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The following is a list of quotations that I have collected over the years. This also includes some poetry, lyrics of songs, as well as some of my own statements. As soon as I get a build up of new quotes, I will update this document, so keep checking back for new quotes. The quotes are in no particular order only chronological in terms of when I came across them. New quotes will always be at the very bottom of the document. I hope you enjoy reading them; they are all quite close to me. If you want to know more about me, you are welcome to visit my blog: http://flippy-doodle.blogspot.com

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This does not really belong in any category, but could not come up with anything else.Here is just a list of quotes and lyrics i have collected over the years.

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Page 1: Blog Quotes

The following is a list of quotations that I have collected over the

years. This also includes some poetry, lyrics of songs, as well as

some of my own statements.

As soon as I get a build up of new quotes, I will update this document,

so keep checking back for new quotes.

The quotes are in no particular order – only chronological in terms of

when I came across them. New quotes will always be at the very

bottom of the document.

I hope you enjoy reading them; they are all quite close to me. If you

want to know more about me, you are welcome to visit my blog:

http://flippy-doodle.blogspot.com

Page 2: Blog Quotes

We have to build the Republic of Heaven where we are, because for us there is no elsewhere.

His Dark Materials fan website

[Priests] lay claim to heaven after they are dead, and yet they require their heaven in this world

too, and grumble mightily against the people that will not give them a large temporal

maintenance. And yet they tell the poor people that they must be content with their poverty, and

they shall have their heaven hereafter. But why may we not have our heaven here (that is, a

comfortable livelihood in the earth) and heaven hereafter too, as well as you? ... While men are

gazing up to heaven, imagining after happiness or fearing a hell after they are dead, their eyes

are put out, that they not see what their birthrights are, and what is to be done by them here on

earth while they are living. ---------

Winstanley quoted in Christopher Hill's The World Turned Upside Down

The best laid schemes o‘ mice and men, leave us nought but grief and pain.

Poem by a Scottish poet around which Steinbeck‟s book Of Mice And Men is based on

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!

Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign‘d...

In the poem Eloisa To Abelard by Alexander Pope

"The Nature, which delights in periodic repetition in the heavens,

is the same nature which rules the affairs here on Earth.

Let us not forget that lesson."

Mark Twain

Page 3: Blog Quotes

―An accident has taken place at the Chernobyl power station, and one of the reactors was

damaged. Measures are being taken to eliminate the consequences of the accident. Those

affected by the accident are being given assistance. A government commission is being set up‖.

(TIME,Winter,1996) Soviet Union, (5/12/1986) At 9 p.m. Monday, a newscaster on Moscow

television read a four-sentence statement from the Council of Ministers. The terse, almost

grudging announcement.

No more painters, no more writers, no more musicians, no more sculptors, no more religions, no

more royalists, no more republicans, no more imperialists, no more anarchists, no more

socialists, no more Bolsheviks, no more politicians, no more proletarians, no more democrats, no

more armies, no more police, no more nations, no more of these idiocies, no more, NOTHING,

NOTHING, NOTHING.

Louis Aragon, in thirteenth issue of Littérature

Surrealism, n., Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express – verbally, by means

of the written word, or in any other manner – the actual functioning of thought, in the absence of

any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concerns.

Breton identified automatism as the principal Surrealist artistic practice, the primary route

into the marvellous (in La Révolution surréaliste)

In my mouth, mine of words and kisses, thought and desires become confused, reduced to the

unique expression of the utterance.

Leiris in Le Point cardinal (Cardinal Point)

Do you think I desire to have my soul nailed on to a wheel-clamp for your desires to twist it round

to be fulfilled?

My own statement

It is the marvellous faculty of attaining two widely separate realities without departing from the

realm of our experience; of bringing them together and drawing a spark from their contact.

Breton, in the preface for Max Ernst‟s 1921 Paris exhibition

Page 4: Blog Quotes

The problem with the youth of today' is that one is no longer part of it.

Salvador Dali

Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.

Salvador Dali

When the creations of a genius collide with the mind of a layman, and produce an empty sound,

there is little doubt as to which is at fault.

Salvador Dali

When the creations of a genius collide with the mind of a layman, and produce an empty sound,

there is little doubt as to which is at fault.

Salvador Dali

You have to systematically create confusion, it sets creativity free. Everything that is contradictory

creates life.

Salvador Dali

People love mystery, and that is why they love my paintings.

Salvador Dali

When I paint, the sea roars. The others splash about in the bath.

Salvador Dali

One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even

greater illusion than the world of dreams.

Salvador Dali

Page 5: Blog Quotes

The desire to survive and the fear of death are artistic sentiments.

Salvador Dali

At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has

been growing steadily ever since.

Salvador Dali

Have no fear of perfection, you'll never reach it.

Salvador Dali

You know the worst thing is freedom. Freedom of any kind is the worst for creativity.

Salvador Dali

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.

Salvador Dali

―In art, immorality cannot exist.

Art is always sacred"

August Rodin

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, & the soul of

soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

Karl Marx

"Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be

questioned."

Unknown

Page 6: Blog Quotes

‗instantaneous and hand done colour photography of the super-fine, extravagant, extra-plastic,

extra-pictorial, unexplored, super-pictorial, super-plastic, deceptive, hyper normal and sickly

images of concrete irrationality‘

Salvador Dali commenting on his art work

People sometimes pay with their lives for saying aloud what they think

Anna Politkovskaya (Russian journalist)

Beware of artists – they mix with all classes of society and are therefore most dangerous

Queen Victoria

Art is what you can get away with

Marshall McLuhan

There is nothing funny about a clown in the moonlight.

Lon Chaney, Sir

‗How delightfully

the fishes

are enjoying themselves‘,

exclaimed Soshi.

‗You are not a fish‘,

commented his friend,

‗how do you know

that the fishes

are enjoying themselves?‘

‗You are not myself‘,

answered Soshi;

‗how do you know,

that I do not know,

Page 7: Blog Quotes

that the fishes

are enjoying themselves?‘

Taoist dialogue

Strap a piece of toast – buttered side up – to the back of a cat. Throw the cat out of the window.

Will the cat land on its feet or will Murphy‘s Law apply?

The Art of Looking Sideways

…the implacable hostility of the universe

The Art of Looking Sideways (on the Murphy‟s Law)

Do not adjust your mind, there is a fault in reality

The Art of Looking Sideways

The white triangle is a phantom only existing in our minds

The Art of Looking Sideways (commenting on the Kanizsa Triangle)

The statement below is true.

The statement above is false.

The Art of Looking Sideways

Moorfields Eye Hospital

The line of women in dressing gowns and black glasses hiding

bandaged eyes sit in their armchairs staring at the colour television.

On screen two American cops in black glasses stare back at them.

Ian Breakwell‟s diary

Page 8: Blog Quotes

Due to the inability of humans to think of inconspicuous subjects and imaginative scenarios,

purple cows walk all over the place without ever being seen by anyone.

My own statement, inspired by Alan Fletcher‟s book The Art of Looking Sideways

A gimlet-looking man with strangely dirty hair walks alongside with his wife who looks equally

ugly. Passers-by look back at them in repugnance – but to each other they are the most beautiful

people in the world. It‘s all about perspective.

My own statement, inspired by Alan Fletcher‟s book The Art of Looking Sideways

The goldfish goes devil-worshipping.

