool to find the source of the ailment. More or less any scene from the film involving a mechanical dinosaur interacting with a human will do fine.
I don't like wasting my time, so make sure you do your homework and watch the film and make sure you can fully embrace the mindset of an animatronic dinosaur. I am an incredibly sexual person and I would make it a blockbuster night that you would never forget.
— 'Seeking a sexual tyrannosaur for a romp in the park', craigslist.org
Lignin
Lignin, the stuff that prevents all trees from adopting the weeping habit, is a polymer made up of units that are closely related to vanillin. When made into paper and stored for years, it breaks down and smells good. Which is how divine providence has arranged for secondhand bookstores to smell like good quality vanilla absolute, subliminally stoking a hunger for knowledge in all of us.
— Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez, 'Perfumes: A Guide'
— Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez, 'Perfumes: A Guide'
Approaching job opportunities
... approach job opportunities as if someone had asked you, “Will you accept this sum of money to learn _____?” Fill in the blank with the parameters of the work. Will you accept this sum of money to learn how to deal with irate customers? This is a decent skill to have, as humans are miserable and unfortunately, you will be interacting with them for quite some time.
Will you accept this sum of money to learn how to run some specialized device? To become familiar with a particular class of retail product? To meet and tolerate other humans, most of whom will be insufferable but a few of whom might be good to know as you collectively attempt to stay a half-step faster than the swiftly-advancing shadow of death?
... If you are able to look at job opportunities as opportunities to be paid to learn some skill that you can later build upon or translate into more lucrative work down the line, you will begin to emit a “success pheromone” that will attract better things to your life. It does exist. You humans cannot detect it consciously, and be grateful — it smells like pig butt. But it is good for your careers.
— Wondermark: Ask a Gaxian
Will you accept this sum of money to learn how to run some specialized device? To become familiar with a particular class of retail product? To meet and tolerate other humans, most of whom will be insufferable but a few of whom might be good to know as you collectively attempt to stay a half-step faster than the swiftly-advancing shadow of death?
... If you are able to look at job opportunities as opportunities to be paid to learn some skill that you can later build upon or translate into more lucrative work down the line, you will begin to emit a “success pheromone” that will attract better things to your life. It does exist. You humans cannot detect it consciously, and be grateful — it smells like pig butt. But it is good for your careers.
— Wondermark: Ask a Gaxian
A letter of state
I am pleased to send greetings to the American team competing at the Bocuse d'Or 2011.
The traditions and trends of the culinary arts transcends borders, languages and cultures. Events like the Bocuse d'Or showcase the talents of masterful chefs from around the world and inspire them to keep pushing the frontiers of food and cooking.
I hope the Team USA takes pride in the hard work and dedication needed to reach this point. I wish you the best of luck from our nation in this exciting event.
— The White House
The traditions and trends of the culinary arts transcends borders, languages and cultures. Events like the Bocuse d'Or showcase the talents of masterful chefs from around the world and inspire them to keep pushing the frontiers of food and cooking.
I hope the Team USA takes pride in the hard work and dedication needed to reach this point. I wish you the best of luck from our nation in this exciting event.
— The White House
Gold
The great lord [El Dorado] goes about continually covered in gold dust, as fine as ground salt. He feels that it would be less beautiful to wear any other ornament. It would be crude and common to put on armour plates of hammered or stamped gold, for other rich lords wear those when they wish. But to powder oneself with gold is something exotic, unusual, novel, and more costly -- for he washes away at night what he puts on each morning, so that it is discarded and lost. And he does this every day of the year.
— Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés
— Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés
Loneliness still there
The loneliness was still there, but it was getting louder and easier to dance to.
— Anon.
— Anon.
Especially the young
I light a cigar, lean back
remember
dead friends dead days dead loves;
so much has gone by for most of us,
even the young, especially the young
for they have lost the beginning and have
the rest of the way to go;
— Charles Bukowski
remember
dead friends dead days dead loves;
so much has gone by for most of us,
even the young, especially the young
for they have lost the beginning and have
the rest of the way to go;
— Charles Bukowski
I like living.
I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all, I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.
— Agatha Christie
— Agatha Christie
Those who have worn the crown
Those who have worn the crown should never survive its loss. Never will I see the day when I am not saluted as empress.
... Royalty is a fine burial shroud. Purple [the royal colour] makes a fine winding sheet.
— Attributed to Theodora, wife of the emperor Justinian I, during the Nika riots
... Royalty is a fine burial shroud. Purple [the royal colour] makes a fine winding sheet.
— Attributed to Theodora, wife of the emperor Justinian I, during the Nika riots
I realised we might survive
When we stepped out into the cold night air I realized we might survive.
— Guy New York: A Too Ugly Hat
— Guy New York: A Too Ugly Hat
This is what you shall do
This is what you shall do: be loyal to what you love, be true to the Earth, and fight your enemies with passion and laughter.
— Edward Abbey
— Edward Abbey
Follow your most intense obsessions
Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.
— Franz Kafka
— Franz Kafka
In our minds, we’re all Lady GaGa with a slightly smaller wardrobe.
— Justin Kownacki, 'Sorry Guys: When It Comes to Your Audience, Size DOES Matter'
— Justin Kownacki, 'Sorry Guys: When It Comes to Your Audience, Size DOES Matter'
Coca Cola
What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coca Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca Cola, and just think, you can drink Coca Cola, too. A coke is a coke and no amount of money can get you a better coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the cokes are the same and all the cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.
— Andy Warhol
— Andy Warhol
The best Keith Moon story is the time when shortly after leaving a hotel, he sat up in a panic and told the driver to stop and turn around. “I forgot something! We’ve got to go back!” Upon returning to the hotel, he ran to his room, grabbed the television and threw it out the window and into the pool. Returning to the car, he said with a great sigh of relief, “I nearly forgot."
— Chris Bucholz, ‘The 7 Most Impossible Rock Stars to Deal With’, Cracked.com
— Chris Bucholz, ‘The 7 Most Impossible Rock Stars to Deal With’, Cracked.com
Tear our gods to bits
As the Bacchae knew, we always tear our Gods to bits, and eat the bits we like.
— Adam Gopnick, ‘What Did Jesus Do?’, The New Yorker
— Adam Gopnick, ‘What Did Jesus Do?’, The New Yorker
Photo ID
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to put in a call to the Ohio Secretary of State, notifying them that I will no longer be carrying around photo ID. Know why? People should know who I am.
— Sue Sylvester, Glee
— Sue Sylvester, Glee
Don't offend
Don’t offend
the fullbloods,
don’t offend
the whites,
stand there in
the middle
of the god-
damned road
and get hit.
— Quoted by Patricia Riley, ‘The Mixed Blood Writer as Interpreter and Mythmaker’, Mixed Race Literature
the fullbloods,
don’t offend
the whites,
stand there in
the middle
of the god-
damned road
and get hit.
— Quoted by Patricia Riley, ‘The Mixed Blood Writer as Interpreter and Mythmaker’, Mixed Race Literature
Cauliflower and broccoli
[I would like] cauliflower & broccoli, cut into individual florets and thrown immediately into the garbage. I fucking hate that.
— Iggy Pop and The Stooges’ band rider
— Iggy Pop and The Stooges’ band rider
You love these machines
“SOME OF THE NEW STYLE MACHINES HAVE A LOT OF PLASTIC PARTS.” He dipped his hand into a bin of ratchet gears for Olivetti ribbon spools. They were all clean, lightly oiled steel.
“THE PLASTIC PARTS ARE NO GOOD. METAL IS BETTER. WE TAKE OUT THE PLASTIC AND PUT IN METAL. THE LAST SUIT I WEAR HAS NO POCKETS. DO YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN?”
— 'You love these machines. These machines are dead: a love story.'
“THE PLASTIC PARTS ARE NO GOOD. METAL IS BETTER. WE TAKE OUT THE PLASTIC AND PUT IN METAL. THE LAST SUIT I WEAR HAS NO POCKETS. DO YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN?”
— 'You love these machines. These machines are dead: a love story.'
Any sacrifice but not any compromise
I had a vision, for which I was prepared to make any sacrifice, but not any compromise.
