- "So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun." - Christopher McCandless
- “Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains means going home; that wilderness is a necessity; and that nature parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life. And only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter. When we learn to shut out this chatter, we then learn what it is like to see the entire globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with all of the other stars and planets and galaxies, all shining together as one. We are then able to see the universe for what it truly is - an infinite storm of beauty. And when one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds that it is brilliantly attached to the rest of the universe.” - John Muir
- "Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'this is an interesting world I find myself in - an interesting hole I find myself in - it fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, it must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was BUILT to have him in it, right? So he is caught off guard, caught by disturbing surprise when the end of his existence abruptly arrives before he's able to stop wasting it in worry of it's purpose." - Douglas Adams
- "Admit it. You aren't like them You're not even close. You may occasionally dress yourself up as one of them, watch the same mindless television shows as they do, maybe even eat the same fast food sometimes. But it seems that the more you try to fit in, the more you feel like an outsider, watching the 'normal people' as they go about their automatic existences. For every time you say club passwords like 'Have a nice day' and 'Weather's awful today, eh?', you yearn inside to say forbidden things like 'Tell me something that makes you cry' or 'What do you think deja vu is for?'. Face it, you even want to talk to that girl in the elevator. But what if that girl in the elevator (and the balding man who walks past your cubicle at work) are thinking the same thing? Who knows what you might learn from taking a chance on conversation with a stranger? Everyone carries a piece of the puzzle. Nobody comes into your life by mere coincidence. Trust your instincts. Do the unexpected. Find the others." - Timothy Leary
- "This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body." - Walt Whitman
- "When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion." - Abraham Lincoln
- "La nuit, la bien aimée. (Night, the beloved). La nuit, quand les mots disparaît et les choses vivent. (Night, when words fade and things come alive). Quand l'analyse destructive du jour est fini et tout ce qui est important devient complet encore. (When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again). Quand l'homme rassemble lui-même fragmentaire et pousse avec le calme d'un arbre. (When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree)." - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- "To live is to slowly be born." - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- "Religion is a dangerous thing. Why? Because it allows people who do not have all the answers to believe that they do." - Bill Maher
- “The only appropriate attitude for man to have about the big questions is not the arrogant certitude that is the hallmark of religion, but doubt. Doubt is humble, and that's what man needs to be, considering that human history is just a litany of getting shit dead wrong. If the world does actually come to an end here, or wherever, or if it limps into the future, decimated by the effects of religion-inspired nuclear terrorism, let's remember what the real problem was: that we learned how to precipitate mass death before we got past the neurological disorder of wishing for it.” – Bill Maher
- "Be ruthless when you pursue knowledge. And in bed." - Ilia Volokh
- “Commercial radio is owned by one or two corporations now, and they're not in the music business.. they're in the advertising business. So let's not kid ourselves. If you want to hear music, go buy a guitar.” - Elvis Costello
- “You have to do stuff that average people don't understand, because those are the only good things.” - Andy Warhol
- "Never laugh at live dragons." - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
- “There is no escape. You can’t be a vagabond and an artist and still be a solid citizen, a wholesome, upstanding man. You want to get drunk, so you have to accept the hangover. You say yes to the sunlight and pure fantasies, so you have to say yes to the filth and the nausea. Everything is within you, gold and mud, happiness and pain, the laughter of childhood and the apprehension of death. Say yes to everything, shirk nothing. Don’t try to lie to yourself. You are not a solid citizen. You are not a Greek. You are not harmonious, or the master of yourself. You are a bird in the storm." – Hermann Hesse
- "There are moments when one has to choose between living their own life fully, entirely, completely - or dragging out some false, shallow, and degrading existence simply because this world in it's hypocrisy demands so." - Oscar Wilde
- "I know - it's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here... but we are. It's like in all the great stories, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you - that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding onto something... that there's some good left in this world, and it's worth fighting for." - Samwise Gamgee
- "Sometimes I get too exhausted to even feel bad." – Charles Bukowski
- "If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, boyfriends, wives, relatives or maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.” – Charles Bukowski
