Echoing Words

I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don’t want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I’d like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can’t be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.

Red
“Shawshank Redemption”

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

Theodore Roethke
The Waking

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot
The world forgetting, by the world forgot
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d

Alexander Pope
Eloisa to Abelard

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.

Mark Twain

You can’t stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.

Winnie the Pooh

You know I think I need a prison
In order to dream of being free

Blues Traveler
Go Outside & Drive

You must be the change you want to see in the world.

Mahatma Gandhi

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

William Butler Yeats
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

I sing myself to sleep at night
I sing myself to sleep

Cracker
Another Song About the Rain

To me, there is no greater act of courage than being the one who kisses first.

Mabel
“Mad About You”

An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.

Victor Hugo

I am fortune’s fool!

William Shakespeare
Romeo And Juliet

Everybody knows that it’s now or never
Everybody knows that it’s me or you

Leonard Cohen
Everybody Knows

To ski, however well or poorly, is a reminder - whatever one may for a long time have suspected - that one is alive, and that living is tremendous fun. There isn’t any other game to compare with it in the world.

James Riddell

And love would hold no charm
If it wasn’t for the pain.

Steve Earle
Halo ‘Round the Moon

You ain’t leadin’ but two things, right now: Jack and shit… and Jack left town.

Ash
“Army of Darkness”

Only the dead have seen the end to war.

Plato

I grow old… I grow old…
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

T.S. Eliot
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

e^iπ + 1 = 0

Leonhard Euler

Because it is there.

George Mallory

Eat, drink, and be merry
For tomorrow we die

Dave Matthews Band
Tripping Billies

Genius lives on, all else is mortal.

Andreas Vesalius

For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.

Aristotle

It’s just you and I, my friend

Bruce Springsteen
Streets of Philadelphia

One day an Englishman, a Scotsman, and an Irishman walked into a pub together. They each bought a pint of Guinness. Just as they were about to enjoy their creamy beverage, three flies landed in each of their pints, and became stuck in the thick head.

The Englishman pushed his beer away from himself in disgust.

The Scotsman fished the offending fly out of his beer, and continued drinking it, as if nothing had happened.

The Irishman picked the fly out of his drink, held it out over the beer, and yelled,
“SPIT IT OUT, SPIT IT OUT YOU BASTARD!!!!”