quotes The future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed. -William Gibson The past is never dead. It's not even past. -William Faulkner We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails. - Bertha Calloway Information wants to be free. Information also wants to be expensive. That tension will not go away. -Stewart Brand Why resist temptation- there will always be more. -Don Herold Bed before eleven, nuts before seven. -Dorothy Parker Know thyself- but don't tell anyone. -H.F. Henrichs The student must learn to waste time conscientiously. -Zen saying The one regret I have in life is that I'm not someone else. -Woody Allen Yeah. -Dee Dee Ramone I feel good. -James Brown I can live for two months on a good compliment. -Mark Twain Lord give me chastity- but not yet. -St. Augustine I never fall apart because I never fall together. -Andy Warhol It's been a long time since I rock 'n' rolled. -Led Zeppelin I ain't here on business, baby, I'm only here for fun. -Bruce Springsteen You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm. -Colette All happiness depends on is a leisurely breakfast. -John Gunther We don't know one millionth of one percent about anything. -Thomas Edison Life is subject to change without notice. -Richard Eaton There may be more beautiful times, but this one is ours. -Jean-Paul Sartre The idea is to die young as late as possible. -Ashley Montague I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. -John Lennon Body odor is the window to the soul. -David Byrne Happy trails to you, until we meet again. -Roy Rogers Don't talk about yourself; it will be done when you leave. -Wilson Mizner Every single one of us has the devil inside. -INXS If you can't convince them, confuse them. -Harry S. Truman You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.-Bob Dylan Bad taste is simply saying the truth before it should be said. -Mel Brooks No one who had any sense has ever liked school. -Lord Boothby Never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you. -Joey Adams I have great faith in fools; self-confidence my friends call it. - Edgar Allen Poe No one loves me but my mother, and she could be jivin' too. - B.B. King I respect faith but doubt is what gets you an education. -Wilson Mizner Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.-William Butler Yeats Conceit is God's gift to little men. -Bruce Barton To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself. -Albert Einstein Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made. -Immanuel Kant Now is the winter of our discontent...-Shakespeare (Richard III) You can observe a lot just by watching. -Yogi Berra I got soul, and I'm superbad. -James Brown Money doesn't exist because I don't recognize it. -Bob Dylan Curiosity has its own reason. -Albert Einstien Men tire themselves out in the pursuit of rest. -Laurence Sterne God may forgive your sins, but your nervous system won't. -Alfred Korzybski Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternative. -Maurice Chevalier The trouble with being punctual is that there is no one there to appreciate it. -Franklin Jones A simple life is its own reward. -George Santayana When you are up to your ears, keep your mouth shut. -P.L. Stewart What moral is what you feel good after. -Ernest Hemingway Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken christian. -Herman Melville I try to treat you like an artist. And all you want to do is fix toilets. -Ralph Lombreglia No one in the world ever gets what they want, and that is beautiful. -They Might Be Giants K-Mart sucks. -RainMan Once you buy a prize, it's yours to keep. -Pat Sajak Whoever named it necking was a poor judge of anatomy. -Groucho Marx I wasn't really naked. I simply didn't have any clothes on. -Josephine Baker While there is time, let's go out and do everything. -Steve Winwood Sometimes to keep it together you have to leave it alone. -The Eagles There's still time to change the road you're on. -Robert Plant I can evade questions without help; what I need is answers. -John F. Kennedy When you win, nothing hurts. -Joe Namath Everyone has his hangovers. -Dick Dyas, Jr. Yes, now you're gone and from this moment on, I'll be crying over you. -Roy Orbison Baby, I wants to be loved. -Muddy Waters Either way it's OK; you wake up with yourself. -Billy Joel I'm sticking with you, 'cause I'm made out of glue. -The Velvet Underground He gave her a look you could have poured on a waffle. -Ring Lardner It is a very Grand thing to be an Afternoon. -Winnie-the-Pooh This writing stuff. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me. -Eeyore I drink when I have occasion and sometimes when I have no occasion. -Miguel Cervantes All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal or fattening. -Alexander Woollcott You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on. -Dean Martin We're on a mission from God. -Elwood Blues There will be no rock 'n' roll in hell. -Duffy Strode Hey Rocky...watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat! -Bullwinkle History repeats itself. That's one of the things wrong with history. -Clarence Darrow There's no gnus like good gnus. -Garry Gnu Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length. -Robert Frost A pathetic display of ignorance from the start -Daily Tarheel Baby ducks are cute. I want to be exotic. -Annie Savoy When life is too much, roll with it, baby. -Steve Winwood Renounce all those material things you gained by exploiting other human beings. -Tracy Chapman Reality is the leading cause of stress among those who are in touch with reality. -C. Everett Koop If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life. -Brooke Shields In my heart, I know I'm funny. -Good Morning Vietnam The courtside seats belong to the kids. -Dick Vitale It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I'm wearing Milk Bone underwear. -Norm Peterson Boredom is the bitter fruit of too much routine or none at all. -Brendan Francis Too much of a good thing is wonderful. -Mae West Thou art to me a delicious torment. -Ralph Waldo Emerson Forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much. -Oscar Wilde Maybe this planet is another planet's hell. -Aldous Huxley Excessive caution can sometimes lead one as far astray as rash enthusiasm. -Donald Griffin It's good to be king. -History of the World, Part I There's nothing I hate more than nothing. -Edie Brickell I tell you folks, all politics is apple sauce. -Will Rogers That's the news and (we are) outta here. -Dennis Miller One disadvantage of having nothing to do is that you can't stop and take a break. -F.P. Jones It's the beginning of a new age. -The Velvet Underground Hell, I never vote for anybody, I always vote against. -W.C. Fields The impulse to acquisition, pursuit of gain, of money, of the greatest possible amount of money, has in itself nothing to do with capitalism. -Max Weber Career opportunities are the ones that never knock. -The Clash I'm tired of the excuses everybody uses. -10,000 Maniacs Anything's within walking distance if you have the time. -Steven Wright I gotta go where it's warm. -Jimmy Buffett One of the greatest labor-saving inventions of today is tomorrow. -Vincent T. Foss We all go a little mad sometimes. -Norman Bates You can't let other people get your kicks for you. -Bob Dylan You can't always trust your mother. -Lou Reed Art is anything you can get away with. -Marshall McLuhan It's not impossible. I used to bull's-eye womprats in my T-16 back home. -Luke Skywalker It's better to burn out than to fade away. -Neil Young I'll be taking these Huggies and whatever cash you got. -Raising Arizona It takes a heap of sense to write good nonsense. -Mark Twain I didn't drink enough to get drunk. I drank enough to get sick. -Lawrence Taylor Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. -Charles Dudley Warner Good Grief! -Charlie Brown Though this be madness, yet there is method in't. -Shakespeare If a man hasn't discovered something to die for, he isn't fit to live. -Martin Luther King Jr. The future belongs to those who prepare for it today. -Malcolm X Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. -James Baldwin I took a courageous stand against 8 o'clock classes. -Jeff MacNelly There seems to be so much more winter than we need this year. -Kathleen Norris You've got to learn to live with what you can't rise above. -Bruce Springsteen Any press is good press. -Vanna White A great many open minds should be closed for repairs. -Toledo Blade2 If you can't trust Mars Blackman, who can you trust? -Spike Lee We don't take requests, and I hate that song. -Michael Stipe When a subject becomes totally obsolete we make it a required course. -Peter Drucker Hasta la vista, baby. -Tone-Loc We can't all and some of us don't. That's all there is to it. -Eeyore A flute without holes is not a flute but a doughnut without a hole is a danish. -"Caddyshack" Too much of a good thing is simply wonderful. -Liberace You can't drown yourself in drink. I've tried: you float. -John Barrymore We think in generalities, we live in detail. -Alfred North Whitehead It's all right letting yourself go, as long as you can get yourself back. -Mick Jagger No one can tell me that I'm doing wrong. -James Taylor I've never been in love; I don't know what it is. -Jane Cubs win! Cubs win! Cubs win! -Harry Caray If ever we needed a brain, now is the time. -Squiggy Squiggman Oh, bother! -Winnie the Pooh Ain't nobody never told you to quit. -William Faulkner What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality - Plutarch So much to do, so much to be. -Winnie the Pooh Nobody can explain a dragon. -Ursula K LeGuin It's a Mr. Death, or something. He's come about the reaping. -Graham Chapman Anyone who thinks there's safety in numbers hasn't looked at the stock market pages. -Irene Peter If two people love each other there can be no happy end to it. -Ernest Hemingway It's never as good as it looks, and it's never as bad as it