- "Offending people is a necessary and healthy act - every time you say something that's offensive to another person, you just caused a discussion. You just forced them to have to think." - Louis CK
- "I have noticed that even people who claim that everything is predetermined and that we can do nothing to change it, still look before they cross the road." - Stephen Hawking
- "It's amazing how much fun you can have if you've got the balls." - Betty White
- "Let us read, and let us dance - these two amusements will never do any harm to the world." - Voltaire
- “The game I play is a very interesting one. It's imagination, in a tight straitjacket. You know it just doesn't seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil - which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama.” - Richard Feynman
- "There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open ourselves up to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. I really think we need to learn to love ourselves first though, whole heartedly, in all our glory and imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, then we cannot ever be fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hope for a better world rests in those who embrace fearlessness and an open-hearted vision towards life." - John Lennon
- "We're in a slump for some shit that has some personality and appeal beyond a bunch of pop stuff that's floating around out there. I don't think I can bear watching another fucking award show that is just a little better than American Idol. It's fucking pathetic to watch people go out and fucking karaoke with a bunch of lights and video." - Tommy Lee
- “I've never been lonely. I've been in a room -- I've felt suicidal. I've been depressed. I've felt awful -- awful beyond all -- but I never felt that one other person could enter that room and cure what was bothering me... or that any number of people could enter that room. In other words, loneliness is something I've never been bothered with because I've always had this terrible itch for solitude. It's being at a party, or at a stadium full of people cheering for something, that I might feel loneliness. I'll quote Ibsen, "The strongest men are the most alone." I've never thought, "Well, some beautiful blonde will come in here and give me a fuck-job, rub my balls, and I'll feel good." No, that won't help. You know the typical crowd, "Wow, it's Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there?" Well, yeah. Because there's nothing out there. It's stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let them stupidify themselves. I've never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. I hid in bars, because I didn't want to hide in factories. That's all. Sorry for all the millions, but I've never been lonely. I like myself. I'm the best form of entertainment I have.” - Charles Bukowski
- "There are only two symptoms of enlightenment - two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness: the first symptom is that you stop worrying. Things don't bother you anymore. You become light-hearted and full of joy. The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life - more and more synchronicities - and this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous." -Deepak Chopra
- "Anybody religious who tells you that they know, they "just know" what happens when you die, I can promise you that they don't. How can I be so sure? Because I don't know - and they do not possess mental powers that I do not." - Bill Maher
- "It comes in pints?! I'm getting one." - Peregrin Took
- "You're not dying. You just can't think of anything good to do." - Ferris Bueller
- "No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream." - Shirley Jackson
- “Religion does three things effectively: it divides people, controls people, and deludes people. – Carlespie Mary Alice McKinney
- “I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damnit, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables - slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.” – Chuck Palahniuk
- “The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit – it’s about how hard you can GET hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward.” – Rocky Balboa
- “You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’” – Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell
- “An atheist is simply a person who believes that the 87% of the population claiming to 'never doubt the existence of God' should be obliged to present evidence for his existence and, indeed, for his utter benevolence given the relentless destruction of innocent human beings we witness in the world each day." – Sam Harris
- “To be scientifically literate is to empower yourself to know when someone else is full of bullshit.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson
- “I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?” – John Lennon
- "Your time will come. You will face the same evil, and you will defeat it.” – Arwen
- "The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.” - Voltaire
- "All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher." - Ambrose Bierce
- "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - Albert Einstein
- "Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." - Henry Louis Mencken
