|
Quotations by Thomas Burnett Swann can be found at The Old Gods Never Die. The trouble with normal is it always gets worse. Bruce Cockburn, "The Trouble With Normal" He called his work research, but it was actually free, uncontrolled fantasy. Kawabata Yasunari, Snow Country This phantasm of a partitioned woman began to haunt him, and not only in his dreams. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie Do diddle di do, Poor Jim Jay Got stuck fast In Yesterday. Walter de la Mare, "Jim Jay" Memory is a strange bell-- Jubilee and knell-- Emily Dickinson (cited at the opening of Clear Light of Day) "[...] the empty oblivion of nostalgia [...]" Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie And, little friends, if you are especially dirty, and never, never wash behind your ears, and only brush your teeth once a day, and don't watch the tri-D, and say four bad words a day for a month, and dream always of the lost far magic places, some day you will wake up, early on a cool autumn morning, and you will be a Romany! Miklos, in Norman Spinrad's "Last of the Romany" Water is the strong stuff It carries whales and ships But water is the wrong stuff Don't let it get past your lips It rots your boots It wets your suits Puts aches in all your bones Dilute the stuff with whiskey Aye, or leave it well alone Robin Williamson, "Rab's Last Woolen Testament" This world is full of enchantment for those with eyes to see. From Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus If Ms. Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very exciting for us. Reverend Beebe, speaking of Lucy Honeychurch's piano playing, in Merchant & Ivory's A Room with a View Axiom 1: People are different from each other. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet If ever to the moment I shall say: Beautiful moment, do not pass away! Then you may forge your chains to bind me, Then I will put my life behind me... Faust, in Faust (trans. David Luke) A man of great imagination forces the world to become a richer place. Baron Munchhausen, in Munchhausen (1943) What's real and what's true aren't necessarily the same. Saleem Sinai, in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children She carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can. Nick Carraway in F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby It's about us, Carmen. It's about our lives, uh--well, not our lives, but--ok, this: Heraclio trying to explain One Hundred Years of Solitude to his wife, Carmen, in Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories (Love and Rockets) I am most contented to heed the piper's call. Ruthann Friedman, "Piper's Call" Though he was an idler who might as well spend his time in the mountains as anywhere, he looked upon mountain climbing as almost a model of wasted effort. For that very reason it pulled at him with the attraction of the unreal. Kawabata Yasunari, Snow Country I always feel rejuvenated by a touch of adventure. Baron Munchausen, in Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen Remember you walked with your lover Like a gypsy and a gypsy queen Under the stars where the sign was seen Under the stars where the leaves were green Under the stars where the sign was seen Robin Williamson, "When You Find Out Who You Are," I Looked Up He won't get far on hot air and fantasy. The Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson, in Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five I was Claudia's first love Wisteria & clove her scents Our love it had just started When to Mexico I went A love that should have blossomed Was dead within the year But I send her my love and a bang on the ear The Waterboys, "And a Bang on the Ear" 
"What a handsome...mustache...Shall we...dance?" Venus, to Baron Munchausen, in Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen I escaped last night from the memory county jail. Motorcycle Mama, in "Motorcycle Mama" by Neil Young "'Or,'" she said--the thought suddenly struck her--"'something like two caravans, two caravans that meet at a single gate, coming from different far places, going toward different far places; mixing it up, jostling through that gate, for a time one caravan only, and then, on the far side, unwinding again toward their destinations, though perhaps with some few having changed places; a saddle bag or two stolen; a kiss exchanged...'" Ariel Hawksquill in Little, Big I want you as the dream Not the reality. Kate Bush, "Never Be Mine"  ... ...
