tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35585372011-09-19T07:43:49.386-07:00Literary PassagesTo be amused by what you read - that is the great spring of happy quotations.
-C.E. MontagueChristelnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1711100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-24423945001208573322011-03-14T20:59:00.001-07:002011-03-14T20:59:13.163-07:00"In our travels, we have come across many equations--math for understanding the universe, for making music, for mapping stars, and also for tipping, which is important. Here is our favorite equation: Us plus Them equals All of Us. It is very simple math. Try it sometime. You probably won’t even need a pencil."-The Copenhagen Interpertagtion, ffrom 'Going Bovine', by Libba BrayChristelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-86923810114170613962010-12-16T22:47:00.001-08:002010-12-16T22:47:28.865-08:00Tzu-kung asked about government. The Master said, “Sufficient food, sufficient weapons, and the confidence of the common people.” Tzu-kung said, “Suppose you were forced to dispense with one of these three, which would you forgo?” The Master said, “Weapons.” Tzu-kung said, “Suppose you were forced to dispense with one of the two that were left, which would you forgo?” The Master said, “Food. For…Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-38902056064290658672010-12-16T22:43:00.001-08:002010-12-16T22:43:07.568-08:00The single most powerful statement to come out of brain research…is this:“We are as different from one another on the inside of our heads as we appear to be different on the outside of our heads.”--Robert Fulghum, It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On ItChristelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-54214154677096967972010-12-16T22:20:00.001-08:002010-12-16T22:20:57.907-08:00Is my occupation what I get paid money for, or is it something larger and wider and richer—a matter of who I am or how I think about myself. Making a living and having a life are not the same thing. Making a living and making a life that’s worthwhile are not the same thing. Living the good life and living a good life are not the same thing. A job title doesn’t even come close to answering the Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-5486906022552722462010-09-05T00:29:00.000-07:002010-09-05T00:30:13.398-07:00I think I feel things far too much, not all of the time, but when I do it’s like traveling through space at the speed of light and it hits hard enough to bruise. When I love a person or a place or a thing I just can’t do it in small amounts, I love whatever it is so much that I feel like I could spontaneously combust. Starbursts in my head, raw nerves in my heart, electricity in my stomach. It’s Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-51511101764505369742009-12-25T22:12:00.001-08:002009-12-25T22:12:43.085-08:00"In my son's eyes I see the ambition that had first hurled me across the world. In a few years he will graduate and pave his way, alone and unprotected. But I remind myself that he has a father who is still living, a mother who is happy and strong. Whenever he is discouraged, I tell him that if I can survive on three continents, then there is no obstacle he cannot conquer. While the Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-47600599908515436532009-10-03T02:18:00.001-07:002009-10-03T02:18:57.111-07:00Inside a snow globe on my father’s desk, there was a penguin wearing a red-and-white-striped scarf. When I was little my father would pull me into his lap and reach for the snow globe. He would turn it over, letting all the snow collect on the top, then quickly invert it. The two of us watched the snow fall gently around the penguin. The penguin was alone in there, I thought, and I Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-16685167128168550072009-10-03T02:03:00.000-07:002009-10-03T02:04:08.141-07:00"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 (All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten)Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-68950549797084379502009-03-16T19:56:00.001-07:002009-03-16T19:56:29.337-07:00"The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-73596750711199911662009-02-02T16:41:00.001-08:002009-02-02T16:41:54.476-08:00I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is not an apology, but a life. It is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and bleeding. My life should be unique; it should be an alms, a battle, a conquest, a medicine. - Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-88046589102415819202009-02-02T16:37:00.000-08:002009-02-02T16:38:48.570-08:00"And in the end, of course, a true war story is never about war. It's about sunlight. It's about the special way that dawn spreads out on a river when you know you must cross the river and march into the mountains and do things you are afraid to do. It's about love and memory. It's about sorrow. It's about sisters who never write back and people who never listen." The Things They Carried by Tim Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-5761763146087719502008-12-20T15:36:00.001-08:002008-12-20T15:36:42.197-08:00"Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that laid under the sun that felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-48923232004388384872008-12-20T15:32:00.000-08:002008-12-20T15:33:43.585-08:00"There did not have to be a moral. She need only show separate minds, as alive as her own, struggling with the idea that other minds were equally alive. It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding, above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you. And only in a story could you enter these Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-67202308448438511272008-09-10T22:38:00.000-07:002008-09-10T22:39:21.271-07:00"I wander from one room to another, downstairs and up again, feeling like a songbird whose wings have been clipped and who is hurling himself in utter darkness against the bars of his cage. "Go outside, laugh, and take a breath of fresh air," a voice cries within me, but I don't even feel a response any more, I go and lie on the divan and sleep, to make the time pass more quickly, and the Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-64945767439412567302008-09-10T22:36:00.000-07:002008-09-10T22:37:03.057-07:00"What are you afraid of, then?""Not being able to see, I think," she said."Being blind, you mean?""No, not that. . . . I mean . . . not seeing because you're obsessed by something that blots out the world. Some sort of mania or belief. Or passion. That awful kind of love that makes leaves and birds and cherry blossom invisible because it's not the face of some man." -A Song For Summer - Eva Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-12589500388115363192008-09-10T22:33:00.001-07:002008-09-10T22:33:49.355-07:00"For a time you can be alone and doing fine and never give a thought to living any other way and then you meet someone and suddenly you become lonely. It stabs at you, almost like a physical pain, and you feel both deprived and angry, deprived because you wish to be with that person and angry, because their absence brings you misery." - Magic Bites - Ilona AndrewsChristelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-44409008043299721542008-09-10T22:29:00.000-07:002008-09-10T22:30:15.077-07:00There are three rules one should live by, if one intends to make it successfully through life: Don't carry a sofa upstairs by yourself. Don't get involved with a Scorpio unless you mean it. And don't argue with crazy people. -Help I am Being Held Prisoner - Donald E. WestlakeChristelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-57612646107855382972008-09-10T22:28:00.001-07:002008-09-10T22:28:56.060-07:00"People who claim they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us. It's people who claim that they're good, or any way better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of. "-- Gregory Maguire, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the WestChristelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-3956221043514872972008-09-10T22:27:00.001-07:002008-09-10T22:27:57.526-07:00"My whole life, I wanted to be dead, but I didn't actually do anything about it. I guess I didn't want to be dead; I wanted relief. I wanted to be happy and peaceful.""That's it," she said. "It's not about dying; it's about stopping the pain." -"Driving With Dead People" Monica Holloway.Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-57134477963409636202008-09-10T21:59:00.000-07:002008-09-10T22:00:34.886-07:00"Ester asked why people are sad."That’s simple," says the old man. "They are the prisoners of their personal history. Everyone believes that the main aim in life is to follow a plan. They never ask if that plan is theirs or if it was created by another person. They accumulate experiences, memories, things, other people's ideas, and it is more than they can possibly cope with. And that is why theyChristelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-16747637045415791082008-03-31T19:27:00.000-07:002008-03-31T19:29:26.757-07:00Through the open doors, I can see Simon and his family, smiling, content, not a care in the world. Everything is theirs—not for the taking but for the having. They do not know hunger or fear or doubt. They do not have to fight for what they want. It is simply there, waiting, and they walk into it. My heart aches. I would so very much like to wrap myself in the warm blanket of them. But I have Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-21143008644507099032008-03-17T02:32:00.001-07:002008-03-17T02:32:49.152-07:00"This is what it means to be an adventurer in our day: to give up creature comforts of the mind, to realize possibilities of imagination. Because everything around us says no you cannot do this, you cannot live without that, nothing is useful unless its in service to money, to gain, to stability. The adventurer gives in to tides of chaos, trusts the world to support her--and in doing so turns herChristelnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-87787467419392876842007-05-21T20:28:00.001-07:002007-05-21T20:28:42.944-07:00Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask questions about what really matters. They never ask:"What does his voice sound like?" "What games does he like best?" "Does he collect butterflies?" They ask:"How old is he?" "How many brothers does he have?" "How much does he weigh?" "How much does his father make?" Only then do they think they know him. If you tell Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-46988245543781667222007-05-21T20:22:00.001-07:002007-05-21T20:22:59.376-07:00"Do you not see God in your science? How can you miss Him! You proclaim that even the slightest change in the force of gravity or the weight of an atom would have rendered our universe a lifeless mist rather then our magnificent sea of heavenly bodies, and yet you fail to see God's hand in this? Is it really so much easier to believe that we simply chose the right care from a deck of billions? Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-78946232548253575922007-01-25T22:55:00.001-08:002007-01-25T22:55:39.111-08:00"Her body felt like it'd been beaten with a hose. This must be what it felt like to get old. It wasn't that your body fell apart from living so long. It was that you had to take so many stompings from life that you'd be happy when the time came to close your eyes and never open them again." -"Paint It Black" Janet Fitch.Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-43191934215054806432007-01-25T22:50:00.000-08:002007-01-25T22:51:17.604-08:00She unfolded the money, then pushed it up her sleeve, "Whatchyouwant?" she asked Richard, suspiciously. "Nothing," said Richard. "I really don't want anything. Nothing at all." And then he realized how true that was; and how dreadful a thing it had become. "Have you ever got everything you ever wanted and then realized it wasn't what you wanted at all?" -Neverwhere. Neil Gaiman.Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-71490569422488184252007-01-25T22:48:00.001-08:002007-01-25T22:48:47.154-08:00'It was always the first thing he noted to himself about rich people; they always seemed to be tan, as if their money awarded them more sunlighht than was allowed to shine down on poor people" -Icarus by Russell AndrewsChristelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1164946097123171572006-11-30T20:08:00.000-08:002006-11-30T20:08:17.123-08:00"I figured the real tragedy in modern life wasn’t that there were no heroes left, like some people say, but more like all those potential heroes are stuck in traffic or on sitting on the can when you really needed them. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time to do their thing. That, I believe, is the petty truth."- Kristyn Dunnion "Mosh Pit"Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1164946035419345832006-11-30T20:06:00.000-08:002006-11-30T20:07:15.420-08:00He asked me if I loved him, and I didn't know what to say. Sure, I thought I loved him, but it never dawned on me to actually say so. That freaked me out."Ask me that again, okay?"That stopped him for a second. "Do you love me?""With feeling.""Do you love me?""Yes, I love you.""Say that again, okay?""Yes, I love you.""With feeling.""I love you. My love for you feels like birds soaring up from a Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1164945630508548542006-11-30T19:59:00.000-08:002006-11-30T20:00:30.520-08:00"time passes. even when it seems impossible. even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a bruise. it passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does. even for me"New Moon by Stephenie Meyer.Christelnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1153884933521788682006-07-25T20:35:00.000-07:002006-07-25T20:35:33.523-07:00the only thing that really matters is being happy. i dont mean that in a hedonistic way, like you should get wasted all the time. i'm just saying, it's easy to get in a rut where all you think about is the future; but the future never turns out the way you expect. it's not a news flash, i know. but maybe it should be. then maybe it wouldn't be so easy to forget. -from mabye a miracle; by brian Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1152848945927054602006-07-13T20:49:00.000-07:002006-07-13T20:49:05.936-07:00I am the girl who is lost in space, the girl who is disappearing always, forever fading away and receding farther and farther into the background. Just like the Chesire cat, someday I will suddenly leave, but the artifical warmth of my smile, that phony, clownish curve, the kind you see on miserably sad people and villians in Disney movies, will remain behind as an ironic remnant. I am the girl Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1151904088231473482006-07-02T22:21:00.000-07:002006-07-02T22:21:28.233-07:00“I am not saying religion is bad. When it turns men and women inward and helps them realize that they are…great…, that there is an ocean of love and silence deep within the heart, then it is useful. But where it divides people against one another, where one person is led to believe that he is saved and another is damned, or where it leads a person to believe that true happiness will be found onlyChristelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1151903460529587732006-07-02T22:10:00.000-07:002009-12-25T22:49:47.574-08:00"If someone's walking in the hills and discovers a seam of gold, I think if they walk away without digging it, they're just stupid. When something that lucky happens to you, thinking it's unfair for you to strike it rich all by yourself doesn't mean you're selfless. When great happiness unexpectedly swoops down on people, they suddenly turn into cowards. Snatching happiness takes a lot more Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1151903318434004802006-07-02T22:08:00.000-07:002006-07-02T22:09:00.463-07:00Every now and then I'll be so sad and so lazy that I'll pay someone to interpret it all in needle and ink. "Do what you like," I say, because the eventual pattern is irrelevant. I just want to feel the needle and see, next day, next week, forever, the reminder that it really happened, that I really was that sad. Because when I'm on the upswing, manic as anything, I can't imagine that I will ever Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1148370857865330102006-05-23T00:54:00.000-07:002006-05-23T00:54:17.866-07:00"An Addict is an Addict. It doesn't matter whether the Addict is white, black, yellow or green, rich or poor or somewhere in the middle, the most famous Person on the Planet or the most unknown. It doesn't matter whether the addiction is drugs, alcohol, crime, sex, shopping, food, gambling, television, or the fucking Flintstones. The life of the Addict is always the same. There is no excitement, Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1148370592232319702006-05-23T00:49:00.000-07:002006-05-23T00:49:52.246-07:00"I, Lucifer, Fallen Angel, Prince Of Darkness, Bringer of Light, Ruler of Hell, Lord of the Flies, Father of Lies, Apostate Supreme, Tempter of Mankind, Old Serpent, Prince of This