- "We may conclude, therefore, that, in all nations, which have embraced polytheism, the first ideas of religion arose not from a contemplation of the works of nature, but from a concern with regard to the events of life, and from the incessant hopes and fears, which actuate the human mind. We find human faces in the moon, armies in the clouds; and by a natural propensity, if not corrected by experience and reflection, ascribe malice and goodwill to everything that hurts or pleases us." – Hume, The Natural History of Religion
- "The whole world is a harmless enigma that has been made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth." – Umberto Eco
- “Nine out of ten times the things that people “know” God wants them to do are things that coincide with their own desires. Coincidence? I think not.” – Susan B. Anthony
- "Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. If people are good only because they fear punishment and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed." – Albert Einstein
- “If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all humankind would quickly perish since they constantly pray for many evils to befall one another. Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” – Epicurus
- “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of all true art and science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery - even if mixed with fear - that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity.” – Albert Einstein
- "Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man - living in the sky - who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do.. and if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever until the end of time! ...But he loves you." – George Carlin
- “I refuse to prove that I exist" says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing." "Oh," says man, "but the Babel Fish is a dead give-away, isn't it? It proves you exist, and so therefore you don't. "Oh… I hadn't thought of that," says God, who promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.” – Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- “Since I don't smoke, I decided to grow a mustache - it is better for the health. However, I always carried a jewel-studded cigarette case in which, instead of tobacco, were carefully placed several mustaches, Adolphe Menjou style. I offered them politely to my friends: "Mustache? Mustache? Mustache?" Nobody dared to touch them. This was my test regarding the sacred aspect of mustaches.” - Salvador Dali
- There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad. - Salvador Dali
- “One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.” - Salvador Dali
- "Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them." - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- "It is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory, and in creative action, that man finds his most supreme joys." - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- "If you come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then by three o'clock I shall begin to be happy." - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- "He who resolves to conquer or die is seldom conquered." - Alexander the Great
- "He who fights with monsters must look to it that he, himself, does not become a monster as well." - Friedrich Nietzsche
- "After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." - Aldous Huxley
- “It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.” - Chuck Palahniuk
- "I see atheists are fighting and killing each other again over who doesn't believe in any god the most. Oh, no.. wait.. that never happens." - Ricky Gervais
- “Gay marriage won’t lead to dog marriage. It is not a slippery slope to rampant inner-species coupling. When women got the right to vote, it didn’t lead to hamsters voting. No court has extended the Equal Protection Clause to salmon.” - Bill Maher
- "I don't think I'll ever visit Australia. It's just too far away. It may as well be a made-up place. I wouldn't enjoy my time there cos I would constantly be thinking about and dreading the flight back home. It's the same reason why I'd never climb Everest. It might be a good view, but you've then got to climb all the way down again. People have been up there so often I don't know why they don't just pop down a little path so it's not so much of a pain to get up there." - Karl Pilkington
- "Did I forget to text you back? No. I just suck at correlating my thoughts into tangible sentences and transferring those sentences into coherent textual formats within short allotments of time." - AEW
- “I think it’s better to have ideas. You can change an idea; changing a belief is trickier. Life should be malleable and progressive: working from idea to idea permits that. Beliefs anchor you to certain points and limit growth; new ideas can’t generate. Life becomes stagnant.” - Chris Rock (as Rufus, “Dogma”)
- “When you decide to be something, you can be it. That’s what they don’t tell you in church. When I was your age they would say we can become cops, or criminals. Today, what I’m saying to you is this: when you’re facing a loaded gun, what’s the difference?” – Jack Nicholson (as Frank Costello, “The Departed”)
- “Some believers accuse skeptics of having nothing left but a dull, cold, scientific world. I am left with only art, music, literature, theatre, the magnificence of nature, mathematics, the human spirit, sex, the cosmos, friendship, history, science, imagination, dreams, oceans, mountains, love, and the wonder of birth. That’ll do for me.” – Lynne Kelly
- "Remember when you were a kid and you thought there were actually people that knew what this thing we call 'life' was really all about? Remember when you thought there really were grown ups? Then all of a sudden one day you become a 'grown up' yourself and the terrifying revelation occurs to you that there really are no 'grown ups' just kids that got old and had kids of their own, and no one really knows what the fuck is going on." - Joe Rogan