I wish that I were in her bed Where I have been before Her arms entwined around my neck and her fine breasts rising so I wish her door was bolted fast With two locks and a chain and she and I inside to lie Safe from the wind and rain Safe from the wind and rain. Robin Williamson, "By Weary Well" That was another world then That was another time You can never go back to the place where love is blind You can never go back to the scene of a perfect crime "Scene of a Perfect Crime" by Concrete Blonde And who ever would've thought The books that you bought Were all I loved you for. "Here's Where the Story Ends" by The Sundays All the amazement that's left in the world is microscopic. Babette, in Don DeLillo's White Noise Once a philosopher, twice a pervert. Voltaire's response on being invited to participate for a second time in an orgy. Once a philosopher; twice a better philosopher. Fayaway's philosophy on life & experience It's almost like a coat of arms: two people making love with paper bags over their heads, not even any eyeholes. Would that be good or bad? Unnamed narrator of Surfacing by Margaret Atwood Disclosure: Fayaway & I have tried this, and the results are neither good nor bad, but different enough that we've tried it again several times. Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. What I was given was the thing you can't earn, and can't keep, and often don't even recognize at the time; I mean joy. Genly Ai in The Left Hand of Darkness "Hear song, forget song, try to remember song while adding your personal wrinkles, bingo!" How The Holy Modal Rounders added their characteristic satirical tone to old standards Oh let me take my chances on the waterbed. How I heard the lyric "Oh let me take my chances on the Wall of Death" by Richard and Linda Thompson But one man's jirigonza is another man's life. Junot D�az, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao One could do worse than be a swinger of birches. Robert Frost, "Birches" Don't lose your dinosaur. Dr. Robert Doback, in Step Brothers A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw "Kubla Khan," by Samuel Taylor Coleridge Disclosure: my wife Fayaway plays the plucked dulcimer. The river flows It flows to the sea Wherever that river goes That's where I want to be Flow river flow Let your waters wash down Take me from this road To some other town "Ballad of Easy Rider," by Roger McGuinn and Bob Dylan Curiosity did not kill this cat. Studs Terkel, commenting on his life-long desire to learn and his long life. Stop! I want that truck! Benedictine of Mitr�vishar on seeing a truck owned by S.E. Rykoff Food Service, whose motto was "Enjoy life...eat out more often!" It's impossible to reconstruct the real facts; I've told this story so many times the real facts have disappeared. Penn Jillette in Penn & Teller's How to Play With Your Food If singing were all that serious, frowning would make you sound better. Pete Seeger Exercise your daemons! Fayaway Sex is the most compressed set of circumstances that we've got. Everything is in that collision. Arthur Miller Q. I am master of a hunt and with the start of the new season I wonder what to do about those members who go off-piste in their hunting attire. One member has done a Simon Callow in Four Weddings and a Funeral and wears his �own� tartan coat. Another man has a green coat as worn by harriers. I am the master and I am in a red coat because I lead the field and need to be visible. The subscribers should be in sober black coats not least because they can cause confusion if they are mistaken for a bit of heather or a second master. How can they be tactfully made to toe the line? The Spectator, October 31 2007 We travel in the dark of the new moon A starry highway traced on the map of the sky Like lovers and heroes, lonely as the eagle's cry We're only at home when we're on the fly On the fly Rush, "Dreamline" I don't read fiction. My life is fiction. Shirley MacLaine Through the years, I have learned that there is no harm in charging oneself up with delusions between moments of valid inspiration. Steve Martin La susurrante vastedad Title of essay on Spanish American naturalism by Rosalba Campra (I can't read Spanish terribly well, but I do love the sound and sense of that phrase!) Release the negative spirit! Rebis (formerly Negative Man), in Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol Never look behind you--your past might be gaining on you. Fayaway They say there is nothing new under any sun. But if each life is not new, each single life, then why are we born? Ketho, in The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin I read a book of Einstein�s, in which he said that anyone who�s not lost in rapturous awe at the power and glory of the mind behind the universe is as good as a burnt-out candle. And I thought, �Oh, I�ve found my theologian, what a wonderful thing.