Quotes

My Favorite Quotes

Being a god is the quality of being able to be yourself to such an extent that your passions correspond with the forces of the universe.
— Roger Zelazny "Lord of Light"

You won't find me working 9 to 5. It's too much fun being alive.
— Johnny Rotten "Problems"

If a man doesn't get what he wants in one world, he can find it in another. — Voltaire "Candide"

So that at last he might say as one of my own patients said on his arrival down here: 'I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought, nor what I liked.'
— C.S. Lewis "The Screwtape Letters"

At any moment that you find yourself hesitating, or if at any moment you find yourself putting off until tomorrow trying some new piece of behavior that you could do today, or doing something you've done before, then all you need to do is glance over your left shoulder and there will be a fleeting shadow. That shadow represents your death, and at any moment it might step forward, place its hand on your shoulder and take you. So that the act that your are presently engaged in might be your very last act and therefore fully representative of you as your last act on this planet.
— Don Juan to Carlos Castaneda

But I, who had dealt all my life with kings, knew that where there is blame as well as gratitude, blame must be allotted first, lest it should cling to the King himself.
— Mary Stewart "The Hollow Hills"

I say, do not pity him overmuch. He lives his life, his own life, his own way—thought, word, and deed free!
— Edmond Rostand "Cyrano de Bergerac"

"wherever you go, there you aren't"
— C. Brian Smith on describing the phrase "vacation from oneself"

"It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly. "
— Isaac Asimov

Peter Ustinov's portrayal of a mad, petty emperor in the movie Quo Vadis is fascinating. I copied these lines from the movie. A very powerful soliloquy, I think.

Yet there are those who would say I am mad.
I am only seeking.
The flatness and misery of common life depress me.
I seek because I must exceed the stature of man in both good and evil.
I seek because I must be greater than man, for only then can I be the
supreme artist.

Do you know why I condemned both my wife and my mother to death?
I did it in order to lay at the gates of an unknown world.
The greatest sacrifice a man can put there.
Now! . .  . I thought.
Doors will open beyond which I shall catch a glimpse of the unknown!
Let it be wonderful . . . .

Or let it be awful.

So long as it is uncommon!

Muse

Yet another muse has passed on.

When Greece was strong, they numbered nine. Subsequently, they became Earthly. As belief ebbed, muses lost their reverence to become arbitrary and trendy—the names of book shops, restaurants, and magazines.

There is conjecture: only One was a son of God; that we are all sons of God; or that we are all sons of man. In this modern time when belief is served à la carte—from where does one derive inspiration?

Another of my muses has passed on; and I must begin again.

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