- "I was quiet... one of those children where, if you put me in a room and gave me some crayons and pencils, you wouldn't hear from me for nine straight hours. And I was always drawing racecars and rockets and spaceships and planes, things that were very fast that could take me away." - Gary Oldman
- "Yes, I guess you could say I am a loner, but I feel more lonely in a crowded room with boring people than I feel on my own." - Henry Rollins
- "There is pleasure in the pathless woods; there is rapture in the lonely shore; there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not man the less, but nature more." - George Byron
- "We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much. We have multiplied our possessions but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living but not a life. We've added years to life, not life to years." - George Carlin
- "We are the ones who know how to entertain ourselves... how to learn without taking a class, how to contemplate, how to create. Loners, by virtue of being loners, in celebrating the state of standing alone, have an innate advantage when it comes to being brave - like pioneers, like mountain men, iconoclasts, rebels, and sole survivors. Loners have an advantage when faced with the unknown, the never-done-before, and the unprecedented - an advantage when it comes to being mindful like the Buddhists, spontaneous like the Taoists, crucibles of concentrated prayer like the desert saints, and esoteric like the cabalists. Loners, by virtue of being loners, have at their fingertips the undiscovered, the unique, and the rarified - innate advantages when it comes to imagination, concentration, and inner discipline. We have a knack for invention, visions, originality, and for finding resources in what others would call vacuums." - Ditto
- "Everybody's born with some different thing at the core of their existence. And that thing, whatever it is, becomes like a heat source that runs each person from the inside. I have one too, of course. Like everybody else. But sometimes it gets out of hand. It swells or shrinks inside me, and it shakes me up. What I'd really like to do is find a way to communicate that feeling to another person. But I can't seem to do it. They just don't get it. Of course, the problem could be that I'm not explaining it very well, but I think it's because they're not listening very well. They pretend to be listening, but they're not, really. I get worked up sometimes because of it, and I do some crazy things. But at the end of the day I rarely suffer lengthy emotional distress from contact with other people. A person may anger or annoy me, but not for long. I can distinguish between myself and another as beings of two different realms. It's a kind of talent (by which I do not mean to boast: it's not an easy thing to do, so if you can do it, it is a kind of a talent - a special power). When someone gets on my nerves, the first thing I do is transfer the object of my unpleasant feelings to another domain, one having no connection with me. Then I tell myself, fine, I'm feeling bad, but I've put the source of these feelings into another zone, away from here, where I can examine it and deal with it later in my own good time. In other words, I put a freeze on my emotions. Later, when I thaw them out to perform the examination, I do occasionally find my emotions in a distressed state, but that is rare. The passage of time will usually extract the venom from most things and render them harmless. Then sooner or later, I forget about them. Still, I swear there’s a kind of gap between what I think is real and what’s really real, I get this feeling like some kind of little something other is there somewhere inside of me... like a burglar is in the house hiding in a closet... and it comes out every once in a while and messes up whatever order or logic I’ve established - like the way a magnet can make a machine go crazy, ya know?" - Haruki Murakami
- "We live on and in but a world within a universe. A microcosm within a macrocosm. You are by far my most favorite cohabitant upon our spiralling little microcosm that sits nestled amidst this vast and neverending macrocosm. The one of which got sprawled out in a rush of infinite chemical reaction at the start of just a single big bang. But perhaps our very own "macrocosm" is really just a purlieus of an even LARGER matrix! Oh yes, a boundless multiverse that, in the blink of one of its eyes & in the most remote and cocooned layer somewhere amidst its paralleling souls and converging/coalescing dimensions, gives us a fleeting little glimpse of a life - alive and living - all for but one nanosecond on a most microscopic yet unique pearl in a sea of other jewels and gems and pearls & in the bed of astronomically immense clam! An astronomically immense clam crafted of complexity and purity. It is galactic. It is empyrean. It is our enchanting cosmos of wonder... the multiversal cosmospheric astroplex!" - Anonymous
- "Writers, especially poets, are particularly prone to madness. There exists a striking association between creativity and manic depression. Why are more creative people prone to madness? They have more than average amounts of energies and abilities to see things in a fresh and original way - then because they also have depression, I think they're more in touch with human suffering." - Nick Flynn
- "Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify them, or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do." - Apple Inc.