My own statement

A lady visited Matisse in his studio. Inspecting one of his latest works she unwisely said: ‗But,

surely the arm of this woman is much too long.‘ ‗Madame,‘ the artist politely replied, ‗you are

mistaken. This is not a woman; this is a picture [of a woman].‘

The Art of Looking Sideways

The I-don‘t-care scale:

2 jots = 1 tittle

3 tittles = 1 continental

2 continentals = 1 tinker‘s dam

4 tinker‘s dams = 1 damn

Measure for Measure, Joe Ecclesine

Political opponent‘s measure:

2 nincompoops = 1 fathead

2 fatheads = 1 incompetent

3 incompetents = 1 opportunist

2 opportunists = 1 machiavelli

Measure for Measure, Joe Ecclesine

Page 9: Blog Quotes

Alcohol beverage measure:

2 fingers = 1 tot

2 tots = 1 shot

2 shots = 1 slug

4 slugs = 1 snootful

2 snootfuls = 1 night in jail

Measure for Measure, Joe Ecclesine

Altercation scale:

2 tussles = 1 fray

3 frays = 1 fracas

2 fracases = 1 skirmish

2 skirmishes = 1 fight

Measure for Measure, Joe Ecclesine

Historical invective scale:

2 scamps = 1 rascal

3 rascals = 1 knave

2 knaves = 1 varlet

4 varlets = 1 scoundrel

2 scoundrels = 1 charlatan

Joe Ecclesine, Measure for Measure

When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the

little space which I fill, and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I

am ignorant, and which know me not, I am frightened, and am astonished at being here rather

than there, for there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then…

Blaise Pascal

I don‘t paint with my hands, but my tail.

Auguste Renoir

Page 10: Blog Quotes

To imagine is like flying a kite. The mind, loosely tethered, is free to be blown about. Usually the

direction it takes just happens but sometimes by tweaking the string it can arrive at an unlikely

destination. Take Einstein who, struck with the thought of riding on a shaft of light in outer space

while looking at himself in the mirror, interpreted the imagery to come up with the principles of his

Theory of Relativity.

… Although fantasy and make-believe flourish in childhood they rapidly atrophy as one is

moulded to fit the adult‘s grey consensus of reality. A child, out on a walk with its mother,

suddenly points and cries out, ‗Look, a purple cow.‘ The mother, perhaps rather tired and

domestically harassed, snaps, ‗Don‘t be silly.‘ And then delivers the crunch line: ‗There‘s no such

thing as purple cows.‘

So the child, a vagabond in the backwoods of rationality, is brought up to see the world in the

prosaic terms of grown-ups and eventually forgets it ever saw a purple cow. Now purple cows

walk around unseen by anyone.

Alan Fletcher, The Art of Looking Sideways

Ah, yes!

I wrote the Purple Cow

I‘m sorry, now, I wrote it!

But I can tell you anyhow,

I‘ll kill you if you quote it!

Frank Gelett Burgess, The Burgess Nonsense Book

I never saw a purple cow,

I never hope to see one;

But I can tell you, anyhow,

I‘d rather see than be one!

Frank Gelett Burgess, The Burgess Nonsense Book

A friend of mine was reading the draft copy of this book. ‗Can people really see purple cows?‘ she

mischievously asked me. I‘d just been on holiday and in reflective moments had watched a tree

outside the place I was staying in. In the early morning its trunk was pale grey, the leaves

silhouetted dark indigo against the bright pale sky. Late afternoon, in catching the edge of the sun

Page 11: Blog Quotes

the trunk turned vermilion, the leaves a dark Winsor green. At sunset the trunk was sepia while

the upper branches became pink and the leaves become a tinge of deep brown. In winter the

leaves will have gone – but the trunk will probably be dark greeny grey flecked with silver bark.

My answer was ‗yes‘.

Alan Fletcher, The Art of Looking Sideways

News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress. Everything else is advertising.

Lord Northcliffe

Everybody in advertising is blonde, beautiful, families are happy, cars are never in traffic,

everything is shiny, food looks like its incredibly tasteful. I ask myself, ―How stupid are we? How

come the world is going one direction and advertising is going in a completely different direction?‖

Oliviero Toscani

Santé is a Greek cigarette pack reassuringly called HEALTH (oxymoron), in French (chic). The

two medallions are endorsements (approval). The graphic image implies the smokers are young

(desirable) and beautiful (blonde) and with the tilt of the head (alluring), very – la Jeunesse doreé

(trendy).

Alan Fletcher, The Art of Looking Sideways

I can‘t understand these chaps who go round American universities explaining how they write

poems: it‘s like going round explaining how you sleep with your wife.

Philip Larkin, poet

These are reproductions [thrusting a fistful of pound notes into the air] these by contrast [takes

out his own drawings] are originals!

J.S.G. Boggs, when on trial by the Bank of England accused of “reproducing” pound

notes

Page 12: Blog Quotes

Drop your pants here for best results – Bangkok dry cleaner

It is forbidded to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man – Bangkok temple

Our wines leave you nothing to hope for – Swiss restaurant

The manager has personally passed all the water served here – Acapulco hotel

Special cocktails for ladies with nuts – Tokyo bar

Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar – Oslo bar

Please leave your values at the desk – Paris hotel

Please do not perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension –

Austrian hotel

The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret you will be unbearable. –

Bucharest hotel

You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid. - Japanese hotel

Prostituition, whoredom, gambling, drug taking, drug dealing and anything obcene are fobiden

(sic). – Peking hotel

There will be a Moscow exhibition of arts by 15,000 Soviet Republic painters and sculptors.

These were executed over the last two years. – Soviet Weekly

Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists. – Hong Kong dentist

We take your bags and send them in all directions. – Copenhagen airline office

Iraqi head seeks arms. – British newspaper

Alan Fletcher, The Art of Looking Sideways, on colloquial mistakes

Page 13: Blog Quotes

Excuse me

standing on one leg

I‘m half-caste.

Explain yuself

wha yu mean

when yu say half-caste

yu mean when Picasso

mix red an green

is a half-caste canvas?

explain yuself

wha yu mean

when yu say half-caste

yu mean when light an shadow

mix in de sky

is a half-caste weather?

well in dat case

england weather

nearly always half-caste

in fact some o dem cloud

half-caste till dem overcast

so spiteful dem don‘t want de sun pass

ah rass?

explain yuself

wha yu mean

when yu say half-caste

yu mean tchaikovsky

sit down at dah piano

an mix a black key

wid a white key

is a half-caste symphony?

Explain yuself

wha yu mean

Ah listening to yu wid de keen

half of mih ear

Ah looking at yu wid de keen

Page 14: Blog Quotes

half of mih eye

an when I‘m introduced to yu

I‘m sure you‘ll understand

why I offer yu half-a-hand

an when I sleep at night

I close half-a-eye

consequently when I dream

I dream half-a-dream

an when moon begin to glow

I half-caste human being

cast half-a-shadow

but yu must come back tomorrow

wid de whole of yu eye

an de whole of yu ear

an de whole of yu mind.

an I will tell yu

de other half

of my story.

John Agard, Half Caste, poem

[graffiti creates a] general atmosphere of neglect and social decay which in turn encourages

crime…We have no intention of changing this policy as it makes the transport system safer and

more pleasant for passengers

Spokesman, Transport for London

Our graffiti removal teams are staffed by professional cleaners not professional art critics

Spokesman, Transport for London

Page 15: Blog Quotes

Painting a picture in a public space to make people think or smile is criminal damage. Flogging

your product via TV, radio, billboards, spam email, adverts in urinals, 'free' gifts for kids, peer

pressure et all is known as marketing. Banksy understands this.

Graffiti is not a crime, its art without the cheese and wine brigade. It's about just letting people

know you are here. The public (or the local council) will be your fiercest critics.

Writer on the website “www.artofthestate.co.uk”

My vocal style I haven't tried to copy from anyone. It just developed until it became the girlish

whine it is today.

Robert Plant

My vocation is more in composition really than anything else - building up harmonies using the

guitar, orchestrating the guitar like an army, a guitar army.

Jimmy Page

I always thought the good thing about the guitar was that they didn't teach it in school.

Jimmy Page

Old men do it better. We're not so sensitive in certain areas.

Robert Plant

I can't moan about any of it. I had a great time in the goldfish bowl.

Robert Plant

I like the idea of being alone. I like the idea of often being alone in all aspects of my life. I like to

feel lonely. I like to need things.

Robert Plant

Page 16: Blog Quotes

I'm not a flowerchild or anything like that... whatever it was.

Robert Plant

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.

