Some Favorite Quotes
The impossible did not bother him unduly.
If it could not possibly be done, then obviously it had been done impossibly.
The question was how?
--Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
"It's kinda fun to do the impossible." - Walt Disney
When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced.
Live your life in such a manner that when you die, the world will cry and
you will rejoice.
(Source Unknown)
From People magazine: Win or lose, Elizabeth Dole will not be retiring on Nov. 5; she has pledged to return to the Red Cross. That could make her the first First Lady ever to have a job outside the White House. As she explains with typical certitude: "If you're not marching to your own tune, you're going to be marching to someone else's. You have to take control of your own life, set your own priorities, or someone will be happy to set them for you."
Vocation or Vacation?
by Mike Johnson aka treetop
Failing to turn your vocation into what seems like your vacation, causes a life of
stagnation, frustration and limitation. Your thoughts are filled with plans
of occupation migration.
Net result: Desperation.
Successfully turning your vocation into what seems like your vacation,
creates a life of liberation, fascination & exploration. Your thoughts are constant
anticipation over your next aspiration.
Net result: Celebration!
-- Mike Johnson
He who has a *why* to live for can bear to live with almost any *how.*
Nietzsche"If we're not clearly focused on our own goals, we're easy prey for others eager
to recruit us for theirs."
--Mike Johnson aka treetop
"And isn't sanity really just a one trick pony anyway? I mean then all you
get is one trick, rational thinking; but when you're good and crazy, oooh oooh oooh, the
sky is the limit!"
--the tick
#cfs The problem with reality is the lack of background music
#cfs topic set by Snafooie on Mon Sep 16 00:57:55
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, if he
gets angry, he'll be a mile away - and barefoot.
- (Anonymous e-mail sig)
#cfs There's too much blood in my caffeine system
#cfs topic set by Snaffy on Thu Oct 03 00:10:38
#cfs Dyslexics of the world, UNTIE!
#cfs topic set by Snafooie on Sat Oct 05 00:07:47
Been there, done that k burned the T-shirt.
#cfs Do not disturb. Already disturbed!
#cfs topic set by Snafooie on Mon Oct 07 07:54:22
"Seeing yourself in print is such an amazing concept:
you can get so much attention without having to actually show up somewhere."
Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird
It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.
#cfs topic set by Snafooie on Tue Sep 10 07:40:02
From a personal letter by ME, 9/12/96
(Is it totally vane to quote yourself?)
I simply start at the bottom of the mountain each day and climb as high as I can,
knowing I'll be at that same damn starting point the next morning, no matter how noble my
efforts. But ... still ... I climb. ...
hhhhhhh
Rafiki THWAPPS Simba w/a stick.
Simba: "Ouch that hurts!!!"
Rafiki: "That's in the past; get over it!!!"
hhhhhhh
The writing process is akin to any process of creation -- there is
pleasure in the conception and much discomfort in the growth period, and then much more
work and even a few sleepless nights while the creation is still helpless after the birth.
...
The things we writers create -- these cultural artifacts called essays and books -- then go off to become part of the world, to be as alive as trees and *deer* and
rivers and people. ...
The best of them continue to live, in the years after we are gone, and give to our dead
names a second breath of life.
From The Nature Writing Handbook by the
Sierra Club by John A Murray
I'm putting the finishing touches on my ms.
I'm reluctant to push the fledgling out of the nest, I guess.
--Jay Gilday
***Redox has quit IRC (Remember: An innuendo is more than an Italian suppository.)
A prophetic reference to IRC? :
"But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: . ...
"
From "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot
GOALS: Far away ... in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.
Fishing is much more than casting and retrieving and playing your catch.
It's the wind in your face, and the sound of wakening birds as the sun peeks over the
horizen. It's discovering the magic in each new place and unlocking the mysteries that
lurk there, both above and below the surface.
--Source unknown
<Gentleman> yes......simpler yet. When you reach for a star, you may not catch one, but you'll not come up with a fistful of dirt, either.
"If I had been around when Rubens was painting, I would have been
revered as a fabulous model.
Kate Moss?
