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April 8, 2007 “If winning isn’t important - then why the hell do we keep score?” —Yogi Berra April 7, 2007 I fear my enthusiasm flags when real work is demanded of me. —H. P. Lovecraft April 6, 2007 A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. —Emo Philips April 5, 2007 rain or hail :sam was a man stout as a bridge (sun or snow) gone into what a whippoorwill; heart was big
as the world ain’t square yes,sir what may be better (nobody’ll know) sam was a man Sleep well —e.e. cummings April 4, 2007 Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. —Dwight D. Eisenhower April 3, 2007 Monsieur Manesquier [Jean Rochefort] to Milan [Johnny Hallyday]: I hated books at first, but everyone nagged me so much, I started reading. It was like a revelation. Many people talk a load of rubbish, I think we agree on that. As soon as they write it down it becomes gospel truth. And that’s a bad thing. —Claude Klotz, movie L'Homme du train April 2, 2007 While there is a lower class I am in it, while there is a criminal element I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. —Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926) Labor and Freedom April 1, 2007 They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse. —Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886 March 31, 2007 What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn’t much better than tedious disease. —George Dennison Prentice March 30, 2007 Write something to suit yourself and many people will like it; write something to suit everybody and scarcely anyone will care for it. —Jesse Stuart March 29, 2007 When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane. —Hermann Hesse (1877 - 1962) March 28, 2007 I divide all readers into two classes: those who read to remember and those who read to forget. —William Lyon Phelps March 27, 2007 People always ask me, “Where were you when Kennedy was shot?” Well, I don’t have an alibi. —Emo Philips March 26, 2007 “For the majority of people smoking has a beneficial effect.” —Dr Ian MacDonald (1963) March 25, 2007 At zoos his favorite animal was the yak, yearning hopelessly behind its bars for the peanuts no one wished or dared to feed it. —Thomas M. Disch, The Joycelin Shrager Story March 24, 2007 Artists can color the sky red because they know it’s blue. Those of us who aren’t artists must color things the way they really are or people might think we’re stupid —Jules Feiffer March 23, 2007 People should pay to go to church, and the theater should be free. —G.B. Shaw March 22, 2007 “All that’s left to do is everything.” —Jesse James March 21, 2007 Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right. —ani difranco “I.Q.” first speaker lying on the beach: “I come from a dysfunctional family.” second speaker: “Is that spelled with an ‘I’ or a ‘Y’” first speaker:“a why.” —B.C. by Johnny Hart March 21, 2007 March 20, 2007 No one can say where a book comes from, least of all the person who writes it. Books are born out of ignorance, and if they go on living after they are written, it’s only to the degree that they cannot be understood. —Paul Auster. Leviathan. (40) March 19, 2007 If you want to read about love and marriage, you’ve got to buy two separate books. —Alan King March 18, 2007 We shape clay into a pot, —Tao te Ching(11). Lao-Tzu. (Mitchell) March 17, 2007 The Flower-Fed Buffaloes The flower-fed buffaloes of the spring In the days of long ago, Ranged where the locomotives sing And the prairie flowers lie low: — The tossing, blooming, perfumed grass Is swept away by the wheat, Wheels and wheels and wheels spin by In the spring that still is sweet. But the flower-fed buffaloes of the spring Left us, long ago. They gore no more, they bellow no more, They trundle around the hills no more: — With the Blackfeet, lying low, With the Pawnees, lying low, Lying low. —Vachel Lindsay(1924) March 16, 2007 At least my theory of technique, if I have one, is very far from original; nor is it complicated. I can express it in fifteen words, by quoting The Eternal Question And Immortal Answer of burlesk, viz. “Would you hit a woman with a child?–No,I’d hit her with a brick.” Like the burlesk comedian, I am abnormally fond of that precision which creates movement. —e.e. cummings March 15, 2007 Elegant variation. It is the second-rate writers, those intent rather on expressing themselves prettily than on conveying their meaning clearly, and still more those whose notions of style are based on a few misleading rules of thumb, that are chiefly open to the allurements of elegant variation. … The fatal influence … is the advice given to young writers never to use the same word twice in a sentence – or within 20 lines or other limit. —Henry W. Fowler. Modern English Usage. (1926) March 14, 2007 Marcie leaves and doesn’t tell us Someone thought they saw her Sunday —Joni Mitchell, Marcie March 13, 2007 The effects which follow too constant and intense a concentration upon evil are always disastrous. Those who crusade, not for God in themselves, but against the devil in others, never succeed in making the world better, but leave it either as it was, or sometimes even perceptibly worse than it was, before the crusade began. By thinking primarily of evil we tend, however excellent our intentions, to create occasions for evil to manifest itself. —Aldous Huxley “The Devils of Loudun” March 12, 2007 As far as I can tell, calling something philosophical is like greasing a pig to make it hard to catch. —Eric Pepke March 11, 2007 The bird in your cage is not the same bird as the wild thing you caught in the forest. There is a difference. —Lawrence Block, Grifter's Game March 10, 2007 “English departments all over the country have instilled the heresy that artists know what the hell they’re doing,” he grumbles…. “How do you get your ideas? No artist who is honest can answer.” —David Mamet quoted in “It’s a Mamet for the Ladies” March 9, 2007 We starve-look —Rodo and Ragne, from Hair “Writer's block is what you get if you’re trying to be Faulkner. —Garrison Keillor March 8, 2007 No one has ever had an idea in a dress suit. —Sir Frederick G. Banting March 7, 2007 Many years ago in a period commonly know as Next Friday Afternoon, there lived a King who was very Gloomy on Tuesday mornings because he was so Sad thinking about how Unhappy he had been on Monday and how completely Mournful he would be on Wednesday… —Walt Kelly March 6, 2007 these children singing in stone a ever these silently lit of stone are children forever eyes forever to always children singing forever —e.e. cummings (1940) March 5, 2007 There are battered children —Grace Freeman. “Battered Children” March 4, 2007 A way a lone a last a loved a long the riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs. —James Joyce, Finnegan’s Wake March 3, 2007 There are essentially four basic forms of a joke—the concealing of knowledge later revealed, the substitution of one concept for another, an unexpected conclusion to a logical progression, and slipping on a banana peel. —Unknown March 2, 2007 Fire all of your guns at once —Mars Bonfire, Born To Be Wild March 1, 2007 The Fever Monument I walked across the park to the fever monument. —Richard Brautigan February 27, 2007 I like a filmmaker who walks you into a story. Some directors, rushing to get started, prefer to fly you in by helicopter—a popular choice for stories set in New York or Miami, where the camera can come skimming in over the water. Other filmmakers float you down on a crane, so you can survey the scene while a car