seems. -Mack Brown It's not the great temptations that ruin us; it is the little ones. -John W. DeForest God doesn't want his people to go second-class. -Jim Bakker Always remember to phrase your answer in the form of a question. -Alex Trebek When God made me a Yankee, He was teasin'. -The Indigo Girls No way. -Wayne Way. -Garth Time is what keeps everything from happening at once. -Ray Cummings Sleep is overrated. -Sean Wilkinson I believe in sex and death - two experiences that come once in a lifetime. -Woody Allen How do you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually then suddenly. -Ernest Hemingway As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters. -Seneca Have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight? -The Joker How could I possibly be expected to handle school on a day like this. -Ferris Beuller I'm just glad I don't live in a trailer. -Jimmy Buffet If I graded my team right now I would give it an A+. -Mike Krzyzewski This is what entertainment is all about - idiots, explosives and falling anvils. -Calvin The more the change, the more it is the same thing. -Alphonse Karr Do not use a hatchet to remove a fly from your friend's forehead. -Chinese Proverb The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play. -Captain Kirk And now for something completely different. -Monty Python Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and sometimes it rains. -'Nuke' LaLoosh Don't have a cow, man. -Bart Simpson Never eat more than you can lift. -Miss Piggy There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want. -Calvin Men will listen to anything if they think it's foreplay. -Annie Savoy, 'Bull Durham' TV - chewing gum for the eyes. -Frank Lloyd Wright How dry I am! How dry I am! Nobody knows how dry I am! -Anonymous To err is human - but it feels divine. -Mae West You still have a shark problem. -Richard Dreyfuss, "Jaws" It is a bawdy planet. -William Shakespeare The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea. -Isak Dinesen It happens every time. They all turn into blueberrries. -Willy Wonka I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception. -Groucho Marx You must call me Streetcar because of my desire for you. -Pepe Le Peu Reality is a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs. -Lily Tomlin I awoke; therefore, I slept. -Pepper's Pizza window You'd better be right Elvis. -Sam Malone Life is a great big canvas; throw all the paint on it you can. -Danny Kaye (Punk rock is) lunging after some glimpse of a new and better world. -Lester Bangs I think that I will never see a billboard lovely as a tree. -Ogden Nash One good turn gets most of the sheets. -Unknown You can't trust your eyes if your imagination's out of focus. -Mark Twain The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. -Martin Luther King, Jr. When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. -Clay Shirky Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans. -John Lennon I am not young enough to know everything. -Oscar Wilde My experience is what I agree to attend to. -William James If you would tell me the heart of a man, tell me not what he reads, but what he rereads. -François Mauriac To believe that you have the solution for another person is a form of stupidity. -Jean-Louis Deneubourg Not all those who wander are lost. -JRR Tolkien At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough. You don’t need to photograph, paint, or even remember it. It is enough. -Toni Morrison Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten. -G.K. Chesterton On writing. It's like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights illuminate, but you can make the whole trip that way, you see. -EL Doctorow Truth may be stranger than fiction, but never as strange as lies (or as true). -John Hodgeman Reality, while generally probable, is not always interesting. -John Hodgeman It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble, it’s what you know for sure that ain’t so. -Mark Twain Play is the highest form of research. -Albert Einstein Still waters run deep. To be uncertain is to be uncomfortable, but to be certain is to be ridiculous. The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now. The story has been told. If it was bad, it was my fault, because I am the storyteller. But if it was good, it belongs to everybody. The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit. I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees. Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what is next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows, we guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark. -Agnes De Mille Where the myth fails, human love begins. Then we love a human being, not our dream, but a human being with flaws. -Anais Nin Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. -Theodore Roosevelt You come into this world with nothing and the purpose of your life is to make something out of nothing. Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one. No worthy problem is ever solved within the plane of its original conception. -Albert Einstein The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. -Oscar Wilde Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -Arthur C. Clarke Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. -Gregory Benford Science fiction makes the implausible possible, while science fantasy makes the impossible plausible. The reason why truth is so much stranger than fiction is that there is no requirement for it to be consistent. -Mark Twain Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of geese. -G.K. Chesterton He weeps because he has but one small tongue to taste the world. -The Tick If I can't have a proper cup of coffee from a proper copper pot Look at the symbols, they are alive, First truck called a 'pick-up' was an International Harvester S in 1921. -L.M. Boyd Chopsticks or no chopsticks, it was the Chinese who first used knives and forks. -L.M. Boyd Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be. -Abraham Lincoln Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail. -Ralph Waldo Emerson It is a privilege to prepare the place where someone else will sleep. -Elizabeth Jolley Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile I caught hell for. -Earl Warren I'm not confused, I'm just well-mixed. -Robert Frost Try again. Fail again. Try better. -Samuel Beckett Your style is formed by what you can't do. -Larry Gelbart One must feel chaos within to give birth to a dancing star. -Nietzsche I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will. -Antonio Gramsci There is another world, and it is in this one. -Paul Eluard The sum of a man's problems come from his inability to be alone in a silent room. -Blaise Pascal We don't stop playing because we grow old: we grow old because we stop playing. -George Bernard Shaw We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. -Oscar Wilde There is less here than meets the eye. -Dorothy Parker We tell ourselves stories in order to live. -Joan Didion Confusion is the sweat of learning. -Rhett Allain Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. -John Maxwell Never waste a crisis. It can be turned to joyful transformation. -Rahm Israel Emanuel My experience is what I agree to attend to. -William James What I remember hardly happened; what they say happened I hardly remember. -Linda Pastan There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. -Albert Einstein Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn't know the first thing about either. -Marshall McLuhan In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists. -Eric Hoffer Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is staggering. -Arthur C Clarke Water is H2O, hydrogen two parts, oxygen one, but there is also a third thing, that makes it water and nobody knows what that is. -D.H. Lawrence When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. -Arthur C. Clarke When you love the same book as someone else, it's like sharing a secret without saying a word. -Maud Newton I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. -Confucius I was not; I was; I am not; I do not care. -Epicurian epitaph The longer you look at one object, the more of the world you see in it. -Flannery O'Connor How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you? -Plato I secretly assumed, as poets do, There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Soon Dawn appeared and touched the sky with roses. -from Emily Wilson's translation of Homer's Odyssey Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything. -Gordon Hempton Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent. -Victor Hugo It's what you don't play, you know. -Miles Davis It can’t be any new note. When you look at the keyboard, all the notes are there already. But if you mean a note enough, it will sound different. You got to pick the notes you really mean! -Thelonius Monk Funny thing about the blues - you play 'em cause you got 'em. But when you play 'em, you lose 'em. -Buddy Guy If you hit a wrong note, it's the next note that you play that determines if it's good or bad. -Miles Davis The public has seen too many trains, trams, and autobuses. And with the exception of a few films whose humor is too French to please the British, one could say that no one up to now has begun to exploit the possibilities of moving pictures, to make us laugh, cry, or be amazed. An advanced city is not one where even the poor use cars, but rather one where even the rich use public transport. How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean. A little boy wrote, “I love your book, you’re great,” and then he drew a little picture . . . And I wrote back and I drew him a little picture and then I got a letter from his mother and she said, “Edward liked your letter so much - he ate it.” It was like the ultimate compliment. He didn’t preserve it. He didn’t say, “Oh, I have an autographed picture.” He ate