— Karl Lagerfeld
— Karl Lagerfeld
Time travel was once considered scientific heresy. I used to avoid talking about it for fear of being labelled a crank. But these days I’m not so cautious. In fact, I’m more like the people who built Stonehenge. I’m obsessed by time. If I had a time machine I’d visit Marilyn Monroe in her prime or drop in on Galileo as he turned his telescope to the heavens. Perhaps I’d even travel to the end of the universe to find out how our whole cosmic story ends.
— Stephen Hawking, 'How to Build a Time Machine'
— Stephen Hawking, 'How to Build a Time Machine'
Bite your own finger off
It takes real commitment to bite your own finger off. According to Jim, “the decision was not difficult to make, but the act was.” The bone didn’t snap off like the bones of a pickled chicken foot. It didn’t crunch or crack like a raw carrot. No, Jim gnawed through the flesh and bone over the course of minutes, the way a dog will really work on a bone until it finally comes apart.
— 'The Guy Who Bit His Finger Off'
— 'The Guy Who Bit His Finger Off'
So thirsty for the marvelous
I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn’t impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape one way or another. No more walls.
— Anaïs Nin
— Anaïs Nin
The Brown Bunny
Upon his return to America, [director] Gallo took a defiant stance, defending the film and finishing a new edit that clarified and tightened the storyline. A war of words then erupted between Gallo and film critic Roger Ebert, with Ebert writing that The Brown Bunny was the worst film in the history of Cannes, and Gallo retorting by calling Ebert a “fat pig with the physique of a slave trader.” Ebert then responded, paraphrasing a statement attributed to Winston Churchill, that “one day I will be thin, but Vincent Gallo will always be the director of The Brown Bunny."
Gallo then claimed to have put a hex on Ebert’s colon, cursing the critic with cancer. Ebert then replied that watching a video of his colonoscopy had been more entertaining than watching The Brown Bunny.
Gallo subsequently stated that he had been misquoted, and that the hex had actually been placed on Ebert’s prostate, and that the whole thing had been meant as a joke which was misinterpreted by a reviewer.
— 'The Brown Bunny' (not safe for work)
Gallo then claimed to have put a hex on Ebert’s colon, cursing the critic with cancer. Ebert then replied that watching a video of his colonoscopy had been more entertaining than watching The Brown Bunny.
Gallo subsequently stated that he had been misquoted, and that the hex had actually been placed on Ebert’s prostate, and that the whole thing had been meant as a joke which was misinterpreted by a reviewer.
— 'The Brown Bunny' (not safe for work)
The industrial age
She said, ‘The theme of this party’s the industrial age
And you came in dressed like a train wreck.’
— The Hold Steady, ‘The Weekenders’
And you came in dressed like a train wreck.’
— The Hold Steady, ‘The Weekenders’
Having a nice robot phone
In my life I’ve seen a species go from believing it will live in space to accepting, all too easily, that it will die on the same old dirt its ancestors rot in. Having a nice robot phone is not an acceptable substitute for a future.
— Warren Ellis, ‘On Space Travel’
— Warren Ellis, ‘On Space Travel’
Criticism, cheerleading and negativity
The reason a person is critical of a thing is because he is passionate about that thing. In order to have a critical opinion, you have to love something enough to understand it, and then love it so much more that you want it to be better.
— Alex Payne, ‘Criticism, Cheerleading, and Negativity’
— Alex Payne, ‘Criticism, Cheerleading, and Negativity’
I don't know whether you fully understand
Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot.
— Teddy Roosevelt, commencing a 90-minute speech after being shot in an assassination attempt
— Teddy Roosevelt, commencing a 90-minute speech after being shot in an assassination attempt
Heroes
Heroes are those who can somehow resist the power of the situation and act out of noble motives, or behave in ways that do not demean others when they easily can.
— Philip Zimbardo
— Philip Zimbardo
Knowledge so fragile
I don’t know what’s the matter with people: they don’t learn by understanding; they learn by some other way — by rote, or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!
— Richard Feynman
— Richard Feynman
Numbers in start-ups
Numbers in start-ups are just another genre of science fiction.
— Stefan Glaenzer
— Stefan Glaenzer
Some say the world will end in fire
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
— Robert Frost
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
— Robert Frost
Skill and imagination
Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.
— Tom Stoppard
— Tom Stoppard
The only barometer
Point is, what’s so wonderful is that every one of these flowers has a specific relationship with the insect that pollinates it. There’s a certain orchid that looks exactly like a certain insect so the insect is drawn to this flower, its double, its soul mate, and wants nothing more than to make love to it. And after the insect flies off, spots another soul-mate flower and makes love to it, thus pollinating it. And neither the flower nor the insect will ever understand the significance of their lovemaking. I mean, how could they know that because of their little dance the world lives? But it does. By simply doing what they’re designed to do, something large and magnificent happens.
In this sense they show us how to live – how the only barometer you have is your heart. How, when you spot your flower, you can’t let anything get in your way.
— Charlie Kaufmann, ‘Adaptation’ (quoting Susan Orlean, ‘The Orchid Thief’)
In this sense they show us how to live – how the only barometer you have is your heart. How, when you spot your flower, you can’t let anything get in your way.
— Charlie Kaufmann, ‘Adaptation’ (quoting Susan Orlean, ‘The Orchid Thief’)
Cheat death a little
Like all artists I want to cheat death a little and contribute something to the next generation.
— Dennis Hopper
— Dennis Hopper
Total oblivion
I take a few steps and stop. I savor the total oblivion into which I have fallen. I am between two cities, one knows nothing of me, the other knows me no longer.
— Jean-Paul Sartre
— Jean-Paul Sartre
Lonely
Lonely is a freedom that breaths easy and weightless and lonely is healing if you make it.
— Tanya Davis, 'How To Be Alone'
— Tanya Davis, 'How To Be Alone'
About the present
I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.
— Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
— Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
That's what you do
So I’m going out there. And I’m going to do the best I can. People are going to get in my way. Things are going to bring me down. But I’m going to keep going. I’m going to reach as far as I can, for every thing I’ve ever wanted. And I’m not giving up. Because that’s what you do when your dreams are more important than your fears. You go out there and ignore the odds. You focus on one thing- that your dreams come true.
— K. Boulden
— K. Boulden
The right moment is now
Life is always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act. And the moment is now.
— Paulo Coelho
— Paulo Coelho
Honest trees
I realise there’s something incredibly honest about trees in winter, how they’re experts at letting things go.
— Jeffrey McDaniel
— Jeffrey McDaniel
Location
A successful murder is like a successful restaurant: Ninety percent of it is about location, location, location.
— John Marcone (character), ‘The Dresden Files’
— John Marcone (character), ‘The Dresden Files’
Reason
You can’t reason yourself back into cheerfulness any more than you can reason yourself into an extra six inches in height.
— Stephen Fry
— Stephen Fry
One man, one vote
Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.
— Terry Pratchett, 'Mort'
— Terry Pratchett, 'Mort'
Demons
Any wizard bright enough to survive for five minutes was also bright enough to realise that if there was any power in demonology, then it lay with the demons. Using it for your own purposes would be like trying to beat mice to death with a rattlesnake.
— Terry Pratchett, 'Eric'
— Terry Pratchett, 'Eric'
Degas did not have a phone
Edgar Degas did not have a telephone, because of the likelihood that the party calling may be someone to whom you had not been introduced.
— via Jen Thorp
— via Jen Thorp
Man will never be free until
Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
— Denis Diderot
— Denis Diderot
Between him and the Lord
I didn’t mean to kill nobody… I just meant to shoot the son of a bitch in the head. Him dying was between him and the Lord.
— Blues musician R.L. (Robert Lee) Burnside
— Blues musician R.L. (Robert Lee) Burnside
I am my thoughts. If they exist in her, Buffy contains everything that is me and she becomes me. I cease to exist. No one else exists either. Buffy is all of us. We think, therefore, she is.
— Oz, on learning that Buffy is telepathic. Buffy S03E18, ‘Earshot’
— Oz, on learning that Buffy is telepathic. Buffy S03E18, ‘Earshot’
Apocalypse Now
This isn’t a movie about Vietnam. It is Vietnam. We were in the jungle; there were too many of us; we had access to too much money, too much equipment; and little by little we went insane.
