Tuesday quotes

1. How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart you being to understand there is no going back. There are some things time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep...and take hold. --J.R. Tolkien


2. He who cannot draw on the three thousand years is living from hand to mouth. --Goethe


3. What she wanted from them was sympathy -- because she still felt, or at least feared, that Ivan was a good man and she had lost a prize. But if he was a good man, how could he leave me? So he must not be a good man. But if he isn't good, then why does it hurt so much to lose him? Is it my pride that's wounded?


Maybe. But she still knew, deep in her heart, that this was not true, either. Because if Ivan came back to her, even now, she would go to him. She wouldn't trust him, but she would take him back. Because she really did love him. And love doesn't dissapear just because of the vile unworthiness of the loved one.


She had always thought Ivan was the kind of man who kept a promise.


--Orson Scott Card, in Enchantment


4. Life is a great big canvas. Throw all the paint on it you can. --Danny Kaye


5. Seek the lofty by reading, hearing, and seeing great work at some moment every day. --Thomas Wilder

Monday quotes, again

1. Although we know the end of the maze holds death...I see now that the path I choose through that maze makes me what I am. I am not only a thing, but also a way of being - one of many ways - and knowing the paths I have followed and the ones left to take will help me understand what I am becoming. --Daniel Keyes, in Flowers for Algernon.

2. Music has the poiwer to abolish everything in the outside world except its souns, which go straight to the heart. --Gaston Leoureux

3. Hearts are not had as gifts, but hearts are earned. --W. B. Yeats

4. For we are not pans and barrows, nor even porters of the fire and torch-bearers, but children of the fire, made of it, and only the same divinity transmuted and at two or tree times removed, when we know least about it. --R.W. Emerson

5. Never find fault with the absent. --Alexander Pope

"Razors Pain You" by Dorothy Parker

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.


--Dorothy Parker

"A Learned Man Came To Me Once" by Stephen Crane

A learned man came to me once.
He said, "I know the way, -- come."
And I was overjoyed at this.
Together we hastened.


Soon, too soon, were we
Where my eyes were useless,
And I knew not the ways of my feet.
I clung to the hand of my friend;
But at last he cried, "I am lost."

--Stephen Crane

"If I Were" by Kermit the Frog

If I were a poet
I would write a sonnet
It would say "I love you"
Your name would be on it.

If I were a farmer
I'd give you a bunny
If I had a beehive
You would get free honey

If I were a baker
I'd give you a croller
And if I were a painter
Choose your favorite color.

If I had some diamonds
I'd give you a few
Anything to show you
How much I love you.

I guess you know my secret
I am not a poet.
Couldn't write a sonnet
And I think you know it.

I am not a farmer.
Cna't give you a bunny.
I don't have a beehive.
Sorry 'bout the honey.

I am not a baker.
don't know bread from batter.
I am not a painter,
And it doesn't matter.

I don't need a present;
All I have to do
Is look at you to show you
How much I love you.

--Kermit the Frog

"Stop All the Clocks" by W. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.


Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.


He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.


The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.


--W. H. Auden

"A Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over--

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

--Langston Hughes

"Not waving but drowing" by Stevie Smith

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

-- Stevie Smith

"Light Years" by Joan Swift

Is light the last thing lost or never lost at all?
There is light so far away it's gone
by the time we see it,
the tail lights on the highway far ahead
that say someone is traveling
this same dark way.
Those blue clumps lost ten billion light-
years ago at the edge of the universe
redshift from ultraviolet to the visible
and are found by the Hubble telescope,
sleek horse pulling through dark
the reeling carriages of space
even as they change into roses,
thunderheads or phantom animals
we never imagined.
What fiery dust was our beginning,
left us a tender earth? far out in the universe
a tomorrow we can't see is singing the last word
of  a song we heard long ago under stars
like blossoms on black water.


--Joan Swift

"I'm so tired" by Portishead

I'm so tired of playing
Plahing with this bow and arrow
Gonna give my heart away
Leave it to the other girls to play
For I've been a temptress too long.

--Portishead