it. I mean, that’s how primal, that how animalistic, that’s how passionate we are as small people. -Maurice Sendak Long experience has taught me that the cruz of my fortunes is whether I can radiate good will toward my audience. There is only one way to do it and that is to feel it. You can fool the eyes and minds of the audience, but you cannot fool their hearts. -Howard Thurston Be patient. Your future will come to you and lie down at your feet like a dog who knows and loves you no matter what you are. And the dog of my future lying at my feet is snoring now. -Kurt Vonnegut Color is the keyboard. The eye is the hammer, while the soul is a piano of many strings. The artist is the hand through which the medium of different keys causes the human soul to vibrate. I learn by going where I have to go. -Theodore Roethke A hen is only an egg’s way for making another egg. -Samuel Butler If it catches you sneaking out, boredom will try to talk you into taking your phone. If you do, you'll be taking boredom with you. -Lynda Barry To think that realistic fiction is by definition superior to imaginative fiction is to think imitation is superior to invention. -Ursula K. Le Guin I think the imagination is the single most useful tool mankind possesses. It beats the opposable thumb. I can imagine living without my thumbs, but not without my imagination. -Ursula K. Le Guin If you think about it, the very best books are really just extremely long spells that turn you into a different person for the rest of your life. -Jonathan Edward Durham There is only one story in the world and it pulls two ways. There is the reason part that says, ‘Hell, it can’t be,’ and there is the wonder part that says, ‘Hell, maybe it is.’ -R.A. Lafferty Critical thinking without hope is cynicism, but hope without critical thinking is naivete. -Maria Popova I’m not saying we’ll live to see some sort of paradise. But just fighting for change makes you stronger. Not hoping for anything will kill you for sure. Take a chance... You’re already wondering if the world could change. Try imagining a world worth living in, and then ask yourself if that isn’t worth fighting for. -Leslie Steinberg Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. -Martin Luther King, Jr. Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry. -W.B. Yeats Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while. -Groucho Marx I shall be dumped where the weed decays, And the rest is rust and stardust. -Vladimir Nabokov This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. In spite of illness, in spite even of the arch-enemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways. Picture a wave. In the ocean. You can see it, measure it, its height, the way the sunlight refracts when it passes through. And it's there. And you can see it, you know what it is. It's a wave. And then it crashes in the shore and it's gone. But the water is still there. The wave was just a different way for the water to be, for a little while. You know it's one conception of death for Buddhists: the wave returns to the ocean, where it came from and where it's supposed to be. “Temporal bandwidth” is the width of your present, your now. . . . The more you dwell in the past and in the future, the thicker your bandwidth, the more solid your persona. But the narrower your sense of Now, the more tenuous you are. It may get to where you’re having trouble remembering what you were doing five minutes ago. In life we are all actors. Some people get larger roles, but the stars It's turtles all the way down. Let everything happen to you Now shall I walk A thing of beauty is a joy forever: The tide rises, the tide falls, Darkness settles on roofs and walls, The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls When despair for the world grows in me You do not have to be good. The owl who comes and stare down like two moons like the most beautiful life -- and waits to see deep winter -- and I do, What we must do, what we are to do, however, I asked the stand of maples behind the house, They said, shhh shhh shhh… How should I live, I asked, and the leaves seemed to ripple and gleam. A bird called from a branch in its own tongue, A squirrel scrambled up a trunk Stand still, I thought, Try to stand still, if only for a few moments, If you drive past horses and don't say horses I am not I. The worm drives helically through the wood All this new stuff goes on top A mind like compost. And did you get what Everything is on fire, You ask of my companions. Tell all the truth but tell it slant — What happens to a dream deferred? We must be humble. We are so easily baffled by appearances At the end, he said, No metaphors! Nothing is like anything else. Except he said to me before he said that, Make your hands a hammock for me. So there was one. The trees are coming into leaf Is it that they are born again Yet still the unresting castles thresh Who made the world? There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, And frogs