— Francis Ford Coppola on the making of ‘Apocalypse Now’
— Francis Ford Coppola on the making of ‘Apocalypse Now’
Wonderful
The U.S. Army doesn’t really have any serious alternative than to be wonderful. This does not represent the official position of the United States Army at this time.
— Jim Channon (quoted in The Men Who Stare at Goats, movie version)
— Jim Channon (quoted in The Men Who Stare at Goats, movie version)
She'd known it was impossible
Even if it meant that she had failed, she was glad. And if what she’d wanted had been impossible from the start, still there was a certain lonely comfort in the fact that she’d known it was impossible and had gone ahead and done it anyway.
— 472239364
— 472239364
Amudsen and Scott
Amundsen, by contrast, took an entirely utilitarian approach. Amundsen planned from the start to have weaker animals killed to feed the other animals and the men themselves. He expressed the opinion that it was less cruel to feed and work dogs correctly then shoot them than to starve and overwork them to the point of collapse …
… Such a procedure was distasteful to the British, although in complete contrast they were willing to eat ponies.
— Comparison of the Amudsen and Scott Expeditions
… Such a procedure was distasteful to the British, although in complete contrast they were willing to eat ponies.
— Comparison of the Amudsen and Scott Expeditions
Intellectual
Intellectual meant someone who was fundamentally unsound, who had no proper blood and soil connection with the organic society, who had no loyalties except to the mind and to inquiry, who was a doubter. Let me say I hope the word intellectual never loses its association with those wonderful things.
— Christopher Hitchens
— Christopher Hitchens
Love is like a brick
Love is like a brick. You can build a house, or you can sink a dead body.
— Lagy GaGa
— Lagy GaGa
So create.
When you don't create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than your ability. Your tastes only narrow & exclude. So create.
— _why
— _why
The arc of history
The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.
— Martin Luther King, Jr., 'Where Do We Go From Here?' address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1967
— Martin Luther King, Jr., 'Where Do We Go From Here?' address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1967
Sometimes I really envy songwriters. They write a song, it's only three minutes long, it's a big hit -- and nobody ever asks them when they're going to get serious and write an opera.
— 'Geek's Guide to the Galaxy' podcast, on being a short story writer
— 'Geek's Guide to the Galaxy' podcast, on being a short story writer
Hovercraft
Dear Journal. Feeling listless again today. It began at dawn, when I tried to make a smoothie out of beef bones, breaking my juicer. And then at Cheerios practice, disaster...
It was unmistakable. It was like spotting the first spark on the Hindenburg. A quiver! That quiver will lose us Nationals. And without a championship, I'll lose my endorsements. And without those endorsements, I won't be able to buy my hovercraft...
— Sue, Glee
It was unmistakable. It was like spotting the first spark on the Hindenburg. A quiver! That quiver will lose us Nationals. And without a championship, I'll lose my endorsements. And without those endorsements, I won't be able to buy my hovercraft...
— Sue, Glee
Affection and compassion
In our daily life, affection and compassion are indispensable.
— The 14th Dalai Lama
— The 14th Dalai Lama
To be a sail
It would be peaceful to be a sail
except during the storm.
During the storm, I would like to be
the storm. If you’re the storm,
there’s nothing frightening
about the storm except when it stops,
then you’re dead and the maps
are drowned. Within my heart
is another heart, within that heart,
a man at war writes home.
— Bob Hicok
except during the storm.
During the storm, I would like to be
the storm. If you’re the storm,
there’s nothing frightening
about the storm except when it stops,
then you’re dead and the maps
are drowned. Within my heart
is another heart, within that heart,
a man at war writes home.
— Bob Hicok
A day during which lived my life
We laughed and laughed, together and separately, out loud and silently, we were determined to ignore whatever needed to be ignored, to build a new world from nothing if nothing in our world could be salvaged, it was one of the best days of my life, a day during which I lived my life and didn’t think about my life at all.
— Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
— Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Not now, not ever!
Tom Zarek [during a coup attempt]: You have to think about the people of this fleet now, and surrender.
President Laura Roslin: No! Not now, not ever! Do you hear me?! I will use every cannon, every bomb, every bullet, every weapon I have down to my own eye teeth to end you! I swear it! I'm coming for all of you!
— Battlestar Galactica, S04E14 Blood On The Scales
President Laura Roslin: No! Not now, not ever! Do you hear me?! I will use every cannon, every bomb, every bullet, every weapon I have down to my own eye teeth to end you! I swear it! I'm coming for all of you!
— Battlestar Galactica, S04E14 Blood On The Scales
Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
— Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho (1983)
— Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho (1983)
Wiser and sadder
We are no longer the same, you wiser but not sadder, and I sadder but not wiser, for wiser I could hardly become without grave personal inconvenience, whereas sorrow is a thing you can keep adding to all your life long, is it not, like a stamp or an egg collection, without feeling very much the worse for it, is it not.
— Samuel Beckett, Watt
— Samuel Beckett, Watt
In the land of Sona-Nyl
In the land of Sona-Nyl there is neither time nor space, neither suffering nor death.
— H.P. Lovecraft, 'The White Ship'
— H.P. Lovecraft, 'The White Ship'
A man who screams
In London there is a man who screams when the church bells ring.
— H.P. Lovecraft, 'The Street'
— H.P. Lovecraft, 'The Street'
No rules!
They said no butter. We say no rules! No rules save excellence.
Alexandre Cammas on the Le Fooding movement
Alexandre Cammas on the Le Fooding movement
Battlefield Earth
Then I got another batch of notes. I thought it was a joke. They changed the entire tone. I knew these notes would kill the movie. The notes wanted me to lose key scenes, add ridiculous scenes, take out some of the key characters. I asked Mike where they came from. He said, "From us." But when I pressed him, he said, "From John [Travolta]'s camp, but we agree with them."
I refused to incorporate the notes into the script and was fired.
I HAVE no idea why they wanted to go in this new direction, but here's what I heard from someone in John's camp: Out of all the books L. Ron wrote, this was the one the church founder wanted most to become a movie. He wrote extensive notes on how the movie should be made. Many people called it a Scientology movie. It wasn't when I wrote it, and I don't feel it was in the final product...
The only time I saw the movie was at the premiere, which was one too many times.
— Screenwriter JD Shapiro, on writing the script for Battlefield Earth
I refused to incorporate the notes into the script and was fired.
I HAVE no idea why they wanted to go in this new direction, but here's what I heard from someone in John's camp: Out of all the books L. Ron wrote, this was the one the church founder wanted most to become a movie. He wrote extensive notes on how the movie should be made. Many people called it a Scientology movie. It wasn't when I wrote it, and I don't feel it was in the final product...
The only time I saw the movie was at the premiere, which was one too many times.
— Screenwriter JD Shapiro, on writing the script for Battlefield Earth
No one has the right to stop me writing this book
It was a shocking thing to say and I knew it was a shocking thing to say. But no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if you open it and read it, you don't have to like it. And if you read it and you dislike it, you don't have to remain silent about it. You can write to me, you can complain about it, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book. You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or bought, or sold or read. That's all I have to say on that subject.
— Philip Pullman on The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ
— Philip Pullman on The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ
Love themselves instantly
I live my life completely serving only my work and my fans. And that way, I have to think about not what is best for my vagina but what is best for my fans and for me artistically. In the book of GaGa, fame is in your heart, fame is there to comfort you, to bring you self-confidence and worth whenever you need it. I want my fans to love themselves. It’s almost like I want to hypnotize them so when they hear my music they love themselves instantly.
— Lady GaGa
— Lady GaGa
On plots
Female customer: Excuse me, have you got a... (Bernard hands her a book) Oh.
Bernard: (To male customer) One for you too (hands him a book)
Female customer: How do you know what we want?
Male customer: We don't like the same sort of stuff anyway.
Bernard: You're going on holiday. You want trash. But you want different kinds of trash. (To female customer) You're a woman, you want social themes, believable characters. (To male customer) You, you want plots, suspense. This'll do you both.
Female customer: Hmm...
Bernard: (holds up another copy of the book) There's this temp, right? She's 29, she can't get a boyfriend, oh my god.
Female customer: Sounds great!
Male customer: No, no way.
Bernard: And she's got 12 hours to stop nuclear war with China.
Male customer: Great.
— Dylan Moran and Bill Bailey 'Black Books'
Bernard: (To male customer) One for you too (hands him a book)
Female customer: How do you know what we want?
