Nature has no mercy at all. Nature says, I'm going to snow. If you have on a bikini and no snowshoes, that's tough. I am going to snow anyway.

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Here is my gift, not roses on your grave, not sticks of burning incense. You lived aloof, maintaining to the end your magnificent disdain. You drank wine, and told the wittiest jokes, and suffocated inside stifling walls. Alone you let the terrible stranger in, and stayed with her alone.
Now you're gone, and nobody says a word about your troubled and exalted life. Only my voice, like a flute, will mourn at your dumb funeral feast. Oh, who would have dared believe that half-crazed I, I, sick with grief for the buried past, I, smoldering on a slow fire, having lost everything and forgotten all, would be fated to commemorate a man so full of strength and will and bright inventions, who only yesterday it seems, chatted with me, hiding the tremor of his mortal pain.

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I am obnoxious to each carping tongue Who says my hand a needle better fits,...

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By definition pop is extremely catchy, whether you like it or not, Cobain says. There are some pop songs I hate but I can't get them out of my head. Our songs also have the standard pop format: Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, solo, bad solo. All in all, I think we sound like The Knack and the Bay City Rollers being molested by Black Flag and Black Sabbath.

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The mystic prophets of the absolute cannot save us. Sustained by our history and traditions, we must save ourselves, at whatever risk of heresy or blasphemy. We can find solace in the memorable representation of the human struggle against the absolute in the finest scene in the greatest of American novels. I refer of course to the scene when Huckleberry Finn decides that the '' plain hand of Providence '' requires him to tell Miss Watson where her runaway slave Jim is to be found. Huck writes his letter of betrayal to Miss Watson and feels '' all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. '' He sits there for a while thinking '' how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell .'' Then Huck begins to think about Jim and the rush of the great river and the talking and the singing and the laughing and friendship. '' Then I happened to look around and see that paper. . . . I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: 'All right, then, I'll go to hell' - and tore it up .''

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(1) Do not let your children make toys out of flies/butterflies or birds. Such behavior results in injury to living creatures, but also it arouses in young hearts an impulse to cruelty and murder. Stories illustrative of the commandments: (2) The wife of a soldier named Fan was tuberculous and close to death. She was ordered to eat the brains of 100 sparrows as a remedy. When she saw the birds in the cage, she sighed and said: 'Must it be that 100 living creatures are to be killed that I may be healed? I would rather die than permit them to suffer.' She opened the cage and allowed them to fly away. Afterwards she recovered from her illness. (3) Tsao-Pin lived in a ruined house. His children begged him to have it repaired. He answered: 'In the cold winter the cracks in the walls and the space between the tiles and between the stones provide a shelter and a refuge to all kinds of living creatures. We should not endanger their lives.' (4) Wu-Tang used to take his son hunting with him. One day they came upon a stag that was playing with its young one. Tang took an arrow and killed the young one. The frightened stag ran off with a cry of anguish. When Tang concealed himself the stag returned and licked the wounds of its fawn. Tang again drew his bow and killed it. He then saw another stag and sent an arrow towards it, but the arrow was deflected and pierced his son. Tang threw his bow away and tearfully embraced his dead son, when he heard a voice from the air: 'Tang, the stag loved its fawn as much as you loved your son.' (5) Meng-tse praises King Suan of Tsi because of his compassion in freeing an ox that was to be sacrificed at the dedication of some bells. Such a sentiment, he says, should suffice to make one king of the world. Monastic Taoism & Kan-Ying-P'ien. From the commandments for monks: (1st): Thou shalt kill no living thing nor do injury to its life. (2nd): Thou shalt not consume as food the flesh and blood of any living creature. (34th): Thou shall not strike or whip domestic animals. (35th): Thou shall not intentionally crush insects and ants with thy foot. (36th): Thou shalt not play with hooks and arrows for thine own amusement. (37th): Thou shalt not climb into trees to remove nests and to destroy the eggs. (63rd): Thou shalt not catch birds and quadrupeds with snares and nets. (64th): Thou shalt not frighten and scare away birds that are brooding on their nests. (68th): Thou shalt not dig up during the winter months animals hibernating in the earth. (112th): Thou shalt not pour hot water on the ground in order to exterminate insects and ants.

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Hurt a fly! He would not for the world: he's pitiful to flies even. Sing, says he, and tease me still, if that's your way, poor insect.

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An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.

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You make your own dream. That's the Beatles' story, isn't it? That's Yoko's story. That's what I'm saying now. Produce your own dream. If you want to save Peru, go save Peru. It's quite possible to do anything, but not to put it on the leaders and the parking meters. Don't expect Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan or John Lennon or Yoko Ono or Bob Dylan or Jesus Christ to come and do it for you. You have to do it yourself. That's what the great masters and mistresses have been saying ever since time began. They can point the way, leave signposts and little instructions in various books that are now called holy and worshipped for the cover of the book and not for what it says, but the instructions are all there for all to see, have always been and always will be. There's nothing new under the sun. All the roads lead to Rome. And people cannot provide it for you. I can't wake you up. You can wake you up. I can't cure you. You can cure you.

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Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one.

