I really love when things are written or said well. I came accross this list while i was rummaging through some old documents hidden in a fake can of spray and wash. The assignment was for my poetry class we were told through the course of the semester to compile 50 quotes that were deep fried gold. These are a few of my favorites:
"I am tired of hoping for the next best thing. It is like the paradox of hedonism: when you're not looking for a good time, it seeks you out like a badger and bites your ass in the night." --Joseph Griffin
"They hung a sign up in our town: IF YOU LIVE IT UP, YOU WON'T LIVE IT DOWN..." --Tom Waits
“If you tolerate this, then your children will be next.” --Manic Street Preachers
“The optimist builds himself safe inside a cell and paints the inside walls sky-blue and blocks up the door and says he’s in heaven.”--D. H. Lawrence
"…I saw him looking up at her
and what she was doing
the way that the eyes of saints are painted
when they are looking up at God
when he is doing something remarkable,
something that identifies him as God."
--Billy Collins from his poem Love
“… I am sure that there is a greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean unpatched clothes, then to have a sound conscience.” --Henry David Thoreau
“What good is eternity to a man who can’t make good use of fifteen minutes?” --Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Ultimate hope and daily grumpiness are clearly not reconcilable.”--Neal A. Maxwell
“To believe in something and not to live it is dishonest.” -- Mahatma K. Ghandi
“It seemed like only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I would shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed."
--Billy Collins from his poem On Turning Ten
“It had nothing to do with morality…I would go to the war—I would kill and maybe die—because I was embarrassed not to.” --Tim O’Brien’s character in The Things They Carried
“ …a soldier who smiled as asked if I’d been traveling long. I said, “Yes,” just so I wouldn’t have to say anything else.” --Albert Camus' The Stranger
“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons…” --Speaker in T. S Eliot’s The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock
“...as if you could kill time with out injuring eternity.” --Henry David Thoreau
Hound--
ReplyDeletenice nice list..very listy.
did I really say "when you not looking"? If so, let me be requoted by saying "when you're not looking"..
It may have been my Kluver-Bucy syndrome kicking in again.
Jone
touche.
ReplyDeleteBut why the floating people?
ReplyDeleteThis is one of my favorite quotes from Stanley Kunitz given when he was 99 years old.
ReplyDeleteUpon being asked whether he would be interested in going to a Midnight Erotic Poetry event:
"All poetry is erotic. Well, except political poetry. That's definitely not."
Nice quotes. I'd love to see the whole list. You should send it to me. But this time really send it to me. Not those close up photos of your butt crack like last time. More like every time I ask you to send me something.
ReplyDeleteI love my husband's soul.
ReplyDeleteYes, why the floaters?? Do tell!
ReplyDeleteDarren, I know you typed that under Lindsey's name. You're a sad pathetic man. We know that Lindsey loves you. How you ever found someone that cool is still beyond me.
ReplyDeleteHere's how the real Lindsey would have said that:
"I love my husband's soul...at least, the part that hasn't been completely eclipsed in nerdery, that little sliver of soul that doesn't read comic books under the covers and doesn't mouth the lines of Star Wars as we watch it."
Hi, Lindsey.
Rene Magritte adds to the list, I'd venture...sort of conversational. A Conversation, even..
ReplyDeleteexactly Joe...the Rene Magritte painting is called "Conversation", so i thought it fitting that it typify the post.
ReplyDeleteand they are floating because they are wizards.
Soooooo wizards float through the air. There is a perfectly good road in front of them. It seems to me that it would take more energy to float then to walk. Why not wizard walk the road?
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree with shamus in his last comment. That is pretty pathetic darren. Dont deny it, I've seen you mouth the lines and practice fight moves in my living room when you were living with me. May 2005 - August 2005.
I checked my Grimoire, and for lower level wizards, the wizard-walk drains MP much faster than a simple levitation spell. Plus, if you have found the Feather of Lothsbaine, it gets like 100X easier.
ReplyDeleteFYI xpost
and your blog just made me type the word "evangr" to validate who I am. pretty damn rude...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteCarrying on a Conversation in mid-invocation is no trivial accomplishment - these are in fact high level wizards with MP to spare who are simply showing off for the crowd.
ReplyDeleteInteresting, I didnt know about the Feather of Lothsbaine.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, who floats these days? I cant think of any others besides these so called "wizards" who float.
Does the Feather of Lothsbaine work for flying or is it just for floating?
Feather of Lothsbaine is basically a charmed instrument of elven-forge that renders the possessor nearly weightless. Ergo: it is good for, say, avoiding the use of public thouroughfares (as the wizards in question did so aptly by combining the feather with a levitation spell), official wrestling match weigh-ins, and winning weight-related bets, which the wizard crowd is so wont to do in their spare time.
ReplyDeleteYou know the part in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" where Dokta Jones is trying to spell iehova by stepping on the greek letters? Well, when he almost falls through, he was originally heard to cry out "Marcus Brodie! Thats the last time you borrow my Lothsbaine"
Anyway. I made part of that up.
but it is best to be weary of the Ore of Thram whilst using the Feather...it will seriously thwart your attempts to hover anywhere, especially if the wielder rolled a 37.