Male customer: We don't like the same sort of stuff anyway.
Bernard: You're going on holiday. You want trash. But you want different kinds of trash. (To female customer) You're a woman, you want social themes, believable characters. (To male customer) You, you want plots, suspense. This'll do you both.
Female customer: Hmm...
Bernard: (holds up another copy of the book) There's this temp, right? She's 29, she can't get a boyfriend, oh my god.
Female customer: Sounds great!
Male customer: No, no way.
Bernard: And she's got 12 hours to stop nuclear war with China.
Male customer: Great.
— Dylan Moran and Bill Bailey 'Black Books'
Untidy
Manny: (phoning Anall Cleaners) Everything's covered in filth! Look! (points phone receiver around the room) The whole place is a complete mess. Can't find anything. Right now I'm eating scrambled eggs, with a comb, from a shoe!
— Dylan Moran and Bill Bailey, 'Black Books'
— Dylan Moran and Bill Bailey, 'Black Books'
One day trial
Bernard: (to Manny) You there. Lord of the Rings. Let's talk about how this whole one-day trial thing is going. At the moment, you're fired.
— Dylan Moran and Bill Bailey, 'Black Books'
— Dylan Moran and Bill Bailey, 'Black Books'
Leather books
Customer: Those books, how much?
Bernard: Hmm?
Customer: Those books. Leather-bound ones.
Bernard: Yes, Dickens. The collective works of Charles Dickens.
Customer: They're real leather?
Bernard: They're real Dickens.
Customer: I have to know if they're real leather because they have to go with a sofa. Everything else in my house is real. I'll give you two hundred for them.
Bernard: Two hundred what?
Customer: Two hundred pounds...
Bernard: Are they leather-bound pounds?
Customer: No...
Bernard: Sorry, I need leather-bound pounds to go with my wallet. Next!
— Dylan Moran and Bill Bailey, 'Black Books'
Bernard: Hmm?
Customer: Those books. Leather-bound ones.
Bernard: Yes, Dickens. The collective works of Charles Dickens.
Customer: They're real leather?
Bernard: They're real Dickens.
Customer: I have to know if they're real leather because they have to go with a sofa. Everything else in my house is real. I'll give you two hundred for them.
Bernard: Two hundred what?
Customer: Two hundred pounds...
Bernard: Are they leather-bound pounds?
Customer: No...
Bernard: Sorry, I need leather-bound pounds to go with my wallet. Next!
— Dylan Moran and Bill Bailey, 'Black Books'
Learning by understanding
I don't know what's the matter with people: they don't learn by understanding; they learn by some other way -- by rote, or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!
— Richard Feynmann
— Richard Feynmann
A good idea
I think it would be a good idea.
— Mahatma Gandhi (when asked what he thought of Western civilisation)
— Mahatma Gandhi (when asked what he thought of Western civilisation)
Have two tickets
George Bernard Shaw: “Have reserved two tickets for opening night. Come and bring a friend—if you have one.”
Winston Churchill: “Impossible to come to first night. Will come to second night—if you have one.”
Winston Churchill: “Impossible to come to first night. Will come to second night—if you have one.”
CGI
I watched Keanu watching [a screening of Kill Bill] and I suddenly felt it. You know, my guys are all real. There’s no computer [censored] around. I’m sick to death of all that [censored]. This is old school with [censored] cameras. If i’d wanted all that computer game bullshit, I’d have gone home and stuck my dick in my Nintendo.
This CGI bullshit is the death knell of cinema. Movies are far too [censored] expensive at the moment and it’s killing the [censored] art form. The way it’s going, in ten year’s time it will officially be killed.
— Quentin Tarantino, interviewed by Empire Magazine, 2003, quoted in Cinema Eye
This CGI bullshit is the death knell of cinema. Movies are far too [censored] expensive at the moment and it’s killing the [censored] art form. The way it’s going, in ten year’s time it will officially be killed.
— Quentin Tarantino, interviewed by Empire Magazine, 2003, quoted in Cinema Eye
Stand in the corner
Why don't you stand in fuck-up corner. You can stay there 'til, I don't know, I-don't-give-a-shit-about-you 'o clock.
— Sleep Talkin' Man
— Sleep Talkin' Man
Over the phone
What do you mean, you don't do business over the phone? The Cuban Missile Crisis was solved with a phone call.
— White Collar S01E08, 'Hard Sell'
— White Collar S01E08, 'Hard Sell'
Tequila!
Tequila isn't a drink, it's a way to bring the police around without using the telephone.
— Dylan Moran
— Dylan Moran
Who's laughing now?
When I said I was going to be a comedian, they all laughed. Well, who's laughing now?
— Bob Monkhouse
— Bob Monkhouse
Being governed at all
The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly, but the rich have always objected to being governed at all.
— G.K. Chesterton
— G.K. Chesterton
I am prepared to die
I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.
— Mahatma Ghandi
— Mahatma Ghandi
Failure taught me
Failure taught me things about myself I could have learned no other way.
— JK Rowling
— JK Rowling
An idiot of the 33rd degree
J. H. Todd
1212 Webster St.
San Francisco, Cal.
Dear Sir,
Your letter is an insoluble puzzle to me. The handwriting is good and exhibits considerable character, and there are even traces of intelligence in what you say, yet the letter and the accompanying advertisements profess to be the work of the same hand. The person who wrote the advertisements is without doubt the most ignorant person now alive on the planet; also without doubt he is an idiot, an idiot of the 33rd degree, and scion of an ancestral procession of idiots stretching back to the Missing Link. It puzzles me to make out how the same hand could have constructed your letter and your advertisements. Puzzles fret me, puzzles annoy me, puzzles exasperate me; and always, for a moment, they arouse in me an unkind state of mind toward the person who has puzzled me. A few moments from now my resentment will have faded and passed and I shall probably even be praying for you; but while there is yet time I hasten to wish that you may take a dose of your own poison by mistake, and enter swiftly into the damnation which you and all other patent medicine assassins have so remorselessly earned and do so richly deserve.
Adieu, adieu, adieu!
Mark Twain
1212 Webster St.
San Francisco, Cal.
Dear Sir,
Your letter is an insoluble puzzle to me. The handwriting is good and exhibits considerable character, and there are even traces of intelligence in what you say, yet the letter and the accompanying advertisements profess to be the work of the same hand. The person who wrote the advertisements is without doubt the most ignorant person now alive on the planet; also without doubt he is an idiot, an idiot of the 33rd degree, and scion of an ancestral procession of idiots stretching back to the Missing Link. It puzzles me to make out how the same hand could have constructed your letter and your advertisements. Puzzles fret me, puzzles annoy me, puzzles exasperate me; and always, for a moment, they arouse in me an unkind state of mind toward the person who has puzzled me. A few moments from now my resentment will have faded and passed and I shall probably even be praying for you; but while there is yet time I hasten to wish that you may take a dose of your own poison by mistake, and enter swiftly into the damnation which you and all other patent medicine assassins have so remorselessly earned and do so richly deserve.
Adieu, adieu, adieu!
Mark Twain
The truth is with science
A scientific theory isn't just a hunch or guess
It's more like a question that's been put through a lot of tests
And when a theory emerges, consistent with the facts
The proof is with science, the truth is with science.
— They Might Be Giants, Science Is Real
It's more like a question that's been put through a lot of tests
And when a theory emerges, consistent with the facts
The proof is with science, the truth is with science.
— They Might Be Giants, Science Is Real
When I get sad
When I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome again. True story.