in the pools singing at night, Robins will wear their feathery fire And not one will know of the war, not one Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn, Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk Leo Cruz makes the most beautiful white bowls; He is teaching me Leo thinks the things man makes and I say no. We make plans He is teaching me a cold wind That is the kiln, I think; Ah, he says, you are dreaming again And I say then I’m glad I dream Where does a story begin? The fiction is that they do, and end, rather than that the stuff of a story is just a cup of water scooped from the sea and poured back into it. -Rebecca Solnit May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you - beyond that next turning of the canyon walls. Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don't bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: "It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to. Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow. When people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together. The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land, to add something to the extent and the solidity of our possessions. Today a little more land may belong to the sea, tomorrow a little less. Always the edge of the sea remains an elusive and indefinable boundary. Some people have a lot farther to go from where they begin to get to where they want to be - a long way up the mountain, and that is how it has been for me. I don’t feel I am getting older; I feel I am getting closer. I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me. Fable has strong shoulders that carry far more truth than fact can. The world of men is a world of incomprehension. Our senses are woefully limited. Our brains are but tiny candles flickering in an infinity of darkness. Our only wisdom is to admit that we cannot understand, and since we cannot understand we must do the best we can with faith, which is our only talent. The greatest act of faith we are capable of is that of loving another more than we love ourselves, and occasionally we can be quite good at it. I believe that the phrase is "may you live in interesting times," and is the lowest in a trilogy of Chinese curses that continue "may you come to the attention of those in authority" and finish with "may the gods give you everything you ask for." I have no idea about its authenticity. A generous heart should never disguise its thoughts, but willingly reveal its inmost depths. It is either all good, or at least all human. Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. -Fred Rogers In the painting of mountains, ping yuan [pespective on the level] should be observed. This is also true of painting water. When the wind subsides, waves and ripples calm down. When the cloud parts, the moon emerges. The moonlit mists are vast and boundless, and the eye cannot see their limits. Rivers, seas, brooks, and ponds all in one moment may suddenly become cold, calm, and silent. Thus the nature of still waters may be revealed. One way to stop seeing trees or rivers or hills only as 'natural resource' is to class them as fellow beings - kinfolk. I guess I'm trying to subjectify the universe, because look where objectifying it has gotten us. To subjectify is not necessarily to co-opt, colonize, exploit. Rather it may involve a great reach outward of the mind and imagination. -Ursula K. Le Guin The world desperately needs powerful storytellers to help us make sense of the unfathomable events taking place. And while sitting in eternity, the very old ones will be impressing into the minds of these future writers a way of figuring out how to bring life back into the laws of the creative beings in the sand desert and the seas; how to bring life back into the waters, the mountains and skies, the flatlands and plains, back into the bushlands, the forests, the thunder and winds, back into the trees, and the animals. -Alexis Wright, "The Inward Migration in Apocalyptic Times" A good day is when no one shows up and you don't have to go anywhere. -Burt Shavitzll The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it. -Neil deGrasse Tyson The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better. All three statements are true at the same time. -Max Roser The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper. -W.B. Yeats Live in the sunshine, swim in the sea, drink the wild air. -Ralph Waldo Emerson We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives. -Toni Morrison In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between them, there are doors. -William Blake Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick Humans get smarter the more things they experience. -Jennifer Macalady Lord, we ain’t what we want to be; we ain’t what we ought to be; we ain’t what we gonna be, but, thank God, we ain’t what we was. Not doing the things that nobody never thought of not doing. -Anonymous
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