World, Seducer, Accuser, Tormentor, Blasphemer, and without a doubt Best Fuck in the Seen and Unseen Universe (ask Eve, that minx) have decided - oo la la! - to tell all.All? Some. I'm toying with that for a title: Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1148369426521635092006-05-23T00:29:00.000-07:002006-05-23T00:30:26.533-07:00"sometimes when i walk through the rain, i know that each drop that falls on me wasn't meant to fall on anybody else. other times i take and umbrella to shield myself from the randomness. you are a product of your upbringing. you are the product of your society. you are the product of your times. you are the product of your astrological chart. you are the product of peer pressure. you are the Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1142998665577834482006-03-21T19:37:00.000-08:002006-03-21T19:37:45.576-08:00All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectationsChristelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1142998416461973972006-03-21T19:33:00.000-08:002006-03-21T19:33:36.473-08:00"When I was twelve, a fortune-teller told me that my one true love was going to die young and leave me all alone. Everyone said she was a fraud, that she was making it up. Id really like to know why the hell a person would make up a thing like that."--God-Shaped Hole byTiffanie DebartoloChristelnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1140426635030523952006-02-20T01:10:00.000-08:002006-02-20T01:10:35.030-08:00"But forgiveness.. I'll hold onto that fragile slice of hope and keep it close, remembering that in each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice. We're each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion fighting to emerge into something solid, something real. We've got to forgive ourselves that. I must remember to forgive myself. BecauseChristelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1140426004947801912006-02-20T00:59:00.000-08:002006-02-20T01:00:04.956-08:00the little prince went away, to look again at the roses."you are not at all like my rose," he said. "as yet you are nothing. no one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. you are like my fox when i first knew him. he was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. but i have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world."and the roses were very much embarrassed. "you are Christelnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1139215288735727372006-02-06T00:41:00.000-08:002006-02-06T00:41:28.746-08:00"Girls have all the breaks. They get to wait to be asked out, they get to say no all the time, and they have their famous periods.I mean, there are mothers who cry for happiness when their daughters start. It's a regular celebration.What does a guydo with his first hard-on? It's not like he runs to Dad and they shake hands enthusiastically and Dad hands over a bunch of condoms and says, "Now Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1139214438884562402006-02-06T00:26:00.000-08:002006-02-06T00:27:18.886-08:00The burning of a book is a sad, sad sight, for even though a book is nothing but ink and paper, it feels as if the ideas contained in the book are disappearing as the pages turn to ashes and the cover and binding... black and curl as the flames do their wicked work. When someone is burning a book, they are showing utter contempt for all of the thinking that produced its ideas, all of the labor Christelnoreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1139214313559989272006-02-06T00:24:00.000-08:002006-02-06T00:25:13.570-08:00I'd learned about the places I wanted to go, I'd talked about them with friends, but I hadn't actually set foot outside my door. The terrain of my hear, the landscape of love, was still entirely unexplored. But people are right when they say the hardest step of every journey was the first, and I was scared. -Geography Club By Brent HartingerChristelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1138841413257786832006-02-01T16:50:00.000-08:002006-02-01T16:52:38.543-08:00It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1126165323675549802005-09-08T00:41:00.000-07:002005-09-08T00:42:03.680-07:00She studied him for a while, almost envying his complete disregard for anyone but himself. He had no talent, no ambition and no pride, yet he looked so happy lying there with that slight smile on his lips.—Agnes Owens, from When Shankland ComesChristelnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1121020765579426122005-07-10T11:39:00.000-07:002005-07-10T11:39:25.583-07:00"In the end, prehaps we should simply imagine a joke; a long joke thats continually retold in an accent too thick and strange to ever be completely understood. Life is that joke my friends. The soul is the punch line."Villa Incognito by Tom RobbinsChristelnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1115692839662003542005-05-09T19:40:00.000-07:002005-05-09T19:40:39.666-07:00"He stands there waiting, and when nobody makes a move to say anything to him he commences to laugh. Nobody can tell exactly why he laughs; there's nothing funny going on. But it's not the way that Public Relation laughs, it's free and loud and it comes out of his wide grinning mouth and spreads in rings bigger and bigger until it's lapping against the walls all over the ward. Not like that fat Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1114199708267479352005-04-22T12:53:00.000-07:002005-04-22T12:58:39.513-07:00"You cannot die of grief, though it feels as if you can. A heart does not actually break, though sometimes your chest aches as if it is breaking. Grief dims with time. It is the way of things. There comes a day when you smile again, and you feel like a traitor. How dare I