— 'How I Met Your Mother'
— 'How I Met Your Mother'
Hang on, my love, and grow big and strong
dear laurence,
thankyou for your gorgeous and charming letter, you brighten up my dim life. i read the whole fucking thing, dear. of course, i'd love to see you in your black dress and your white socks too. but most of all i want to see you take a deep breath and do whatever you must to survive and find something to be that you can love. you're obviously a bright fucking chick, w/ a big heart too and i want to wish you a (belated) HAPPY HAPPY 21st b'day and happy spirit. i was very miserable and fighting hard on my 21st b'day, too. people booed me on the stage, and i was staying in someone else's house and i was scared. it's been a long road since then, but pressure never ends in this life. 'perforation problems' by the way means to me also the holes that will always exist in any story we try to make of our lives. so hang on, my love, and grow big and strong and take your hits and keep going.
all my love to a really beautiful girl. that's you laurence.
iggy pop
— Letter from Iggy Pop
thankyou for your gorgeous and charming letter, you brighten up my dim life. i read the whole fucking thing, dear. of course, i'd love to see you in your black dress and your white socks too. but most of all i want to see you take a deep breath and do whatever you must to survive and find something to be that you can love. you're obviously a bright fucking chick, w/ a big heart too and i want to wish you a (belated) HAPPY HAPPY 21st b'day and happy spirit. i was very miserable and fighting hard on my 21st b'day, too. people booed me on the stage, and i was staying in someone else's house and i was scared. it's been a long road since then, but pressure never ends in this life. 'perforation problems' by the way means to me also the holes that will always exist in any story we try to make of our lives. so hang on, my love, and grow big and strong and take your hits and keep going.
all my love to a really beautiful girl. that's you laurence.
iggy pop
— Letter from Iggy Pop
From Hell's heart I stab at thee
To the last, I grapple with thee;
From Hell's heart, I stab at thee
— Herman Melville
From Hell's heart, I stab at thee
— Herman Melville
Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow
Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow. It only saps today of it's joy.
— Leo Buscaglia
— Leo Buscaglia
The only Zen
The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.
— Robert M. Pirsig
— Robert M. Pirsig
You can kill ten
You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours…But even at these odds you will lose and I will win.
— Ho Chi Minh
— Ho Chi Minh
Sometimes, at night, I feel
We all went in a yellow school bus,
on a Tuesday. We sang the whole way up.
We tried to picture the bodies stacked three deep
on either side of that zigzag fence.
We tried to picture 23,000 of anything.
It wasn't that pretty. The dirt smelled like cats.
Nobody knew who the statues were. Where was
Stonewall Jackson? We wanted Stonewall on his horse.
The old cannons were puny. We asked about fireworks.
Our guide said that sometimes, the land still let go
of fragments from the war—a gold button, a bullet,
a tooth migrating to the surface. We searched around.
On the way back to the bus, a boy tripped me and I fell—
skidding hard along the ground, gravel lodging
in the skin of my palms. I cried the whole way home.
After a week, the rocks were gone.
My mother said our bodies could digest anything,
but that's a lie. Sometimes, at night, I feel
the battlefield moving inside of me.
— Sandra Beasley, Antietam
on a Tuesday. We sang the whole way up.
We tried to picture the bodies stacked three deep
on either side of that zigzag fence.
We tried to picture 23,000 of anything.
It wasn't that pretty. The dirt smelled like cats.
Nobody knew who the statues were. Where was
Stonewall Jackson? We wanted Stonewall on his horse.
The old cannons were puny. We asked about fireworks.
Our guide said that sometimes, the land still let go
of fragments from the war—a gold button, a bullet,
a tooth migrating to the surface. We searched around.
On the way back to the bus, a boy tripped me and I fell—
skidding hard along the ground, gravel lodging
in the skin of my palms. I cried the whole way home.
After a week, the rocks were gone.
My mother said our bodies could digest anything,
but that's a lie. Sometimes, at night, I feel
the battlefield moving inside of me.
— Sandra Beasley, Antietam
When the flower arranger
When the flower arranger arranges the flowers, he also arranges his mind and the mind of the person who looks at the flowers.
—Zen saying
—Zen saying
Take away the right
Take away the right to say 'fuck' and you take away the right to say 'fuck the government.'
— Lenny Bruce
— Lenny Bruce
Win tomorrow
If you lose today, win tomorrow. In this never-ending spirit of challenge is the heart of a victor.
— Daisaku Ikeda
— Daisaku Ikeda
Magic powers
I have scientifically proven that the Dalai Lama has no magic healing powers.
— The 14th Dalai Lama
— The 14th Dalai Lama
Tender
I close my eyes and see
a seagull in the desert,
high, against unbearably blue sky.
There is hope in the past.
I’m writing to you,
all the time, I am writing
with both hands,
day and night.
— Franz Wright
a seagull in the desert,
high, against unbearably blue sky.
There is hope in the past.
I’m writing to you,
all the time, I am writing
with both hands,
day and night.
— Franz Wright
To get something you never had
To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did.
— Unknown
— Unknown
I've cried
I’ve cried, and you’d think I’d be better for it, but the sadness just sleeps, and it stays in my spine the rest of my life.
—Conor Oberst
—Conor Oberst
Lonely lonely
And it’s not “clever lonely” (like Morrissey) or “interesting Lonely” (like Radiohead); it’s “lonely, lonely,” like the way it feels when you’re being hugged by someone and it somehow makes you sadder
— Chuck Klosterman
— Chuck Klosterman
Our computers are so slow
Our computers are so slow I could drive to Google and get the information faster.
— Overheard in the Newsroom
— Overheard in the Newsroom
The truth about forever
“Okay,” he said. He took a breath. “What would you do, if you could do anything?”
I took a step toward him, closing the space between us.
“This,” I said. And then I kissed him.
Kissed him. There, in the middle of the street, as the world went on around us.
— Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever
I took a step toward him, closing the space between us.
“This,” I said. And then I kissed him.
Kissed him. There, in the middle of the street, as the world went on around us.
— Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever
A baby can't chew it
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.
— Mark Twain
— Mark Twain
Planning for a fucking
Son, people will always try and fuck you. Don't waste your life planning for a fucking, just be alert when your pants are down.
— Shit My Dad Says
— Shit My Dad Says
We love you so
But the wild things said, 'Oh please don't go -
We'll eat you up - we love you so!'
— Maurice Sendak, Where The Wild Things Are
We'll eat you up - we love you so!'
— Maurice Sendak, Where The Wild Things Are
Ah, love
Ah, Love
you expert
knifethrower, outlining my body
with your gleaming blades
as I stand trembling here
against the bedroom wall.
— Linda Pastan
you expert
knifethrower, outlining my body
with your gleaming blades
as I stand trembling here
against the bedroom wall.
— Linda Pastan
My extravagant love
Though I suppose I have recovered in great measure from my disorder that my extravagant love threw me into... yet I never hear her name mentioned without a twitch, or hardly ever think of her with indifference.
— James Wolfe (who conquered Canada for the British 1759)
— James Wolfe (who conquered Canada for the British 1759)
A million dollars
There's a great story about Pablo Picasso. Some guy told Picasso he'd pay him to draw a picture on a napkin. Picasso whipped out a pen and banged out a sketch, handed it to the guy, and said, "One million dollars, please."
"A million dollars?" the guy exclaimed. "That only took you thirty seconds!"
"Yes," said Picasso. "But it took me fifty years to learn how to draw that in thirty seconds."
— Scriptwriter John Olson, 'I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script'
"A million dollars?" the guy exclaimed. "That only took you thirty seconds!"
"Yes," said Picasso. "But it took me fifty years to learn how to draw that in thirty seconds."
— Scriptwriter John Olson, 'I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script'
How to find out if you're a writer
It rarely takes more than a page to recognize that you're in the presence of someone who can write, but it only takes a sentence to know you're dealing with someone who can't.
(By the way, here's a simple way to find out if you're a writer. If you disagree with that statement, you're not a writer. Because, you see, writers are also readers.)
— Scriptwriter John Olson, 'I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script'
(By the way, here's a simple way to find out if you're a writer. If you disagree with that statement, you're not a writer. Because, you see, writers are also readers.)
— Scriptwriter John Olson, 'I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script'
What we say to ourselves
It isn't what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it's what we say to ourselves about what happens.
— Pema Chodron
— Pema Chodron
Living in a man's world
I don't mind living in a man's world as long as I can be a woman in it.
— Marilyn Monroe
— Marilyn Monroe
When my cats aren't happy
When my cats aren't happy, I'm not happy. Not because I care about their mood but because I know they're just sitting there thinking up ways to get even.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley
— Percy Bysshe Shelley
How long it takes to write a speech
(On being asked how long it took him to write a speech) That depends. If I am to speak 10 minutes, I need a week for preparation. If 15 minutes, 3 days. If half hour, two days. If an hour, I am ready now.