William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

I‘m ten years away from the corner you laugh on

Carol Ann Duffy, Before You Were Mine

Better off dead than giving in, not taking what you want

Carol Ann Duffy, Stealing

Boredom. Mostly I‘m so bored I could eat myself.

Carol Ann Duffy, Stealing

I'm bored

I'm the chairman of the bored,

I'm a lengthy monologue

I'm livin' like a dog

I'm bored

I bore myself to sleep at night

I bore myself in broad daylight coz

I'm bored

Just another slimy bore

I'm free to bore my well-bought friends

And spend my cash until the end coz

I'm bored

I'm bored

I'm the chairman of the bored

I'm sick

I'm sick of all my kicks

I'm sick of all the stiffs

Page 17: Blog Quotes

I'm sick of all the dips

I'm bored

I bore myself to sleep at night

I bore myself in broad daylight coz

I'm bored

I'm bored

Just another dirty bore

All right doll-face

Come on and bore me

I'm sick

I'm sick of all my kicks

I'm sick of all the stiffs

I'm sick of all the dips

I'm sick

I'm sick when I go to sleep at night

I'm still sick in the broad daylight coz

I'm bored

I'm bored

I'm the chairman of the. . .

BORED!

I‟m Bored, by Iggy Pop & The Stooges

Think, two things on their own and both at once.

The first, that exercise in trust, where those in front

stand with their arms spread wide and free-fall

backwards, blind, and those behind take all the weight.

The second, one canary-yellow cotton jacket

on a cloakroom floor, uncoupled from its hook,

becoming scuffed and blackened underfoot. Back home

the very model of a model of a mother, yours, puts

two and two together, makes a proper fist of it

and points the finger. Temper, temper. Questions

in the house. You seeing red. Blue murder. Bed.

Then midnight when you slip the latch and sneak

Page 18: Blog Quotes

no further than the call-box at the corner of the street;

I‘m waiting by the phone, although it doesn‘t ring

because its sixteen years or so before we‘ll meet.

Retrace that walk towards the garden gate; in silhouette

a father figure waits there, wants to set things straight.

These ribs are pleats or seams. These arms are sleeves.

These fingertips are buttons, or these hands can fold

into a clasp, or else these fingers make a zip

or buckle, you say which. Step backwards into it

and try the same canary-yellow cotton jacket, there,

like this, for size again. It still fits.

Simon Armitage, Homecoming

I like to live in my superior complex. In my own empire.

My own statement, when I want to blatantly ignore people and all the atrocities of classed

society

I love god. I love whatever made this rain possible.

My own statement, after being stuck in traffic in a rickshaw for an hour [India] and praying

for some rain relieve

I discovered that I scream the same way whether I'm about to be devoured by a Great White or if

a piece of seaweed touches my foot.

Axl Rose

I'm late to everything. I've always wanted to have it written in my will that when I die, the coffin

shows up a half hour late and says on the side, like in gold, 'Sorry I'm Late'.

Axl Rose

Page 19: Blog Quotes

And God said: 'Let there be Satan, so people don't blame everything

on me.

And let there be lawyers, so people don't blame everything on Satan."

George Burns

I don‘t want what you want,

I don‘t feel what you feel,

See I‘m stuck in a city,

But I belong in a field

Heart in a Cage by The Strokes

Now…I think back to when I was still a monkey, I‘d rather be related to a couple of chimps

running through a forest than two people who were thrown out of heaven for eating an apple.

My own quote from my surrealist short story “What I saw was a piece of soul deprived

from another world”

I don't fucking believe this! Can everyone stop gettin' shot?

Character of Dog in the film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

I think the highest and lowest points are the important ones. Anything else is just... in between. I

want the freedom to try everything.

Jim Morrison

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a

role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a

mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an

individual level. It's got to happen inside first.

Jim Morrison

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Under the spreading chestnut tree

I sold you and you sold me–

George Orwell‟s Nineteen Eighty-Four

It‘s your mind that should always be free…of all the kinds of freedom; it‘s the freedom of the mind

that‘s important. Physical suppression brings in this freedom of mind, for only with physical

calamities from the outside, can our within be able to roam about freely, to be able to wander in

and out…to be able to look at the world in a cynical fashion, without the interference of the

prosaic view of others. As though the self-mind is above all. Almost – in a spasmatic mood of

manic over-confidence – like God.

My own statement

Don‘t allow yourself to turn bitter from the inside.

Dad to elder brother

[Very disorientating camerawork. The "audience" can be heard yelling out where they think the

fish is]

Strange Man: I wonder where that fish has gone?

Transvestite: You did love it so, you treated it like a son.

Strange Man: And it went... wherever I... did go.

[Bends perplexingly long arms]

Transvestite: Is it in the cupboard? Wouldn't you like to know! It is a most elusive fish.

[Strange Man twiddles some brass taps sown to the breasts of the Transvestite's corset]

Strange Man: That went where-ever I did go.

Transvestite: Oh, fishy, fishy, fishy fish!

Strange Man: A fish, a fish, a fishy OOOOH!

Page 21: Blog Quotes

Transvestite: Oh, fishy, fishy, fishy fish!

Strange Man: That went wherever I... did go!

[a strange, half-elephant/half-man waiter wanders up out of nowhere holding a drinks tray]

Monty Python, The Meaning of Life

I don't think I'm easy to talk about. I've got a very irregular head. And I'm not anything that you

think I am anyway.

Syd Barrett

After a time they saw some land at a distance; and when they came to it, they found it was an

island made of water quite surrounded by earth. Besides that, it was bordered by evanescent

isthmuses with a great Gulf-stream running about all over it, so that it was perfectly beautiful, and

contained only a single tree, 503 feet high.

Edward Lear, in The Story of the Four Little Children Who Went Round the World

Whenever

U see a

COCKROACH

Think of us…

Advert in Times Classifieds for Ultra Pest Control

The hippies

philosophy of a subculture

Time magazine, July 1967

There are those, I know, who will reply that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and

mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right, It is. It is the American dream.

Archibald MacLeish, American poet, in 1960 debating “national

purpose”

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Feeling like a Joplin

My poem, untitled

And to see them is to see,

Your headworks among a clockwork,

Your mates among an infinite melancholy,

Your knowing in reversal order of it,

And your machinery in dillusionment

My poem, Untitled

They do nothing but sing their hearts out for us,

which is why it‘s a sin to kill a mocking bird.

To Kill a Mocking Bird

God is in the heavens. All these atrocities of the world can be forgotten as long as God is in the

heavens. May my body burn in sin and greed, may I be the filthiest creature to exist, nothing

matters as long as he‘s in the heavens.

My thoughts, on the bus to the city. I stared skywards for no apparent reason, only to be

entranced into God‟s beautiful architecture. Dense yet clear clouds all perfectly formed

into a dome of aesthetic beauty. Something was incredibly pleasing to the eye about that

one sky. And the sun…it glowed through clusters of clouds, forming perfect allied rays of

light, and God was speaking to the land.

All birds; moles; rabbits; shrubs, cease to exist when such a simple declaration of

heavenly powers fall on the land. Such perfect beauty is impossible to perceive into

utterance of words. It was as if God was present in all situations, in all positions, in all the

atoms of red sand, all was enlightened.

And I remember thinking, it doesn‟t really matter if I sin all my life, or we plague each other

with our minds, God is in the heavens, and as long as that is possible and imaginable to

this mind, all is at peace with the universe.

Page 23: Blog Quotes

What we were after, was lashings of ultra violence.

A Clockwork Orange [book]

And obviously what people don‘t understand is the notion of perpetual sadness, sending up

enthusiasms of mindful spirituality in continuous paradigms of complex fluids of eyes….I think that

it would be safe for me to say that you are all indeed ill.

Myself, left-handed writing session

There‘s something very beautiful about words – minuscule cramped letters – on a lined page.

Surrounding an idea which is endless. And you cannot end and idea even with acid on ink.

Myself, random, during study period

You know, what they say is true. God is in small details.

