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The Potter story is a fairy tale, plus a Bildungsroman,
plus a murder mystery, plus a cosmic war of good and evil, and there's almost no classic in any of those genres that doesn't
reverberate between the lines of Harry's saga. The Arthurian legend, the Superman comics, Star Wars, Cinderella,
The Lord of the Rings, the Chronicles of Narnia, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Genesis, Exodus,
the Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, they're all there. -Joan Acocella
Anybody knows you can conjure anything by the dark of the moon. -Tori Amos, Suede
Orchards are simple. A peach-tree says, 'I'm not growing for you. I'm growing because that's what I do.' You always hear
someone complaining about how dry their peach is and the peach says, 'It's not my fault you have no understanding for the
proper use of dry peaches.' -Tori Amos
It is only that my illusion is more real to me than reality. - Mary Antin, The Promised Land
Dear, never forget one little point: It's my business. You just work here. -Elizabeth Ardin, to her husband
To think and to be fully alive are the same thing. -Hannah Arendt
I believe in spontaneous bewitchments. -Antonin Artaud
Think about your feet with gratitude; look how far they carry you through life. -from an email from Astronet.com
The spiritual journey is one of continually falling on your face, getting up, brushing yourself off, looking sheepishly
at God, and taking another step. -Aurobindo
You're supposed to be too late for some things. -The talking skull, from Peter Beagle's The Last Unicorn
Damn! Why do people keep shifting my paradigms?!? -P.D.B.
Appeals to your community spirit might as well be addressed in Urdu to an emu, for all the effect they're going to have.
-Tom Ballard, Waiting for God
There are two kinds of truth, small truth and great truth. You can recognize a small truth because its opposite is a
falsehood. The opposite of a great truth is another great truth. -Niels Bohr
Learn to die and thou shalt learn how to live. There shall none learn how to live that hath not learned to die. -The
Book of the Craft of Dying
I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it. -Rita Mae Brown
I'm naming all the stars. . . But I've named them all the same name, and there's terrible confusion. I fear there may
be a duel. -Drusilla, from Buffy, the Vampire Slayer
Occasionally, I'm callous and strange. -Willow, from Buffy, the Vampire Slayer
The beauty of the female is the root of joy to the female as well as to the male, and it is no accident that the goddess
of Love is older and stronger than the god. -A.S. Byatt, Possession
[Judas] is the midwife of our salvation. -Joseph Campbell
These are my rules. I make them up. -George Carlin
The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success. -Carver
The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud. -Coco Chanel
In the darkest hour the soul is replenished and given strength to continue and endure. -Heart Warrior Chosa
I prefer my worry spread thin on a bit of crispy wheat bread, topped off lightly with a dab o' realism. -L.C.
All life is theater. We are all actors, you and I, in a play which nobody wrote and which nobody will see. We have no
audience but ourselves. . . . Some players would say that is the best kind of theater. -Gwion, in Susan Cooper's Silver
on the Tree
For ever and ever, we say when we are young, or in our prayers. Twice we say it, do we not? For ever and ever . . . so
that a thing may be for ever, a life or a love or a quest, and yet begin again, and be for ever just as before. And any ending
that may seem to come is not truly an ending, but an illusion. -Gwion, in Susan Cooper's Silver on the Tree
Besides what do I want to do with men? They have hair in their ears! - Lady Cottington
I never married because there was no need. I have three pets at home which answer the same purpose as a husband. I have
a dog which growls every morning, a parrot which swears all afternoon and a cat that comes home late at night. -Marie Corelli
Instead of having the rug pulled out from under your feet, learn to dance on a shifting carpet. -Thomas F. Crum
Went to Coney Island on a mission from God - Be back by five. -Jon Cryer
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| Morning Light by Friedrich |
Do not go gentle into that good night . . . go naked. -Sherri Daley
Who said we have to play by the rules? -A.D.
L'esprit de l'escalier. [Staircase wit. The witty response one thinks of only when one has left the drawing-room and
is already on the way downstairs.] -Denis Diderot
Latins are tenderly enthusiastic. In Brazil they throw flowers at you. in Argentina they throw themselves. -Marlene Dietrich
Never complain and never explain. -Benjamin Disraeli
Moral: there exist obsessive ideas, they are never personal; books talk among themselves, and any true detection should
prove that we are the guilty party. -Umberto Eco, Postscript to The Name of the Rose.
Do not feel entitled to anything you do not sweat or struggle for. -Marion Wright Edelman
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. -Albert Einstein
Overindulgence in something as delicate as love is to be found monstrously offensive in the eyes of the God of Love.