feel happy. How dare I be glad in a world where my father is no more. And then you cry fresh tears, because you do not miss Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1114051420758011522005-04-20T19:43:00.000-07:002005-04-20T19:43:40.756-07:00"...there's nothing worse than a muddle in all the world. It is easy to face Death and Fate, and things that sound so dreadful. It is on my muddles that I look back with horror--on the things I might have avoided. We can help one another but little. I used to think I could teach people the whole of life, but I know better now, and all my teaching...has come down to this: beware of muddle." --A Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1113959134934626992005-04-19T18:05:00.000-07:002005-04-19T18:05:34.933-07:00"Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends and integrity. And your keeping them in the air. But one day you finally come to the understanding that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls- family, health, friends and integrity- are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1113958202445529712005-04-19T17:49:00.000-07:002005-04-19T17:50:02.446-07:00"When I look back at my life and compare it to what I had imagined it would be, it has been a strenouous journey along a mountainous path with breathtaking views. I was taught to look toward heaven to find God, but I searched my own heart and found light, joy and God's breath of truth inside me. I believe in the connectedness of us all with our own luminosity humming a story of truth and love in Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1111819223455218312005-03-25T22:40:00.000-08:002005-03-25T22:40:23.456-08:00"Look what can happen in this country, they’d say. A girl lives in some out-of-the-way town for nineteen years, so poor she can’t afford a magazine, and then she gets a scholarship to college and wins a prize here and a prize there and ends up steering New York like her own private car. Only I wasn’t steering anything, not even myself. I just bumped from my hotel to work and to parties and from Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1111819148857431432005-03-25T22:39:00.000-08:002005-03-25T22:39:08.860-08:00"The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody’d move. . . . Nobody’d be different. The only thing that would be different would be you." - Holden in Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger.)Christelnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1111818824363226182005-03-25T22:33:00.000-08:002005-03-25T22:33:44.366-08:00"... For this in the end is what we have. The love of something... There is much to love, and that love is what we are left with... We can never let the world take our memories of love away, and if there are no memories, we must invent love all over again... The wheel turns. Blue above, green below, we wander a long way, but love is what the cup of our soul contains when we leave the world and Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1111176313718037852005-03-18T12:04:00.000-08:002005-03-18T12:05:13.720-08:00"....I remember the day he smiled at me and said, 'Do you know what a poem is, Esther?''No, what?' I said.'A piece of dust.' And he looked so proud of having thought of this that I just stared at his blond hair and his blue eyes and his white teeth - he had very long, strong white teeth - and said 'I guess so.'It was only in the middle of New York a whole year later that I finally thought of an Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1110914219132705442005-03-15T11:16:00.000-08:002005-03-15T11:16:59.133-08:00I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use— silence, exile and cunning. -A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1110405490243165962005-03-09T13:57:00.000-08:002005-03-09T13:58:10.243-08:00Sally Owens: Sometimes I feel there is a hole inside me... An emptiness that, at times, seems to burn. I think if you lifted my heart to your ear, you could probably hear the ocean. And the moon tonight: there's a circle around it --- a sign of trouble not far behind. I have this dream of being whole... Of not going to sleep each night wanting, but still sometimes, when the wind is warm or the Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1108457092794922662005-02-15T00:44:00.000-08:002005-02-15T00:44:52.796-08:00"The best kind of love, it's not always an easy road. Because life will throw you curve balls. People change, people grow and sad things happen sometimes. I think that the greatest loves are those that have overcome obstacles because they have withstood those things that life can throw at them." -The Notebook By Nicholas SparksChristelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1108252446797389782005-02-12T15:53:00.000-08:002005-02-12T15:54:06.796-08:00Diary By Chuck PalahniukJust for the record, knowing when people are only pretending to like you isn't such a great skill to have.You writting, you walking down a street, your whole life shows in every physical action. How you hold your shoulders, Angel says. It's all an art. What you do with your hands, you're always blabbing your life story.Who knows where an idea comes from. Our insparation. Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1108252344857940052005-02-12T15:52:00.000-08:002005-02-12T15:52:24.860-08:00Wonder When you'll Miss me- By Amanda DavisIt was like I'd left behind something at Berrybrook besides the forty-eight pounds and seven months. Some invisable part of my brain forgotten on a shelf somewhere, some key ingredient to navigating the world abandoned in that stupid Tudor buliding on that stupid green hill. I didn't even know how to look for what was gone, how to recognize it if I foundChristelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1108251387850504272005-02-12T15:35:00.000-08:002005-02-12T15:36:27.850-08:00When he says, "I love you, honey," you realize that he never calls you by your name. You will say good-bye for all the right reasons. You're tired of living in wait for his apocalypse. You have your own fight on your hands, and though it's no bigger or more noble than his, it will rewuire all of your energy. It's you who has to hold on to the earth. You have to tighten your grip- which means Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1108251275809421802005-02-12T15:34:00.000-08:002005-02-12T15:34:35.810-08:00Before dinner, my grandmother read the newspaper, tsk-tsking and complaining to no one in particular that the world was going to hell. Everything was wrong; nothing was the way it used to be."What do you think was so good about the good old days?" I asked in exasperation. But I heard how harsh my voice was and didn't like it. I said, "What do you miss, I mean?"While she thought, I waite to make Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1105944310471497132005-01-16T22:45:00.000-08:002005-01-16T22:45:10.470-08:00"To die, to sleep - to sleep, perchance to dream, ay there's the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause; there's the respect that makes calamity of so long life"
-- 'Hamlet' Shakespeare
Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1105158131243184582005-01-07T20:22:00.000-08:002005-01-07T20:22:11.243-08:00She say, Celie, tell the truth, have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God.--Alice Walker, The Color Purple
Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1105156500215141352005-01-07T19:54:00.000-08:002005-01-07T19:55:00.216-08:00"There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough."-Nicholas Sparks, "The Notebook"
Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1086580958118524962004-06-06T21:02:00.000-07:002004-06-06T21:02:38.116-07:00"I'd begun to realise that there was an unspoken prejudice among book-learned people, a secret conviction they all seemed to share, that life as we know it is an imperfect vision of reality, and that only art, like a pair of reading glasses, can correct it. The scholars and intellectuals I met at our dinner-table always seemed to hold a grudge against the world. They could never quite reconcile Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1086512108703865152004-06-06T01:55:00.000-07:002004-06-06T01:55:08.703-07:00"Yes," he continued, "that is one of the great secrets of life. Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes."
~Oscar Wilde,The Picture of Dorian GrayChristelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1086511799799965412004-06-06T01:49:00.000-07:002004-06-06T01:49:59.800-07:00 And this was perhaps the first time in my life that death occurred to me as a reality. I thought of the people before me who had looked down at the river and gone to sleep beneath it. I wondered about them. I wondered how they had done it--it, the physical act. I had thought of suicide when I was much younger, as, possibly, we all have, but then it would have been for revenge, it would have beenChristelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1084783075007117612004-05-17T01:37:00.000-07:002004-05-17T01:37:55.006-07:00"We are an exceptional model of the human race. We no longer know how to produce food. We no longer can heal ourselves. We no longer raise our young. We have forgotten the names of the stars, fail to notice the phases of the moon. We do not know the plants and they no longer protect us. We tell ourselves we are the most powerful specimens of our kind who have ever lived. But when the lights are Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1084614314895253672004-05-15T02:45:00.000-07:002004-05-15T02:45:14.896-07:00Quote from Sexus by Henry Miller
"Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes deperately honest Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1084613870647506422004-05-15T02:37:00.000-07:002004-05-15T02:37:50.646-07:00"You know the feeling of recognition you get when you look in a mirror? 'That's me,' you think to yourself, 'My hair needs to be combed and, hey, there's a pimple on my nose!' Well I got that same feeling no matter where I looked. I looked at the asphalt road and it was my face. I looked at the bridge and the bridge was me staring back at myself. It was a physical sensation, as if the sky had my Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1084613546057440812004-05-15T02:32:00.000-07:002004-05-15T02:32:26.056-07:00"...There are four kinds of people in this world: cretins, fools, morons, and lunatics."
"And that covers everybody?"
"Oh, yes, including us. Or at least me. If you take a good look, everybody fits into one of these categories. Each of us is sometimes a cretin, a fool, a moron, or a lunatic. A normal person is just a reasonable mix of these components, these four ideal types."
Foucault's Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1084425528504849612004-05-12T22:12:00.000-07:002004-05-12T22:18:48.503-07:00STANLEY: Your looks are okay.
STELLA: I was fishing for a compliment, Stanley.
STANLEY: I don't go in for that stuff.
STELLA: What--stuff?
STANLEY: Compliments to women about their looks. I never met a woman that didn't know if she was good-looking or not without being told, and some of them give themselves credit for more than they've got. I once went out with a doll who said to me, "I am the Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1084425126678820622004-05-12T22:11:00.000-07:002004-05-12T22:12:06.676-07:00..And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion or government which limits or destroys the individual.