Nasseruddeen Shah‟s character in Being Cyrus

James Lipton: And now for the favourite bit. What is your favourite curse word?

Ralph Fiennes: On a good day fuck, on a bad day cunt.

Inside The Actor‟s Studio, with Ralph Fiennes

Even the most simplest of things can look extraordinarily beautiful, under certain circumstances,

and a certain state of mind.

Myself, thinking on plastic [green], under wonderful white light

I think that everyone is within their own gulf of their mind, wondering how persons within inches of

themselves are so eternally happy, whilst they are left to wallow and pity their lives. In a way, God

has designed things so that everyone is eternally happy. Not in their own mind, but in the

thoughtful minds of others, who perceive them as happy, when within the universe of each mind,

it‘s all just isolation.

Myself, diary entry 27th

January 2008, school

Page 24: Blog Quotes

Hazaaron khwaishen aisi, ke jeete jeete dam nikal jaaein

Urdu philosopher [Mirza Ghalib]

speech is silver, silence is gold

BBC documentary on an Egyptian independent movie about the tendency of Arabs to stay

silent

Minister: As I was saying, Alex, you can be instrumental in changing the public verdict. Do you

understand, Alex? Have I made myself clear?

Alex: As an unmuddied lake, Fred. As clear as an azure sky of deepest summer. You can rely on

me, Fred.

Alex: What we were after now was the old surprise visit. That was a real kick and good for laughs

and lashings of the old ultraviolence.

Alex: We were all feeling a bit shagged and fagged and fashed, it being a night of no small

expenditure.

[Listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony]

Alex: Oh bliss! Bliss and heaven! Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh. It was

like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all

nonsense now. As I slooshied, I knew such lovely pictures!

Minister: Padre, there are subtleties! We are not concerned with motives, with the higher ethics.

We are concerned only with cutting down crime and with relieving the ghastly congestion in our

prisons. He will be your true Christian, ready to turn the other cheek, ready to be crucified rather

than crucify, sick to the heart at the thought of killing a fly. Reclamation! Joy before the angels of

God! The point is that it works.

Alex: Suddenly, I viddied what I had to do, and what I had wanted to do, and that was to do

myself in; to snuff it, to blast off for ever out of this wicked, cruel world. One moment of pain

perhaps and, then, sleep for ever, and ever and ever.

Quotes from Stanley Kubrick‟s movie “A Clockwork Orange”

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This is found in the province of Cyrenaica and is not more than 12 fingers long. It has on its head

a white spot after the fashion of a diadem. It scares all serpents with its whistling. It resembles a

snake, but does not move by wriggling but from the centre forwards to the right. It is said that one

of these, being killed with a spear by one who was on horse-back, and its venom flowing on the

spear, not only the man but the horse also died. It spoils the wheat and not only that which it

touches, but where it breathes the grass dries and the stones are split.

Leonardo da Vinci describes the Basilisk in his notebooks

The like propertie hath the serpent called a Basiliske: bred it is in the province Cyrenaica, and is

not above twelve fingers-breadth long: a white spot like a starre it carrieth on the head, and

setteth it out like a coronet or diademe: if he but hisse once, no other serpents dare come neere:

he creepeth not winding and crawling by as other serpents doe, with one part of the bodie driving

the other forward, but goeth upright and aloft from the ground with the one halfe part of his bodie:

he killeth all trees and shrubs not only that he toucheth, but that he doth breath upon also: as for

grasse and hearbs, those hee sindgeth and burneth up, yea and breaketh stones in sunder: so

venimous and deadly is he. It is received for a truth, that one of them upon a time was killed with

a launce by an horseman from his horseback, but the poison was so strong that went from his

bodie along the staffe, as it killed both horse and man: and yet a sillie weazle hath a deadly

power to kill this monstrous serpent, as pernicious as it is [for may kings have been desirous to

see the experience thereof, and the manner how he is killed.] See how Nature hath delighted to

match everything in the world with a concurrent. The manner is, to cast these weazles into their

holes and cranies where they lye, (and easie they be to knowe, by the stinking sent of the place

all about them:) they are not so soone within, but they overcome them with their strong smell, but

they die themselves withall; and so Nature for her pleasure hath the combat dispatched.

One of the earliest accounts of the basilisk comes from Pliny the Elder's Natural History,

written in roughly 79 AD. He describes the catoblepas, a monstrous cow-like creature to

whom "there is not one that looketh upon his eyes, but hee dyeth presently.” [Wikipedia]

My eyes are,

A baptism,

Oh I am filth,

And sing her,

To my face,

Oh phantom elusive thing….

...

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One that can never be known,

Either all drunk with the world at her feet,

Or sober with no place to go…

Jeff Buckley, All Flowers in Time Bend Towards the Sun

Oh let the sun beat down upon my face, stars to fill my dream

I am a traveller of both time and space, to be where I have been

To sit with elders of the gentle race, this world has seldom seen

They talk of days for which they sit and wait and all will be revealed

Talk and song from tongues of lilting grace, whose sounds caress my ear

But not a word I heard could I relate, the story was quite clear

All I see turns to brown, as the sun burns the ground

And my eyes fill with sand, as I scan this wasted land

Trying to find, trying to find where Ive been.

Oh, pilot of the storm who leaves no trace, like thoughts inside a dream

Heed the path that led me to that place, yellow desert stream

My shangri-la beneath the summer moon, I will return again

Sure as the dust that floats high and true, when movin through kashmir.

Oh, father of the four winds, fill my sails, across the sea of years

With no provision but an open face, along the straits of fear

Led Zeppelin [Plant/Page], excerpts from “Kashmir”

immaculate adj. 1 perfectly clean and tidy. 2 perfect (immaculate timing). 3 innocent, faultless. •

immaculately adv. immaculateness n. [Latin: related to *in-1, macula spot]

Definition from Oxford Dictionary

Immaculate Conception n. RC Ch. doctrine that the Virgin Mary was without original sin from

conception.

Definition from Oxford Dictionary

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Sure, we disagree. But we‘re doing it in meeting rooms in Switzerland, not across some corpse-

littered field

Time [magazine], August 11th

2008 issue, “The Moment, 7/29/08: WTO Breakdown” article

by Simon Robinson

Oh my god, I was afraid of this when I had to retire... It‘s so easy to drift into uselessness.

I'm going to Yonder Bridge; there I shall station myself in such a position that I can observe the

life in the water below. I shall blend into the background so as I become one with the stone work.

And there I shall record in my notebook the detailed observation of the fish life of the stream.

Character of Foggy, Last of the Summer Wine [British television series]

Woke up cold one Tuesday,

I'm looking tired and feeling quite sick,

I felt like there was something missing in my day to day life,

So I quickly opened the wardrobe,

Pulled out some jeans and a T-Shirt that seemed clean,

Topped it off with a pair of old shoes,

That were ripped around the seams,

And I thought these shoes just don't suit me.

[CHORUS:]

Hey, I put some new shoes on,

And suddenly everything is right,

I said, hey, I put some new shoes on and everybody's smiling,

It's so inviting,

Oh, short on money,

But long on time,

Slowly strolling in the sweet sunshine,

And I'm running late,

And I don't need an excuse,

'cause I'm wearing my brand new shoes.

Paolo Nutini‟s “New Shoes”, song from his debut album “These Streets”

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I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who

considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.

South African black leader Desmond Tutu in a TV interview in 1985

Some colloquial mistakes I have found:

Han Han Commodity Factory

Name of a Chinese company, from which I bought an ironing board cover

Can I - Eliminate the need to use my hands?

Hand Safety Poster

Nadal High On Grass

Headlines Today (Indian English news channel) on Rafael Nadal winning his

career‟s first grass tournament

Frost over the world

Title of the talk show hosted on Al Jazeera International by David Frost

―The plans will be fleshed out in the mayor‘s youth strategy to help tackle social

breakdown, due in November.‖

Article in a newspaper

Providing low-income families in emerging economies with catastrophic healthcare

From an email I received

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Intellectuals and academics don‘t want to live in a mall. Science is more than labs. It‘s the people,

it‘s the environment.‖

Osama El-Ghazali Harb, former Egyptian head of the Arab Association of Political

Scientists, quote in August 18-25 issue of Newsweek [magazine], in the article “Ballad of

the Old Cafes” by Zvika Krieger

The masses are foolish. If we tell them the facts, morale will collapse.