pulls up to the suburban house, a train to the country station. Maybe you come into the picture by riding along with the characters (by rocket, if George Lucas is in charge); or maybe, if Spielberg is running things, the early shots reveal that you have no need to travel, because you were already inside the movie. You discover that your nose is somehow pressed against Liam Neeson's torso as he's getting dressed; or you realize that your eye is really the eye of Tom Hanks, who is watching how his hand shakes during the boat ride to Omaha Beach. —Stuart Klawans. The Nation February 28, 2000. February 26, 2007 To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong. —Joseph Chilton Pearce February 25, 2007 The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong—but that’s the way to bet. —Lazarus Long February 24, 2007 They suspected him of arousing their suspicions. —Joseph Heller, Picture This February 23, 2007 “For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. —Sam Levenson February 22, 2007 “Hearing nuns’ confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn.” —Fulton Sheen “All bad art is the result of good intentions” —Oscar Wilde February 21, 2007 It took 2000 years of writing before an alphabet was developed. It took a century and a half of printing before someone thought to print a novel or a newspaper. New communications technologies do not arrive upon the scene fully grown; they need time to develop the methods and forms that best exploit their potential. —Mitchell Stephens. "The Death of Reading" (LA Times 9/22/1991) February 20, 2007 Anthony Burgess said there are two kinds of writers: A-writers and B-writers. A-writers are storytellers, B-writers are users of language. —Martin Amis February 19, 2007 —Abraham Lincoln February 18, 2007 Anarchists are opposed to violence… The main plank of anarchism is the removal of violence from human relations. It is life based on the freedom of the individual, without the intervention of the police. For this reason we are enemies of capitalism, which depends on the protection of the police to force workers to allow themsleves to be exploited…We are therefore enemies of the State, which is the coercive, violent organization of society. —Errico Malatesta Umanita Nova, August, 25, 1921 February 17, 2007 Modell: You know what word I’m not comfortable with? Nuance. It’s not a real word. Like “gesture.” Gesture’s a real word. With gesture you know where you stand. But nuance? I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. —Barry Levinson. movie, Diner (1982) February 16, 2007 We do not talk—we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of newspapers, magazines and digests. —Henry Miller. The Air-Conditioned NightmareM. (1945) February 15, 2007 Santa Claus has the right idea. Only visit people once a year. —Victor Borge February 14, 2007 [Sarangi players] have to tune and retune their instrument four or five times a day and, because of that, I think, they have a deeper understanding of tunefulness and intonation. Tuning a sarangi is not a waste of time. One always learns something and penetrates deeper into the subtle world of sound. It is not easy to tune the sarangi perfectly. It only happens to me once in a while, when the circumstances are optimal, when I am in a good and peaceful mood and when I have time to concentrate. —Ram Narayan. quoted in "The Voice of the Sarangi" by Joep Bor, Sometimes, when I look at my children, I say to myself, “Lillian, you should have remained a virgin.” —Lillian Carter (mother of Jimmy Carter) February 13, 2007 It is like going to a buffet where we don't actually taste anything, but only receive a guided tour or explanation of the different dishes: “This is Indian food, that is Chinese food. Over there is French cuisine.” Without eating anything your knowledge of the food is only intellectual understanding. Once you finally put the food in your mouth, that is experience. When your stomach is full, that is realization. Realization is the total and permanent collapse of confusion. —Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. Rainbow Painting. (1995) February 12, 2007 When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him whose? —Don Marquis February 11, 2007 February 10, 2007 Murphy’s Law of Research: —Murphy’s Laws February 9, 2007 In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra. February 8, 2007 —C. P. Snow (1905 - 1980) February 7, 2007 — Edward Gibbon (1737 - 1794) February 6, 2007 Jukebox and sawdust floor —Roger Miller, Chug-A-Lug February 5, 2007 “The ink of a scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr.” —Mohammed February 4, 2007 “When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, ‘Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don’t believe?’” —Quentin Crisp February 3, 2007 WOODCHUCKS
Gassing the woodchucks didn’t turn out right. Next morning they turned up again, no worse The food from our mouths, I said, righteously thrilling Ten minutes later I dropped the mother. She There’s one chuck left. Old wily fellow, he keeps —Maxine Kumin, 1972 February 2, 2007 The Entertaining of a Shy Girl I’ll sing you a song, —Donovan February 1, 2007 I said I don’t like hippies ’Cause fat babies have no pride —Lyle Lovett January 31, 2007 …there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life. —Rainer Maria Rilke He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time. —Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) January 30, 2007 “I won’t say ours was a tough school, but we had our own coroner. We used to write essays like: What I’m going to be if I grow up.” —Lenny Bruce January 29, 2007 The court was not previously aware of the prisoner’s many accomplishments. In view of these, we see fit to impose the death penalty. —Quentin Crisp January 28, 2007 If appropriate and inappropriate remarks and passable and impassable mountain trails are opposites, why are flammable and inflammable materials, heritable and inheritable property, and passive and impassive people the same and valuable objects less treasured than invaluable ones? If uplift is the same as lift up, why are upset and set up opposite in meaning? Why are pertinent and impertinent, canny and uncanny, and famous and infamous neither opposites nor the same? How can raise and raze and reckless and wreckless be opposites when each pair contains the same sound? —Richard Lederer. January 27, 2007 Apart from that Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play? —Tom Lehrer January 26, 2007 She said he proposed something on their wedding night that even her own brother wouldn’t have suggested. —James Thurber January 25, 2007 If the public paid for it, the public has a right to see it…. Otherwise, you will have manipulation to conceal the truth. Government does that. It doesn’t make any difference whether it’s a Democratic government or a Republican government. —Mark Tapscott, “This is either a forgery or a damn clever original.&3148; —Frank Sullivan January 24, 2007 Despite its high visibility, I have not been able to authenticate “May you live in interesting times” as an ancient Chinese curse. Digital“s search engine AltaVista has indexed over 1500 Web sites that mention the phrase. The ones that I looked at stated the phrase“s origin as a simple fact, with no attribution. —Stephen E. DeLong May 5, 1998 January 23, 2007 To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable. —Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), January 22, 2007 Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. —G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)