--John Steinbeck, East of EdenChristelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1084425067055026232004-05-12T22:10:00.000-07:002004-05-12T22:11:07.056-07:00"Why? Why does what was beautiful suddenly shatter in hindsight because it concealed dark truths? Why does the memory of years of happy marriage turn to gall when our partner is revealed to have had a lover all those years? Because such a situation makes it impossible to be happy? But we were happy! Sometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily. Because happiness Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1084232072484972632004-05-10T16:34:00.000-07:002004-05-10T16:34:32.486-07:00“Love, desire, and need get all confused and they fight and switch clothes just to fuck with me. But all three burn and ache and when mixed are this dangerous chemical compound that releases poisonous gases from my eyes, clouds of readable smoke, inscribed with all my naked wishes and poetry. And these are the times I want to close my eyes to the world, and these are the times that they are so Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1084232034101330942004-05-10T16:33:00.000-07:002004-05-10T16:33:54.100-07:00“I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger than reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn’t impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1083120774904957132004-04-27T19:52:00.000-07:002004-04-27T19:57:02.750-07:00"Everyone has a moment in his history which belongs particularly to him. It is the moment when his emotions achieve their most powerful sway over him, and afterward when you say to this person 'the world today' or 'life' or 'reality' he will assume you mean this moment, even if it is fifty years past. The world, through his unleashed emotions, imprinted itself upon him, and he carries the stamp Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1083120295158089382004-04-27T19:44:00.000-07:002004-04-27T19:49:03.106-07:00“I dreamt that I had learned a way of saving time I didn’t want to spend, and having it to spend when I needed it. Like the time you spend waiting in a doctor’s office, or coming back from someplace you didn’t enjoy going to, or waiting for a bus-- all the little useless spaces. Well, it was a matter of taking them and folding them up, like broken boxes, so that they took up less room. It was Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1083120121085868482004-04-27T19:42:00.000-07:002004-04-27T19:46:09.076-07:00"America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but it's people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves.... It is in fact a crime for an american to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1083119538986847232004-04-27T19:32:00.000-07:002004-04-27T19:36:27.090-07:00"When I opened my eyes, the window across from us was dark red and I coudl feel that there was not much time left. Outside, the world I had watched for so long was living and breathing on the same earth I now was. But I knew I would not go out. I had taken this time to fall in love instead-- in love with the sort of helplessness I had not felt in death -- the helplessness of being alive, the darkChristelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1083119462815339992004-04-27T19:31:00.000-07:002004-04-27T19:35:12.153-07:00Excerpt from "'Jiving' with Your Teen," by Seaton Smith
"Anyone who has observed the youths of American knows they frequently take liberties with the English language in order to flaunt their illiteracy and impress the opposite sex. As a parent, it is vital that you understand their vocabulary - like a cheetah, your teen can sense your confusion and fear. When you master thein vocabulary you can Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1083119246420169352004-04-27T19:27:00.000-07:002004-04-27T19:31:34.590-07:00from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
translated by Alan B. Clarke
That was what made traveling appeal to [the shepherd boy]--he always made new friends, and he didn't need to spend all of his time with them. When someone sees the same people every day, as had happened with him at the seminary, they wind up becoming a part of that person's life. And then they want the person to change. If someone Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1082537652252050022004-04-21T01:54:00.000-07:002004-04-21T01:58:11.936-07:00"He had this weird thing where he would look at the stars, and imagine they were the lights of a city, and think about what kinds of people would live there. It's like he knew he couldn't understand the stars.
..."I think he wanted people to look at them like he looked at the stars, and think about what kind of person would live in that body."
-From My Loose Thread, by Dennis Cooper
Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1082537620735844112004-04-21T01:53:00.000-07:002004-04-21T01:57:41.340-07:00Now and then sprays of rain flew over and misted our faces. Every time I refused to wipe away the wetness. It made the world seem so alive to me. I couldn't help but envy the way a good storm got everyone's attention.
The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk KiddChristelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1082537150521628612004-04-21T01:45:00.000-07:002004-04-21T01:49:49.716-07:00I tried finding solace looking at the squirrels in the front yard. . . -- and then I got to thinking about how short their lives are -- so short that their dreams can only possibly be a full mirroring of their waking lives. So I guess for a squirrel, being awake and being asleep are the same thing. Maybe when you die young it's like that too.