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Firm, faithful, and devoted, full of energy and zeal, and truth, he labors for his race; he clears their painful way to improvement; he hews down like a giant the prejudices of creed and caste that encumber it. He may be stern; he may be exacting; he may be ambitious yet; but his is the sternness of the warrior Greatheart, who guards his pilgrim convoy from the onslaught of Apollyon. His is the exaction of the apostle, who speaks but for Christ, when he says, Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. His is the ambition of the high master-spirit, which aims to fill a place in the first rank of those who are redeemed from the earth -- who stand without fault before the throne of God, who share the last mighty victories of the Lamb, who are called, and chosen, and faithful.

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Time to plant tears, says the almanac. The grandmother sings to the marvellous stove and the child draws another inscrutable house.

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Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.

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History is a living horse laughing at a wooden horse. History is a wind blowing where it listeth. History is no sure thing to bet on. History is a box of tricks with a lost key. History is a labyrinth of doors with sliding panels, a book of ciphers with the code in a cave of the Saragossa sea. History says, if it pleases, Excuse me, I beg your pardon, it will never happen again if I can help it.

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I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice who constantly says 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action' who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for someone else's freedom who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a 'more convenient season.'

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Mother is putting my new secondhand clothes in order. She prays now, she says, that I may learn in my own life and away from home and friends what the heart is and what it feels. Amen. So be it. Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.

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Memory says, I did that. Pride replies, I could not have done that. Eventually memory yields.

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If you promise not to believe everything your child says happens at school, I'll promise not to believe everything he says happens at home.

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I get the Reese's candy bar, If you read it, there's an apostrophe. The candy bar is his. I didn't know that. Next time your eating a Reese's and some guy named Reese comes up to you and says let me have that. You better give it to him. I'm sorry Reece, I didn't think I would ever run into you.

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But now, says the Once-ler, now that you're here, the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear. UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.

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Economics Teacher In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the... Anyone Anyone... the Great Depression, passed the... Anyone Anyone The tariff bill The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act Which, anyone Raised or lowered... raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work Anyone Anyone know the effects It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression. Today we have a similar debate over this. Anyone know what this is Class Anyone Anyone Anyone seen this before The Laffer Curve. Anyone know what this says It says that at this point on the revenue curve, you will get exactly the same amount of revenue as at this point. This is very controversial. Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980 Anyone Something-d-o-o economics. Voodoo economics.

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My roommate says, I'm going to take a shower and shave, does anyone need to use the bathroom? It's like some weird quiz where he reveals the answer first.

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One time my cousin Walter got this cat stuck in his ass. True story. He bought it at our local mall, so the whole fiasco wound up on the news. It was embarrassing for my relatives and all, but the next week, he did it again. Different cat, same results, complete with another trip to the emergency room. So, I run into him a week later in the mall and he's buying another cat. And I says to him, 'Jesus, Walt! You know you're just gonna get this cat stuck in your ass too. Why don't you knock it off ?' And he said to me, 'Brodie, how the hell else am I supposed to get the gerbil out ?' My cousin was a weird guy.

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In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.

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'A truck driver was driving along on the freeway. A sign comes up that reads, ' Low Bridge Ahead.' Before he knows it, the bridge is right ahead of him and he gets stuck under the bridge. Cars are backed up for miles. Finally, a police car comes up. The cop gets out of his car and walk s to the truck driver, puts his hands on his hips and says, 'Got stuck, huh?' The truck driver says, 'No, I was delivering this bridgeand ran out of gas.'

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A man goes to a psychiatrist. The doctor says, 'You're crazy' The man says, 'I want a second opinion!' 'Okay, you're ugly too!'

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'A truck driver was driving along on the freeway. A sign comes up that reads, ' Low Bridge Ahead.' Before he knows it, the bridge is right ahead of him and he gets stuck under the bridge. Cars are backed up for miles. Finally, a police car comes up. The cop gets out of his car and walk s to the truck driver, puts his hands on his hips and says, 'Got stuck, huh?' The truck driver says, 'No, I was delivering this bridgeand ran out of gas.'

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It’s cold in the room, Mommy. It’s cold and all I have to wear is a yucky-green smock that matches the yucky-green walls. All the walls are cold, the metal table is cold, and the doctor’s fingers are cold as they hold my hand and tell me not to worry. But I’m worried, mommy. The doctors say that I might not wake up…they’re saying that I have a ninety percent chance of dieing, and I’m scared: I don’t want to go away, mommy; I don’t want to leave you behind. There’s a big clock on the wall, and it says it’s 3:15 in the afternoon. Ms. Loughlin just let class out for the day…Billy and Jeff are probably wrestling just outside the classroom, waiting for their daddies to pick them up so they can go home and eat dinner and do their homework and sleep. I wish I was there, mommy…I wish I was anywhere but here. I’m crying, mommy. I promised you I wouldn’t, but I’m crying and I can’t stop. The doctors are going to give me the medicine now to make me sleep so I don’t feel anything, so you won’t have to worry about me hurting anymore. But mommy, they said they had to take Teddy from me…they had to give him to you…mommy, please, hold him, hold him, and promise me, mommy, promise me if I don’t wake up you’ll keep him for me: he’s going to miss me a lot, and he’ll need someone to hug. And mommy… Goodbye, mommy.

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Humor results when society says you can't scratch certain things in public, but they itch in public.

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If what Proust says is true, that happiness is the absence of fever, then I will never know happiness. For I am possessed by a fever for knowledge, experience, and creation.

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