Quotes, Poems, & Sayings...

[jenny]

"At times, it is strangely sedative to know the extent of your own powerlessness." ~ Erica Jong

[ravfem]

I will not play tug o' war. I'd rather play hug o' war. Where everyone hugs instead of tugs, Where everyone giggles and rolls on the rug, Where everyone kisses, and everyone grins, and everyone cuddles, and everyone wins.

~ Shel Silverstein from Where the Sidewalk Ends

[jenny]

"'Cause you're, like, the coolest person I've ever met, and you don't even have to try, you know...?" ~Juno

[BestButchBoy]

"Cool is effortless. Cool is soulful, an inner peace and calm within that’s radiated outward. Cool isn’t afraid to say or do anything. The uncool is. Cool is magnetic.
~MARK VV

[Enchantress]

"Leave me alone. I'm a day before my period. If you can't handle a little drama don't talk to me"

[FeminineAllure]

"All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.

These are the things I learned:
Share everything.
Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.
Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

"Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess."

Robert Fulghum



"I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death."

Robert Fulghum

[Jesse]

“Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”

“If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.”
"Be careless in your dress if you will, but keep a tidy soul."

"Buy land, they're not making it anymore."

"Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain."

"Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it."

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

[dixie]

"To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception; it is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation, either in time or in eternity." ~Soren Kierkegaard

[Chaoticsoul]

~ Letting go doesn't mean giving up... it means moving on. It is one of the hardest things a person can do. Starting at birth, we grasp on to anything we can get our hands on, and hold on as if we will cease to exist when we let go. We feel that letting go is giving up, quitting, and that as we all know is cowardly. But as we grow older we are forced to change our way of thinking. We are forced to realize that letting go means accepting things that cannot be. It means maturing and moving on, no matter how hard you have to fight yourself to do so." ~ .....unknown

[MysticOceansFL]

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny

[jenny]

"I mainly want someone to tell me I'm right & then pay me, he said. Is that too much to ask? & I said as long as you're living in a dream world, you might as well make it work for you." ~ Brian Andreas, "Storypeople"

[dixie]

I love this. It's one of our mottos here at my job...


"They are the misfits, the crazy ones.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They are 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.
The only thing you can't do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They push the human race forward.
And some may see them as the crazy ones,
we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough
to think they can change the world
are the ones who do."

[JakeTulane]

"So many of our dreams at first seems impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable." - Christopher Reeve

[JakeTulane]

"Live your life each day as you would climb a mountain. An occasional glance towards the summit keeps the goal in mind, but many beautiful scenes are to be observed from each new vintage point." - Harold B Melchart

[JakeTulane]

"Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better. Don’t wish for fewer problems, wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenges, wish for more wisdom." - Earl Shoaf

[jenny]

"You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one; each day brings a miracle of its own. It is just a matter of paying attention to this miracle." -Paulo Coelho

[EnderD_503]

"A man is free the moment he wants to be." - Voltaire

"No man was ever wise by chance." - Seneca

[jenny]

"Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step; only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find the right road." ~ Dag Hammarskjöld

[Spirit Dancer]

Almost any intense emotion may open our “inward eye” to the beauty of reality. Falling in love appears to do it for some people. The beauties of nature or the exhilaration of artistic creation does it for others. Probably any high experience may momentarily stretch our souls up on tiptoe, so that we catch a glimpse of that marvelous beauty which is always there, but which we are not often tall enough to perceive.

Margaret Prescott Montague

[Spirit Dancer]

Fear is like a little garden spider that makes us jump back or the poor lost bee on the steering wheel that we blame for our automobile wreck. The problem in fear is our response -- the way we treat animals or insects that frighten us. . . . Fear is also the universal scapegoat we blame when we take flight from intimacy or shrink up inside ourselves in a thousand little ways.

Dan Millman

[jenny]

"I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities." ~ Theodor Geisel

[BestButchBoy]

The Edge…there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. ~Hunter S. Thompson

[Enchantress]

Summer set lip to earth's bosom bare,
And left the flushed print in a poppy there.

~Francis Thompson, "The Poppy," 1891

[pajama]

Just found this the other day and I loved it. So perfectly summarizes so many parts of me....

Fall in love or fall in hate.
Get inspired or be depressed.
Ace a test or flunk a class.
Make babies or make art.
Speak the truth or lie and cheat.
Dance on tables or sit in the corner.
Life is divine chaos. Embrace it.
Forgive yourself. Breathe.
And enjoy the ride.