Well, she would have been the paint brush..."
-- Dawn French
"Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing." Shakespeare
<Sif> editing is like painting a sign:heheh My dad put it well, talking about touching up painted signs - he said you touch up the mistakes, then you touch up the mistakes you made touching up, then.. and so on ... until you run out of patence or paint
Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing. --Sylvia Plath
From Ruin:
"Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and
unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning,
restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will
pass." - Fran Lebowitz
*** Quits: Ysidro (I'm still looking for a new quit message ... my old one dumped me ....)
*** Quits: Elrikan (Body armor doesn't make you bullet Proof...just bullet resistant....Body armor, suppressive fire, Maneuver, and luck make you bullet proof...:))
Ruin aka R. L. Carmine:
"I will write what I want, when I
want, no matter how violent, controversial, or pornographic it may be. In the end, I may
have to answer to a god or goddess, but until then, this is my life and I'm having
fun."
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
"The only ones who don't appreciate puns are those who aren't clever enough to
come up with them."
James Alexander Thom, author of Follow the River, Children of
First Man, and the bestselling Panther of the Sky
The human brain is incapable of absorbing too powerful a light, just as
the heart cannot contain too deep an emotion.
From: MEMOIRS: All Rivers Run to the Sea by Elie Wiesel, p. 36
"One person with a belief has the force of 99 people with only an interest." -- John Stuart Mills
Stupidity is like nuclear power; it can be used for good or evil ... and
you don't want to get any on you.
Dilbert, from DOGBERT'S TOP SECRET MANAGEMENT HANDBOOK ... As told to Scot Adams
Myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation. -Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
<ToonVoice> Design engineers know a secret -- Leave the product rough so the client feels like he/she is involved in the final version.
"Tell you what: here’s my fee schedule. Call me after you’ve had a chance to look it over and we’ll discuss what you have in mind." Freelance writer/editor, Holly G. Miller
hhhhhhh
Courtesy of AnneBonni aka Diana Davenport:
"Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of--but do it in
private and wash your hands afterwards."
--Robert Heinlein
"Never appeal to a man's 'better nature'. He may not have one. Invoking his
self-interest gives more leverage."
--Robert Heinlein
"Stupidity cannot be cured with money or through education, or by
legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is
the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution
is carried out automatically and without pity."
--Robert Heinlein
"The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of 'loyalty'
and 'duty'. Whenever these twin conecepts fall into disrepute--get out of there fast. You
may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. it is doomed."
--Robert Heinlein
"A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty
habits."
--Heinlein
"Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other
'sins' are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful--just stupid.)"
--Heinlein
"There is no conclusive evidence of life after death -- but there
is no evidence of any sort against it. Soon enough you will know, so why fret about
it?"
--Heinlein
hhhhhhh
Quits: TheFiend ("A little learning is a dang'rous thing; Drink deep or taste not the Pierian Spring. There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain and drinking largely sobers us )
The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this; that a thing
constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before
it exists.
--Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Man cannot invent, only feel himself, only conceive, learn what the genius of love
speaks to him, how it nourishes itself in him, and how it teaches him by itself. Without
transforming its perceptions of divine love into the language of knowledge, there is no
invention.
--Bettina von Arnim
. . . when love is no more bought or sold, when it is not a means of making bread, when
each woman's life is filled with earnest, individual labor-then love will come to her.
--Olive Schreiner
What is patriotism but the love of the good things we ate in childhood?
--Lin Yutang
Men love war because it allows them to look serious. Because it is the one thing that
stops women from laughing at them.
-- John Fowles
<Redox> "People with math difficulties can be separated into 2 groups. 1) Those who could do it if they tried 2) Those who will never understand the concepts 3) And those who don't care.
* Redox dribbles coffee down his shirt front. He never should've tried making that lip piercing with a paper punch.
<Redox> People should only be allowed to pierce their sphincters. Then we won't have to learn a new word for them. They'll still be ass holes.
<Fawnn to a friend> How come some people, no matter how nice you are to
'em, turn around and shit on you?
<friend> Why do you think they call 'em "assholes?"