— Woodrow Wilson
— Woodrow Wilson
Between the shadow and the soul
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
— Pable Neruda
— Pable Neruda
I'll die yelling and laughing
I promise I shall never give up, and that I’ll die yelling and laughing.
– Jack Kerouac, Journal Entry, 1949
– Jack Kerouac, Journal Entry, 1949
The night you can't remember
You said, nobody loves me
And I said, wanna bet?
The night you can’t remember
The night I can’t forget
The Magnetic Fields, The Night You Can’t Remember
And I said, wanna bet?
The night you can’t remember
The night I can’t forget
The Magnetic Fields, The Night You Can’t Remember
Still I am one
I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do something I can do.
— Helen Keller
— Helen Keller
This is not the world I expected
She stood, in a room of crumbling plaster, pressed to the window-pane, looking up at the unattainable form of everything she loved. She did not know the nature of her loneliness. The only words that named it were: This is not the world I expected.
— Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
— Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
The world breaks everyone
The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.
— Ernest Hemingway
— Ernest Hemingway
Cutting taxes
I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible.
— Milton Friedman
— Milton Friedman
You will be dead soon enough
Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.
— William Saroyan
— William Saroyan
Those who would give up
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
— Benjamin Franklin
— Benjamin Franklin
April is the cruellest month
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
— T.S. Eliot, 'The Waste Land'
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
— T.S. Eliot, 'The Waste Land'
I will show you fear in a handful of dust
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
— T.S. Eliot, 'The Waste Land'
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
— T.S. Eliot, 'The Waste Land'
I'd prefer cancer
"You surprise me. That's a rare quality in a breather."
"You disgust me."
"Perhaps I'll grow on you."
"I'd prefer cancer."
— True Blood, S02E03
"You disgust me."
"Perhaps I'll grow on you."
"I'd prefer cancer."
— True Blood, S02E03
Descriptions of Paradise
I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
— Charles de Montesquieu
— Charles de Montesquieu
One moron
Even if we accept, as the basic tenet of true democracy, that one moron is equal to one genius, is it necessary to go a further step and hold that two morons are better than one genius?
— Leó Szilárd
— Leó Szilárd
The first page sells that book
Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle. They read it to get to the end. If it's a letdown, they won't buy anymore. The first page sells that book. The last page sells your next book.
— Mickey Spillane
— Mickey Spillane
I am an Anarchist
I am an Anarchist not because I believe Anarchism is the final goal, but because there is no such thing as a final goal.
— Rudolf Rocker
— Rudolf Rocker
Either/or
I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations — one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it — you will regret both.
— Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or
— Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or
Life is a tragedy
Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think.
— Jean de La Bruyère
— Jean de La Bruyère
And I will be heard
I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. ... I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.
— William Lloyd Garrison
— William Lloyd Garrison
This I believe
This I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for it is the one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.
— John Steinbeck
— John Steinbeck
Ask yourselves: is it yes or no?
Here, then, is a great mystery. For you who also love the little prince, and for me, nothing in the universe can be the same if somewhere, we do not know where, a sheep that we never saw has--yes or no?--eaten a rose...
Look up at the sky. Ask yourselves: is it yes or no? Has the sheep eaten the flower? And you will see how everything changes...
— Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince
Look up at the sky. Ask yourselves: is it yes or no? Has the sheep eaten the flower? And you will see how everything changes...
— Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince
What does that mean--tame?
"Men," said the fox. "They have guns, and they hunt. It is very disturbing. They also raise chickens. These are their only interests. Are you looking for chickens?"
"No," said the little prince. "I am looking for friends. What does that mean--'tame'?"
"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. It means to establish ties."
"'To establish ties'?"
"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world..."
— Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince
"No," said the little prince. "I am looking for friends. What does that mean--'tame'?"
"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. It means to establish ties."
"'To establish ties'?"
"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world..."
— Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince
Aren't most hungry kids?
Sure, he was a wild one, but then aren't most hungry kids?
— Elton John, The Ballad of Danny Bailey
— Elton John, The Ballad of Danny Bailey
It is such a secret place
It is such a secret place, the land of tears.
— Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince
— Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince
Essential matters
If I have told you these details about the asteroid, and made a note of its number for you, it is on account of the grown-ups and their ways. When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you, "What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?" Instead, they demand: "How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?" Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him.
— Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince
— Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince
Bargaining my beliefs for freedom
I would prefer to remain in prison for another 20 years than bargain my beliefs for freedom.
— Samir Geagea
— Samir Geagea
Books won't stay banned
Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.
— Alfred Whitney Griswold
— Alfred Whitney Griswold
The process of acceptance
I suppose the process of acceptance will pass through the usual four stages:
(i) this is worthless nonsense;
(ii) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view;
(iii) this is true, but quite unimportant;
(iv) I always said so.
— J. B. S. Haldane
(i) this is worthless nonsense;
(ii) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view;
(iii) this is true, but quite unimportant;
(iv) I always said so.
— J. B. S. Haldane
I disagree
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
— Evelyn Beatrice Hall
— Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Not living in fear
Not living in fear is a great gift, because certainly these days we do it so much. And do you know what I like about comedy? You can’t laugh and be afraid at the same time — of anything. If you're laughing, I defy you to be afraid.
— Stephen Colbert
— Stephen Colbert
What makes the desert beautiful
What makes the desert beautiful ... is that somewhere it hides a well.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
Almost went backwards
I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and almost went back in time.
— Stephen Wright
— Stephen Wright
M grenade launchers
A slipping gear could let your M grenade launcher fire when you least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what's left of your unit.
— US Army's magazine of preventive maintenance
— US Army's magazine of preventive maintenance
So much comedy on television
There's so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?
— Dick Cavett
— Dick Cavett
An unsupervised teenager
An unsupervised teenager with a modem is as dangerous as an unsupervised teenager with a gun.
— Gail Thackeray
— Gail Thackeray
Time will heal
Time will heal a broken heart, just like time will heal his broken arms and legs.
— Miss Piggy
— Miss Piggy
Incivility and procrastination
If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination.
— Thomas De Quincey
— Thomas De Quincey
Writing a novel
There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
— W. Somerset Maugham
— W. Somerset Maugham
Revenge
There's ALWAYS a means to revenge yourself if you have foresight and imagination.
— Dr. K'taden Legume, What I Learned In Boot Camp
— Dr. K'taden Legume, What I Learned In Boot Camp
Possibly on the edge of humiliating yourself
If you don’t feel that you are possibly on the edge of humiliating yourself, of losing control of the whole thing, then probably what you are doing isn’t very vital.
— John Irving
— John Irving
I literally don’t know your middle name. does that
matter? what systems we arrange for intimacy, small
disclosures like miniature bridges, your mouth. not
what I’d anticipated. softer. to begin with,
I should tell the truth more. I could miss you,
and that’s a liability.
— Marty McConnell, Miniature Bridges, Your Mouth
matter? what systems we arrange for intimacy, small
disclosures like miniature bridges, your mouth. not
what I’d anticipated. softer. to begin with,
I should tell the truth more. I could miss you,
and that’s a liability.
— Marty McConnell, Miniature Bridges, Your Mouth
It will not say no
Who put this brain inside of me? It cries. It demands. It says that there is a chance. It will not say “no”.
- Charles Bukowski
- Charles Bukowski
She still loves you
Just for the record, she still loves you. She wouldn't bother to torture you if she didn't.
-- Chuck Palahniuk
-- Chuck Palahniuk
Letting go of something
Knowledge is learning something new every day. Wisdom is letting go of something every day.
-- Zen proverb
-- Zen proverb
The uselessness of anger
Hard times build determination and strength. Through them we can also come to appreciate the uselessness of anger.
-- Dalai Lama
-- Dalai Lama
A tightly woven net
Let your mind be like a tightly woven net to catch feelings that come, and investigate them before you react.
-- Ajahn Chah
-- Ajahn Chah
Accept it as if you had chosen it
Whatever the present moment contains accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it--not against it.
-- Eckhart Tolle
-- Eckhart Tolle
Let go a little
If you let go a little you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot you will have a lot of peace.
-- Ajahn Chah
-- Ajahn Chah
The most common way
The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.
-- Alice Walker
-- Alice Walker
In the morning when you finally go
In the morning when you finally go,
And the nurse runs in with her head hung low,
And the cardinal hits the window.