Prime Minister Tojo of Japan [during WWII]

Dear Reader:

Why did I write this book? (Readers will want to know, my publisher said.) A fair question.

In one of my earliest memories, I am sitting on the floor staring at a picture in a book. The picture

shows a heap of bodies. I turn the page this way and that, seeking a proper orientation. I am

bewildered. In my short life there if no reference point for what I see.

The events that became known as the Holocaust have touched me ever since. And yet for a long

time I hesitated to write of it. Did the world really need another Holocaust book? And even if it did,

who was I write it? What credentials did I have? I was neither Jew nor survivor nor survivor‘s

relative. All I had was a ticket stub from Schindler’s List.

Then I came to see that I had every right to presume. Because I cared. And had I not been telling

young writers for years: ―Write what you care about‖?

And because I am people, and in the end, in the book, that‘s what they are too – Misha and Uri

and Janina and Uncle Shepsel and Tata. They are more than Jews and Holocausters and

orphans. They are people. Like those in the picture.

How could I not write this book?

Jerry Spinelli, introduction to Milkweed

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The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so

long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.

John Stuart Mill

They could not remember. There was nothing with which they could compare their present lives:

they had nothing to go upon except Squealer‘s lists of figures, which invariably demonstrated that

everything was getting better and better. The animals found the problem insoluble; in any case,

they had little time for speculating on such things now. Only old Benjamin professed to remember

every detail of his long life and to know that things never had been, nor ever could be much better

or much worse – hunger, hardship, and disappointment being, so he said, the unalterable law of

life.

Animal Farm by George Orwell, Chapter 10

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL

BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

Animal Farm by George Orwell, Chapter 10

Yesterday there was a tsar and there were slaves: today there is no tsar, but the slaves remain;

tomorrow there will only be tsars…

Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin, in a 1919 work “Tomorrow”

―Never in our full life could we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man‘s

understanding of men as now we do by accident…The last moment belongs to us – that agony is

our triumph.‖

Bartolomeo Vanzetti [a fish peddler], statement written before his death, on how him and

Nicola Sacco [a shoemaker] – two poor Italian anarchist immigrants to America – had

caused such and upheaval in public conscience by accident

What in today‘s world of take and snatch, it‘s easy to lose a sense of identity.

My dream, Monday 13th

October 2008

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What Brent's book provides is some sense of that strange moment of transition, the few years

between the crumbling Soviet Union of Gorbachev and glasnost and the resurgent Russian

nationalism of the present. He evokes the odd smell of Moscow streets, some combination of

poor plumbing, boiled cabbage, and exhaust fumes; the conversations with Russians who

constantly wanted to know what things cost in America and were taken aback to realize that we

were far richer than they were; the furtive assignations with ex-KGB officers, always eager, even

excited, to speak; the cheap plumbing fixtures; the tasteless cookies and too-strong black tea; the

odd vacuum where everything—ideology, politics, nation—used to be. That anarchic, open,

exciting, and frightening atmosphere is gone now: Moscow is a more rigid, more subdued, and

more hierarchical place. The past is on its way to being reburied, or at least reassessed.

“Russia‟s Usable Past”, article in Slate by Anne Applebaum, 8th

December 2008

If I loved you... Then I would love you in any way I could, and if we could not touch, then I would

draw strength from your beauty... And if I went blind, I would fill my soul with the sound of your

voice and the contents of your thoughts until the last spark of my love for you lit the shabby

darkness of my dying mind...

Character of Alfredo, Pushing Daisies, season 1, episode 8 (“Bitter Sweets”)

...because the news had given up reporting them as political struggles, it meant that there was

now no way to understand why these terrible events were happening. And instead political

conflicts from around the world, from Darfur to Gaza, are now portrayed to us as simple

illustrations of the mindless cruelty of the human race. About which nothing can be done. And to

which the only response is ―Oh dear‖. It‘s like living in the mind of a depressed hippie.

Adam Curtis‟ short “Oh Dearism”, from Charlie Brooker‟s Newswipe

When I rise, the World will Tremble

Carved in Arabic onto the slab of jade protecting Timurlane‟s grave

Take me into the night and I‘m an easy lover

Take me into the fight and I‘m an easy brother

And I‘m on fire

Kasabian, Fire, from their album West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum

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…tragedy is what we make of it, that destiny need not be relentless, and that we can and indeed

must recover from betrayals.

From the review of “Madras on Rainy Days” (Samina Ali) by Mandira Sen, recovered from:

http://www.wellesley.edu/womensreview/archive/2004/12/highlt.html

I'm your only friend

I'm not your only friend

But I'm a little glowing friend

But really I'm not actually your friend

But I am

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch

Who watches over you

Make a little birdhouse in your soul

Not to put too fine a point on it

Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet

Make a little birdhouse in your soul

I have a secret to tell

From my electrical well

It's a simple message and I'm leaving out the whistles and bells

So the room must listen to me

Filibuster vigilantly

My name is blue canary one note* spelled l-i-t-e

My story's infinite

Like the Longines Symphonette it doesn't rest

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch

Who watches over you

Make a little birdhouse in your soul

Not to put too fine a point on it

Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet

Make a little birdhouse in your soul

I'm your only friend

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I'm not your only friend

But I'm a little glowing friend

But really I'm not actually your friend

But I am

There's a picture opposite me

Of my primitive ancestry

Which stood on rocky shores and kept the beaches shipwreck free

Though I respect that a lot

I'd be fired if that were my job

After killing Jason off and countless screaming Argonauts

Bluebird of friendliness

Like guardian angels its always near

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch

Who watches over you

Make a little birdhouse in your soul

Not to put too fine a point on it

Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet

Make a little birdhouse in your soul

(and while you're at it

Keep the nightlight on inside the

Birdhouse in your soul)

Not to put too fine a point on it

Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet

Make a little birdhouse in your soul

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch (and while you're at it)

Who watches over you (keep the nightlight on inside the)

Make a little birdhouse in your soul (birdhouse in your soul)

Not to put too fine a point on it

Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet

Make a little birdhouse in your soul

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Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch (and while you're at it)

Who watches over you (keep the nightlight on inside the)

Make a little birdhouse in your soul (birdhouse in your soul)

Not to put too fine a point on it

Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet

Make a little birdhouse in your soul

Song “Birdhouse In Your Soul” by They Might Be Giants, from their album Flood

I was utterly convinced there was a great spiritual power that we call God, Allah or Brahma,

although I knew, equally certainly, that my finite mind could never comprehend its form or nature.

Jane Goodall, in her book Reason for Hope

Every time man makes a new experiment he always learns more.

He cannot learn less.

Buckminster Fuller (American architect, 1895-1983)

A member of such vast importance as the human hand necessarily claims a high place in regard

to surgery. The hand is typical of the mind. It is the material symbol of the immaterial spirit, It is

the prime agent of the will; and it is that instrument by which the human intellect manifests its

presence in creation. The human hand has a language of its own. While the tongue demonstrates

the thought through the word, the hand realizes and renders visible the thought through the work.

This organ, therefore, by whose fitness of form the mind declares its own entity in nature, by the

invention and creation of the thing, which is, as it were, the mind's autograph, claims a high

interest in surgical anatomy; and accordingly the surgeon lays it down as a rule, strictly to be

observed, that when this beautiful and valuable member happens to be seriously mutilated, in any

of those various accidents to which it is exposed, the prime consideration should be, not as to the

fact of how much of its quantity or parts it can be deprived in operation, but rather as to how little

of its quantity should it be deprived, since no mechanical ingenuity can fashion an apparatus,

capable of supplying the loss of a finger, or even of one of its joints.