Orthodoxy, 1909, January 21, 2007 “…it’s hard to read proof when you’re not all there. —Henry Miller Tropic of Cancer January 20, 2007 This car sticks out like spats at an Iowa picnic. —Raymond Chandler January 19, 2007 “The knife cut through the apple like a knife cutting through an apple.” —Thomas Pynchon. Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) January 18, 2007 Clouds so swift —Bob Dylan, You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere January 17, 2007 Mendoza: A movement which is confined to philosophers and honest men can never exercise any real political influence: there are too few of them. Until a movement shews itself capable of spreading among brigands, it can never hope for a political majority. —George Bernard Shaw. Man and Superman (1903) Act 3 January 16, 2007 The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others. The creed whose legitimacy is most easily challenged is likely to develop the strongest proselytizing impulse. —Eric Hoffer. The True Believer January 15, 2007 “So I went ahead and made me a guitar. I got me a cigar box, I cut me a round hole in the middle of it, take me a little piece of plank, nailed it onto that cigar box, and I got me some screen wire and I made me a bridge back there and raised it up high enough that it would sound inside that little box, and got me a tune out of it. I kept my tune and I played from then on.” —Lightnin’ Hopkins January 14, 2007 A great curving wing, long purple-black —Delmore Schwartz, 1942 January 13, 2007 Well Georgia Sam he had a bloody nose —Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited January 12, 2007 “It is well that war is so terrible or we should grow too fond of it.” —Robert E. Lee on seeing a Federal charge repulsed at Fredericksburg, 1862. January 11, 2007 There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it. —William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, 1910 January 10, 2007 THE RUNAWAY GIRL Ever since running away from home In the distance behind her —Gregory Corso January 9, 2007 If you want this choice position You must be kind, you must be witty Never be cross or cruel If you won’t scold and dominate us —The Perfect Nanny, from Mary Poppins January 8, 2007 I’m too shy to express my sexual needs except over the phone to people I don’t know —Garry Shandling (1949 - ) Click for more information about this US comedian & television actor.January 7, 2007 Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future. —Niels Bohr (1885 - 1962) January 6, 2007 Richard got married to a figure skater —Joni Mitchell, The Last Time I Saw Richard January 5, 2007 There will always be true statements which can neither be shown to be true nor proved to be false
within the confines of the system, using the axioms and rules of the system. —Godel’s Golden Theorem January 4, 2007 Q: “What do you think a young poet starting out today needs to learn the most?” —The Poet’s Craft: Interviews From The New York Quarterly. The secret of getting ahead is getting started. January 3, 2007 A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from the poor to protect them from each other. —Unknown January 2, 2007 All the trouble in the world is due to the fact that a man cannot sit still in a room. —Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) January 1, 2007 The superfluous is very necessary. —Voltaire December 31, 2006 MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE: Indeed, Dolmance, you had best reconsider. I will cripple you with this device. —Marquis de Sade, Philosophy in the Bedroom, (1795) December 30, 2006 Kindness in words creates confidence. —Lao Tzu December 29, 2006 If we are on the outside, we assume a conspiracy is the perfect working of a scheme. Silent nameless men with unadorned hearts. A conspiracy is everything that ordinary life is not. It’s the inside game, cold, sure, undistracted, forever closed off to us. We are the flawed ones, the innocents, trying to make some rough sense of the daily jostle. Conspirators have a logic and a daring beyond our reach. All conspiracies are the same taut story of men who find coherence in some criminal act —Don DeLillo Libra (1988) p.440 December 28, 2006 When we jumped into Sicily, the units became separated, and I couldn’t find anyone. Eventually, I stumbled across two colonels, a major, three captains, two lieutenants, and one rifleman, and we secured the bridge. Never in the history of war have so few been led by so many. —General James Gavin December 27, 2006 ‘Life would be even harder for us poor women than it is if it were not for the unbelievable vanity of men.’ —W. Somerset Maugham. Suzanne in The Razor’s Edge (310) December 26, 2006 “It seems very pretty”, she said when she had finished it, “but it’s rather hard to understand!” —Alice, upon reading “Jabberwocky” December 25, 2006 King Christ,this world is all aleak; —e.e. cummings December 24, 2006 It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about. December 23, 2006 The year is 1821. Greeks are fighting for their independence. In Athens, they besiege the Acropolis, a stronghold of the Turkish occupiers. As the siege grinds on, the Turks’ ammunition runs short. They begin to dismantle sections of the Parthenon, prying out the 2,300-year-old lead clamps and melting them down for bullets. The Greek fighters, horrified at this defacement of their patrimony, send the Turks a supply of bullets. Better to arm their foes, they decide, than to let the ancient temple come to harm. —Jeff Jacoby, (Globe Staff) “Return these exiles to Greece” December 22, 2006 Ballad of the Goodly Fere Simon Zelotes speaking after the Crucifixion. Fere=Mate, Companion.Ha’ we lost the goodliest fere ’ all For the priests and the gallows tree? Aye lover he was of brawny men, O’ ships and the open sea. When they came wi’ a host to take Our Man His smile was good to see, “First let these go!” ’ our Goodly Fere, “Or I’ll see ye damned,” says he. Aye he sent us out through the crossed high spears And the scorn of his laugh rang free, “Why took ye not me when I walked about Alone in the town?” says he. Oh we drank his “Hale” in the good red wine When we last made company, No capon priest was the Goodly Fere But a man o’ men was he. I ha’ seen him drive a hundred men Wi’ a bundle o’ cords swung free, That they took the high and holy house For their pawn and treasury. They’ll no’ get him a’ in a book I think Though they write it cunningly; No mouse of the scrolls was the Goodly Fere But aye loved the open sea. If they think they ha’ snared our Goodly Fere They are fools to the last degree. “I’ll go to the feast,” quo’ our Goodly Fere, “Though I go to the gallows tree.” “Ye ha’ seen me heal the lame and blind, And wake the dead,” says he, “Ye shall see one thing to master all: ’Tis how a brave man dies on the tree.” A son of God was the Goodly Fere That bade us his brothers be. I ha’ seen him cow a thousand men. I have seen him upon the tree. He cried no cry when they drave the nails And the blood gushed hot and free, The hounds of the crimson sky gave tongue But never a cry cried he. I ha’ seen him cow a thousand men On the hills o’ Galilee, They whined as he walked out calm between, Wi’ his eyes like the grey o’ the sea, Like the sea that brooks no voyaging With the winds unleashed and free, Like the sea that he cowed at Genseret Wi’ twey words spoke’ suddently. A master of men was the Goodly Fere, A mate of the wind and sea, If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere They are fools eternally. I ha’ seen him eat o’ the honey-comb Sin’ they nailed him to the tree. —Ezra Pound December 21, 2006 How I came to it I cannot rightly say, so drugged and loose with sleep had I become when I first wandered there from the True Way. —Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy December 20, 2006 The First Rule of Holes is that when you are in one, you should stop digging. —Molly Ivins. “Stop digging” June 3, 2002. December 19, 2006 Ancient Music Winter is icummen in, Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us, Goddamm, Goddamm, ’tis why I am, Goddamm, Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm. Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM. —Ezra Pound December 18, 2006 Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can play weird—that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple complicated is commonplace—making the complicated simple, awesomely simple—that’s creativity. —attributed to Charles Mingus December 17, 2006 Contours Round - oblong - like jam - —Noel Coward December 16, 2006 Who knows what intimacies our eyes may shout, —A.S.J. Tessimond December 15, 2006 Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt): Our fathers were our models for God. If they bailed, what does that tell you about God? You have to be prepared for the possibility that God does not like you. —Chuck Palahniuk (novel), Jim Uhls. movie, “Fight Club” (1999) December 14, 2006 One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. —Annie Dillard, The Writing Life December 13, 2006 This ae nighte, this ae nighte, When thou from hence away art past, If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon, If hosen and shoon thou ne’er gav’st nane This ae nighte, this ae nighte, —from The Lyke Wake Dirge December 12, 2006 “Clothes make the man. —Mark Twain December 11, 2006 The so-called science of poll-taking is not a science at all but mere necromancy. People are unpredictable by nature, and although you can take a nations’ pulse, you can’t be sure that the nation hasn’t just run up a flight of stairs, and although you can take a nation’s blood pressure, you can’t be sure that if you came back in twenty minutes you’d get the same reading. This is a damn fine thing. — E.B. White The New Yorker 11/13/1948, December 10, 2006 THE RUNAWAY GIRL Ever since running away from home In the distance behind her —Gregory Corso December 9, 2006 Freud and Jung represent the twin therapeutic impulses of the modern age: neurotic self-scrutiny versus New Age spiritual redemption. Freud, the essential Enlightenment figure, meant for psychoanalysis to free man from the elements (the unconscious, superstition) that deprived him of autonomy. Jung, the German Romantic, for whom individuation meant returning to the archaic and the mystical, complained that Freud’s biological theories excluded the very Dionysian, polygamous spirituality essential to the fully realized life. Freud wrote about sex; Jung had it. —Robert S. Boynton reviewing JUNG A Biography December 8, 2006 Perhaps John Brown Now that you are Perhaps —Langston Hughes (1931) December 7, 2006 CALIFORNIA: From Latin ‘calor’, meaning “heat”(as in English ‘calorie’ or Spanish ‘caliente’); and ‘fornia’, for “sexual intercourse” or “fornication.” Hence: Tierra de California, “the land of hot sex.” —Ed Moran, Covina, California December 6, 2006 [There was a shift, in the seventeenth century,] from a society dominated by a religious struggle that had embroiled every citizen to one dominated by respect for scientific principles and a form of “reason” imposed by a social elite… —Ted Hughes The Essential Shakespeare p.7 December 5, 2006 Then words came like a fall of winter snow. —Homer “You can be brilliant sometimes when you’re drunk, —Henry Miller December 4, 2006 “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant that I could hardly stand to have the old man around. but when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” —Mark Twain December 3, 2006 Ministers will generally accept proposals which contain the words: simple, quick, popular, and cheap. Ministers will generally throw out proposals which contain the words complicated, lengthy, expensive, and controversial. Above all, if you wish to describe a proposal in a way that guarantees that a minister will reject it, describe it as courageous. (‘Controversial’ only means ‘this will lose you votes.’ ‘Courageous’ means ‘this will lose you the election.’) —Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay. December 2 2006 What Kaufman does show is that when men like Twain and Bruce became increasingly conscious socially, they were punished for it. He seems to blame them for the woes they found as a result. Why couldn’t Prozac have been invented earlier, he seems to ask. Then Twain never would’ve written his Letters from the Earth, and Lenny Bruce would still be alive. In fact, he’d probably be playing the grumpy coffee-shop owner on Friends. —A. S. Hamrah, “The Academic as Apologist” (paragraph 3) December 1, 2006 Let’s go fishin’ Zeke. —William Faulfner to his dog, after accepting the Nobel Prize November 30, 2006 The only abnormality is the incapacity to love. —Anais Nin November 29, 2006 Wanting to know an author because you like his work is like wanting to know a duck because you like paté. —Smart, Jan/Feb, 1990 November 28, 2006 Thence entered I the recesses of my memory, those manifold and spacious chambers, wonderfully furnished with innumerable stores; and I considered, and stood aghast… —St. Augustine. Confessions Book XIII November 27, 2006 Others, I am not the first,
More than I, if truth were told, Agued once like me were they, But from my grave across my brow —A.E. Housman November 26, 2006 Solutions nearly always come from the direction you least expect, which means there’s no point trying to look in that direction because it won’t be coming from there. —Douglas Adams “The Salmon of Doubt” chapter 5. November 25, 2006 if i have made,my lady,intricate –let the world say “his most wise music stole into the ragged meadow of my soul. —e.e. cummings November 24, 2006 Whatever the legend to the contrary, the English character is more strongly marked than ours, less reserved, less ironic, more open in its expression of willfulness and eccentricity and cantankerousness. Its manners are cruder and bolder. It is a demonstrative character—it shows itself, even shows off. Santayana, when he visited England, quite gave up the common notion that Dickens’s characters are caricatures. One can still meet an English snob so thunderingly shameless in his worship of the aristocracy, so explicit and demonstrative in his adoration, that a careful, modest, ironic American snob would be quite bewildered by him. — Lionel Trilling "Introduction" to George Orwell’s November 23, 2006 Sure, for you it’s a holiday. To turkeys, it’s the Holocaust —Unknown November 22, 2006 Festivity Level 1: Your guests are chatting amiably with each other, admiring your Christmas-tree
ornaments, singing carols around the upright piano, sipping at their drinks and nibbling hors
d’oeuvres. You want to keep your party somewhere around level 3, unless you rent your home and own Firearms, in which case you can go to level 4. The best way to get to level 3 is egg-nog. — November 21, 2006 There is no frigate like a book. —Emily Dickinson November 20, 2006 Judge Selah Lively