In the morning in the winter shade,
on the first of March on the holiday,
I thought I saw you breathing.
Oh, the glory that the lord has made
and the complications when I see his face
in the morning in the window.
Oh, the glory when he took our place,
but he took my shoulders and he shook my face,
and he takes and he takes and he takes...
— Sufjan Stevens, 'Casimir Pulaski Day'
And the nurse runs in with her head hung low,
And the cardinal hits the window.
In the morning in the winter shade,
on the first of March on the holiday,
I thought I saw you breathing.
Oh, the glory that the lord has made
and the complications when I see his face
in the morning in the window.
Oh, the glory when he took our place,
but he took my shoulders and he shook my face,
and he takes and he takes and he takes...
— Sufjan Stevens, 'Casimir Pulaski Day'
Ignorance will keep you safe
Do you really think ignorance will keep you safe? Is it even an option?
— Marc Weber Tobias, physical hacker
— Marc Weber Tobias, physical hacker
When you want to punch someone in the nose
There's a saying where I come from: "When you want to punch someone in the nose, aim for the back of the head."
— 3rd Rock From The Sun, S01E11
— 3rd Rock From The Sun, S01E11
Cheerfulness kept breaking through
I've also studied deeply in the philosophies and the religions, but cheerfulness kept breaking through.
— Leonard Cohen, 'Live in London
— Leonard Cohen, 'Live in London
The answer to the mysteries
(Background singers start singing: "Do dum dum dum, de do dum dum.")
I'm so grateful to you because tonight it's become clear to me, tonight, the great mysteries have unravelled, and I've penetrated to the very core of things. And I have stumbled on the answer, and I'm not the sort of chap who would keep this to himself.
(Background singers keep singing: "Do dum dum dum, de do dum dum.")
Do you want to hear the answer? Are you truly hungry for the answer?
Then you're just the people I want to tell it to.
Because it's a rare thing to come upon this, and I'm going to let you in on it now. The answer to the mysteries:
Do dum dum dum, de do dum dum.
— Leonard Cohen, 'Live in London'
I'm so grateful to you because tonight it's become clear to me, tonight, the great mysteries have unravelled, and I've penetrated to the very core of things. And I have stumbled on the answer, and I'm not the sort of chap who would keep this to himself.
(Background singers keep singing: "Do dum dum dum, de do dum dum.")
Do you want to hear the answer? Are you truly hungry for the answer?
Then you're just the people I want to tell it to.
Because it's a rare thing to come upon this, and I'm going to let you in on it now. The answer to the mysteries:
Do dum dum dum, de do dum dum.
— Leonard Cohen, 'Live in London'
Condemned by Nature and Fortune
Having been condemned by Nature and Fortune to an active and restless Life, in two Months after my Return I again left my native Country, and took Shipping in the Downs on the 20th Day of June 1702, in the Adventure, Capt. John Nicholas, a Cornish Man, Commander, bound for Surat.
— Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels
— Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels
The glass menagerie
It always came upon me unawares, taking me altogether by surprise. Perhaps it was a familiar bit of music. Perhaps it was only a piece of transparent glass. ... I pass the lighted window of a shop where perfume is sold. The window is filled with pieces of colored glass, tiny transparent bottles in delicate colors, like bits of a shattered rainbow.
— Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie
— Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie
I didn't want any flowers
I didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted
to lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.
How free it is, you have no idea how free —
— Sylvia Plath
to lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.
How free it is, you have no idea how free —
— Sylvia Plath
Franz Kafka is dead
He died in a tree from which he wouldn't come down. "Come down!" they cried to him. "Come down! Come down!" Silence filled the night, and the night filled the silence, while they waited for Kafka to speak. "I can't," he said finally, with a note of wistfulness. "Why?" they cried. Stars spilled across the black sky. "Because then you'll stop asking for me.
— via colporteur
— via colporteur
Tired of things that break
You have played,
(I think)
And broke the toys you were fondest of,
And are a little tired now;
Tired of things that break, and—
Just tired.
So am I.
— e.e. cummings
(I think)
And broke the toys you were fondest of,
And are a little tired now;
Tired of things that break, and—
Just tired.
So am I.
— e.e. cummings
You have passed the test
Or a long, laughing, rambling phone message in which every person this person has ever known is talking on a speakerphone and they are all saying, You have passed the test, it was all just a test, we were only kidding, real life is so much better than that.
— Miranda July
— Miranda July
Just standing there in love
I was actually just standing there in love. I was not even really standing; if she had walked away suddenly, I would have fallen.
— Miranda July
— Miranda July
Let's open this book
Let’s open this book with a couple of shattering confessions right up front:
1. I talk to myself; and
2. I hear voices in my head.
— Leonard Nimoy
1. I talk to myself; and
2. I hear voices in my head.
— Leonard Nimoy
More left inside
There is immeasurably more left inside than what comes out in words. Your thought, even a bad one, while it is with you, is always more profound, but in words it is more ridiculous and dishonorable.
— Fyodor Dostoevsky
— Fyodor Dostoevsky
Separation
Separation
Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle
Everything I do is stitched with its colour
— W.S. Merwin
Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle
Everything I do is stitched with its colour
— W.S. Merwin
Easier to identify
I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person. But these seemingly fragile people are the strong people really.
— Tennessee Williams
— Tennessee Williams
No matter what, I refused to become the general secretary who mobilised the military to crack down on students.
— Memoirs of Zhao Ziyang
— Memoirs of Zhao Ziyang
The decision you make
The decision you make in the instant you see the truth will let you live forever.
— Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, S01E12
— Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, S01E12
You are quiet
You are quiet; I will be, too.
— Vincent Van Gogh's last recorded words to former friend Paul Gauguin
— Vincent Van Gogh's last recorded words to former friend Paul Gauguin
You are easy to explain
The Voice did not sound offended. “You are easy to explain - even to you. You may call yourself a soul if that pleases you, but what you are is a nexus of electromagnetic forces, so arranged that all the interconnections and interrelationships are exactly imitative of those of your brain in your Universe-existence - down to the smallest detail. Therefore you have your capacity for thought, your memories, your personality. It still seems to you that you are you.”
— Isaac Asimov, The Last Answer
— Isaac Asimov, The Last Answer
Keep the night from coming in
In all those lonely nights down by the river
Brought me bread and water, water in
But though I tried so hard, my little darling
I couldn't keep the night from coming in
In all those lonely nights down by the river
Brought me bread and water, kith and kin
Now in the quiet hour, when I am sleeping
I cannot keep the night from coming in.
— Joanna Newsom, Cosmia
Brought me bread and water, water in
But though I tried so hard, my little darling
I couldn't keep the night from coming in
In all those lonely nights down by the river
Brought me bread and water, kith and kin
Now in the quiet hour, when I am sleeping
I cannot keep the night from coming in.
— Joanna Newsom, Cosmia
One silken strand
i know very well i could not
attach one silken strand to you
i know very well i could not
unwind a thread of your devising
— Zayn
attach one silken strand to you
i know very well i could not
unwind a thread of your devising
— Zayn
My knees buckled
My knees buckled, I went down to the floor. I cried in English, I cried in French, I cried in all the languages, because tears are the same all around the world.
— Miranda July
— Miranda July
KHAQQ to Itasca
KHAQQ to Itasca. We are on the line 157 337. Will repeat message. We will repeat this on 6210 kilocycles. Wait. We are running on a north and south line.
— Last words of Amelia Earhart
— Last words of Amelia Earhart
01010100
01010100 01110010 01101001 01110101 01101101 01110000 01101000 <3 (translation: Triumph)
— Last words of the Mars Phoenix lander
— Last words of the Mars Phoenix lander
Everything is required of us
'I have flown with the angel into the highest heights,' she said. 'Yes, even to the lote-tree of the uttermost end. The archangel, Gibreel: he has brought us a message, which is also a command. Everything is required of us, and everything will be given.'
— Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
— Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
You stand as the rock stands
You stand as rocks stand
to which the sea reaches
in transparent waves of longing;
they are marred, finally;
everything fixed is marred.
And the sea triumphs,
like all that is false,
all that is fluent and womanly.
From behind, a lens
opens for your body. Why
should you turn? It doesn’t matter
who the witness is,
for whom you are suffering,
for whom you are standing still.
