Como te veis, un dia me vistes. Como me veis, un dia te vas a ver.

— Adela Escoto describing the passage of time; from youth to old age.

I think Alfred Stieglitz's epitaph, he told me he wanted, that ought to be ideal it said; "Here lies Alfred Stieglitz. He lived for better or for worse, but he is dead for good."

— Ansel Adams joking and remembering his friend Alfred Stieglitz when asked what would be the photographer's ideal epitaph

Posted: April 30, 2008

Acts of men are better than acts of God. Tell me how to stop that thing!

— Misato Katsuragi defies everything to stop an incoming Angel attack on the animated series Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Posted: March 17, 2008

You know what Lenin said about Beethoven's Appasionata? "If I keep listening to it, I won't finish the revolution." Can anyone who heard this music, I mean truly heard it, really be a bad person?

— Georg Dreyman (played by Sebastian Koch in the film The Lives Of Others) describing the ironic beauty of experiencing art under Communist rules and philsophies.

posted: March 16, 2008

Bid me discourse. I will enchant thine ear.

— William Shakespeare

Posted: January 25, 2008

Voy calle abajo,voy calle arriba,
no me rebajo ni por la vida.
Me llaman calle y ese es mi orgullo,
yo sé que un día llegará,
yo sé que un día vendrá mi suerte,
un día me vendrá a buscar
a la salida un hombre bueno
pa to la vida y sin pagar
mi corazón no es de alquila.

— Me Llaman Calle by Manu Chao. A song describing the tragic life of women in prostitution and their eternal hope for a better tomorrow.

Posted: January 13, 2008

Do you remember, the letter that Mike Ranney wrote me? You do? You remember how I ended it? "I cherish the memories of a question my grandson asked me the other day, when he said, 'Grandpa were you a hero in a war?'. Grandpa said no. But I served in a company of heroes."

— Major Richard Winters [506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, U.S. 101st Airborne Division, "Easy Company"] remembering a letter from his friend M. Ranney during the television series Band Of Brothers

Posted on: October 14, 2007

Lord Almighty,
I feel my temperature rising
Higher higher
It's burning through to my soul
Girl, girl, girl
You gonna set me on fire
My brain is flaming
I don't know which way to go

— Burning Love by Elvis Presley; celebrating the 30 year anniversary of his death

Posted On: August 16, 2007

If there's magic in boxing, it's the magic of fighting battles beyond endurance, beyond cracked ribs, ruptured kidneys and detached retinas. It's the magic of risking everything for a dream that nobody sees but you.

— Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris (played by Morgan Freeman in the film Million Dollar Baby) describes the magic in boxing.

Posted On: August 1, 2007

I'm normally not a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me Superman.

— Homer Simpson seeking help from "above".

Posted On: July 17, 2007

I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

— Frida Kahlo, in a letter to Ella Wolfe, "Wednesday 13," 1938

Posted On: July 4, 2007

One day, my mother said to me, "If you become a soldier, you will be a general; if you become a monk you'll end up as the pope." However, I became a painter and now I am Picasso.

— Pablo Picasso

Posted On: July 2, 2007

Whether you think you can or you can't, either way you are right.

— Henry Ford

Posted On: June 26, 2007

Para odiar hay que querer
para destruir hay que hacer
y estoy orgulloso de quererte romper
la cabeza contra la pared

Para dejar hay que beber
para morir primero hay que nacer
siento ganas nuevamente de tirarme a tus pies
y llevarte a mi morada otra vez

Si lo sembrás lo recogés
y si esperás vas a entender
cuando las cosas salen como no las espero
la vida me hace más guerrero

— Nunca Quise by Los Entoxicados (Otro Dia en el Planeta Tierra, 2005) describing the balance of love and life.

Posted On: June 17, 2007

A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they are not dead, really. They're just backing away from life. Reach out. Take a chance. Get hurt even. But play as well as you can. Go team, go! Give me an L. Give me an I. Give me a V. Give me an E. L-I-V-E. LIVE! Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room.

— Maude (played by Ruth Gordon [1896-1985] in the film Harold and Maude, 1971) describes living life.

Posted On: June 11, 2007

Ideas do not need weapons, if they can convince the great masses.

— Fidel Castro, Speech on August 3, 1985

Posted on: April 23, 2007

En Septembre '63
kids are gone, and so is Louise.
Ontario, they did go
near la ville de Toronto
Now my tears, they roll down, tous les jours
And I remember the days, and the promises that we made
Oh Louise, ma jolie Louise, ma jolie Louise

— Jolie Louise by Daniel Lanois (Acadie, 1989)

What's a house? It's a metaphor, right... for the mind? Isn't that what's all about? You've got to tear down the old before you build the new. You've got to loose your mind before you find it. The universe whacked my house, but it was really whacking my mind. Let go. Give Up. Throw out all those old plans and stick your face in the here and now. Whether this works out, or it doesn't. I'm a free man.

— Chris Stevens (played by John Corbett in Northern Exposure, 1990-1995) describing the loss of his old home as he remodeled it

So little? So little did you say? Oh,... why there is nothing else if there's applause. I've listened back stage to people applaud. Its like,... like waves of love coming over the foot lights and wrapping you up. Imagine, to know every night that different hundreds of people love you. They smile. Their eyes shine. You please them. They want you. You belong. Just that alone is worth anything.

— Eve Harrington (played by Anne Baxter in All About Eve , 1950) describes what being a theatre actress is all about

When people speak of ideas that revolutionize society, they do but express the fact that within the old society, the elements of a new one have been created.

– Karl Marx (with Friedrich Engels from Das Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei [1848])

Ah yeah, can you see them?
Out on the porch.
Yeah, but they don't wave.
But I see them, round the front way. Yeah.
And I know, and I know. I don't want to stay.
Make me cry...

— Yellow Ledbetter, by Pearl Jam (Recorded March - April 1991 in London)

Sometimes I go about in pity for myself, and all the while, a great wind carries me across the sky.

- Ojibwe Saying

... And music finished as no music is ever finished. Displace one note and there would be diminishment. Displace one phrase, and the structure would fall. It was clear to me. That sound I had heard in the Archbishop's palace had been no accident. Here again was the very voice of God! I was staring through the cage of those meticulous ink-strokes at an absolute, inimitable beauty.

- Antonio Salieri (played by F. Murray Abraham in Amadeus, 1984) describing the beauty of his adversaries music.

It's a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have.

- Will Munny (played by Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven, 1992) describes what it mean to kill a human being.

In our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.

- Aeschylus

I come bearing an olive branch in one hand, and the freedom fighter's gun in the other. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.

- Yasser Arafat, (Speech to the United Nations General Assembly, New York (Nov. 13, 1974)

Design is the method of putting form and content together. Design, just as art, has multiple definitions; there is no single definition. Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that's why it is so complicated.

- Paul Rand on design