—Edgar Lee Masters November 19, 2006 Life does not cease to be funny when people die, any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh. —G. B. Shaw (1856-1950) November 18, 2006 When a man begins to write it is like discovering words for the first time. Each word as it appears on paper takes on a fresh meaning, a literal meaning that is often un-noticed when dropped from the lips in careless conversation…. To convey spoken ideas is very simple. If you don’t know the exact words, a gesture will sometimes take the place of the word you need, and the listener will get the gist of your idea. But on paper the exact word is needed…. —Charles Willeford. The Woman Chaser (112) November 17, 2006 then (and death i think is no parenthesis) —e.e. cummings November 16, 2006 Boy meets girl; girl gets boy into pickle; boy gets pickle into girl. —Jack Woodford November 15, 2006 Sims Reeves [Hank Worden]: Plantin’ and readin’, plantin’ and readin’. Fill a man full o’ lead, stick him in the ground an’ then read words on him. Why, when you’ve killed a man, why try to read the Lord in as a partner on the job? —Borden Chase and Charles Schnee. movie, Red River “Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, —John Quincy Adams November 14, 2006 Korsakoff’s syndrome also called Korsakoff’s Psychosis,or Korsakoff’s Disease. Named for Sergey Sergeyevich Korsakov (Korsakoff), a Russian psychiatrist who described it in 1885. A neurological disorder characterized by severe amnesia (memory loss) present in a background of clear perception and full consciousness. Many cases result from severe chronic alcoholism, while others are due to a variety of toxic or infectious brain illnesses, severe head injury, or a thiamine deficiency. Patients with Korsakoff’s syndrome typically are unable to remember events in the recent or even the immediate past, and some can store information for only a few seconds before they forget it. The patient may also have forgotten a much longer time period in his life, extending back for as many as 20 years. Another feature that is sometimes present is confabulation; i.e., the patient recounts detailed and convincing memories of events that never happened. —Britannica.com, etc. November 13, 2006 “Do you pray for the Senators, Dr. Hale?” someone asked the chaplain. “:No, I look at the Senators and pray for the country.” —Edward Everett Hale November 12, 2006 I think there are two kinds of writers working in Hollywood. The first is the kind we hate to admit exist, but they do. He calculates the odds, analyzes the marketplace, and writes a paint-by-numbers script that, shock of shocks, gets bought and produced and he’s got a career. As a hack. It’s a job, like making rivets or putting bolts on car axles. The writing is probably solid, serviceable, but without passion, and it shows. The second is someone who loves writing or loves the film business, wants to write from the soul. Probably does write from the soul. And somehow squeaks through that barely open door to a sale and a career. And then takes tons of meetings: “we adore your work, we want to be in business. We’ve got this idea, it’s about two cops who go undercover as women, Lethal Weapon meets Tootsie. Lots of crude jokes, hijinks and action, you want to write it for us? Warner’s loves the idea and Tom [Cruise or Hanks, it doesn’t matter] is dying to wear a dress. Guaranteed greenlight, whaddayasay?” The right answer, obvious to those of us watching at home, is "NO!!! AAAAGHHH!" —Tamar November 11, 2006 Blow jobs make the world go ’round, just in case you still thought it was love. —Jill Connor Browne November 10, 2006 Omit needless words. —Strunk and White, The Elements of Style November 9, 2006 lily has a rose “o how how how “he’ll give me another “o no no no lily has a rose —ee cummings November 8, 2006 Personally, I would never, ever, use hyperbole, but I’ll back your right to use it 110%!!! —Larry Wall November 7, 2006 A dictionary is not a language. Organic chemistry is not fine cooking. A census is not a community. People who theorize about music like to reduce it to three dimensions: pitch, intensity, and time—exactly what’s found on sheet music. When you play a CD, you’re listening to a string of bits that encode precisely those three elements. But as anyone with a brain instead of a silicon chip can attest, the experience of listening to music is a whole lot more involving than such a simple explanation would suggest. All the rules of harmony fall flat before the human spirit. —Staff of All About Jazz. "Jazz Theory" April 2003. November 6, 2006 “Bring me old wines,” said Aladdin. —Vachel Lindsay, from Aladdin and the Jinn November 5, 2006 FRID: Now the summer night smiles its second smile: for the clowns, the fools, the unredeemable —Ingmar “Smiles of a Summer Night” November 4, 2006
—“The Lone Ranger Creed” By Fran Striker (circa 1933) November 3, 2006 These kids wouldn’t know music if it came up and bit ’em on the ass. —Frank Zappa November 2, 2006 The preacher said, you know you always have the Lord by your side. And I was so pleased to be informed of this that I ran twenty red-lights in his name. —The Rolling Stones, Far Away Eyes November 1, 2006 To sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, —W.S. Gilbert The Mikado October 31, 2006 George [Richard Burton]: You’re a monster - You are. Martha [Elizabeth Taylor]: I’m loud and I’m vulgar, and I wear the pants in the house because somebody’s got to, but I am not a monster. I’m not. George: You’re a spoiled, self-indulgent, willful, dirty-minded, liquor-ridden… —Edward Albee (play) Ernest Lehman (screenplay) October 30, 2006 LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE by James Whitcome Riley
—James Whitcome Riley October 29, 2006 When I open my eyes, I am conscious first of breathing. Something in my diaphragm lets go. I realize I’ve been breathing at the top of my lungs for forty-five years. Now my diaphragm moves like a piston into my viscera, pulling great drafts of air into the base of my lungs. —Walker Percy. Love in the Ruins (1971) p.212 October 28, 2006 The Divine Image Cruelty has a Human Heart, The Human Dress is forged Iron, —William Blake October 27, 2006 Is it progress if a cannibal uses a knife and fork? —Stanislaw Lem October 26, 2006 “Security is when everything is settled. When nothing can happen to you. Security is the denial of life.” —Germaine Greer October 25, 2006 …But as records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges’ decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value. —Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary October 24, 2006 something about you all of us with songs inside knifing the air of sorrow with our dance a carnival of spirits shedded blossoms in the water —Jessica Hagedorn, Something About You October 23, 2006 Let’s be discreet Tell me —Amanda Townsand October 22, 2006 Many people believe that they are attracted by God, or by Nature, when they are only repelled by man. —William Ralph Inge October 21, 2006 red-rag and pink-flag some like it shot (Probably the most virulent of cummings anti-Nazi poems, a take-off on a popular nursery rhyme, it shows how one kind of radicalism feeds another.) —e.e. cummings October 20, 2006 Spofforth had been designed to live forever, and he had been designed to forget nothing. Those who made the design had not paused to consider what a life like that might be like. —Walter Tevis, Mockingbird October 19, 2006 This Is Just To Say I have eaten and which Forgive me —William Carlos Williams October 18, 2006 From far, from eve and morning And yon twelve-winded sky, The stuff of life to knit me Blew hither: here am I. Now—for a breath I tarry Nor yet disperse apart— Take my hand quick and tell me, What have you in your heart. Speak now, and I will answer; How shall I help you, say; Ere to the wind’s