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Quote Me A Piece Of Writing That You Really, Really Love :)

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died,
rather we should thank god that such men lived.

George Patton
 
There's a book of poems by Sondra Anice Barnes called, "Life Is The Way It Is". The whole thing is like my manual for life. Here are some examples:

'The only place I can be is where I am.
The only way I can get
to where I want to be
is to be where I am.'

and

'You lied to me.
I didn't make it safe
for you to tell me the truth.'

'Every time I make a SHOULD
out of an IS
I prevent myself
from being.'
 
“It was The Gospel From Outer Space, by Kilgore Trout. It was about a visitor from outer space...[who] made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected. So it goes. The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn't look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought...: "Oh, boy - they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch that time!" And that thought had a brother: "There are right people to lynch." Who? People not well connected. So it goes.”

Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
 
So it is with minds. Unless you keep them busy with some definite subject that will bridle and control them, they throw themselves in disorder hither and yon in the vague field of imagination... And there is no mad or idle fancy that they do not bring forth in the agitation.

- Michel de Montaigne
 
“Words do not express thoughts very well. they always become a little different immediately they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish. And yet it also pleases me and seems right that what is of value and wisdom to one man seems nonsense to another.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done!
There are points to be scored. there are games to be won.
And the magical things you can do with that ball
will make you the winning-est winner of all.
Fame! You'll be famous as famous can be,
with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.

Except when they don't.
Because, sometimes, they won't.

I'm afraid that some times
you'll play lonely games too.
Games you can't win
'cause you'll play against you.

All Alone!
Whether you like it or not,
Alone will be something
you'll be quite a lot.

And when you're alone, there's a very good chance
you'll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won't want to go on.

But on you will go
though the weather be foul
On you will go
though your enemies prowl
On you will go
though the Hakken-Kraks howl
Onward up many
a frightening creek,
though your arms may get sore
and your sneakers may leak.

On and on you will hike
and I know you'll hike far
and face up to your problems
whatever they are.

You'll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You'll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life's
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)

KID, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!

So...
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea,
you're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So...get on your way!
-Dr. Seuss

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
-Rudyard Kipling
 
"What is the thing your eyes hold loveliest
In these, our fields and shores? I'll bring it home."
With tenderness, awaiting her request,
He stood. The dooryard dogwood was a foam
Of wind-tipped flowers, catching at her breath,
But these she did not mention, trying hard
To meet his eagerness. "Come flood, or death
By thunderbolt," he laughed, "I'll heap the yard
With everything you ask for. Name it now."
She made no answer, yet a little smile
Marked for him her compliance. Then, the bough
Tilted its stiffened beauty like a pile
Of snowy cloud above them. "Ah, I know,"
He cried, "Your heart is set on something far
Beyond our present means. Is that not so?"

"I want you and the dogwood as you are,
April forever. Can you heap that here?"
And while she watched, the boy went out of him.
"I think I understand your wifely fear,"
And reaching up, he shook a weighted limb.
So, like the blossoms, quiet settled there.
"I will not run away to bring you gifts."
He spoke less lightly. "Boys can never bear
The undramatic thing. Their rich blood lifts
Their spirits higher than their hands, but men
May learn where such as you will teach,
How life is spent at try and try again
To keep white-blowing loveliness in reach."

THE NEWLYWEDS
-Cloyd Mann Criswell
 
“This is no flattery. These are counselors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
I would not change it."

- from "As You Like It Act 2 Scene 1" by William Shakespeare.

images
 
"Philip started telling me about Gerald Heard's 'The Third Morality', about biological mutation, and finally about how the forward-looking dinosaurs mutated into mammals while the bourgeois dinosaurs became extinct.

He had a third martini. He looked at me intently and took hold of my arm. 'Look', he said. 'You're a fish in a pond. It's drying up. You have to mutate into an amphibian, but someone keeps hanging on to you and telling you to stay in the pond, everything's going to be all right."

