More quotes.

I know a girl who cries when she practices violin because each note sounds so pure it just cuts into her, and then the melody comes pouring out her eyes. Now, to me, everything else just sounds like a lie.

Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes

You said, "Tonight is a wonderful night to die." I asked, how could you tell? And you told me to look at the sky. "Look at all those stars. Look at how goddamn ugly the stars are."

Alkaline Trio

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Anna Akhmatova, "In Memory of M. B."

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.

Janet Fitch quotes from "White Oleander", my favorite book

"Love is tempermental. Tiring. It makes demands. Love uses you, changes its mind. But hatred, now thats something you can use. Sculpt. Wield. It's hard or soft, however you need it. Love humiliates you, but hatred cradles you."
- Ingrid

"Dont attach yourself to anyone who shows you the least bit of attention because you're lonely. Lonliness is the human condition. No one is ever going to fill that space. The best thing you can do it know yourself... know what you want."
- Ingrid

"Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they'll make your soul impervious to the world's soft decay."
- Ingrid

A couple of quotes by George Orwell.

In case you don't know about him, he wrote both '1984' and 'Animal Farm', both of which were quite excellent.


"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
- from '1984'

"The Catholic and the Communist are alike in assuming that an opponent cannot be both honest and intelligent. "

Realizations

To realize
the value of ten years:
Ask a newly
divorced couple.

To realize
the value of four years:
Ask a graduate.

To realize
the value of one year:
Ask a student who
has failed a final exam.

To realize
the value of nine months:
Ask a mother who gave birth to a still born.

To realize
the value of one month:
Ask a mother
who has given birth to
a premature baby.

To realize
the value of one week:
Ask an editor of a weekly newspaper.

To realize
the value of one hour:
Ask lovers who are waiting to meet.

To realize
the value of one minute:
Ask a person
who has missed the train, bus or plane.

To realize
the value of one-second:
Ask a person
who has survived an accident.

To realize
the value of one millisecond:
Ask the person
who has won a silver medal in the Olympics

Time waits for no one.
Treasure every moment you have.

To realize the value of a friend:
Lose one.

Although depressing, I liked this quote.

I found this on some girl's page today, and I liked it, although it's quite cynical.

"People ask me if I believe in forever
And I have to hold back my laughter
Because the way things are going
I'm not sure if I even believe in tomorrow"

"Wear Sunscreen" by Mary Schimch

I read this speech one day in English class.
It's one of the most intelligent things I've ever read, or so I believe.

Wear Sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 pm on some idel Tuesday. Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself. Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year- olds I know still don't. Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone. Mayber you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody's else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Dont' be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths. Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will Look 85. Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

"What I hope dying is like" -- Billy Merrell

When I imagined my life leaving my body,
I could picture a clear and singular soul
taking flight, its shape nearly the shape of me,
but fogged through. I could imagine the ground
steaming as my body was given up, the very air
unendurably still. But if there is such a thing
as a soul inside me, I would rather it not
feel like I've left when I have left the world.

Instead, I would like to become connected
to the life of each thing I finally touch.
One energy, not drawn out or transformed
but reaching from my life to the living ground
to the grass or cat or man, flooding the world
like it has been wiating to surge out. If I could feel
that first swell, the sensation leaving my skin
and taking in the sense of the grass and then
that first other animal. The first other person,
living nearest to my unloving body, feeling them too.
If I could still feel as each thing that feels
is braided by touch. That could be heaven,
knowing all along that touch was there,
knowing that death is only failing to ignore it any longer.

"Still"-- Billy Merrell

Walking home a month after your call, I passed the mural
beneath the overpass, its edges sketched and still
a ghostly white. Thinking of you, how your hands felt
through the sleeves or your sweater as I led you out

to the beach, your eyes cloesd, I looked at all that was left
unfinished and wondered how soon the artist would return
with her ladder and boxes. But it had been so cold lately
and I didn't know if she'd be back at all before spring.

And when I was almost home, rounding the corner, I saw,
among gray-green and the half-light, a single flower
still opening, momentarily and shockingly white. I bent
to pull it up, press it in a letter to you. But of course I didn't

reach it, and of course there was no letter. The winter was still
turning on, your life already sketched, finished but not complete.
I thought of how you laughed when you stepped into the sand,
how you didn't open your eyes until your feet were in the water.

"Give it Wings"-- Billy Merrell

My first love poem --well, the first to a boy
that needed to be in secret --hid my love

in a cage. Cliche after cliche, singing.
I didn't stop until I had whole aviaries, love

coiming out, everywhere and relentless.
I never thought it was Love, just

love , in a simple way that was safe
and easy to say because it meant nothing.

It wasn't long before I learned who not to say it to
and who not to feel it for, who not to write about

because if you give it wings, it wants to fly away.