� Madeleine L'Engle You fear them [the spirits of the dead] because you fear death, and rightly: for death is terrible and must be feared. And life also is a terrible thing, and must be feared and praised. Ged, in The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin Marlin: Crush, wait. How old are you? Crush: Hundred and fifty, and still young, dude! Rock on! Finding Nemo And in the end, the love you take Is equal to the love you make. Paul McCartney The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. Victor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning If the birds and the flowers had tried me by their standard, I should not have been found wanting. Henry David Thoreau I am still having a happy childhood. George Mikes, on being asked by a therapist if he had had a happy childhood. I used to walk alone, Every step would seem the same. Cat Stevens, "I Think I See the Light" Some things are too important to be taken seriously. Oscar Wilde Hooray for Peter Pumpkinhead! XTC, "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" I am a deadhead; I think free food is great. An anonymous deadhead (thanks to Kurt for spotting this one!) When I die, I'm leaving my body to science fiction. Steven Wright I'm not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays. God, in "Wind Up," by Jethro Tull I'm too busy to make money. Louis Agassiz I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. Alice Walker, The Color Purple If it's a paradox, it's probably true. Isaac Bonewits, Real Magic Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; re-made all the time, made new. Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven I can smell the *CHEM*-icals! Thomas Dolby, "She Blinded Me with Science" I need you like I need the stars above. Bruce Cockburn, "January In The Halifax Airport Lounge" Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits. Robert Louis Stevenson So, one night I found myself gazin' at the stars, which look more beautiful the worse you feel; God must've created 'em so we can console ourselves. Jos� Hern�ndez, The Gaucho Mart�n Fierro, trans. Frank G. Carrino, Alberto J. Carlos, & Norman Mangouni Life gets better the older you grow, until you grow too old of course. Keri Hulme, The Bone People I don't know But I've been told You never slow down You never grow old Tom Petty, "Mary Jane's Last Dance" Pick out something you'd like for yourself, but send it to me. Advice on gift giving from Benedictine of Mitr�vishar Find your inner tortoise. Carl Honore, In Praise of Slowness There are no words to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language that they learned of the elves in the days when all the world was wonderful. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit Bright morning stars are rising Bright morning stars are rising Bright morning stars are rising Days are breaking in my soul Traditional (though I was introduced to this lovely song by The Incredible String Band) Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now Bob Dylan, "My Back Pages" If the Lord made anything better than a woman, he kept it for Himself. Jerry Lee Lewis Real beauty lies not in the physical appearance, but in the powerful atomic grip of creatures from other planets. Real love lies not in what is done and known, but in what that is done and revealed years later. "A Mother's Love," by Vand�l Drumm�nd You just realize how much useless knowledge there is in the universe. You might as well just make it up. Paul Giamatti, standing in The Museum of Jurassic Technology, cited in Los Angeles Magazine, January 2005 You define who you are by your reaction to Falstaff...Those who do not care for Falstaff are in love with time, death, the state, and the censor. Harold Bloom Cowboys never lie, they just improve the truth. Sign in The Horseshoe Cafe, Wickenberg, Arizona Surely, every time one turns about, the world proves to be a more marvelous place than it was the moment before Taupin, in The Little Country, by Charles de Lint But it was the best butter! The Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll Where do you hide your llama? Quasi Centerstar We are made of dreams and bones. David Mallett, "The Garden Song" Yo s� quien soy, respondi� Don Quijote. Alonso Quijana/Don Quixote, in Don Quijote, by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra Am I myself or just another freak? Steely Dan, "Fire in the Hole" We are liable to lose the best of life if we do not know how to tingle. Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature It is my prerogative to howl! Overheard at a summer solstice festival, Oakland, CA, 1981. What would Munchausen do? Bumper sticker People say you are mad. Do you know they say this? People said you were fine when you went off to war. Now they think you're mad because you sing like the birds, chase butterflies, and look at flowers. I think they have it backwards. Clare, to (the future) St. Francis of Assissi, in Brother Sun, Sister Moon Everything You Know Is Wrong! Title of album by The Firesign Theatre I get drawn to things that don't make any sense, and I learned early on not to resist that. Danny Elfman, during his interview with Jim Svejda on KUSC, January 15, 2004 Material profit. Increase of knowledge. The augmentation of the complexity and intensity of the field of intelligent life. The enrichment of harmony and the greater glory of God. Curiosity. Adventure. Delight. The reason that Genly Ai went to Gethen, in Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness I have never been able to understand why all things serious should have to be taken seriously; and, especially, all the time. Ivan T. Sanderson No, I�m a satyrist. I want to have cloven hooves and leap around amongst the greenery, pop out and grab young virgins. Terry Gilliam, during an interview with Movie Maker Magazine. My life has been the poem I would have writ, But I could not both live and utter it. Henry David Thoreau Remember you walked with your