- "Luke's anger at the man who had slain his teacher had been potent, had allowed the dark side to claim him. If Vader hadn't broken that anger with fear and confusion by telling the boy that he was his father, Luke could have defeated him. A Jedi does not fight in anger; he holds his emotions in check and allows the Force to move through him. But the dark side needed to be fed with strong emotion, and when it was, it repaid that sustenance tenfold. Luke had felt the power of the dark side. It was up to Vader to find him and allow him to feel it again. The dark side was addictive, more potent than any drug." - from Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (by Steve Perry)
- "We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology." - Carl Sagan
- "There's something about getting dirty, sweaty, and bloody that just feels right." - Andrew Lincoln
- "We need to make books cool again. If you go home with somebody and they don't have books... don't fuck them." - John Waters
- "Hold your ground! Hold your ground! Sons of Gondor... of Rohan... my brothers! I see in your eyes, the same fear that would take the heart of me! A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship... but it is not this day! An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the age of Men comes crashing down... but it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear, on this good earth, I bid you STAND! MEN OF THE WEST!" - Aragorn
- "I see the facts and nothing else. Everything else is simply decoration." - Unknown
- "I'm pretty sure that no one wants to put disappointing, shriveled nut meat in their mouths." - Mike Rowe
- "Am I afraid of heights? No, no. Widths." - Mike Rowe
- "Why don't I have kids? The question is certainly personal, and hard to answer without casting a subtle judgment on a certain lifestyle, and probably offending a few people. But what the heck? It's a foggy morning in San Francisco, and I'm feeling verbose, and I'm quite sure that a staggering number of moms and dads have no business being parents. As institutions, I have no problem with marriage or parenthood, and I enjoy kids, when they're enjoyable. But the relative ease into which parenthood can be accomplished is breathtaking, especially when you consider the conspicuous lack of qualifications required. Every other undertaking in life demands some level of proven competence or maturity - from driving a car, to owning a gun, to casting a vote, to having a drink, to building a garage on your own property. Such things require licenses, permits, and permissions. But not raising kids. No. The most difficult task a human being can embark upon - the lifelong commitment of parenthood - requires no qualification whatsoever. And yet, the default question regarding having kids is always "Why not?," and not as bluechild suggests, the far more logical, "Why?" Personally, I've never heard a really compelling, thoughtful argument for or against parenthood. All positions, when closely examined, reveal the clever workings of our true nature. Our minds are wired to justify and defend those decisions already made, or more often, our own pre-existing condition. This is normal, I think. People with families want to feel good about their decision to have kids. And people without kids don't want to feel as though they missed out. No one likes regret. So, to preserve the illusion of our own wisdom and sanity, we build apologetics around our current situation, and define the road not taken in a way that justifies our current state. Thus, I find myself looking at my married friends, haggard and worn, surrounded by their screaming toddlers and their petulant teenagers, ungrateful and sullen, and I feel a great sense of personal relief. Likewise, my married friends probably see me as a sad and misguided vagabond who has confused freedom with happiness, and destined to wind up alone in a cold, indifferent world. Whatever. Envy and pity are often two sides of the same coin, depending on the kind of day you're having. And we all spend too much time looking for validation and assurances that we haven't botched up our one chance at happiness. In the end, we all just want to feel content with the life we have, so we gravitate toward those who share our choices, and look with curiosity upon those who do not. We validate, we affirm, we reassure, and we add another page to a made-up story that helps us live with the consequences of our decisions, and answer questions like Mike, why no kids? Here's my answer. My reasoning for not having kids is due to the fact that I'm selfish. And if I ever change my mind and decide to have a family, my reasoning will be the same. Either way, it's a dirty job." - Mike Rowe
- "You can give an idiot knowledge, but you can't make them think." - Loud Pack Louie