Solbeam

[jenny]

"You don't get to choose how you're going to die, or when. You can only decide how you're going to live now." ~ Joan Baez

[JakeTulane]

"Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus when the limo breaks down." - Oprah Winfrey

[JakeTulane]

"The future has several names. For the weak, it is the impossible. For the fainthearted, it is the unknown. For the thoughtful and valiant, it is the ideal." - Victor Hugo

[JakeTulane]

"More often in life, we end up regretting the chances in life that we had, but didn’t take them, than those chances that we took and wished we hadn’t." - Author Unknown

[BestButchBoy]

“My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can.”
~Cary Grant

[Nat]

Give Me Your Hand – Rainer Maria Rilke

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousnes.

Give me your hand.

[jenny]

"Of any stopping place in life, it is good to ask whether it will be a good place from which to go on as well as a good place to remain." ~ Mary Catherine Bateson

[Nat]

"Dear Darkening Ground"
by Rainer Maria Rilke; translation by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows


Dear darkening ground,
you've endured so patiently the walls we've built,
perhaps you'll give the cities one more hour

and grant the churches and cloisters two.
And those that labor—let their work
grip them another five hours, or seven,

before you become forest again, and water, and widening wilderness
in that hour of inconceivable terror
when you take back your name
from all things.

Just give me a little more time!
I want to love the things
as no one has thought to love them,
until they're worthy of you and real.

[Duchess]

"True generosity is when you give your all and yet feel as if it cost you nothing."(f)

~ adapted from Simone De Beauvoir

[always2late]

You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through. - Rosalynn Carter

[Nat]

"Her eyes were glittering like the eyes of a child when you give a nice surprise, and she laughed with a sudden throaty, tingling way. It is the way a woman laughs for happiness. They never laugh that way just when they are being polite or at a joke. A woman only laughs that way a few times in her life. A woman only laughs that way when something has touched her way down in the very quick of her being and the happiness just wells out as natural as breath and the first jonquils and mountain brooks. When a woman laughs that way it always does something to you. It does not matter what kind of a face she has got either. You hear that laugh and feel that you have grasped a clean and beautiful truth. You feel that way because that laugh is a revelation. It is a great impersonal sincerity. It is a spray of dewy blossom from the great central stalk of All Being, and the woman’s name and address hasn’t got a damn thing to do with it. Therefore, the laugh cannot be faked. If a woman could learn to fake it she would make Nell Gwyn and Pompadour look like a couple of Campfire Girls wearing bifocals and ground-gripper shoes with bands on their teeth. She could get all society by the ears. For any man really wants is to hear a woman laugh like that."
— Robert Penn Warren (All the King's Men)

[jenny]

“The great thing is, if one can, to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions in one's 'own' or 'real' life. The truth is, of course, that what one regards as interruptions are precisely one's life.” - C.S. Lewis

[Tcountry]

Grandma always says....
"Love 'em for who they are...and don't ever try to change 'em"

[BestButchBoy]

"Every man’s life ends the same way. It’s only the details of how he lived that distinguish one man from another." ~Ernest Hemingway

[Janstevie]

Two things i love most, good horses and beautiful women, and when i die i hope they tan this old hide of mine and make it into a ladies riding saddle, so i can rest in peace between the two things i loved in life.

[Mister Bent]

If you’re alive, you got to flap your arms and legs, you got to jump around a lot, you got to make a lot of noise, because life is the very opposite of death. And therefore, as I see it, if you’re quiet, you’re not living.

- Mel Brooks

[Toofrufru]

“A happy family is but an earlier heaven.”

George Bernard Shaw

[jenny]

"A mind stretched by a new idea never goes back to its original dimension." ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

[apretty]

what what what?

-kyle's mom

[Mister Bent]

There is a girl inside.
She is randy as a wolf.
She will not walk away and leave these bones
to an old woman.

She is a green tree in a forest of kindling.
She is a green girl in a used poet.

She has waited patient as a nun
for the second coming,
when she can break through gray hairs
into blossom

and her lovers will harvest
honey and thyme
and the woods will be wild
with the damn wonder of it.

[jenny]

"i was dreaming in the driver's seat, when the right words just came to me, and all my finer feelings came up." [spoon]

[MysticOceansFL]

"A diplomat is a man or woman who always remembers a woman's or a man's birthday but never remembers her/he's age

[Tcountry]

Always

I will always love you
No matter what we go through
For you have helped me see the light
And put my dreams into flight.
We’ve not always seen eye to eye
Sometimes you even let out a sigh.
But you’ve always been there for me
To cheer me and fill my heart with glee.
And I will be there for you
As you need cheering, too.
If you were to leave
All I’d have to do is believe
And you would appear
For you are so dear.
I will never forget you
As your eyes sparkle like the morning dew.
I will always love you
No matter what we go through.