-Harlan Ellison
The voice of God, if you must know, is Aretha Franklin's. -Marianne Faithfull
Time is of no importance. Only life. -from the Fifth Element
The only difference between a professional and an amateur is that the professional knows not to say 'Oops.' -F.M.T.A.
A 'right to happiness.' You do not even have a right to life, let alone happiness. That you live, and thrive, is a gift.
A gift the gods did not confer on [others]. There are no 'rights,' only gifts. -Wil Somers, in Margaret George's The Autobiography
of Henry VIII
Humour is, indeed, the most civilised thing we have. It smooths all raw edges and makes the rest endurable. -Wil Somers,
in Margaret George's The Autobiography of Henry VIII
I had always thought peace was the absence of fear, the absence of pain or sorrow. Now I knew that peace was a thing
in itself, a presence that had its own shape, that displaced all other feelings. -Henry VIII, in Margaret George's The
Autobiography of Henry VIII
"If I UNdErStAnd ThIs 'rEAlItY' thINg cOrREctLY, OnlY OnE pErsOn cAn bE An IndIvIdUAl At A tImE. nO, wAIt, thAt'S wrONg
-- EvErYOnE's An IndIvIdUAl All Of thE tImE ExcEpT whEn thEY'rE the mOOIng mAsSEs mOst Of thE tImE bUt OnlY OnE pErsOn Is
AnY spEcIfIc IndIvIdUAl At AnY gIvEn tImE, rIgHT? sO rEAllY, I Am trUlY sOrRY If yOU fInd yOUrsElf mE tOnIgHT.
dON't dO AnYthINg I wOUldN't dO. . . " -The Joker in Batman/Joker: Switch #1, by Devin Grayson c. 2003 DC Comics.
Call me a sentimental fool, but to me, nothing says 'love' like flipping through the channels and seeing Miss Cleo's
big head screeching, 'Call me now!' Plus, judging by the commercials, Miss Cleo's predictions are uncannily accurate. Just
by looking at her cards, she can tell when a relationship is in trouble, when a job opportunity is coming someone's way and,
presumably, how many Aspen condominiums you can buy with $360 million. -David Grimes, "Psychic: Miss Cleo's predictions fell
short?" Winston-Salem Journal, 5 March 2002.
You're neither unnatural, nor abominable, nor mad; you're as much a part of what people call nature as anyone else; only
you're unexplained as yet - you've not got your niche in creation. -Radclyffe Hall, in The Well of Loneliness, 1928
Where do our thoughts go after we think them? -Anna van Tuyl, in Charles Harness' "The Rose"
"Science-" is simply a parasitical, adjectival, and useless occupation devoted to the quantitative restatement of Art.
Science is functionally sterile; it creates nothing; it says nothing new. The scientist can never be more than a humble camp-follower
of the artist. There exists no scientific truism that hasn't been anticipated by creative art. The examples are endless. -Ruy
Jacques, in Charles Harness' "The Rose"
It's all very nice to be able to read and write and swing about in trees when you're quite young, but after
all, one matures. -Anna van Tuyl, in Charles Harness' "The Rose"
We rarely get to prepare ourselves in meadows or on graveled walks; we do it on short notice in places without windows,
hospital corridors, rooms like this lounge with its cracked plastic sofa and Cinzano ashtrays, where cafe curtains cover blank
concrete. In rooms like this, with so little time, we prepare our gestures, get them by heart so we can do them when we're
frightened in the face of Doom. -Thomas Harris, Silence of the Lambs
We assign a moment to decision, to dignify the process as a timely result of rational and conscious thought. But decisions
are made of kneaded feelings; they are more often a lump than a sum. -Thomas Harris, Hannibal
We have a saying: If you go to Atlanta, the first question people ask you is, 'What's your business?' In Macon they ask,
'Where do you go to church?' In Augusta they ask your grandmother's maiden name. But in Savannah the first question people
ask you is 'What would you like to drink?' - Miss Mary Harty qtd. in John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and
Evil
The best thing to hold unto in life is each other. -Audrey Hepburn
If you obey all of the rules, you miss all of the fun. -Katherine Hepburn
There's nothing wrong with not being able to whistle, especially if you're a fish. -Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh
Some people will laugh out loud. others will give you quizzical looks. Choose your friends accordingly. -from the Holiday
1999 Signals catalog
Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem:
Dulce est desipere in loco. -Horace (trans.: Mix a little foolishness with your prudence: it is good to be silly at the
right moment.)
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man. -A.E. Housman, "Terence, This is Stupid Stuff"
More quotes on page 2!
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