"When I see a man my own age in great shape, and I feel all conflicted, wishing I were that thin and yet at the same time wanting to lick him, is that jealousy or is that appreciation?" Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird
A sense of loving and being loved doesn't change one's "nature." It gives men
and women what it gives children--a confidence in what they are, and more openness in
being it.
--Hortense Calisher
And because they have been in love they have survived everything that life could throw
at them, even their own failures.
--Ernest Havemann
Love is, above all, the gift of oneself.
--Jean Anouilh
Love is the blinding revelation that some other being can be more important to the
lover than he is to himself.
--J. V. Casserley
Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. It leaves all the other secondary
effects to take care of themselves. Love therefore, is its own reward.
--Thomas Merton
From: http://apollo.gmi.edu/~kato1064/love.html
Love must be learned and learned again and again; there is no end to it. Hate needs no instruction, but waits only to be provoked. - Katherine Anne Porter
Love your enemies. It makes them so damned mad. - P. D. East
Love and friendship are profoundly personal, selfish values; love is an expression and assertion of self-esteem, a response to one's own values in the person of another. One gains a profoundly, personal, selfish joy from the mere existence of the person one loves. It is one's own personal, selfish happiness that one seeks, earns, and derives from love. - Ayn Rand
Though Love be deeper, Friendship is more wide . . . - Corrine Roosevelt Robinson
What is love? Two souls and one flesh. Friendship? Two bodies and one soul. - Joseph Roux
For love is but the heart's immortal thirst To be completely known and all forgiven. - Henry Van Dyke
Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other. - Rainer Maria Rilke
Is it not by love alone that we succeed in penetrating to the very essence of a being. - Igor Stravinsky
<HypAnon> We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.
<HypAnon> - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I do not expect or want you to be otherwise than you are, I love you for the good that is in you, and look for no change. - Mary Ann Lamb
The eyes, those silent tongues of love. - Miguel de Cervantes
A man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through her ears. - Woodrow Wyatt
The hardest thing in the world: Is to reveal a hidden love. - Ho Shuang-ch'ing
At one glance
I love you
With a thousand hearts
--Mihri Hatun
The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love with each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only. The rest is only the rest, and comes afterwards. Nothing is more real than these great shocks which two souls give each other in exchanging this spark. - Victor Hugo
When a man falls in love suddenly, his whole center changes. Up to that point he has, probably, referred everything to himself-considered things from his own point. When he falls in love the whole thing is shifted; he becomes a part of the circumference; perhaps even the whole circumference; someone else becomes the center . . . His entire life is pulled sideways; he does not desire to get, but to give. That is why it is the noblest thing in the world. - Robert Hugh Benson
Unremembered and afar
I watched you as I watched a star,
Through darkness struggling into view,
I loved you better than you knew.
-- Elizabeth Chase Akers
It is difficult to know at what moment love begins; it is less difficult to know that
it has begun.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Love doesn't grow on trees like apples in Eden--it's something you have to make. And you must use your imagination to make it too, just like anything else. It's all work, work. - Joyce Cary
It's our own mediocrity that makes us let go of love, makes us renounce it. True Love doesn't know the meaning of renunciation, is not even aware of that problem, never resigns itself; resignation is for beaten people, as beaten paths are for beaten men. - Eugene Ionesco
What I want . . . is something organic . . . potato love, natural as earth, scruffy and brown, clinging to your roots, helping you grow fit and firm. - Daphne Merkin
When two people loved each other they worked together always, two against the world, a little company. Joy was shared; trouble was split. You had an ally, somewhere, who was helping. - Paul Gallico
And what am I but love of you made flesh,
Quickened by every longing love may bring,
A pilgrim fire, homeless and wandering.
- Katherine Bowditch
O Love, a thousand, thousand voices,
From night to dawn, from dawn to night,
Have cried the passion of their choices,
To orb your name and keep it bright.
- William Rose Benet
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light,
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Tho' near the gates of Paradise,
Gladly I'd turn away,
Just to hear you say, "I love you!"
Sometime, somewhere, someday.
- Rida Johnson Young
My love of you is censored all in vain.