Joseph Maclise, in his book Surgical Anatomy,

chapter: The Surgical Dissection of the Wrist and Hand

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When their voices returned all they could sputter in broken phrases was if I knew what I was

doing and that would I not even remotely reconsider. But you know me – man of my word.

Resolute as a rock, I told them that, alas, ‗twas writ in stone. And that it was perhaps best for both

of us. And, you know, stuff like that which only men with iron in their souls will say. Or some such

nonsense anyway.

In other words, I‘ll see you around elsewhere.

Excerpt from an article in Times of India (sometime around July 2007)

All of our cleaners are from Philippines. All our Maids are insured and bonded, therefore you don‘t

need to worry about them.

Advertisement for a maid service

[Removed] Maid Service will help you solve your house problems in terms of cleaning.

Advertisement for a maid service

... a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated

imagination...

In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed...I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures

extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors.

Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann, in his 1979 autobiography LSD, My Problem Child.

Hofmann inadvertently inhaled a compound derived from a crop fungus that went by the

name of lysergic acid diethylamide or LSD-25. Hence, Hofmann became the first man to go

on an acid trip.

He subsequently went on to take LSD hundreds of more time, in order to continue his

research on the chemical.

English speaking computers

A poster stuck on a voltage box advertising for computer lessons (India, Bombay, 2007)

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They had suffered from the most terrible of all delusions. They believed themselves to be

virtuous, and in the end were destroyed by the evil beings they had drawn into existence.

Civilisation, BBC television series, by Kenneth Clark; on the various revolutions that had

taken place in European nations for the fight for freedom.

Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow

vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing

as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves.

Bill Hicks (American comedian)

Medicine is my lawful wife, but literature is my mistress. When I'm bored with one, I spend the

night with the other.

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), Russian writer, dramatist, and doctor

I told him to write poetry – not for telling – not even for seeing – poetry to throw away. For poetry

is the mathematics of writing and closely kin to music. And it is also the best therapy because

sometimes the rubies come tumbling out.

John Steinbeck in a letter to Robert Wallsten (February 19, 1960)

There are days when solitude, for someone my age, is a heady wine that intoxicates you with

freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat

your head against the wall.

Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette

It is old age, rather than death, that is to be contrasted with life. Old age is life's parody, whereas

death transforms life into a destiny: in a way it preserves it by giving it the absolute dimension.

Death does away with time.

Simone de Beauvoir

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When your skin is the only thing you feel truly proud of, it's become a prison in itself. A cell of

cells. Whatever the colour.

Charlie Brooker, in the article “Charlie Brooker’s Screenburn: Inside the Aryan

Brotherhood”, The Guardian, 26 June 2010, link

Rarely did they smile as the camera clicked. But within the classic white frame of the Polaroids,

everything about their new life in Los Angeles seemed idyllic: the scores of pigeons, the dancing

fountain, the buildings reaching for the sky.

It showed those back home how far they had come; it proved that they had made it.

Photo Tradition is Coming to a Stop, article in Los Angeles Times by Esmeralda Bermudez

I don't know who you are. Please believe. There is no way I can convince you that this is not one

of their tricks. But I don't care. I am me, and I don't know who you are, but I love you.

I have a pencil. A little one they did not find. I am a women. I hid it inside me. Perhaps I won't be

able to write again, so this is a long letter about my life. It is the only autobiography I have ever

written and oh God I'm writing it on toilet paper.

I was born in Nottingham in 1957, and it rained a lot. I passed my eleven plus and went to girl's

Grammar. I wanted to be an actress.

I met my first girlfriend at school. Her name was Sara. She was fourteen and I was fifteen but we

were both in Miss. Watson's class. Her wrists. Her wrists were beautiful. I sat in biology class,

staring at the picket rabbit foetus in its jar, listening while Mr. Hird said it was an adolescent

phase that people outgrew. Sara did. I didn't.

In 1976 I stopped pretending and took a girl called Christine home to meet my parents. A week

later I enrolled at drama college. My mother said I broke her heart.

But it was my integrity that was important. Is that so selfish? It sells for so little, but it's all we have

left in this place. It is the very last inch of us. But within that inch we are free.

London. I was happy in London. In 1981 I played Dandini in Cinderella. My first rep work. The

world was strange and rustling and busy, with invisible crowds behind the hot lights and all that

breathless glamour. It was exciting and it was lonely. At nights I'd go to the Crew-Ins or one of the

other clubs. But I was stand-offish and didn't mix easily. I saw a lot of the scene, but I never felt

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comfortable there. So many of them just wanted to be gay. It was their life, their ambition. And I

wanted more than that.

Work improved. I got small film roles, then bigger ones. In 1986 I starred in "The Salt Flats." It

pulled in the awards but not the crowds. I met Ruth while working on that. We loved each other.

We lived together and on Valentine's Day she sent me roses and oh God, we had so much.

Those were the best three years of my life.

In 1988 there was the war, and after that there were no more roses. Not for anybody.

In 1992 they started rounding up the gays. They took Ruth while she was out looking for food.

Why are they so frightened of us? They burned her with cigarette ends and made her give them

my name. She signed a statement saying I'd seduced her. I didn't blame her. God, I loved her. I

didn't blame her.

But she did. She killed herself in her cell. She couldn't live with betraying me, with giving up that

last inch. Oh Ruth. . . .

They came for me. They told me that all of my films would be burned. They shaved off my hair

and held my head down a toilet bowl and told jokes about lesbians. They brought me here and

gave me drugs. I can't feel my tongue anymore. I can't speak.

The other gay woman here, Rita, died two weeks ago. I imagine I'll die quite soon. It's strange

that my life should end in such a terrible place, but for three years I had roses and I apologized to

nobody.

I shall die here. Every last inch of me shall perish. Except one.

An inch. It's small and it's fragile and it's the only thing in the world worth having. We must never

lose it, or sell it, or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.

I don't know who you are. Or whether you're a man or a woman. I may never see you or cry with

you or get drunk with you. But I love you. I hope that you escape this place. I hope that the world

turns and that things get better, and that one day people have roses again. I wish I could kiss

you.

Valerie

From V for Vendetta, by Alan Moore

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I know there‘s no way I can convince you this is not one of their tricks. But I don‘t care. I am me.

My name is Valerie. I don‘t think I‘ll live much longer, and I wanted to tell someone about my life.

This is the only autobiography that i‘ll ever write, and – God – I‘m writing it on toilet paper.

I was born in Nottingham in 1985. I don‘t remember much of those early years. But I do

remember the rain. My grandmother owned a farm in Tottlebrook, and she used to tell me that

God was in the rain.

I passed my eleven plus, and went to a girl‘s grammar. It was at school that I met my first

girlfriend. Her name was Sarah. It was her wrists – they were beautiful. I thought we would love

each other forever. I remember our teacher telling us that it was an adolescent phase that people

outgrew.

Sarah did.

I didn‘t.

In 2002 I fell in love with a girl named Christina. That year I came out to my parents. I couldn‘t

have done it without Chris holding my hand.

My father wouldn‘t look at me. He told me to go and never come back. My mother said nothing.

I‘d only told them the truth. Was that so selfish? Our integrity sells for so little, but it is all we really

have.

It is the very last inch of us.

And within that inch, we are free.

I‘d always known what I‘d wanted to do with my life, and in 2015 I started my first film: The Salt

Flats.

It was the most important role of my life. Not because of my career, but because that was how I

met Ruth. The first time we kissed, I knew I never wanted to kiss any other lips but hers again.

We moved to a small flat in London together. She grew scarlet Carsons for me in our window

box. And our place always smelt of roses.

Those were the best years of my life.

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But America‘s war grew worse and worse and eventually came to London.

After that there were no roses anymore. Not for anyone.

I remember how the meaning of words began to change. How unfamiliar words like ―collateral‖

and ―rendition‖ became frightening. When things like Norsefire and the articles of allegiance

became powerful. I remember how different became dangerous.

