Quotes:
Some quotes I think worth quoting, in no particular order.
It was the saying of Bion, that though the boys throw stones at frogs in sport,
yet the frogs do not die in sport but in earnest.
– Plutarch
Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town?
– Mark Twain
The law, in it's majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to
sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
– Anatole France
Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in blood
of his followers and sacrifices of his friends.
Conceivably a commander may have been professionally superior. He may have given
everything of his heart and mind to meet the spiritual and physical needs of his comrades.
He may have written a chapter that will glow forever in the pages of military history.
Still, even such a man --- if he existed --- would sadly face the fact that his
honors cannot hide in his memories the crosses marking the resting places of the dead.
They cannot soothe the anguish of the widow or the orphan whose husband or father will
not return.
The only attitude in which a commander may with satisfaction receive the tributes
of his friends is the humble acknowledgment that no matter how unworthy he may be,
his position is the symbol of great human forces that have labored arduously and
successfully for a righteous cause.
– Dwight D. Eisenhower (shortly after the end of WWII)
I am not a member of any organized political party — I'm a Democrat.
— Will Rogers
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.
- Thomas Jefferson
More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads.
One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total
extinction.
Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly
Woody Allen
A man isn't a man until he's shot his first nauga.
— Randall Garrett
Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.
— Anonymous
Yesterday I -- no, that wasn't me.
— Steven Wright
Cheer up -- life isn't everything
-- Mike Nicols
Lines of my own - including some that I haven't managed to stick in a book - yet
"God is just."
"Just what?"
"Just watching."
"Would you like some finger food?"
"I don't know. What do fingers eat?"
Graffiti I have Seen:
High on a wall on the uptown IRT subway:
Help fight mental health
And a month or so later it was expanded to:
Help fight mental health or I'll kill you
My friend John Closson stopped in a bar way uptown, on his way to
CUNY. The graffiti on the bathroom wall was particularly crude, so
John took out his calligrapher's pen and wrote:
The quality of the graffiti in this men's room is disappointing.
Next week, when he returned, someone had written underneath his comment:
The appearance of criticism is the first sign of maturity in an art form.
Overhears:
So I'm standing on a street corner, or sitting in a restaurant, and I
overhear somebody saying to his or her companion one or two lines,
out of context, that stay with me forever. These are all real, as I remember them.
Some of them might make perfect sense, in context. But I don't have the context,
and I never will. Among these singular soundbites, these verbal moments out of time, were:
"In Las Vegas everything tastes like chicken"
and
"You only have to do it once, and you'll get twenty thousand dollars."
and
"He did? How queer can you get!"
and
"And then he threw a teakettle at me — which I think is basically a hostile act!"
and
"I only did it because I admired his mind."
and
"So then I decided we needed a chaperone."
and
"Well, you see, the ancient Egyptians used to eat sugar cubes."
and
"And then the strangest man stepped out of the shower."
and
"It went through my head like a bran muffin."
and
"You're a writer? How fascinating! I'm a reader. Tell me, do you think Shakespeare typed his own plays?"
and
Mother to her six-year-old daughter: "Why is the cat wet?"
And now some couplets:
"You can see the Golden Gate Bridge from here."
"No I can't."
and
"It's right over there, where it says, 'optical'"
"I can't see that far."
and
"Could you open a restaurant?"
"No -- 'cause it's the law!"
and
(on Macdougal Street in Greenwich Village)
"You know, people live here all year long."
"Really? In these crowds?"
== back to from whence you came ==