Mass Quotes #11
I watched “Midnight” from Doctor Who and boy did that unnerve me. I’m not scared, but unnerved. That’s the only word I can think of.
And then I read Goblin Market by Christina Rosetti. Now I’m continuing in the vein of strange, somewhat creepy poetry. And I love it.
We must not look at Goblin men
We must not buy their fruit
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?
- Goblin Market, Christina Rosetti
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
- The Hollow Men, T.S. Elliot
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
- The Hollow Men, T.S. Elliot
Life is but life, and death but death!
Bliss is but bliss, and breath but breath!
And if, indeed, I fail,
At least to know the worst is sweet.
Defeat means nothing but defeat,
No drearier can prevail!
-Rouge Gagne, Emily Dickinson
If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the achin,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
- Emily Dickinson
Mass Quotes #9
Features quotes from: Paper Towns by John Green; Waving Not Drowning by Stevie Smith; Fruits Basket Vol 21; Looking for Alaska by John Green; A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
(consider those your spoiler warnings)
——
And I felt the unbroken line of me and of her stretching back from our cribs to the dead guy to acquaintanceship to now. And I wanted to tell her that the pleasure for me wasn’t planning or doing or leaving; the pleasure was in seeing our strings cross and separate and then come back together–but that seemed too cheesy to say, and anyway, she was standing up.
-John Green, Paper Towns
Standing before this building, I learn something about fear. I learn it is not the idle fantasies of someone who maybe wants something important to happen to him, even if the important thing is horrible. It is not the disgust of seeing a dead stranger, and not the breathlessness of hearing a shotgun pumped outside of Becca Arrington’s house. This cannot be addressed by breathing exercises. This fear bears no analogy to any fear I knew before. This is the basest of all possible emotions, the feeling that was with us before we existed, before this building existed, before the earth existed. this is the fear that made fish crawl out onto dry land and evolve lungs, the fear that teaches us to run, the fear that makes us bury our dead.
The smell leaves me seized by desperate panic–panic not like my lungs are out of air, but like the atmosphere itself is out of air. I think maybe the reason I have spent most of my life being afraid is that I have been trying to prepare myself, to train my body for the real fear when it comes. But I am not prepared.
-John Green, Paper Towns
—–
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much farther 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 now waving, but drowning.
-Stevie Smith, Not Waving, but Drowning
—–
If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.
-Ray Bradbury
Words, once they are printed, have a life of their own.
-Carol Burnett
Always be a first rate version of yourself, and not a second rate version of someone else.
-Judy Garland
“I wish I could have lived my life without making any wrong turns. But that’s impossible. A path like that doesn’t exist. We fail. We trip. We get lost. We make mistakes. And little by little, one step at a time, we push forward. It’s all we can do.”
-Kyo, Natsuki Takaya, Fruits Basket Vol 21
The other big difference, I would argue, is that lies are attempts to hide the truth by willfully denying facts. Fiction, on the other hand, is an attempt to reveal the truth by ignoring facts.
-John Green
“That’s the mystery, isn’t it? Is the labyrinth living or dying? Which is he trying to escape–the world or the end of it?”
-Alaska, John Green, Looking for Alaska
“I must talk and you must listen, for we are engaged here in the most important pursuit in history: the search for meaning. What is the nature of being a person? What is the best way to go about being a person? How did we come to be, and what will become of us when we are no longer? In short: What are the rules of this game, and how might we best play it?”
-Dr. Hyde, John Green, Looking for Alaska
“Everything that comes together falls apart,” the Old Man said. “Everything. the chair I’m sitting on. It was built, and so it will fall apart. I’m gonna fall apart, probably before this chair. And you’re gonna fall apart. The cells and organs and systems that make you you–they came together, grew together, and so must fall apart. The Buddha knew one thing science didn’t prove for millennia after his death: Entropy increases. Things fall apart.”
-John Green, Looking for Alaska
She was whizzed into nothingness again, and nothingness was wonderful. She did not mind that she could not feel Calvin’s hand, that she could not see or feel or be. The relief from the intolerable pressure was all she needed.
-Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time
They stood very still, side by side, in the shadow of one of the big office buildings. Six large doors kept swinging open, shut, open, shut, as people walked in and out, in and out, looking straight ahead, straight ahead, paying no attention to the children whatsoever, whatsoever.
-Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time
Mass quotes #2
Hopefully this goes through, I’ve had some trouble with WordPress this morning. So far seems okay. At the end here I’ll add in a poem from William Blake that I love.
“I’m not afraid of dying. But…living…is such a scary thing to do”
-Mitsuki, Arina Tanemura, Fullmoon Vol 5
“The summit of happiness is reached when a person is ready to be what he is.”
-Desiderius Erasmus
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
-Mahatma Ghandi
“Nothing endures but personal qualities.”
-Walt Whitman
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.”
-Maya Angelou
“My favorite thing is to go where I’ve never been.”
-Diane Arbus
“I had no idea that history was being made. I was just tired of giving up.”
-Rosa Parks
“Do not fear going forward slowly, fear only to stand still.”
-Chinese Proverb
“Use what talents you have; the woods would have little music if no birds sang their song except those who sang the best.”
-Reverend Oliver G Wilson
The Smile by William Blake
There is a Smile of Love,
And there is a Smile of Deceit,
And there is a Smile of Smiles
In which these two Smiles meet.
And there is a Frown of Hate,
And there is a Frown of Disdain,
And there is a Frown of Frowns
Which you strive to forget in vain,
For it sticks in the Heart’s deep Core
And it sticks in the deep Backbone;
And no Smile that ever was smil’d,
But only one Smile alone,
That betwixt the Crade & Grave
It only once Smil’d can be;
But, when it once is Smil’d,
There’s an end to all Misery.
Heartbreak; Madame la Fleurie
It was a page he had
Found in the handbook
Of heartbreak.
-Wallace Stevens, “Madame la Fleurie” Collected Poems
The Lord of the Rings (poem)
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky.
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all,
and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
-JRR Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