I still don‘t understand it: why they hate us so much.

They took Ruth while she was out buying food. I‘ve never cried so hard in my life. It wasn‘t long

until they came for me.

It seems strange that my life should end in such a terrible place.

But for three years I had roses – and apologised to no-one.

I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch.

But one.

An inch.

It is small and it is fragile, and it is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it

or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.

I hope that - whoever you are - you escape this place. I hope that the world turns, and that things

get better.

But what I hope most of all is that you understand what I mean when I tell you that even though I

do not know you, and even though I may not meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you: I

love you.

With all my heart.

I love you.

Valerie.

From the film V for Vendetta, by the Wachowski brothers

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Occasionally there will be a news report that 30 insurgents were killed in this place, 20 Taliban

defeated in that place, but this is a surreal conflict, a narrative without clear beginnings and

endings, without substantiation. High explosive is zooming back and forwards, so the enemy is

certainly there, but go to the position from where they have been firing and there is usually

nothing to be seen. Once, we arrived at a compound from where there had been firing and found

four glasses and a teapot set out on a tray; the tea in the pot was still hot enough to drink. But

you don't see anything, not a thing. I never even saw a blood trail. It's like a ghost war.

Sean Smith in The Guardian, "Three months on the frontline with troops in Afghanistan",

Monday 17 August 2009

It is the feel of a class no longer comfortable with its own values and its power, confused and

adrift in a wider world. Enormous changes were happening all around them which they can only

dimly glimpse through the bubble of their own experience.

Adam Curtis (in his blog), in the post Kabul: City Number One Part 5, 13 November 2009.

About the interview of a British hippie girl on a trail from Afghanistan to India (interview

takes place on a rooftop in Delhi)

That's how it is on this bitch of an earth.

Samuel Beckett, Irish writer

You don't have sunlight in your guts.

Dr. Ben Goldacre, in Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe (on Gillian McKeith‟s ridiculous

„scientific‟ methods of analysing peoples‟ diets)

Ignorance is like cholera. It cannot be controlled by the individual alone: it requires the organised

efforts of society.

Dr. Ben Goldacre quotes Sir Muir Gray, director of the NHS National Electronic Library For

Health, in his article "What's wrong with Dr. Gillian McKeith PhD?" Muir Gray is addressing

in the Royal College of Physicians, at a conference discussing how to free up access to

medical academic knowledge for the public

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What with phone calls, texts, emails and Coulson tweets, that two-to-five-second period spent

typing search terms into a soothing white screen was one of the only relaxing lulls in my day. I

didn't realise it at the time but, compared to Google Instant, it feels like a slow walk through a

calm meadow.

My attention span was never great, but modern technology has halved it, and halved it again, and

again and again, down to an atomic level, and now there's nothing discernible left. Back in that

room, bombarded by alerts and emails, repeatedly tapping search terms into Google Instant for

no good reason, playing mindless pinball with words and images, tumbling down countless little

attention-vortexes, plunging into one split-second coma after another, I began to feel I was

neither in control nor 100% physically present. I wasn't using the computer. The computer was

using me – to keep its keys warm.

Charlie Brooker, in his article “Google Instant is Trying to Kill Me”, September 13 2010,

The Guardian

The loveliest trick of the Devil is to persuade you he does not exist.

Charles Baudelaire

Everything I touch turns into robots.

Jason Christie, in his poem King Midas

In the great temple at Benares... beneath the dome which marks the center of the world, rests a

brass plate in which are fixed three diamond needles, each a cubit high and as thick as the body

of a bee. On one of these needles, at the creation, God placed 64 disks of pure gold, the largest

disk resting on the brass plate, and the others getting smaller and smaller up to the top one. This

is the tower of Bramah. Day and night unceasingly the priests transfer the disks from one

diamond needle to the other... When the 64 disks shall have been this transferred from the

needle on which at the creation God placed them to one of the other needles, the tower, temple,

and Brahmins alike will crumble into dust, and with a thunderclap the world will vanish.

The New Turing Omnibus, A.K. Dewdney, pg. 364

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A sheet of paper is an obviously limited space on which to create; one might say, in current

computer argot, that paper has limited memory.

Icons of Graphic Design, pg. 52, Steven Heller & Mirko Ilic, 2nd

Edition, 2008

The world‘s great religions have nurtured their respective icons because they serve as

touchstones and embody the faith. Transforming the iconic concept into applied art, certain key,

memorably charged images – sometimes abstract, but not logos or trademarks per se – serve to

aid recognition.

Icons of Graphic Design, pg. 54, Steven Heller & Mirko Ilic, 2nd

Edition, 2008

I felt only night within me and it was then that I conceived the new art, which I called

Suprematism.

Kazimir Malevich, Russian artist, in his book The Non-Objective World, 1927. Malevich

described the inspiration which brought about the powerful image of the black square on a

white background

The Machine Age of the 1930s inspired artists and designers to project into the world of

tomorrow. Although the graphic possibilities were limitless, the common trope was the robotic

figure, quite often set against a prescient skyscraper landscape. These artists saw the future and

it was their own time.

Icons of Graphic Design, pg. 60, Steven Heller & Mirko Ilic, 2nd

Edition, 2008

He watched her for a long time and she knew that he was watching her and he knew that she

knew he was watching her, and he knew that that she knew that he knew; in a kind of regression

of image that you get when two mirrors face each other and the images go on and on and on in

some kind of infinity.

Robert Pirsig, Lila

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To see a World in a Grain of Sand,

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.

William Blake

Once upon a midnight dreary, long we pondered weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of translation lore.

When our system does translation, lifeless prose is its creation;

Making verse with inspiration no machine has done before.

So we want to boldly go where no machine has gone before.

Quoth now Google, "Nevermore!"

Official Google Research Blog, post titled “Poetic Machine Translation”, by Dmitriy

Genzel, 05 October 2010, link: http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2010/10/poetic-

machine-translation.html

Despite all the trappings of luxury and fame, he was a kind and quiet man, living only for science.

Essential Calculus: Early Transcendentals, James Stewart, Chapter 4, pg. 208, on Joseph-

Louis Lagrange

Without type there is no graphic design. Type is a vessel for most ideas. But without variety in

typographic style there are simply words. Type is as symbolic as it is functional. Even the most

neutral of all typefaces, Helvetica, represents the clarity, economy and universality of an

independent age.

Icons of Graphic Design, pg. 130, Steven Heller & Mirko Ilic, 2nd

Edition, 2008

I‘d done it before

(and doubtless I‘ll do it again,

sooner or later)

woke up with a head on the pillow beside me – whose? –

what did it matter?

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Good-looking, of course, dark hair, rather matted;

the reddish beard several shades lighter;

with very deep lines around the eyes,

from pain, I‘d guess, maybe laughter;

and a beautiful crimson mouth that obviously knew

how to flatter…

which I kissed…

Colder than pewter.

Strange. What was his name? Peter?

Simon? Andrew? John? I knew I‘d feel better

for tea, dry toast, no butter,

so rang for the maid.

And, indeed, her innocent clatter

of cups and plates,

her clearing of clutter,

her regional patter,

were just what I needed –

hungover and wrecked as I was from a night on the batter.

Never again!

I needed to clean up my act,

get fitter,

cut out the booze and the fags and the sex.

Yes. And as for the latter,

it was time to turf out the blighter,

the beater or biter,

who‘d come like a lamb to the slaughter

to Salome‘s bed.

In the mirror, I saw my eyes glitter.

I flung back the sticky red sheets,

and there, like I said – and ain‘t life a bitch –

was his head on a platter.

Salome, by Carol Ann Duffy

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You want to see the most beautiful thing I've ever filmed?

It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing. And there's this electricity in the

air, you can almost hear it, right? And this bag was just... dancing with me. Like a little kid

begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. That's the day I realized that there was this entire

life behind things, and this incredibly benevolent force that wanted me to know there was no

reason to be afraid. Ever.

Video's a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember... I need to remember...

Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it... and my heart is going to

cave in.