Douglas Coupland's Hey Nostradamus!Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-108253698056003792004-04-21T01:43:00.000-07:002004-04-21T01:46:59.763-07:00And when the hourglass has run out, the hourglass of temporality, when the noise of secular life has grown silent and its restless or ineffectual activism has come to an end, when everything around you is still, as it is in eternity, then--whether you were man or woman, rich or poor, dependent or independent, fortunate or unfortunate, whether you ranked with royalty and wore a glittering crown orChristelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1082169898703398652004-04-16T19:44:00.000-07:002004-04-16T19:48:52.250-07:00She strolled between shelves, looking at titles, smiling as she met old friends-books she had read three times or five times or a dozen. Just a title, or an author's name, would be enough to summon up happy images. Strange creatures like phoenixes and psammeads, moving under smoky London daylight of a hundred years before, in company with groups of bemused children; starships and new worlds and Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1082169566237340892004-04-16T19:39:00.000-07:002004-04-16T19:43:19.840-07:00The photo has been cut; a third of it has been cut off. In the lower left corner there's a hand, scissored off at the wrist, resting on the grass. It's the hand of the other one, the one who is always in the picture whether seen or not. The hand that will set things down.
How could I have been so ignorant? she thinks. So stupid, so unseeing, so given over to carelessness. But without such Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1082169318533411782004-04-16T19:35:00.000-07:002004-04-16T19:39:12.170-07:00William Faulkner-As I Lay Dying
"He had a word, too. Love, he called it. But I had been used to words for a long time. I knew that that word was like the others: just a shape to fill a lack; that when the right time came, you wouldn't need a word for that anymore than for pride or fear."
"...I would think how words go straight up in a thin line, quick and harmless, and how terribly doing goes Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1082169175130854512004-04-16T19:32:00.000-07:002004-04-16T19:36:48.793-07:00"Everything with me is either worship and passion or pity and understanding. I hate rarely, though when I hate, I hate murderously. For example now, I hate the bank and everything connected with it. I also hate Dutch paintings, penis-sucking, parties, and cold rainy weather. But I am more preoccupied with loving."
--Anais Nin, Henry and June.Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1082166649425010162004-04-16T18:50:00.000-07:002004-04-16T18:54:43.466-07:00As for myself, I'd rather not say very much. When I breathe, the air feels good in my chest. And when I think of the mirrored room, as of course I still do, I understand now that it's empty, filled with chimeras like Charlotte Swenson--the hard, beautiful seashells left behind long after the living creatures within have struggled free and swum away. Or died. Life can't be sustained under the Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1082165096393979292004-04-16T18:24:00.000-07:002004-04-16T18:28:50.060-07:00CASH FOR YOUR CAR, CHECKS CASHED HERE,MARRIAGES AND DIVORCES-TWENTY FOUR HOUR DRIVE-THRU WINDOW
Coyote said,"what are these places?"
Sam tried to think of a quick explanation, but was too weary from lack of sleep to tackle the concept of Las Vegas in twenty-five words or less. Finally he said,"These are places where you go if you want to fuck up your life and you don't have a lot of time to do Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1082006537546257072004-04-14T22:22:00.000-07:002004-04-14T22:26:08.733-07:00"The world is supposed to be full of possibilities, but they narrow down to pretty few in most personal experience. There's lots of good fish in the sea...maybe...but the vast masses seem to be mackerel or herring, and if you're not mackerel or herring yourself you are likely to find very few good fish in the sea. "
- D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's LoverChristelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1082006188325414362004-04-14T22:16:00.000-07:002004-04-14T22:20:19.590-07:00Dave Eggers- You Shall Know Our Velocity!
People say I talk slowly. I talk in a way sometimes called laconic. The phone rings, I answer, and people ask if they've woken me up. I lose my way in the middle of sentences, leaving people hanging for minutes. I have no control over it. I'll be talking, and will be interested in what I'm saying, but then someone- I'm convinced this is what Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1082005944883894082004-04-14T22:12:00.000-07:002004-04-14T22:16:16.200-07:00From "Why I Write":
I collected those long, melancholy lists of the great books that high school English teachers passed out to college-bound students, and I relied on having consumed those serious litanies of books as a way to ease my way into the literary life.
Even today, I hunt for the fabulous books that will change me utterly and for all time. Great writing sticks to your soul the way Christelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1082005838174787692004-04-14T22:10:00.000-07:002004-04-14T22:14:29.513-07:00It is simply a fact that some people long to travel the entire world, and do not flinch from nights in wild forests or from the heat of the desert or from the anger of a tempest. It is simply a fact that some men long to climb the loftiest of mountains, others to explore the harshness of Antarctica, others still to circumnavigate the world in hot-air balloons. Why do they do it? For the challengeChristelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3558537.post-1082005717447269552004-04-14T22:08:00.001-07:002004-04-14T22:12:28.810-07:00...and we may be pretty certain that persons whom all the world treats ill, deserve entirely the treatment they get. The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion; and so let all young persons take their choice.
Vanity Fair, William M. Christelnoreply@blogger.com0