- (On those who are evil and to our own responsibilities to this universe): "But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast on you. They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, but was rebuked for his own transgression. There are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through knowledge and enlightenment, they are again entangled in themselves and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the way of morality. What the true proverb says has happened to them: 'The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.' But to you - be strong in this universe and in the strength of its might. Put on the whole armor of its ubiquity and omnipresence, for you are a part of it and it is a part of you. Feel it as it bestows and disperses upon us an infinite rainstorm of diversity, tools, and opportunities across eons and lightyears - that, which if you reach success in utilization and mastery (while remaining faithful to the cosmic crusade of goodness and righteousness), may actually give you a true fighting chance to help aid in this cosmic war against schemes of evil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of this universe, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the cosmos, which is the word of the universe, praying to it at all times in the dark as well as in the light - all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim some mystery of the soul, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak." - Paraphrased/allegorized from 2 Peter 2:1 - 22 / Ephesians 6:10 - 18
- "If at first you don't succeed, get smarter." - Unknown
- "I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high over valleys and hills, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils! Beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze! Continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle on the Milky Way, they stretched in a never-ending line along the margin of the bay. Ten thousand I saw at a glance, tossing their heads in a sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced, but they out-did the sparkling waves in glee, a poet could not but be gay, in such a jocund company. I gazed and gazed but little thought, what wealth the show to me had brought. For often, when on my couch I lie, in vacant or in pensive mood... they flash upon that inward eye, which is the bliss of solitude. And then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances, once again, with the daffodils." - William Wordsworth
- "I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and constitutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind as that becomes more developed and more enlightened. As new discoveries are made new truths are discovered and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances - institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to still wear the coat which fitted him when he was a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of the barbarous ancestors." - Thomas Jefferson
- "Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself... do not be disheartened by your imperfections, but always rise up with fresh courage. How are we to be patient in dealing with our neighbor's faults if we are impatient in dealing with our own? They who are fretted by their own fallings will not correct them. All profitable correction comes from a calm and peaceful mind." - Saint Francis de Sales
- "You can be surprised what people can do when they have to." - Dr. Alan Grant
- "I'm pretty sure that no one wants to put disappointing shriveled nut meat in their mouths." - Mike Rowe
- "I've been in many holes. That's a new one." - Mike Rowe
- "You can't change what you don't acknowledge." - Phil McGraw
- "All positions, when closely examined, reveal the clever workings of our true nature. Our minds are wired to justify and defend all the life decisions that we've made (or more often, our own pre-existing condition). This I think is normal. People in sense just want to feel good about their own decisions. And people don't want to feel as if they've missed out on anything. No one likes regret. So, to preserve the illusion of our own wisdom and sanity, we build up apologetics around our current situation and define the road not taken in a way that justifies our current state. We all spend too much time constantly looking for validation and assurances to convince ourselves that we haven't botched up our "one chance" at happiness. In the end, we all just want to feel content with the life that we have. So, we gravitate toward those who share our choices and we look with curiosity upon those who do not. We validate, we affirm, we reassure, and then we add another page to the vast made-up story that helps us live with the consequences of our own decisions." - Mike Rowe
- "30 thousand feet of unstable air now separates the earth and me. This pillbox fuselage hurdling east does so on a tailwind of lost time. I, the reluctant yet complicit junkie of a new media culture now scramble for a signal in this once protected space. Coming up empty, I find myself alone with a screen, a keyboard and an opportunity. Moments before this flight departed, the renegade vessel I assembled to reconnect my creative wires to the masses loaded the catapult with new music once again. This drill has become something of a weekly terror for me. Under the cover of darkness I clawed my way through a mission; New sounds, new words, new truth all strung together by the tenuous threads of collaboration to reconstitute a new version of me. With each passing week I come closer to that mission’s unveiling and with each week I find another piece of my clothing stripped away. Does any of it really matter? In the grand scheme of things…No. So why? Why do it? Why do anything? I suppose, because I must. I’m hungry; hungry for the alchemy, hungry for the praise. Hungry for the feeling that I am not alone with these thoughts. Hungry to be a human in a universe that recognizes myself in my neighbors. I made a choice a lifetime ago; a choice to broadcast. To take everything I could confess in a quiet room, mold it with melodies and simple structures and turn it over to anyone who would listen. What a wild notion. Still, as with any object, form, thought, or idea this universe can conjure, what I do falls into two categories. It is at one moment a miracle and in another completely irrelevant and fleeting. Yesterday I walked my sleepless, 7 month old daughter to the beach in a contraption that makes it possible for me to do so without the use of my arms. A device that effectively binds us together as a single mass in hopes that she might forget she is a lump of rapidly dividing cells in a world too expansive for either of us to comprehend. In doing so, she is able to synch to the rhythm of my gait and the rhythm of my hopeful calm. If the timing is right, she falls asleep and I become the ears and eyes for both of us. By the time we reached the bluffs she had given in. I was free to scan the beach below and the seas beyond, where young men, far braver than I, used the turning ocean tides as a playground for unthinkable feats. Despite this masterful display I was taken by the sight of two women occupying a blanket to the right of a lifeguard tower. Perhaps it was their shapes that drew me in but it was the motion of those shapes that caused me to linger. As my daughter dreamed, her nose and mouth pressed firmly against my chest, heaving humid breaths passed my shirt to my skin, I was reminded of the world she will grow up in. As the shapes below obsessively posed and reposed themselves before their own extended arms, hoping to construct the perfect image of their already perfect selves, I became aware of a game I have played for years. I too, have attempted to project an image of myself to the world, worthy of my own self image. The beauty of this game is that much like the culture I now count myself a part of, my construction is only evidence of my insecurity. The tailored images we edit, magnify and broadcast only prove our imperfection; Our weakness before the gods, our failings and successes in the face of a nature far greater than all of us combined. As I zeroed in on the sands below I paused. In one breath I was horrified for my little girl to grow up in this and in the next I was heartened that she would be gifted with such an opportunity. The next breath reminded me that as everything changes, everything remains exactly as it was. This is the reality I meet head on as I slingshot these songs and my kin into a new world. The images fade and I take a sip of my cocktail. The simple, potent concoction reaches my lips and thinning blood as the flight attendant leans in to remind me, the wifi is now up and running." - Andrew McMahon
- "It is not lost on me that tonight is exceptional. Exceptional for many reasons. Exceptional because I am at peace. Exceptional because on evenings such as this, in other lives, I was a mess. I have spent many nights in terminals like this one; waiting on a trains or planes, dreaming of final destinations. Tonight is different though. The truth is, we are all on some crazy journey. We may not recognize ourselves in photographs from our past, but it does not mean we were different people. Sometimes it feels like that, but tonight I recognize myself. I recognize why I left my little corner of southern sand to hide in the sparkle of a million earthbound stars. It was all hills and pain and “maybe this didn’t happen” when I knew it did. I know it did now. So now it’s me and the train and the car parked underground, and “I’ll be home at nine for dinner” and I’ll be back here in the morning to tell some newsman the story, or what I remember of it. I’m okay with that. Tonight is a night where I let what was be and let what is be discovered. I didn’t build an army to tell this story. I didn’t need to. I’m not trying to prove anything to anyone. Tomorrow I will wake up and follow these tracks the other direction. I will answer some questions and then disappear into the same studio where I wrote this little record of songs. I will meet two people for the first time and we will talk about life and art and try and write a new song. The next day I will do the same, because that’s what this is all about when it comes down to it. Not the song, or the train, or the studio, but the story, the craft and the risk of showing up. To all of you who listen, thank you. Thank you, because I love making things. Thank you, because this is what I’m meant to do and I’d be lost without it." - Andrew McMahon
- "Clarity is hard to come by on a cocktail of cold meds and steroids, but clarity can be hard to pin down regardless, I suppose. I will leave this tour with much more than I expected. I had hoped this moment was coming for a long time. This shift, this freedom, this reclaiming of old lives and incubating of new. Reconciliation of the past is something I’ve tangled with my whole life. It is the ghost in my home, the tumbling waves in the prints of my fingers. Strangely though, as I have unpacked these songs night after night, old next to new, like mingling strangers in dance halls across America, something happened. These people I have been, these lives so alarmingly separate, slowly merged into one." - Andrew McMahon
- "It’s raining in cleveland. A slow rain. the kind that feels good against your skin should you choose to travel without cover. that’s me these days. Traveling without cover. i’ve been waking up in new cities, if I went to sleep at all. meeting strange people and hearing new sounds. some people spend their whole lives in search of comfort and security, maybe all people, Maybe me. still, this drifting towards the wonder of what could be, this pushing at the unknown and uncomfortable, to me feels something like peace. blistering peace." - Andrew McMahon
