Echoing Words

Here’s to the roses and lilies in bloom,
You in my arms and I in your room.
A door that is locked, a key that is lost,
A bird and a bottle, and a bed badly tossed,
And a night that is 50 years long.

Herb Caen

But me I just bear up to my bewildered best
And some folks even seen the bear in me

Steven Fromholz
Bears

A guy is walking into his house when he spots a snail on his doorstep. He nonchalantly picks up the snail and tosses it across his driveway.

A couple months have gone by when the guy hears a slight knocking on his front door. He opens the door, and sure enough, there’s the snail looking up at him asking,
“What the hell was that all about?!”

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?

Mahatma Gandhi

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—-and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.”

Lewis Carroll
The Walrus and the Carpenter

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Martin Luther King Jr.

“Where are we?”

“Middle of nowhere.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s no better place to be.”

Carl Hiaasen
Stormy Weather

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

Winston Churchill

All in all we all are

Nirvana
All Apologies

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush.
It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.

Robert Maynard Hutchins

I have to remind myself that some birds aren’t meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up DOES rejoice. Still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they’re gone. I guess I just miss my friend.

Red
“Shawshank Redemption”

Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.

Amelia Burr
A Song of Living

A moose may walk backwards at night, but it is better than being slapped on the belly with a wet trout.

Anonymous

DO NOT BECOME A CYNIC. That is a sure sign of physical and spiritual atrophy. A disorder that can be readily avoided with regular doses of fresh air, adrenaline, and vast wilderness. This is a reminder to those planners and knowers of things that there is still wonder . Still challenge. Still spaces to climb, bike, and swim beyond the reach of radio waves. For those of you who would seek adventure, take heart; There are yet places that speak to our souls. And to the dim-eyed know-it-alls, they will say this: I HAVE A SURPRISE FOR YOU. Just Do It.

Nike ad

My Friend shall forever be my Friend,
and reflect a ray of God to me

Henry David Thoreau
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

Excuse me while I kiss the sky

Jimi Hendrix
Purple Haze

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iness

e.e. cummings
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What did the snail say as he rode on the back of a turtle?
Wheeeeee!

That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

Neil Armstrong

Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds.

Albert Einstein

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W.H. Auden
Funeral Blues

Liberties are not given, they are taken.

Aldous Huxley

We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, ‘O me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless… of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?’ Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

John Keating
“Dead Poets Society”

Listen to the MUSTN’TS, child
Listen to the DON’TS
Listen to the SHOULDN’TS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON’TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVES
Then listen close to me -
Anything can happen, child
ANYTHING can be.

Shel Silverstein
Where the Sidewalk Ends

When there’s nothing more I’d like to do
Then come in close and hear you laugh

Morphine
Whisper