Character of Ricky Fitts to Jane Burnham in American Beauty (1999); written by Alan Ball.

I had always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die.

First of all, that one second isn't a second at all; it stretches on forever, like an ocean of time...

For me, it was lying on my back at Boy Scout camp, watching falling stars...

And yellow leaves, from the maple trees that lined my street...

Or my grandmother's hands, and the way her skin seemed like paper...

And the first time I saw my cousin Tony's brand new Firebird...

And Janie...

And Janie...

And... Carolyn.

I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me... but it's hard to stay mad, when

there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too

much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst...

...and then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like

rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life...

You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry...

You will someday.

Character of Lester Burnham, speaking his monologue after his death; in American Beauty

(1999); written by Alan Ball.

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There's a divide in the world's population. For every decent human being, there are three

soulless, terrible human beings. That is a fact.

Daniel O‟Brien, Bridalplasty: The New Reality Show That Proves We’re Doomed Cracked,

link

You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with

the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon,

international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag

him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‗Look at that, you son of a bitch.‘

Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell

People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about

how great love is, but that‘s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that

pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they‘re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to

wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they‘re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a

radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It‘s all in how you carry it. That‘s what

matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of

them, and hide them, you‘re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right

to feel your pain.

Jim Morrison

Janie's a pretty typical teenager. Angry, insecure, confused. I wish I could tell her that's all going

to pass, but I don't want to lie to her.

Character of Lester Burnham, in American Beauty (1999); written by Alan Ball.

'I betrayed you,' she said baldly.

'I betrayed you,' he said.

She gave him another quick look of dislike.

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'Sometimes,' she said, 'they threaten you with something -- something you can't stand up to, can't

even think about. And then you say, "Don't do it to me, do it to somebody else, do it to So-and-

so." And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to

make them stop and didn't really mean it. But that isn't true. At the time when it happens you do

mean it. You think there's no other way of saving yourself, and you're quite ready to save yourself

that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don't give a damn what they suffer. All

you care about is yourself.'

'All you care about is yourself,' he echoed.

'And after that, you don't feel the same towards the other person any longer.'

'No,' he said, 'you don't feel the same.'

George Orwell‟s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part III, Chapter 6

It seems to me that these beautifully tended war cemeteries tell something of a lie. With their

immaculately straight rakes and their uniform headstones they seem to suggest that all soldiers

are the same, and they are not [...] some probably were fearless, and many were utterly terrified.

And what Owen does, is to enable us to understand that war is about more than the strategies of

generals, or the manufactured animosities of politicians; his lasting memorial is to enable us to

understand the human experience of war, in short, the pity of war.

Jeremy Paxman, in BBC‟s Wilfred Owen: A Remembrance Tale

I find purer philosophy in a Poem than in a Conclusion of Geometry, a chemical analysis, or a

physical law.

Wilfred Owen

My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.

Wilfred Owen

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Happy are men who yet before they are killed

Can let their veins run cold.

Wilfred Owen, Insensibility

I, too, saw God through mud—

...

I have perceived much beauty

In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight;

Heard music in the silentness of duty;

Found peace where shell-storms spouted reddest spate.

...

You shall not hear their mirth:

You shall not come to think them well content

By any jest of mine. These men are worth

Your tears: You are not worth their merriment.

Wilfred Owen, excerpts from Apologia Pro Poemate Meo

Not doing, just being. Aware and watchful every second. And at the same time the abyss

between what you are for others and what you are for yourself. The feeling of dizziness and the

continual burning need to be unmasked. At last to be seen through, reduced, perhaps

extinguished. Every tone of voice a lie, an act of treason. Every gesture false. Every smile a

grimace. The role of wife, the role of friend, the roles of mother and mistress, which is worst?

Which has tortured you most? Playing the actress with the interesting face? Keeping all the

pieces together with an iron hand and getting them to fit? Where did it break? Where did you fail?

You were left with your demand for truth and your disgust. Kill yourself? No—too nasty, not to be

done. But you could be immobile. You can keep quiet. Then at least you‘re not lying.

Persona, Ingmar Bergman (1966)

Don‘t you think I understand? The hopeless dream of being.

Persona, Ingmar Bergman (1966)

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One thing that even the dim bulbs in the media should understand by now is that there is in fact a

class war going on, and it is the rich and powerful who are waging it. Anyone who does anything

that empowers the little people or that threatens the wealth and power of the plutocracy must be

destroyed. There is a reason for these clowns going after Think Progress and unions, just like

there is a reason they are targeting Wikileaks and Glenn Greenwald, Planned Parenthood, and

Acorn. . . .

You have to understand the mindset- they are playing for keeps. The vast majority of the wealth

isn't enough. They want it all. Anything that gets in their way must be destroyed. . . . And they are

well financed, have a strong infrastructure, a sympathetic media, and entire organizations

dedicated to running cover for them . . . .

I don't even know why we bother to hold elections any more, to be honest, the game is so rigged.

We‘re a banana republic, and it is just a matter of time before we descend into necklacing and

other tribal bullshit.

John Cole, More Fallout from Anonymous, Balloon Juice, http://www.balloon-

juice.com/2011/02/10/more-fallout-from-anonymous/

The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you'll never have.

Søren Kierkegaard

One can consider these images to be photographs of a strange, powerful, and fantastic

mathematical world—one that exists, regardless of how we perceive it, according to its own

special laws

Anatoly Fomenko (Russian mathematician)

Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a

lifetime, or at least a main era... The kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the

middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something,

maybe not, in the long run. But no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch

that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time in the world. Whatever it

meant. There was madness in any direction, at any hour. You could strike sparks anywhere.

There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were

winning. And that, I think, was the handle - that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old

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and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn‘t need that. Our energy would simply prevail.

There was no point in fighting - on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding

the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a

steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the

high-water mark - that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (film)

Driving past two charred corpses on the street, outside luxury car dealer with gleaming Peugot

sign.

The Guardian, via Twitter, on the conflict in Ivory Coast, 10th

April 2011,

https://twitter.com/#!/guardian_world

The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.

Character of Mark Antony in Act 3, scene ii of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from

pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say

which was which.

Animal Farm by George Orwell, Chapter 10

If it is aesthetically pleasing to your eye, then it is art.

My own statement, in response to the constant art criticisms

Alexander the Great, when conquering parts of India in 325 BC, frequently held conversations

with local sages and philosophers. In one of those, he asked them why they didn‘t show

enthusiasm for what he accomplished. The answer:

King Alexander, every man can possess only so much of the earth’s surface as this we are

standing on. You are but human like the rest of us, save that you are always busy and up to no

good, travelling so many miles from your home, a nuisance to yourself and to others. Ah well!

You will soon be dead, and then you will own just as much of this earth as will suffice to bury you.

via the Philip Spagnoli‟s blog, Human Rights, Etc. Link

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The current state of human affairs makes me feel depressed beyond belief.

In fact, things have never been any different. All of history, all of life, is nothing but an excruciating

cycle of victims and victimisers.

My own statement on my blog, I Am A Flippy Doodle

There is nothing new except what has been forgotten.

Marie Antoinette

I cannot take news, politics and discussions of human rights anymore. It is so depressing. Human

beings are selfish, greedy bastards, and given the right environment and state of mind, would not

think twice before hurting their fellow human being.

And this is not going to change no matter how many times we discuss it. I'd rather just blissfully

ignore everything and think about robots.

My own statement

The painter pondered the mournful puzzle of life demanding to be born and, once born,

demanding to be fruitful ... to multiply and to live as long as possible—to do all that on a very

small planet that would have to last forever.

Kurt Vonnegut in 2BR02B

If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold.

Posted on Metafilter forum, 1:41 PM on August 26, 2010. Link.

It‘s not God, it‘s Italian marble.

Mum

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Even if it means oblivion, friends, I'll welcome it, because it won't be nothing, we'll be

alive again in a thousand blades of grass, and a million leaves... out there in the physical

world which is our true home and always was.

The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman