In
deference to my clever friends and the intelligent, witty, or nice things
I've heard or said, I decided it is due time I collaborated the joy in one
hodgepodge of quotations that I like.
Friends I quoted: Josh Mather (i.e. j0sh), Katie Bosserman, Caleb Winn,
Scott Tuggle, Andrew Hoag, Jordan Cherry, Jaymie Simpson, Adam Goldsmith,
Michael Benavidez, Brett Stuart
"Don't
reach for the stars because face it: you won't reach them. Reach instead
for the top of the tree in your front yard. It takes work to climb, true,
but it's not going to make you look like an idiot jumping up and down in
your front yard in the middle of the night."
- Adam Goldsmith
"Be
who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter, and
those who matter don't mind."
- Dr. Seuss
"The most important things are the hardest things to say. They lie
too close to wherever your secret heart is buried. You may make
revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a
funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought
it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it."
- Stephen King
"Too many people, now, are politely cold to each other. The vast
majority of people you talk to are not 'fine'. I'm not requesting that the
world suddenly become socially boiling as strangers vent their feelings on
each other; my desire is that my friends would feel invited to talk to me,
and habitually do so. Because if they don't, and I don't, then how do we
grow anything but apart?"
- Jaymie Simpson
"If enough people think of you as a bastard you tend to rise to the
bottom."
- Scott Tuggle
"What do other people see when they look in the mirror? Do they like
the face looking back at them? They should."
- me (Thoughts from a Road Trip)
"Wants
may be 'easily satisfied' either by producing much or desiring
little."
- Marshall Sahlins
"The capitalism is hurting my face."
- Andrew Hoag, regarding a BAD commercial trying to use a Matrix
theme to advertise Pepsi
"Honestly, I think that the fast food industry in America is
fattening us up, and one day they're going to eat us all."
- Caleb Winn
"this weekend was so typically made of christmas materials.
consumerism. malls and parties and troubles and money-spent on things
nobody needs. you can feel special without a pair of jingle-bell socks or
a box of Sees candy. really, you can."
- Lila Rose
"We
went to research, and i clicked on one link, and looked at the screen for
like... maybe ten seconds and then said 'this isn't fun... we can do this
later...'"
- Katie Bosserman and Hillary Light on debate research
"Brink--That the status quo hangs in some delicate balance, on the
brink of happy-land and sad-land."
- Jeff Edwards
THREE BAD JOKES BY KATIE MCGREGOR BOSSERMAN
so these three debaters are stranded on a desert island and they find a
lamp on the beach and they rub it. and a genie comes out and gives them
one collective wish so they argue about whether their island is a
democracy or a dictatorship until the genie gets bored and leaves and then
they decide it's an anarchy and kill each other.
so a debater and an IEer are in an airplane when it starts to go down. so
the debater, because he thinks he's a freaking genius decides to try to
land the plane but he crashes and they die, whereupon, the IEer recites a
very dramatic piece about death, receives his applause, and dies with
grace and melodrama.
a debater, an IEer, and a judge are sitting in a bar and the debater
orders a beer and the judge says "hey! aren't you underage!?"
and the debater looks at the IEer, and the IEer looks at his ballot, and
they kill the judge and drink his soul instead of beer.
"It
is the best for all tame animals to be ruled by human beings. For this is
how they are kept alive. In the same way, the relationship between the
male and the female is by nature such that the male is higher, the female
lower, that the male rules and the female is ruled.’ Females are weaker
and colder in nature, and we must look upon the female character as being
a sort of natural deficiency. A woman is as it were an infertile male; the
female, in fact, is female on account of inability of a sort, it lacks the
power to concoct semen out of the final state of nourishment … because
of the coldness of its nature...The reason is that the female is as it
were a deformed male; and the menstrual discharge is semen, though in an
impure condition; i.e. it lacks one constituent, and one only, the
principle of Soul."
- Aristotle, Politica, ed. Loeb Classical Library, 1254 b 10-14.
"Today's lesson is called: 'Polka dots: She can, He can't'"
- Jordan Cherry
"Girls spend the first 12 years of their lives having tea parties and
small talk and boys spend it making gun noises. So by the time they're 12,
girls know how to communicate and boys make really good gun noises."
- Brett Stuart
"I
am so cool, you could keep a side of meat in me for a month. I am so hip,
I have difficulty seeing over my pelvis."
- Zaphod in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
"i like laughing at my own jokes. first of all, i'm laughing.
second of all, i have an ego trip because MAN am i funny!"
- me
"you're zesty like Italian dressing"
- Michael Benavidez (regarding me)
"And then I had a horrible thought: what if all of [the world's
issues] (...even corporate American obesity) happened just so I could
learn something. Then I apologized to the world and fell asleep."
- Jaymie Simpson
"It's
for the touch, for the touch. After all we are only human beings down here
and we could do with a lot more praise and comfort than we actually get.
Earthling reassurance - it's in permanently short supply, don't you think?
Be honest, brother. Lady, now tell the truth. When was the last time a
fellow-Earther let you rest your head on their heart, caressed your cheek,
and said things designed to make you feel deeply okay? It doesn't happen
often enough does it.. We'd all like it to happen a lot more often than it
does. Can't we do a deal? Oh boy (i bet you're thinking), that
head-on-heart stuff, whew, could i use a little of that."
- Martin Amis
"It's the people that make it a great time ... The friends we make
here and now will probably not be the same friends we have in 20 years,
but they will give to us, and we will give to them, memories, experience,
and encouragement that will be with us forever."
- Caleb Winn (regarding the NCFCA debate league)
"[I concluded] in my own mind that each person we meet imprints
themselves into our personalities. Each relationship is, in the loosest
(and no doubt incorrect) meaning of the word, predestined. And underneath
the happiness we derive from other relationships, the ones we lose will
always still retain their marks on us."
- Jaymie Simpson
"It
is amazing how long a year looks when you are starting at its nose and how
short it looks when you can only see its retreating behind."
- Scott Tuggle
"It's not so much that we're afraid of change or so in love with the
old ways, but it's that place in between that we fear...it's like being
between trapezes. It's Linus when his blanket is in the dryer.
There's nothing to hold on to."
- Manly Ferguson
"...I realized, I'm becoming my future. One day, I'm going to grow up
and I'm going to own a toaster. And it's going to be My Toaster. And I'm
like whoa." ["Wow. I've never really thought of it like that.
And one day, I'm going to have a blender."] "That's what I
thought of next! And then I thought, and I'm going to have a washing
machine. And then I pretty much stopped, because I'm content with a
toaster, a blender, and a washing machine."
- Jaymie Simpson
"I want to be all places at once. I want to be here in today
and there in tomorrow and yesterday. I want to never lose my high
school life and I want to hurry and gain my adult life and I'm liking my
college life a lot. A little discontent because I'm so happy
everywhere. I guess that should shine 'contentment!' all across the
wake of my day, but it doesn't. It's a perpetual tug-o-war between
teams Past and Future because I can't be in two places at once."
- me
"times remembered are the hardest times of all...sometimes..."
- Lila Rose
"Consider that the perpetual admonition of Nature to us is, The world
is new, untried. Do not believe in the past. I give you the universe new
and unhandled every hour. You think in your idle hours that there is
literature, history, science behind you so accumulated as to exhaust
thought and prescribe your own future and the future. In your sane hour
you shall see that not a line has yet been written; that for all the
poetry that is in the world your first sensation on entering a wood or
standing on the shore of a lake has not been chanted yet. It remains for
you, so does all thought, all object, all life remain unwritten
still." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are
confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of
life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination
is still the thief of time."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"'we are confronted with the urgency of now.' now now now! memories
of right now pass me by. And the beauty of this day says don't you
ever forget to remember me because you were too busy remembering the ones
that had passed before."
- me
"do
you know what is neat? when you're driving around and there are cars
right? like....HUNDREDS of cars. each with people. some with 1 people.
some with 5 people. some with like 2 and a half people. and they are all
going somewhere. every single one of those damn cars is going somewhere.
just like you. literally millions of people living a life...just like you.
and going somewhere…just like you. but going somewhere else…not
like you. THAT is the definition of cool."
- j0sh Mather
"We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in
retrospection."
- Anais Nin
"Which determines your priorities: your current obligations or the
legacy you hope to leave?"
- Some Silly Online Personality Test
"One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic."
- Josef Stalin
"The greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on
the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war
with your peers and yourselves! Be robbers and conquerors as long as you
cannot be rulers and possessors."
- Friedrich Nietzsche: The Gay Science
"After reading from the LA Times that a young man had shot himself in
the head with his own shotgun off the 105 freeway the day before, I came
to my dead-end decision. And that I had but one choice in life: and that
was to live or to die. And as I knotted my tie, looked into the mirror,
and walked out of my door and into the morning toward work, my mind was
made up with every step I took … I took … I took."
- Brainwash Project
"funny thing about pain... it hurts."
- Katie McGregor Bosserman
"Life is like a puzzle and how sad I feel for those who are missing
the last piece..."
- Scott Tuggle
"I read the obituaries sometimes. I always feel bad for the young
ones. Yesterday I read about a 17-year-old, a 5-month-old, and this
32-year-old bachelor. The other were all amazingly aged. One lady was 95!
Crikes. They all had one lifetime, though. Makes me wonder...would I
consider my life a 'lifetime'? Or is it incomplete?"
- me (Thoughts from a Road Trip)
"If your life was a book, would you read it? and if you wouldn't...
why not?"
- me (Thoughts from a Road Trip)
"If you are in the meat market, at some point you are gonna get mad
cows disease."
- Dominic Monaghan (on the pitfalls of dating)
"That thing, that moment when you kiss someone and everything around
you becomes hazy. And the only thing in focus is you and this person. And
you realize that that person is the only person that you are supposed to
kiss for the rest of your life. And for one moment, you get this amazing
gift, and you wanna laugh and you wanna cry. Because you feel soo lucky
that you found it, but so scared that it will go away all at the same
time."
- from the movie Never Been Kissed
"promise to the pretzel girl
on the off chance that one day you're walking through the woods, and
happen upon a witch, who happens to turn you into a pretzel, i promise to
spend the rest of my life trying to transform myself into a salt-craving
deer
...just to keep you company, of course"
- Michael Hedricks
"Listening to them on the phone tonight...talking and listening. My
dad tells her of when he talked to her mom tonight. 'I told her, if you've
ever wondered if your son-in-law loves your daughter, you don't need to
because he does. God made us one and for the past 9 days, the other half
of me has been in Africa. And it's hurt.'
I didn't like to hear some of this. The part about how love is difficult.
The part about how love has to let go."
- me
"Tonight as I was talking to her, I realized that truly he does need
her and I need to learn to love him more and trust him more. Because
while of part of his heart is hers, all of it, including that part, is
mine. That is what gives me the freedom and security to let him
go."
- me
"Deep down I'm content. Life screws up, right? There is no way to
avoid it. We just have to keep loving and loving and loving and never ever
must we give up that love. Love hurts, more than hate, more than any pain
in the entire world. Being loved and losing that love. Loving and losing
that love. Being loved and hurting the one who loves or the one you
love...
The hope is that someday love won't hurt. Until that day we must cast away
caution and release regret and then love until we die, literally.."
- Lila Rose
"When it comes to relationships,
I'm the dumbest one.
And I don't mean just with girls,
I mean with everyone."
- Relient K "Chapstick, Chapped Lips, and Chemistry"
"I
have been to the edge and back! I have prevailed! No longer will I
fear for I am the Master! Bow to me, all you sniveling worms! Yes, bow
to my grace, my cunning, my courage under intense fire! Bow to my superior
intellect!!!
That was a test of the Emergency Monarch System. If this were a real
monarchy, you would have already been beheaded. Thank you."
- Katie Bosserman
"When I'm king, I'm going to pay midgets to follow behind me in funny
costumes. Then when I point to them, they'll dance... The true sign of an
aristocracy is having your own midgets."
- Jordan Cherry
"ooo...
i was thinking today. the weather was really nice, right? and i was
thinking 'i love today!' and i decided that i wanted to marry 'today'...
but 'today' is a period of time and i can't marry a period of time. so i
decided that i really loved the sun. and i wanted to marry it. but then i
realized that the sun is hot and i don't want to be close to it, i just
want to be exactly this distance from it for the rest of my life so i
think i want the sun to fall madly in love with me, but, i dunno, attempt
to kill me or something so that the government would put a restraining
order on it, so it would be as close to me as it could which would be this
distance. and that would work."
- Katie McGregor Bosserman
"you know what else is weird to think about? what happens to all the
birds? I mean there are literally hundreds. thousands. you see them
freaking everywhere. but are there dead birds everywhere? no. only a
couple a day on the road. and maybe one behind the library. but that's
only 3 a day out of hundreds. thousands. that's rather
disturbing..."
- j0sh Mather
"I think my cat is trying to threaten me. When we forget to feed her,
she leaves dead animals on our porch. I have many thoughts on this
subject, but I have narrowed it down to two theories: Either she is
threatening us, and the mole she left us the other day was saying 'This is
you, if you don't feed me.' Or she is making rodent sacrifices to the
great katiegod in the hopes that I will have mercy on her and feed her
yummy cat food. I don't understand either of these mentalities; I tried
cat food once, and it wasn't overly tasty."
- Katie McGregor Bosserman
"A catbox is a little box filled with sand. now... if i were a cat, i
would see a box of sand, and thing "ooh! sandbox! that was nice of
them!" and build castles and junk. but a cat knows instinctively
"oh, they must want me to crap in that!" how!? cats are
amazing"
- Katie McGregor Bosserman
"Whenever I see cows, they're always either eating, sleeping, or
between two pieces of bread."
- me (Thoughts from a Road Trip)
"I
can't complain, but sometimes I still do."
- Joe Walsh
"I'm not exactly high on jelly roll pens anymore but hey. They sure
look sexy."
- j0sh Mather
"How far is Luke’s?" "It’s right over there."
"It looks far." "Very far." "Maybe if we
concentrate really hard, our combined psychic powers will move it
closer." ... "I don’t think it’s working." "It’s
my fault, I’m not focusing." "Yes, that must be why we can’t
move a half a city block closer to us."
- Rory & Lorelai from the TV series The Gilmore Girls
"adding 'accidentally' adds humour and makes you hard to punish: 'why
are you so late!?' 'we accidentally stopped at taco bell'"
- Katie McGregor Bosserman
"Why can words be improper?
Maybe because they don't wear close-toed shoes."
- Lila Rose
"Maybe, sometime, when I'm feeling really depressed, I will write all
of my worries and e-mail them to nobody. Send them into oblivion, as it
were. It'd be really sweet and poetic. Except I'd get a bounce back
message. So much for beauty."
- Caleb Winn
"I feel guilty when I type "lol" without actually laughing
out loud. So I do laugh out loud, or chuckle, really, after typing it to
ex post facto justify myself."
- Caleb Winn
"I'd be into bulimia if it weren't for the whole vomiting
thing."
- Jordan Cherry
"I condemn homework because it promotes workaholism."
- Jordan Cherry
"Studies show that 90% of humans beings have low self-esteem because
they're utterly worthless."
- Jordan Cherry
"*sigh* another day kept safe from criminal influence."
- Jaymie Simpson
"When a motel advertises that they've got phones, you know the
place is a dump."
- me (Thoughts from a Road Trip)