I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death. [Robert Fulghum, The Storyteller's Creed, from All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things] The real voyage of discovery consists not in finding new landscapes, but in having new eyes.    [Marcel Proust] When the human race neglects its weaker members, when the family neglects its weakest one--it's the first blow in a suicidal movement.    I see the neglect in cities around the country, in poor white children in West Virginia and Virginia and Kentucky--in the big cities, too, for that matter.    I see the neglect of Native American children in the concentration camps called reservations.    The powerful say, "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps."    But they don't really believe that those living on denuded reservations, or on strip-mined hills, or in ghettos that are destinations for drugs from Colombia and Iraq, can somehow pull themselves up.    What they're really saying is, "If you can, do, but if you can't, forget it."    It's the most pernicious of all acts of segregation, because it is so subtle.    [Maya Angelou] The deeprooted tree pushes upward and progresses as do we, when we bend 'round obstacles rather than confronting them, pushing upward steadily but gently as the wind penetrates gently breezing thruout the earth.    There is nothing to be feared when we are silently focused and cultivating an inner independence, such as a tree trusting nature and its cosmic energy.   [Swami Arupdas] Be careful of reading health books. You might die of a misprint.    [Mark Twain] The universe, as far as we can observe it, is a wonderful and immense engine. [George Santayana] God has been replaced, as he has all over the West, with respectability and air conditioning.    [Amiri Baraka] Most people sell their souls and live with a good conscience on the proceeds. [Logan Pearsall Smith] Remember, there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over. [Frank Zappa] The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.    [Bruce Lee] A man is rich in proportion to the things he can afford to let alone. [Henry David Thoreau] Things forbidden have a secret charm.    [Tacitus] It is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents man from living freely and nobly.    [Bertrand Russell] You drank beer, you played golf, you watched football - WE EVOLVED! [Frank Zappa] There nearly always is method in madness. It's what drives men mad, being methodical.    [G.K. Chesterton] There is a pleasure sure, in being mad, which none but madmen know. [Dryden] Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous, or conceited, or proud; love is not ill-mannered, or selfish, or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs; love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth. Love never gives up: its faith, hope, and patience never fail. [The Bible, I Corinthians 13:4-7, Today's English Version] Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.    [Henry Thomas Buckle] On a personal level, Freaking Out is a process whereby an individual casts off outmoded and restricting standards of thinking, dress, and social etiquette in order to express CREATIVELY his relationship to his immediate environment and the social structure as a whole.    [from the liner notes of Freak Out, by Frank Zappa] Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet.    [Helen Keller] Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go. [Oscar Wilde] Grow up, and that is a terribly hard thing to do.    It is much easier to skip it and go from one childhood to another.    [F. Scott Fitzgerald] Seeing's believing, but feeling's the truth.    [Thomas Fuller] In love there are two things: bodies and words.    [Joyce Carol Oates] What I do for a living may not be very reputable.    But I am.    In this town I'm the leper with the most fingers.    [From the movie "The Two Jakes"] Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and instead of bleeding he sings. [Ed Garner] Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.    [Robert Frost] Some Scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe.    I dispute that.    I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe. [Frank Zappa] How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something, but to be someone.    [Coco Chanel] Civilization is a method of living, an attitude of equal respect for all men. [Jane Adams] Waking life is a dream controlled.    [George Santayana] In general, as you live your life, if you don't know what to do, try just doing something.   Even if it's not the right thing, it might give you the insight or the momentum you need.    [Unknown] Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.    [Mohandas Gandhi] The more BORING a child is, the more the parents, when showing off the child, receive adulation for being GOOD PARENTS -- because they have a TAME CHILD-CREATURE in their house.    [Frank Zappa] The Desiderata Go placidly amid the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence.    As far as possible without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.    Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.... Be yourself.    Especially do not feign affection.    Neither be cynical about love for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.    Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.    Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.... Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.    You are a child of the universe.    No less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.    And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.    Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you perceive him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.    With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.    Be careful. Strive to be happy. [Max Ehrmann] Live & Learn Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart. To handle yourself, use your head; To handle others, use your heart. Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people. Life gives every bird it's food, But It does not throw it into its nest. He who loses money, loses much; He who loses a friend, loses more; He who loses faith, loses all. Beautiful young people are acts of nature, But beautiful old people are works of art. Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself. The tongue weighs practically nothing, But so few people can hold it. Friends, you and me.... you brought another friend... and then there were 3... we started a circle of friends... and like that circle... there is no beginning or end... [Author Unknown] Quotes from Ernest Hemingway All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened. [From "Old Newsman Writes: A Letter from Cuba," Esquire, December 1934] He was just a coward and that was the worst luck any many could have.    [For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1940] Hesitation increases in relation to risk in equal proportion to age.    [In A. E. Hotchner's, Papa Hemingway: A Personal Memoir, 1966] The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war.    Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin.    Both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.    [From "Notes on the Next War," Esquire, September 1935] All our words from loose using have lost their edge.    [Death in the Afternoon, 1932] The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector.    This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it.    [George Plimpton: interview, 1958, In Plimpton, ed., Writers at Work: Second Series, 1963] Cowardice, as distinguished from panic, is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend functioning of the imagination.    [Men at War, 1942] All the contact I have had with politics has left me feeling as though I had been drinking out of spittoons.    [New York Times, 17 September 1950] You write a book like that that you're fond of over the years, then you see that happen to it, it's like pissing in your father's beer.    [After seeing David O. Selznick's remake of "A Farewell to Arms", 1957; Quoted in A. E. Hotchner, Papa Hemingway, 1966] It's enough for you to do it once for a few men to remember you.    But if you do it year after year, then many people remember you and they tell it to their children, and their children and grandchildren remember and, if it concerns books, they can read them.    And if it's good enough, it will last as long as there are human beings.    [Life magazine "Portrait of Mr. Papa," January 10, 1949] [Home]    [What's New] [Short Stories]    [Philosophy]    [Forums] [Webrings]    [Biographies]    [Site Index]    [Contact] [Extras]    [Links]    [Copyright] <top>