- "Frozen. in the absence of opening windows I am stuck with the air conditioner. the fan sounds like an engine with a loose belt, but what do I really know about engines? rattle, whir, squeak, teeth chatter, but the thermostat is a waste. in the battle of too hot, too cold; too cold and a blanket wins every time." - Andrew McMahon
- "If you feel rooted in your home and family, if you're active in your community, there's nothing more empowering. The best way to make a difference in the world is to start by making a difference in your own life." - Julia Louis-Dreyfus
- "Bundy's a rumpkin. Bundy's a poopbutt. Bundy's his momma's boy. Bundy's out there trying to prove something to his own manhood. That's got nothing to do with me. I don't roll around with poop people like that. I stand with people that can stand with themselves." - Charles Manson
- "I don't think I'll ever visit Australia. It's just too far away. It may as well be a made-up place. I wouldn't enjoy my time there cos I would constantly be thinking about and dreading the flight back home. It's the same reason why I'd never climb Everest. It might be a good view, but you've then got to climb all the way down again. People have been up there so often I don't know why they don't just pop down a little path so it's not so much of a pain to get up there." - Karl Pilkington
- "I look at life like a big book and sometimes you get halfway through it and go 'even though I've been enjoying it, I've had enough. Give us another book.'" - Karl Pilkington
- "She gave me the jabs and said I was covered for every worst-case scenario, including being bitten by a dirty chimp. I told her this is why we have over-population problems. Why are idiots who annoy dirty chimps being protected?" - Karl Pilkington
- "If something happened to Suzanne I don't think I would want to go through with finding somebody else. I'd feel quite lost without her. It would be like separating Siamese twins, as we've been through everything together. Which can also be handy, as my memory isn't what it used to be, so I use hers as my back-up memory drive. Meeting someone new would be like getting a new phone. You have to start again, input all of your information into them while trying to get to know their functions." - Karl Pilkington
- "Whether it's a relationship or a toaster that's broken, they just replace it. You're bound to fall out and have arguments and you should work at getting the relationship back together, but nobody wants to anymore." - Karl Pilkington
- "The ball sack is supposed to be wrinkly; they're not bloody worry lines! I can't believe there's a machine that fixes this. I don't even own an iron. Balls don't need ironing! They're like a shellsuit, they're meant to be crease-looking. And anyway, I've sat on them most of the time, so they'd only get creased again. As for getting your arse bleached, I don't know what to make out of that. I couldn't tell you what mine looks like. If you showed five photos of various anuses, I couldn't pick mine out from a line-up. I never understood why barbers used to show me the back of my head in a mirror after a quick trim, so I certainly wouldn't worry about the colour of my anus. I'd say if you're worrying about the colour of your anus, things must be good, as you can't have proper worries in your life." - Karl Pilkington
- "I came up with a good idea... see through skin." - Karl Pilkington
- "They keep saying that sea levels are rising and all this. It's nowt to do with the icebergs melting, it's because there's too many fish in it. Get rid of some of the fish and the water will drop. Simple. Basic science." - Karl Pilkington
- "They've found this spider, in the jungle. Three foot long, it eats chicken. Bit weird, innit? People moan saying that you shouldn't lock animals up and all the rest of it, but to be honest I wish it was locked up. The idea that it's roaming in a jungle... get it locked up." - Karl Pilkington
- "I've been watchin' birds more than insects recently, and the thing I've found with pigeons is: they've got wings but they walk a lot." - Karl Pilkington
- "Just sort of wander about and that, and just not get seen." - Karl Pilkington (on what he would do with the power of invisibility)
- "Were you a tall baby?" - Karl Pilkington (to Stephen Merchant)
- "Just pop it on your wrist." - Karl Pilkington (Ricky Gervais asks Karl how his 'invention' of a watch that counts down your life would actually work)
- "In Britain old people are forever seeing big changes to places and saying, 'in my day it was all fields 'ere..' which makes them feel old in the head and so they die. Just a theory." - Karl Pilkington
- "Yeah, I could easily stay. It's the easy option, innit? Stay here for another twelve years, doing the same shit day in, day out. Dead easy. Could do it. But what for? What sort of existence is it? It's not, is it? Like a germ in a puddle - just sat there, nothing going on. So, I've got time, haven't I? Just to have one last chance at something. Do something with me life. And that's what I'm gonna do - and I might fail miserably. Nothing might come of it. But, it's better to have a go, innit? There are me choices, really: have a go and fail - miserably, or stay as a germ in a puddle." - Karl Pilkington
jun 29 2011 ∞
apr 25 2017 +