— Louise Gluck
to which the sea reaches
in transparent waves of longing;
they are marred, finally;
everything fixed is marred.
And the sea triumphs,
like all that is false,
all that is fluent and womanly.
From behind, a lens
opens for your body. Why
should you turn? It doesn’t matter
who the witness is,
for whom you are suffering,
for whom you are standing still.
— Louise Gluck
When she smiles, you'll love her
You’ll meet her, she’s very pretty, even though sometimes she’s sad for many days at a time. You’ll see, when she smiles, you’ll love her.
— Pan's Labyrinth
— Pan's Labyrinth
Shaking the foundations of the British Empire
With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire.
— Mahatma Ghandi, raising a lump of salty mud at the end of the salt satyagraha
— Mahatma Ghandi, raising a lump of salty mud at the end of the salt satyagraha
Right against Might
I want world sympathy in this battle of Right against Might.
— Mahatma Ghandi, during the salt satyagraha
— Mahatma Ghandi, during the salt satyagraha
You'll do it
You’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.
— Charles Bukowski
— Charles Bukowski
The true meaning of life
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
— Nelson Henderson
— Nelson Henderson
The unreasonable man
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
— George Bernard Shaw
— George Bernard Shaw
Those who cannot change their minds
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
— George Bernard Shaw
— George Bernard Shaw
Fortune teller's parlours
I've gone into hundreds of [fortune-teller's parlours] and have been told thousands of things, but nobody ever told me I was a policewoman getting ready to arrest her.
— New York City detective
— New York City detective
Turtles all the way down
A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.
At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"
"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"
— Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"
"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"
— Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
Juggling two women
And you've been juggling two women like a stupid circus clown
Telling us both we are the one;
And maybe you can keep me from ever being happy
But you're not going to stop me from having fun.
-- Ani Difranco, Gravel
Telling us both we are the one;
And maybe you can keep me from ever being happy
But you're not going to stop me from having fun.
-- Ani Difranco, Gravel
Another mediocre man
If another mediocre man hits on me after another mediocre meal I am going to burn the city down!
-- Overheard in New York, March 4, 2009
-- Overheard in New York, March 4, 2009
You have not converted a man
You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.
— John Viscount Morley
— John Viscount Morley
From the moment I picked up your book
From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.
— Groucho Marx
— Groucho Marx
This isn't right
This isn't right. This isn't even wrong.
— Wolfgang Pauli, on a paper submitted by a physicist colleague
— Wolfgang Pauli, on a paper submitted by a physicist colleague
Speed of light
It is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off.
— Woody Allen
— Woody Allen
Surviving as a strip club bouncer
If you don't know to the second when a drunk's gonna vomit on you, you don't survive as a strip club bouncer.
— Veronica Pare and Ferrett Steinmetz, Home on the Strange, 10-02-07
— Veronica Pare and Ferrett Steinmetz, Home on the Strange, 10-02-07
Striving upon a hidden mission
We are all things that make and pass,
Striving upon a hidden mission,
Out to the open sea.
— H.G. Wells, The World Set Free
Striving upon a hidden mission,
Out to the open sea.
— H.G. Wells, The World Set Free
Tell me one original thing
I honestly couldn’t care less if you like the same bands or you’ve read the same books. Tell me one original thing, tell me one true, real thing that brings me to my fucking knees that I’ve never heard before and I’m yours.
— I Wrote This For You
— I Wrote This For You
Leaning too far back
You know when you’re sitting on a chair and you lean back so you’re just on two legs then you lean too far and you almost fall over but at the last second you catch yourself? I feel like that all the time.
— Stephen Wright
— Stephen Wright
It is for you
Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it is really worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person’s face as you pass them on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street, and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It’s okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise.
— Miranda July, 'No One Belongs Here More Than You
— Miranda July, 'No One Belongs Here More Than You
I have forgotten how to tell you
It is winter and the flowers are struggling to grow. I have forgotten how to tell you I love you I love you I love you I love you.
— Love Notes
— Love Notes
Feeling things at least two ways
It always made perfect sense, feeling things at least two ways.
— Stephen Dunn
— Stephen Dunn
Come for the week
Come for the week, you can sleep in my bed and pass through my life like a dream through my head. It will be easy. I’ll make it easy.
— 'Bright Eyes'
— 'Bright Eyes'
If you get the message
Psychedelic experience is only a glimpse of genuine mystical insight, but a glimpse which can be matured and deepened by the various ways of meditation in which drugs are no longer necessary or useful. If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope, he goes away and works on what he has seen.
— Alan Watts
— Alan Watts
Progressive theologians are all for sex
Nowadays, of course, progressive theologians are all for sex; they say it's a good thing, the biblical position was not that sex was evil, but that it was good, and that it's alright.
But now, look here, what is the real point here? The proof of the pudding is in the eating. What can you get kicked out of the church for? Any church– Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, Baptist, and the synagogue I think too. What's the real thing for which people get kicked out, excommunicated?
For "envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness"? "Pride, vainglory, and hardness of heart"? Owning shares in munitions factories? Profiting off slums? No sir. You can be a bishop and live in all those sins openly. But if you go to bed with the wrong person, you're out.
So one has to conclude that, for all practical purposes, the church is a sexual regulation society; and it really isn't interested in anything else. Christianity is more preoccupied with sex than even Priapism or Tantric Yoga [are]. Because that's the thing that counts, that's the sin, the really important sin.
— Alan Watts, Beyond Theology (audio lecture)
But now, look here, what is the real point here? The proof of the pudding is in the eating. What can you get kicked out of the church for? Any church– Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, Baptist, and the synagogue I think too. What's the real thing for which people get kicked out, excommunicated?
For "envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness"? "Pride, vainglory, and hardness of heart"? Owning shares in munitions factories? Profiting off slums? No sir. You can be a bishop and live in all those sins openly. But if you go to bed with the wrong person, you're out.
So one has to conclude that, for all practical purposes, the church is a sexual regulation society; and it really isn't interested in anything else. Christianity is more preoccupied with sex than even Priapism or Tantric Yoga [are]. Because that's the thing that counts, that's the sin, the really important sin.
— Alan Watts, Beyond Theology (audio lecture)
On helping others
You see, many of the troubles going on in the world right now are being supervised by people with very good intentions whose attempts are to keep things in order, to clean things up, to forbid this, and to prevent that. The more we try to put everything to rights, the more we make fantastic messes.
Maybe that is the way it has got to be. Maybe I should not say anything at all about the folly of trying to put things to right but simply, on the principle of [William] Blake, let the fool persist in his folly so that he will become wise.
— Alan Watts, On Helping Others
Maybe that is the way it has got to be. Maybe I should not say anything at all about the folly of trying to put things to right but simply, on the principle of [William] Blake, let the fool persist in his folly so that he will become wise.
— Alan Watts, On Helping Others
The thinker has no other form
Running away from fear is fear; fighting pain is pain; trying to be brave is being scared. If the mind is in pain, the mind is pain. The thinker has no other form than his thought.
— Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity, 1951
— Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity, 1951
Trying to define yourself
Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.
— Alan Watts, Life magazine April 21, 1961
— Alan Watts, Life magazine April 21, 1961
Zen does not confuse
Zen ... does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.
— Alan Watts, The Way of Zen, pt. 2, ch. 2 (1957)
— Alan Watts, The Way of Zen, pt. 2, ch. 2 (1957)
Every prophet in her house
Every prophet in her house. Every prophet in her house. This is your house.
— Carnivàle, S02E12 New Canaan
— Carnivàle, S02E12 New Canaan
Only love
Only love. Only love can leave such a mark. Only love can leave such a scar.
— U2, Magnificent
— U2, Magnificent
My body is a temple
Hellboy: Have a beer.
Abe: Oh no, my body's a temple.
Hellboy: No it's not, it's an amusement park.
— Hellboy 2: The Golden Army
Abe: Oh no, my body's a temple.
Hellboy: No it's not, it's an amusement park.
— Hellboy 2: The Golden Army
The dumbest thing we are going to say
Every day each of us says the dumbest thing we are going to say that day. T-Rex is getting his out of the way early.
— Dinosaur Comics, 'So it turns out that there's different kinds of love'
— Dinosaur Comics, 'So it turns out that there's different kinds of love'
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