Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I
And hailed the earth with such a cry
As is not heard save from a man
Who has been dead, and lives again.
About the trees my arms I wound;
Like one gone mad I hugged the ground;
I raised my quivering arms on high;
I laughed and laughed into the sky...

— Excerpt from Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem "Renascence", 1912.

Posted: March 31, 2010

Today, I'm asked to fight a war where the shovel outweighs the rifle. In which people swap addresses with the enemy to meet when it's all over. Plus the cat we found with a note from the Germans, "Good luck, comrades!" I was ordered to arrest the cat for high treason...

— Le général, played by Bernard Le Coq in the film Joyeux Noël.

Posted: January 2, 2010

I wonder if leafs feel lonely when they see their neighbors falling?

— John Muir's melancholic journal entry.

Posted: September 28, 2009

I can't accept the world the way it is. It's too horrible, but I have to try to change it. My choice is either take it or do something about it — or try to do something about it. I think we have an obligation to those who have died and to those have survived. To try, never to stop trying to make it a more humane world. And that's what I do and I ask others to do the best they can — try. And if we try hard enough and long enough, I'm confident it will come about.

— Ben Ferencz, Nuremberg Trials prosecutor and lifetime activist, in the film The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court

Posted: July 16, 2009

You know a lot when you loose something. When you got it, you don't know it.

— Isaiah Zagar from the film "In A Dream". Para mi viejo Moises, que siempre te estaré recordando.

Posted: April 26, 2009

Daniel my brother you are older than me
Do you still feel the pain of the scars that won't heal
Your eyes have died but you see more than I
Daniel you're a star in the face of the sky

Daniel is traveling tonight on a plane
I can see the red tail lights heading for Spain
Oh and I can see Daniel waving goodbye
God it looks like Daniel, must be the clouds in my eyes

— Daniel, by Elton John

Posted: February 15, 2009

As conditional love begins to lose its interest for us, so, too, may a number of the things we pursue in order to secure that love. If wealth, esteem and power buy us a kind of regard that will last only so long as our status holds, but conversely we are destined to end our lives defenseless and disheveled, longing to be comforted like small children, then we have an unusually clear reason to concentrate our energies on those relationships which will best survive the erosion of our standing.

— Alain de Botton, from his book "Status Anxiety"

Posted: February 8, 2009

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Posted: January 21, 2009

Culture is the word we have assigned to the force that assists us in identifying which of our many sensations we should focus on and apportion value to.

— Alain de Botton, in his book "The Architecture Of Happiness".

Posted: January 7, 2009

Much of the vitality in a friendship lies in the honoring of differences, not simply in the enjoyment of similarities.

— James L. Fredericks on friendship from his ecumenical study titled "Inter-religious Friendship: A New Theological Virtue" (Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Vol. 35, 1998)

Posted: December 24, 2008

Poetry belongs not to those who write it, but to those who need it.

— Mario Ruoppolo (played by Massimo Troisi in the film Il Postino)

Posted: December 21, 2008

The end is nothing. The road is all.

— Willa Cather

Posted: September 2, 2008

The best thing about being a shepherd... is that you can reason with the stars. City people never look at the stars. But shepherds, in the country, at night, it's different. Sometimes I look at the stars and reason. Does the world really exist? I don't think the world exists, it's just pretend. I think that when I look at a dead rabbit, too... the eyes always look alive... and they watch me, like when I look at a picture. I saw a picture once. And wherever I went... the picture was always looking at me.

— D'Azzo the shepherd in the film L'Uomo delle stelle (The Star Maker)

Posted: August 24, 2008

The idea that you, and only you, can do your job is a delusion of grandeur rather than a reflection of reality

— Bruce Weinstein, from his article "The Ethics of Taking Vacations".

Posted: August 6, 2008

All I wanted is the best for our lives, my dear
And you know my wishes are sincere
What's to say for the days I cannot bare

— A Sunday Smile by Beirut

Posted: July, 30, 2008

Under conditions of peace, the warlike man attacks himself.

— Friedrich Nietzsche. Presented during the P.O.V. film "The Ballad Of Esequiel Hernandez"

Posted: July 1o, 2008

Through the years you've always loved me
And my life you've tried to save
But now I shall slumber sweetly
In a deep and lonely grave

Kiss me mother kiss your darlin'
Lay my head upon your breast
Throw your loving arms around me
I am weary let me rest

— I Am Weary Let Me Rest as performed by the Cox Family

Posted: June 4, 2008

As you see yourself today, I was once seen. As you see me today, one day, you too will see yourself.

— Adela Escoto. Que aquellos angeles de que tanto me hablabas te reciban con brazos abiertos.

Posted: June 1, 2008

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 remembering Alfred Stieglitz.

Posted: April 30, 2008

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

— Misato Katsuragi on 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).

posted: March 16, 2008

Bid me discourse. I will enchant thine ear.

— William Shakespeare from the film Shall We Dance.

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.

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"] from 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.

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).

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 Intoxicados (Otro Dia en el Planeta Tierra, 2005).

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)/

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)

Posted: 2007

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).

Posted: 2007

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).

Posted: 2007

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])

Posted: 2007

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)

Posted: 2006

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

- Ojibwe Saying

Posted: 2006

... 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).

Posted: 2006

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).

Posted: 2006

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

Posted: 2006

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)

Posted: 2005

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

Posted: 2005