twelve quarters I take my endless way. —A.E. Housman October 17, 2006 A dog thinks: Hey, these people I live with feed me, love me, provide me with a nice warm, dry house, pet me, and take good care of me. They must be Gods! A cat thinks: Hey, these people I live with feed me, love me, provide me with a nice warm, dry house, pet me, and take good care of me. I must be a God! —Unknown October 16, 2006 The Heineken Uncertainty Principle: —Unknown October 15, 2006 Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy, ought never to be the system of a regular government. —Jeremy Bentham October 14, 2006 “I can’t write without a reader. It’s precisely like a kiss— you can’t do it alone.” —John Cheever October 13, 2006 A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his r eal self. —Eric Hoffer October 12, 2006 “Narcissus does not fall in love with his reflection because it is beautiful but because it is like himself.” —W. H. Auden October 11, 2006 When it is a question of money, everyone is of the same religion. —Voltaire (1694-1778) October 10, 2006 Whenever a Knave is not punished, an honest Man is laugh’d at. —George Saville (1633-1695) October 9, 2006 Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity. —Carl Jung October 8, 2006 The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people. —G. K. Chesterton October 7, 2006 You know that women never really faint —Lou Reed. “Sweet Jane” October 6, 2006 Mr. Furious [Ben Stiller]: “Okay, am I the only one who finds these sayings
just a little bit formulaic? If you wanna push something down, you have to pull it up.
If you wanna go left, you hafta go right. It’s… ” —Bob Burden. movie Mystery Men (1999) October 5, 2006 He was big and because he was not naturally brave he was alert to all the risks. —Paul Theroux, O-ZONE October 4, 2006 “There are some people that if they don’t know, you can’t tell ’em.” —Louis Armstrong October 3, 2006 Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile I caught hell for it. —Earl Warren October 2, 2006 You have to remember one thing about the will of the people: it wasn’t that long ago that we were swept away by the Macarena. —John Stewart October 1, 2006 I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather, not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car. —Unknown September 30, 2006 “I quite agree with you,” said the Duchess; “and the moral of that is — ‘Be what you would seem to be’ — or, if you’d like it put more simply — ‘Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.’ ” —Lewis Carroll. Alice in Wonderland September 29, 2006 But this woman was like none of these. —Lucia Trent September 28, 2006 Walking lepers followed, rank on rank, —Vachel Lindsay, General William Booth Enters into Heaven “It is rare that one can see in a little boy the promise of a man, —Alexandre Dumas September 27, 2006 We tend to idealize tolerance, then wonder why we find ourselves infested with losers and nut cases. —Patrick Hayden September 26, 2006 To live beyond the pale, to work for the pleasure of working, to grow old gracefully while retaining one’s faculties, one’s enthusiasms, one’s self-respect, one has to establish other values than those endorsed by the mob. —Henry Miller. The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (1945) September 25, 2006 After two years in Washington, I often long for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood. —[attributed to] Fred Thompson September 24, 2006 “…Southerners of both races were reared on the aphorism.… ‘The true test of good manners is whether or not you can be pleasant to someone with bad manners.’ ” —Lisa Alther. Original Sins September 23, 2006 A man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest. —Paul Simon September 22, 2006 If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking. —General George S. Patton September 21, 2006 Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children. —Ancient Indian Proverb September 20, 2006 In the Puritan morality that I remember, it was tacitly assumed that if one was thrifty, enterprising, intelligent, practical and prudent in not violating social conventions, one ought to have a happy and “successful” life. Failure was due to some weakness or perversity peculiar to the individual; but the decent man need have no nightmares. It is now rather more common to assume that all individual misery is the fault of “society,” and is remediable by alterations from without. Fundamentally the two philosophies, however different they may appear in operation, are the same. It seems to me that all of us, so far as we attach ourselves to created objects and surrender our wills to temporal ends, are eaten by the same worm. —T.S. Eliot September 19, 2006 I was especially confounded by the dialog boxes that posed imponderable questions and then offered buttons with equally incomprehensible answers: Aren’t you sure you don’t want to save this? Yes, I don’t. No, I will. —Dennis Klatzkin September 18, 2006 They don’t see that the best possible conditions (in American lingo) mean the biggest profits for the boss, the utmost servitude for the worker, the greatest confusion and disillusionment for the public in general. —Henry Miller September 17, 2006 More noted as an economist, John Kenneth Galbraith is also a prophet. In 1996, Galbraith told my college class that once leadership passed to those who had not lived through the Depression, the safeguards installed in its wake would be dismantled. Scandal, crisis, and economic collapses were sure to follow. “Democratic capitalism,” Galbraith said, “has institutional flaws but only personal memories.” —Carl Pope “Capitalism’s Limits, the lessons of Enron and other
crises” September 16, 2006 All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire. —Aristotle September 15, 2006 Matty Walker: You’re not very bright, are you? I like that in a man. —Lawrence Kasdan Body Heat (1981) September 14, 2006 In Tangier down a windy street —Donovan, Tangier September 13, 2006 One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important. —Bertrand Russell September 12, 2006 When, in the name of God, people hold black-and-white beliefs that cut them off from other human beings; when, in the name of God, they give up their own sense of right and wrong; when in the name of God, they suffer financial deprivation, then, they are suffering from religious addiction —Father Leo Booth When God Becomes a Drug September 11, 2006 Passion doesn’t count the cost. Pascal said that the heart has its reasons that reason takes no account of. If he meant what I think, he meant that when passion seizes the heart it invents reasons that seem not only plausible but conclusive to prove that the world is well lost for love. It convinces you that honour is well sacrificed and that shame is a cheap price to pay. Passion is destructive. -- —W. Somerset Maugham September 10, 2006 We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American Eagle in order to feather their own nests. —Franklin D. Roosevelt September 9, 2006 “The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a bit longer.” —Henry Kissinger September 8, 2006 I did not love, but yearned to love. —St. Augustine September 7, 2006 We have the Illiad and the Odyssey but no proof that the composer of these epics was real. On this point scholars agree: It is out of the question that both works could have been written entirely by one person, unless, of course, it was a person with the genius of Homer. —Joseph Heller. Picture This September 6, 2006 Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there. —Will