No oath could change my heart, I surely know,
No, nor my love, which cannot cease to grow,
Nor my desire, my longing sweet with pain.
- Castelloza
My love she is a kitten,
And my heart's a ball of string.
- Henry Sambrooke Leigh
Do not smile to yourself
Like a green mountain
With a cloud drifting across it.
People will know we are in love.
- Otomo no Sakano-e no Iratsume
Love is not the dying moan of a distant violin--it's the triumphant twang of a
bedspring.
--S. J. Perelman (Sidney Joseph)
Love is a conflict between reflexes and reflections. - Magnus Hirschfeld
A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.
--Mignon McLaughlin
Some pray to marry the man they Love,
My prayer will somewhat vary;
I humbly pray to Heaven above
That I Love the man I marry.
--Rose Pastor Stokes
Two pure souls fused into one by an impassioned love--friends, counselors--a mutual support and inspiration to each other amid life's struggles, must know the highest human happiness;--this is marriage; and this is the only cornerstone of an enduring home. - Elizabeth Cady Stanton
I would like to have engraved inside every wedding band BE KIND TO ONE ANOTHER. This is the Golden Rule of Marriage and the secret of making love last through the years. - Randolph Ray
Where we love is home,
Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Know you what it is to be a child? . . .
it is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in
belief.
--Francis Joseph Thompson
And grownups have to act as if they know. That's how they show they love you, by knowing more stuff; it makes you feel secure. - Jill Robinson
Perhaps the best function of parenthood is to teach the young creature to love with safety, so that it may be able to venture unafraid when later emotion comes; the thwarting of the instinct to love is the root of all sorrow and not sex only but divinity itself is insulted when it is repressed. - Freya Stark
It's easy to understand love at first sight, but how to explain love after two people have been looking at each other for years? - Dr. Laurence J. Peter
The love we have in our youth is superficial compared to the love that an old man has
for his old wife.
--Will Durant
The tree of deepest root is found
Least willing still to quit the ground;
'Twas therefore said by ancient sages,
That love of life increased with years,
So much, that in our latter stages,
When pain grows sharp and sickness rages,
The greatest love of life appears.
-- Piozzi (Hester Lynch Thrale)
The Mintage of Wisdom is to know that rest is rust, and
that Real Life lies in Love, Laughter, Work.
-- Hypatia
When love is out of your life, you're through in a way. Because while it is
there it's like a motor that's going, you have such vitality to do things, big things,
because love is goosing you all the time. I found, after the love, that I needed help to
keep going.
-- Fanny Brice
Love is that splendid triggering of human vitality . . . the supreme activity
which nature affords to anyone for going out of himself toward someone else.
-- Jose Ortega y Gasset
Human nature was originally one and we were whole, and the desire and pursuit of that whole is called love.
-- Plato
In the triangle of love between ourselves, God, and other people, is found the
secret of existence, and the best foretaste, I suspect, that we can have on earth of what
heaven will probably be like.
-- Samuel M. Shoemaker
To be loved, be lovable. - Ovid
Love is not only something you feel. It's something you do. -- David Wilkerson
Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, re-made all
the time, made new.
-- Ursula K. Le Guin
. . . all humans are frightened of their own solitude. Yet only in solitude can man learn to know himself, learn to handle his own eternity of aloneness. And love from one being to another can only be that two solitudes come nearer, recognize and protect and comfort each other. - Han Suyin
O, human love! thou spirit given
On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven!
-- Edgar Allan Poe
Love should be a tree whose roots are deep in the earth, but whose branches extend into
heaven.
-- Bertrand Russell
hhhhhhh
*** Quits: sindar (You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. - Jack London)
Fawnn's advice:
Always keep in mind: It's your vision and only my opinion."Write that sfd*! Get your vision down on paper."
*sfd = shitty first draft
Referred to as same by Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird.
"There are two ways of spreading light: to be
the candle or the mirror that reflects it."
-- Edith Wharton
LINK TO: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/8328/ ConradW's quote page
Compiled 1996-2001
Return to: PRH Pages
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Pamela Rice Hahn
Last updated: 07/29/01