- Kerouac, And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
 
panic in paradise said:
IMAYO

The Buddha himself
Was once a man like us;
We too at the end
Shall become Buddha.
All creatures may share
The nature of Buddha,
How grievous indeed
That this is not known!

Rather then the vows
Of the myriads of Buddhas,
The testament of
The thousand-handed Kannon
Has greater faith,
Powerful in making
The flowers blossom,
The fruits to ripen,
In a twinkling on limbs
Of trees that are forgotten.
Click to expand...

I love this one.
 
Dante's Inferno, really I could quote this whole work, but there is one set of lines in particular that stood out for me, the way I think the ..aesthetic.. (is that the word, I don't think I know the right word) presentation of these words adds to the impression that the words themselves actually mean, so that reading it feels like exactly what is described, beyond the mere words used to describe it. If anyone is still following. Here it is, Canto 3, lines 22-30, from the Esolen translation:

There sighs and moans and utter wailing swept
resounding through the dark and starless air.
I heard them for the first time, and I wept.
Shuddering din of strange and various tongues,
sorrowful words and accents pitched with rage,
shrill and harsh voices, blows of hands with these
raised up a tumult ever swirling round
in that dark air untinted by a dawn,
as sand-grains whipping when the whirlwind blows.


Edit, more:

Again from Dante:

When aught is heard or seen which holds the soul strongly bent to it, the time passes away and we perceive it not; for one faculty is that which notes it, and another which possesses the undivided soul; the former is as 'twere bound, the latter free.

Now from Max Stirner in 'The Ego and His Own':

...the world is "empty," is "naught," is only glamorous "semblance"; its truth is the spirit alone; it is the seeming-body of a spirit. Look out near or far, a ghostly world surrounds you everywhere; you are always having "apparitions" or visions. Everything that appears to you is only the phantasm of an indwelling spirit, is a ghostly "apparition"; the world is to you only a "world of appearances," behind which the spirit walks. You "see spirits."

And from Donoso Cortes in 'Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism and Socialism':

man always lives subject to faith; and when he thinks he abandons faith for his own reason, he only abandons faith in the divinely mysterious, for faith in the mysteriously absurd
 
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choice/angela morgan

i'd rather have the thought of you
to hold against my heart,
my spirit to be taught of you
with west winds blowing,
than all the warm caresses
of another love's bestowing,
or all the glories of the world
in which you had no part.

I'd rather have the theme of you
to thread my nights and days,
i'd rather have the dream of you
with faint stars glowing,
i'd rather have the want of you,
the rich, elusive taunt of you
forever and forever and forever unconfessed
than claim the alien comfort
of any other's breast.

o lover..o my lover,
that this should come to me.
i'd rather have the hope of you,
ah, love, i'd rather grope for you
within the great abyss,
than claim another's kiss -
alone - i'd rather go my way
throughout eternity.
<3
 
SWEET DARKNESS
by David Whyte

When your eyes are tired the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes to recognize its own.
There you can be sure you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb tonight.
The night will give you a horizon further than you can see.
You must learn one thing: The world was made to be free in.
Give up all other worlds except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn
anything or anyone that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
 
On pig dog breath, the stink of Ritalin. The pollution stench of model airplane adhesive and frequent masturbations. Underneath . . . reek of secret blood, latex rubber, and fear sweat. Pig dog face not look up, but blotted one cheek with vast purple bruised. Estimate old 14.5 years.


Twitching chicken mother, wagging one finger made straight, host mother say, “Now, don’t let’s be racist . . .”


Pygmy
Chuck Palahniuk

(http://chuckpalahniuk.net/files/features/pygmy-book-excerpt.pdf)
 
'you could draw me to fire,
you could draw me to water,
you could draw me to the gallows,
you could draw me to any death,
you could draw me to anything i have most avoided,
you could draw me to any exposure and disgrace.
this and the confusion of my thoughts,
so that i am fit for nothing,
is what i mean by your being the ruin of me.'

our mutual friend/dickens
 
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