lover Like a gypsy and a gypsy queen Under the stars where the sign was seen Under the stars where the leaves were green Under the stars where the sign was seen Robin Williamson, "When You Find Out Who You Are," I Looked Up Now he was undergoing a spiritual crisis, peopled by religious images, paschal lambs, china doves, Virgins in heavenly blue cloaks, gold paper stars, the three Magi, angels with wings like swans, the Ass, the Ox, and a terrible St. Denis, who appeared to him in his dreams with a great space between his shoulders, walking hesitantly as if looking for something he had lost. Alejo Carpentier, "Journey Back to the Source" Researchers have already cast much darkness on the subject, and if they continue their investigations we shall soon know nothing at all about it. Mark Twain To be perpetually talking sense runs out the mind, as perpetually ploughing and taking crops runs out the land. The mind must be manured, and nonsense is very good for the purpose. James Boswell
If those absolutely important things are ignored, of how we speciated, how we adapted to the planet, then we're going to lose something precious. There won't be anywhere to go and no place to come home to. Alan Lomax And this our life exempt from public haunt Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones and good in every thing. Duke Senior in As You Like It 2.1.15-17 [Harry Joy] grew into a tall thin boy who had been at first what children (or at least the children in that town) called "Gooby", by which they meant someone who is a little slow and introverted and is likely to stand at odd places with his mouth open staring at things that no one would look at twice. Peter Carey, Bliss I know that the human condition is something at once horrible and marvelous. Estamos muy mal hechos, pero no estamos terminados. We are very badly made, but we are not finished. Eduardo Galeano, The Progressive Interview This is the space age; we are here to go. William S. Burroughs Hume regularly attended church services conducted by a sternly orthodox minister. A friend once suggested to the skeptical philosopher that he was being inconsistent in going to listen to such a preacher. Hume answered, "I don't believe all he says, but he does, and once a week I like to hear a man who believes what he says. The universe is wider than our views of it. Henry David Thoreau Maude: "I like the feel of soil, don't you? And the smell. It's the earth. 'The earth is my body. My head is in the stars.' Who said that?" Harold: "I don't know." Maude: "I suppose I did." Harold and Maude [I]magine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, "...interesting hole I find myself in - fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? ... must have been made to have me in it." Douglas Adams, Salmon of Doubt We do not know one millionth of one percent about anything. Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his so-called scientific knowledge. Thomas Alva Edison We will pray with those old Druids They drink fermented fluids Waltzing naked thru the woo-ods And that's good enough for me "Old Time Religion", public domain, this verse presumably added by Pete Seeger, Precious Friend, Arlo Guthrie/Pete Seeger, (New York: Warner Bros. Records, 1982). "Why is Moses like Napoleon?--They both have beards, except Napoleon!" Old riddle, cited in On the Track of Unknown Animals by Bernard Heuvelmans (New York: Hill and Wang, 1958) 115. Baby you're the only one that's ever known how To make me wanna live like I wanna live now Tom Petty, "The Waiting"
A scholar is just a library's way of making another library. Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea. I don't want to have the terrible limitation of people who live only of what might make sense. I don't. I want an invented truth. Clarice Lispector
A visitor to Niels Bohr's country cottage, noticing a horseshoe hanging on the wall, teased the eminent scientist about this ancient superstition. "Can it be that you, of all people, believe it will bring you luck?" "Of course not," replied Bohr, "but I understand it brings you luck whether you believe or not." from The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes, Clifton Fadiman, General Editor (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1985) 68. Asked whether she believed in ghosts, Mme du Deffand replied, "No--but I'm afraid of them." from The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes, Clifton Fadiman, General Editor (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1985) 176. Too tall to live, too weird to die! Official motto of Chicken Boy! Financial consideration played only a small part in the satisfaction John Muir derived from life. On one occasion he declared that he was richer than magnate E.H. Harriman: "I have all the money I want and he hasn't." from The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes, Clifton Fadiman, General Editor (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1985) 176. I am moved by strange sympathies; I say continually "I will be a naturalist." Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals Why should we grope among the dry bones of the past? The sun shines today also. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature To the learned it is given to be learnedly foolish. Thomas Hobbes
� 2007 Hermester Barrington 
Back to The Cenotaph of the Jackalope!
This page hosted by  Get your own Free Home Page |