ReplyDeleteAnswer me these 3 questions.
ReplyDeleteWhat is this Ore of Thram you speak of?
Who possess the Ore of Thram?
Is there anything that can overcome the Ore of Thram?
The Ore of Thram, whilst not as rare as the Feather of Lothsbaine, is a set of cursed platemail armor that engulfs the wearer in an Aura of Burden (-3 to all Levitation rolls) and is known for being quite snug around the hips*.
ReplyDeleteThe last time I saw a set was after felling a level 70 Harpy Queen we found lurking behind a local Walmart. One of my friends, lured by it's illustrious appearance, haphazardly donned the armor immediately after raiding the nest.
Suffice to say, his saving roll against the armor's effects was pitiful, and he was earthbound for a week or two.
*(p.1532, "Undesirable Trappings" - Grimoire)
But that is a nice quote list.
I am speechless by the nerdery (and methinks this is too light a descriptor) that abounds. Coming from one of the biggest *actual* nerds (second only to Dan), I raise my glass to you all...except for Lindsey, to whom I raise my glass for loving a nerd, as she could never be one.
ReplyDeleteAs such - the Sword of a Thousand Truths is a far better/epic example of elven-forge craft - "created to Salzman's specifications". I only mention it because not all wizards float (see: war wizards). Also, most wizards avoid bowling hats, unlike their floating cousins.
Great list Darren - I love finely written thoughts as well...and some of yours could easily be on there too (in my of course completely removed and objective opinion).
The funny thing is that Darren used to tell me he had the Feather because he always looked like he was floating. But then I realized it was just his freakishly small feet covered by his pants cuffs. I can't figure out how he keeps his balance. It's like two legs ending in air hockey paddles.
ReplyDeleteThere are few things that can truly unite a people like a tangential discussion about enchanted artifacts.
ReplyDelete^^So true...not much else can do that except, say, a Level 3 uniting spell.
ReplyDeleteYou guys are weird.
ReplyDeleteGentlemen,
ReplyDeleteYour comic musings have completely missed the mark! Clearly, it is a picture of Mary Poppins and her chimney-sweep boyfriend out on a Sunday stroll. Their levitation aided, no doubt, by "a spoonful of sugar"!
Feather of Lothsbaine is one thing but Dick Van Dyke has no quarter here
ReplyDeleteI find it hard to believe that one Mary Poppins would take Bert on a nice Sunday afternoon stroll in the high desert on a cloudy day. Furthermore Mary Poppins would need the Feather of Lothsbaine to travel with Bert to the high desert, without it it would be impossible for her to cover such a distance. In the end, not enough power for that magical nanny.
ReplyDeleteGentlemen,
ReplyDeleteYou can quote from as many self-published texts as you would like. Still...Mary is clearly a woman in love, therefore no feather is needed! Sometimes that sweet, sugary feeling of adoration for another is all it takes to "raise" us to heights far greater than we previously thought possible. Certainly to heights that are infinitely above that well-worn road we previously trod and also were certain we would never leave.
wait wait wait...so you are sayin' that the picture is like, a metaphor or sumthin, and that the wizards wasn't reely floatin?
ReplyDeleteah geez.
After reading all 26 comments and making my own, I knew it would be Chaucer Arafat that would deem it neccessary to put me in my place. I just didn't think the chastisement would be so eloguently said.
ReplyDeleteMetaphorically speaking(oh horrors), I do believe the power of love can "raise" us to greater heights than the well-trod road of selfishness we seem so often to walk.
Frankly speaking, when I looked at the painting I thought of Mary Poppins and her chimney sweep and contemplated by what method they were floating. MY conclusion, be it ever so metaphorical, was that love(not the Feather of Lothsbaine) was the method used to raise them high above the lonely road below. She seems(at least to me)to be a woman whose love and concern for others "lifted" both her and them. Oh, was I being metaphorical again?????
Mary Poppins? Possible.
ReplyDeleteLove? Possible.
But not likely. As you look at the portrait you can clearly see that neither "Mary Poppins and the Chimney sweep boyfriend" are holding hands. He does not have the power that she has, so he would need to rely on her strength and magic to keep them afloat.
A closer look show that this is two men, perhaps wizards (please refer to above comments). Looking at the clothing you can see that they are wearing trouser which look nothing like a long skirt which Poppins wore. One has a cane or a staff, much like wizards carry and notice the broad shoulders on both figures.
Anonymous, you still have yet to answer the question of what they are doing in the high desert on a cloudy day? London is not a desert and nor is there a desert found in Europe. Its clear to me that they are far from 17 Cherry Tree Lane.
Are not holding hands, NOT holding hands.
ReplyDeleteExcuse me
Some people who look at the Mona Lisa, do not see a smile at all.
ReplyDeletewell, you may be right anonymous. I guess the real question is...
ReplyDeleteMost definitely! But maybe not the same magic that you believe in.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I have nothing to add to this conversation of wizards, feathers and hip huggers, I will say that only the anonymity of the world wide web is shielding you from a tragic beatdown from the football team.
ReplyDelete