Rogers September 5, 2006 A graphic artist friend of mine, who is much smarter than I am, said, “It’s very simple. There are two kinds of writers. One responds to life itself. The other responds to the history of the art.” —Kurt Vonnegut September 4, 2006 You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and liberty. —Henrik Ibsen September 3, 2006 The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit. —W. Somerset Maugham September 2, 2006 You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and liberty. —Henrik Ibsen September 1, 2006 All television is children’s television. —Richard P. Adler August 31, 2006 My favorite story in the history of art and human nature begins on Aug. 21, 1911, when the “Mona Lisa” was stolen from the Louvre. During the 2½-year period before it was recovered and returned to the museum, more people came to stare at the empty wall where Da Vinci’s masterpiece no longer hung than had visited in the 10 previous years to see the painting itself. —Arend Flick August 30, 2006 A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. —Antoine de Saint-Exupery August 29, 2006 Medical researcher Ted Kaptchuk pitted two types of fake medicine—sugar pills and pretend acupuncture—against each other to see which one worked better…. After 10 weeks, subjects taking sham pills said their pain decreased an average of 1.50 points on the 10-point scale. After 8 weeks, those receiving fake acupuncture reported a drop of 2.64 points. In other words, not receiving acupuncture reduces pain more than not taking drugs. —Jessica Ruvinsky August 28, 2006 Working in the theatre has a lot in common with unemployment. —Arthur Gingold August 27, 2006 …a lot of us fall in love with the great comedians when we are adolescent. We develop passionate crushes on them because they have a wholeness and sureness of response to the injustices of the world which we can only envy. We go to comedy to fulfill a dream of running the world with our tongues, our wit.… —Adam Gopnik August 26, 2006 Not much meat on her, but what’s there is choice. —Spencer Tracy, about Katharine Hepburn August 25, 2006 There are two kinds of writers, I think. There are those who know what they are going to write from the beginning to the end. And there are those who just sit down, put the pen in their hand and, like water-skiing, let the boat pull them. —Jonathan Carroll August 24, 2006 Try praising your wife, even if it does frighten her at first. —Billy Sunday August 23, 2006 Why wouldn’t an enhanced deterrent, a more stable peace, a better prospect to denying the ones who enter conflict in the first place to have a reduction of offensive systems and an introduction to defensive capability. I believe that is the route this country will eventually go. —Vice President Dan Quayle August 22, 2006 It’s really not fair. They should find some other place to put them. —Anonymous Publisher August 21, 2006 Anyone without a sense of humor is at the mercy of the rest of us. —Vince Sabio August 20, 2006 Let them distinguish the proper sense by colons and commas, and let them see the points each one in its due place, and let not him who reads the words to them either read falsely or pause suddenly. —Alcuin August 19, 2006 It may be that your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others. August 18, 2006 “It’s getting late earlier” —Yogi Berra August 17, 2006 But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. —Raymond Chandler. “The Simple Art of Murder” August 16, 2006 We are not in a position in which we have nothing to work with. We already have capacities, talents, direction, missions, callings. —Abraham Maslow August 15, 2006 Mistakes are the portals of discovery. —James Joyce Why don’t you write books people can read? —Nora Joyce, to her husband James August 14, 2006 I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat. —Rebecca West, 1913 August 13, 2006 I lit a cigarette. It tasted like a plumber’s handkerchief. —Raymond Chandler August 12, 2006 Instead of loving your enemies, treat your friends a little better. —Ed Howe August 11, 2006 A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history— with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila. —Mitch Ratcliffe August 10, 2006 Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame. —G. K. Chesterton August 9, 2006 I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead. —Mark Twain August 8, 2006 When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong. —Buckminster Fuller August 7, 2006 Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers. —T. S. Eliot A man wants to be a woman’s first love; a woman wants a man to be her last. —Oscar Wilde August 6, 2006 …there is wisdom in madness and strong probability of truth in all accusations, for people are complete, and everyone is capable of everything. —Joseph Heller, God Knows August 5, 2006 I wasted time, and now doth time waste me. —William Shakespeare August 4, 2006 My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music. —Vladimir Nabokov August 3, 2006 What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset. —Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior and orator, 1890 August 2, 2006 We see the brightness of a new page where everything yet can happen. —Rainer Maria Rilke, Book of Hours August 1, 2006 There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent. —Michel de Montaigne July 31, 2006 It destroys one’s nerves to be amiable everyday to the same human being. —Benjamin Disraeli July 30, 2006 In the end, everything is a gag. —Charlie Chaplin July 29, 2006 Bang, boom, pow! he hissed. —Leo Rosten July 28, 2006 They do not make laws to protect anybody; courts are not instruments of justice. When your case gets to court it will make little difference whether you are guilty or innocent, but it’s better if you have a smart lawyer. And you cannot have a smart lawyer without money. First and last it’s a question of money. —Clarence Darrow, July 27, 2006 “Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you; they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” —Lewis Duncombe July 26, 2006 So little time, so little to do. —Oscar Levan July 25, 2006 Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop. —Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland July 24, 2006 Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. —Carl Gustav Jung July 23, 2006 All that is gold does not glitter. Not all those who wander are lost; —J.R.R. Tolkein July 22, 2006 I once asked my history teacher how we were expected to learn anything useful from his subject, when it seemed to me to be nothing but a monotonous and sordid succession of robber baron scumbags devoid of any admirable human qualities. I failed history. —Sting July 21, 2006 When ideas fail, words come in very handy. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe July 20, 2006 Is it progress if a cannibal uses a fork? —Stanislaw J. Lec July 19, 2006 When one is trying to do something beyond his known powers it is useless to seek the approval of friends. Friends are at their best in moments of defeat. —Henry Miller July 18, 2006 Good judgement comes from experience, and experience—well, that comes from poor judgement. —Cousin Woodman July 17, 2006 When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty. —George Bernard Shaw: July 16, 2006 We are stardust —Joni Mitchell, Woodstock July 15, 2006 Degeneracy follows every autocratic system of violence, for violence inevitably attracts moral inferiors. Time has proven that illustrious tyrants are succeeded by scoundrels. —Albert Einstein July 14, 2006 In the summertime, when all the trees and leaves are green —Roger Miller July 13, 2006 Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included. —Karl Marx July 12, 2006 Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats. —Howard Aiken July 11, 2006 Success is the child of audacity. —Benjamin Disraeli July 10, 2006 As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a Den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep; and as I slept, I dreamed a Dream. —The Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan, 1675 July 9, 2006 The great advantage of being in a rut is that when one is in a rut, one knows exactly where one is. —Arnold Bennett July 8, 2006 To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. —George Santayana July 7, 2006 When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. Originality is deliberate and forced, and partakes of the nature of a protest. —Eric Hoffer July 6, 2006 Moral indignation is in most cases 2% moral, 48% indignation and 50% envy. —Vittorio De Sica July 5, 2006 The best way out is always through. —Robert Frost, A Servant to Servants, 1914 July 4, 2006 Without moral and intellectual independence, there is no anchor for national independence. —David Ben-Gurion July 3, 2006 Darling be home soon —John Sebastian July 2, 2006 We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. —H. L. Mencken July 1, 2006 The Middle Eastern states aren’t nations; they’re quarrels with borders. —P. J. O’Rourke June 30, 2006 History will be kind to me for I intend to write it. —Winston Churchill June 29, 2006 I slept, and dreamed that life was beauty; —Ellen Sturgis Hooper, Beauty and Duty, 1840 June 28, 2006 Cookbooks bear the same relation to real books that microwave food bears to your grandmother’s. —Andrei Codrescu June 27, 2006 Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock. —John Barrymore June 26, 2006 I have always loved truth so passionately that I have resorted to lying as a means of introducing it into the minds which were ignorant of its charms. —Jacques Casanova De Seingalt June 25, 2006 Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all. —G. K. Chesterton June 24, 2006 I’ll moider da bum. —Tony Galento, heavyweight boxer, June 23, 2006 I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. —Mark Twain June 22, 2006 When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen. —Ernest Hemingway June 21, 2006 The remarkable thing about television is that it permits several million people to laugh at the same joke and still feel lonely. —T. S. Eliot June 20, 2006 Boredom, after all, is a form of criticism. —William Phillips June 19, 2006 The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe June 18, 2006 Truth is more of a stranger than fiction. —Mark Twain June 17, 2006 Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it. —Tallulah Bankhead June 16, 2006 This book fills a much-needed gap. —Moses Hadas, book reviewer June 15, 2006 If you are afraid of loneliness, don’t marry. —Chekhov June 14, 2006 I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot. Men are not superior by reason of the accidents of race or color. They are superior who have the best heart—the best brain. The superior man … stands erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others. —Robert Green Ingersoll June 13, 2006 We didn’t send you to Washington to make intelligent decisions. We sent you to represent us. —Kent York June 12, 2006 There was a child went forth everyday, —Walt Whitman June 11, 2006 Things are more like they are now than they ever were before. /p> —Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. President June 10, 2006 The older one grows, the more one likes indecency. —Virginia Woolf June 9, 2006 As a rule, there is no surer way to the dislike of men than to behave well where they have behaved badly. —Lew Wallace June 8, 2006 There is, of course, a certain amount of drudgery in newspaper work, just as there is in teaching classes, tunnelling into a bank, or being President of the United States. I suppose that even the most pleasurable of imaginable occupations, that of batting baseballs through the windows of the RCA Building, would pall a little as the days ran on. —James Thurber June 7, 2006 In every man’s heart there is a secret nerve that answers to the vibrations of beauty. —Christopher Morley June 6, 2006 Those who know do not speak; —Lao-tzu, Tao Te Ching June 5, 2006 One Day I’ll Follow THe Birds One Day I’ll follow the birds There are some wounds —Rod McKuen Alone P 209 June 4, 2006 Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is most important that you do it. —Gandhi June 3, 2006 Tact: the ability to describe others as they see themselves. —Abraham Lincoln June 2, 2006 Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops. —Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. June 1, 2006 Writers seldom write the things they think. They simply write the things they think other folks think they think. —Elbert Hubbard May 31, 2006 All women are born evil. Some just realize their potential later in life than others. —Chad A. Gamble May 30, 2006 Cute little babies that fall out of swings — These are a few of my favorite things. —Oscar Hammerstein May 29, 2006 Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected. —Oscar Wilde May 28, 2006 … I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. —Thomas Edison May 27, 2006 …And since the stench of death will always attract flies and vermin, the arrival of Geraldo was perhaps inevitable. —Garry Trudeau May 26, 2006 There are books in which the footnotes, or the comments scrawled by some reader’s hand in the margin, are more interesting than the text. The world is one of those books. —George Santayana May 25, 2006 Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power. —P. J. O’Rourk May 24, 2006 There are some micro-organisms that exhibit characteristics of both plants and animals. When exposed to light they undergo photosynthesis; and when the lights go out, they turn into animals. But then again, don’t we all? —Unknown What a good writer leaves in, a great writer takes out. —David Mamet May 23, 2006 Sumner’s role in American history is unique. I can think of few if any instances in which a “statesman doctrinaire,” as Charles Francis Adams Jr. called Sumner—a man inflexibly committed to a set of basic ideas as moral principles—has exercised political power in the United States. —David Donald May 22, 2006 The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender. —Vince Lombardi May 21, 2006 If you overesteem great men, —Tao te Ching(3). Lao-Tzu. (Mitchell) May 20, 2006 Conservative —Leo C. Rosten May 19, 2006 Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business. —Tom Robbins May 18, 2006 Three out of four doctors think the other doctor is an idiot. —Unknown May 17, 2006 A man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest. —Paul Simon May 16, 2006 Sad blue-eyed drummer rehearses outside —Cat Stevens May 15, 2006 It’s no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase “As pretty as an airport” appear. —Douglas Adams May 14, 2006 A mother is not a person to lean on but a person to make leaning unnecessary. —Dorothy Canfield Fisher May ,13 2006 Are you suggesting coconuts is migratory? —Monty Python and the Holy Grail May 12, 2006 For me, poetry is an evasion of the real job of writing prose. —Sylvia Plath May 11, 2006 People may or may not say what they mean… but they always say something designed to get what they want. —David Mame May 10, 2006 Mode | ||||||||||||||||||||