[always2late]

If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities - Maya Angelou

[WolfyOne]

We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears. ~Francois duc de la Rochefoucauld

[jenny]

"We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are." -Anais Nin

[Tcountry]

Take Time

Still, are the days as they pass by
Like the wings of a hawk on a midnight flight.
In her own little world with no one around
The crash of the waves are the only sound.
Calm, quiet, and peaceful as the hours fly
Every once in a while an intruder comes by.
Once she was greeted by a friend
Now she will be alone never again.
Life was changed by one single soul
She has the desire to achieve each and every goal.
“How,” they ask, “has this happened?”
All because I took time to be her friend.

[jenny]

"The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines." ~Charles Kuralt

[Tucker]

"We're all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."

[Fancy]

I want women to be liberated and still be able to have a nice ass and shake it.

- Shirley MacLaine

[MysticOceansFL]

A single rose can be my garden... a single friend, my world.

[jenny]

"I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults." ~ Gore Vidal

[JakeTulane]

"There are those who work all day. Those who dream all day. And those who spend an hour dreaming before setting to work to fulfill those dreams. Go into the third category because there’s virtually no competition." - Steven J Ross

[JakeTulane]

"Hard work spotlights the character of people. Some turn up their sleeves. Some turn up their noses, and some don’t turn up at all." - Sam Ewing

[WolfyOne]

I took this from a friend's FB wall because I liked it and want to share here

Words of Wisdom: "In order to overcome our prejudices, we must constantly strive to develop the habit of looking at ourselves from the point of view of others. Realizing that all people have both good points and bad, in the end the important thing is to strive to combat our own inner obstinacy and narrow-mindedness"~SGI President Dais...aku Ikeda

[JakeTulane]

"Champions aren’t made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill." - Muhammad Ali

[Janstevie]

Five rules to follow for a happy life:

1. It's important to have a woman , who helps at home , who cooks from time to time , cleans up and has a job.

2. It's important to have a woman , who can make you laugh.

3. It's important to have a woman , who you can trust and who doesn't lie to you.

4. It's important to have a woman , who is good in bed and who likes to be with you.

5. It's very , very important that these four women do not know each other.

[jenny]

"This is a really volcanic ensemble you're wearing, it's really marvelous!" ~ Duckie Dale, "Pretty in Pink"

"I know I'm old enough to be his mother, but when the Duck laid that kiss on me last night, I swear my thighs just went up in flames! He must practice on melons or something." ~ Iona, "Pretty in Pink

[Kätzchen]

“The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds and that’s what you’ve given me.”

~ from the movie, The Notebook

[Spirit Dancer]

One of Dr. Johnson’s ingredients of happiness was, “A little less time than you want.” That means always to have so many things you
want to see, to have, and to do, that no day is quite long enough
for all you think you would like to get done before you go to bed.

Helen Hunt Jackson

[Spirit Dancer]

We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand. . .
and melting like a snowflake. Let us use it before it is too late.

Marie Edith Beynon

[Spirit Dancer]

To see a World in a grain of sand,
And a Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour.

William Blake

[Just_G]

Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly. ~Rose Franken

[Just_G]

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place. ~Zora Neale Hurston

[Just_G]

Love is when you can be your true self with someone, and you only want to be your true self because of them. ~Terri Guillemets

[CrankyOldGuy]

You know what luck is? Luck is believing you're lucky, that's all... To hold a front position in this rat-race, you've got to believe you are lucky - Stanley Kowalski

[jenny]

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant." ~Robert Louis Stevenson

[Enchantress]

"Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful"

~ Phillip Morris

[Pixie]

In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost. -Dante

[Random]

Nasreddin Hodja's two wives were constantly asking him which one of them was his favorite.

"I love you both the same," was always his answer, but they did not accept this answer, and asked him repeatedly, "Which one of us do you love the most?"

Finally he secretly gave each of them a blue bead, privately instructing each woman that she should tell no one of the gift.

After that whenever either of the wives would ask him, "Which one of us is your favorite wife?" he would answer, "I love best the one to whom I gave the blue bead," and each was satisfied.

Turkish Folk Tale..

Tales of the Hodja...

[Random]

My baba used to tell me stories of the Hodja when I was a lil girl.. This was my favorite..

The Cauldron That Died
Nasreddin Hodja, having need for a large cooking container, borrowed his neighbor's copper cauldron, then returned it in a timely manner.

"What is this?" asked his neighbor upon examining the returned cauldron. "There is a small pot inside my cauldron."

"Oh," responded the Hodja. "While it was in my care your cauldron gave birth to a little one. Because you are the owner of the mother cauldron, it is only right that you should keep its baby. And in any event, it would not be right to separate the child from its mother at such a young age."

The neighbor, thinking that the Hodja had gone quite mad, did not argue. Whatever had caused the crazy man to come up with this explanation, the neighbor had a nice little pot, and it had cost him nothing.

Some time later the Hodja asked to borrow the cauldron again.

"Why not?" thought the neighbor to himself. "Perhaps there will be another little pot inside when he returns it."

But this time the Hodja did not return the cauldron. After many days had passed, the neighbor went to the Hodja and asked for the return of the borrowed cauldron.

"My dear friend," replied the Hodja. "I have bad news. Your cauldron has died, and is now in her grave."

"What are you saying?" shouted the neighbor. A cauldron does not live, and it cannot die. Return it to me at once!"

"One moment!" answered the Hodja. "This is the same cauldron that but a short time ago gave birth to a child, a child that is still in your possession. If a cauldron can give birth to a child, then it also can die."

And the neighbor never again saw his cauldron.

[JakeTulane]

"The only true measure of success is the ratio between what we might have done and what we might have been on the one hand, and the thing we have made and the things we have made of ourselves on the other." - H. G. Wells

[JakeTulane]

"A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?" - Kahlil Gibran

[JakeTulane]

"By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning." - Lao Tzu

[jenny]

"Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens." ~Carl Jung

[Janstevie]

Dont miss the doughnut by looking through the hole.

[Janstevie]

He didn't like the casserole
And he didn't like my cake,
He said my biscuits were too hard
Not like his mother used to make.
I didn't perk the coffee right
He didn't like the stew,
I didn't mend his socks
The way his mother used to do.
I pondered for an answer
I was looking for a clue.
Then I turned around and
Smacked him one

Like his mother used to do.

[Tucker]

If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.

[jenny]

"To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking." ~ Johann von Goethe

[Diva]

It's not about how hard we fall, it's about how hard we fight back.

~From The Biggest Loser

[Butterbean]

"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best," and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called. ~A.A. Milne

I've posted this quote about anticipatory joy before but love it so much here it is again. :)

[BestButchBoy]

Logan: [is shown his dog tags] I want new ones.
William Stryker: And what do you want them to say?
Logan: Wolverine.

[jenny]

“When one door closes another door opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.” ~ Alexander Graham Bell

[JakeTulane]

"Life is the fire that burns and the sun that gives light. Life is the wind and the rain and the thunder in the sky. Life is matter and is earth, what is and what is not, and what beyond is in Eternity." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[JakeTulane]

“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.” - Rabindranath Tagore

[JakeTulane]

“It always seemed to me a bit pointless to disapprove of homosexuality. It's like disapproving of rain.” - Francis Maude

[Fancy]

When your dreams turn to dust, vacuum.

[Tucker]

"I disregard the proportions, the measures, the tempo of the ordinary world. I refuse to live in the ordinary world as ordinary women. to enter ordinary relationships, I want ecstacy. I am a neurotic- in the sense that i live in my world. I will not adjust myself to the world. I am adjusted to myself."

[Just_G]

"A person who truly loves you will never let you go, no matter how hard the situation is...unless you are a punk ass and make the situation impossible....just sayin'"

~My buddy Coach~

[Spirit Dancer]

I learned.. . that inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic, striving, but it comes to us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness.

Brenda Ueland

[jenny]

“It takes a single drop of water to start a wave.” ~ Slogan of Women's Earth Alliance

(lookie ~~~~> http://www.womensearthalliance.org/article.php?id=282)

[Spirit Dancer]

We never know how much one loves till we know how much he or she is willing
to endure and suffer for us; and it is the suffering element that measures love.
The characters that are great must, of necessity, be characters that shall be willing,
patient and strong to endure for others. To hold our nature in the willing service
of another is the divine idea of humanity, of the human character.

Henry Ward Beecher

[Maria]

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence because it is fertilized with bullshit.

[jenny]

"Well, I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days." ~ Crash Davis, "Bull Durham"

[purepisces]

It's strange that words are so inadequate. Yet, like the asthmatic struggling for breath, so the lover must struggle for words. ~ T. S. Eliot

[jenny]

‎"The master gives himself up to whatever the moment brings." ~Lao Tse

[rlin]

I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all possible means--except by getting off his back.
Leo Tolstoy

[Fancy]

* * *
“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.”

Herm Albright

[Tucker]

I will not be just a tourist in the world of images, just watching images passing by which I cannot live in, make love to, possess as permanent sources of joy and ecstasy.

[jenny]

"Character builds slowly, but it can be torn down with incredible swiftness." ~ Faith Baldwin

[JakeTulane]

"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us" ~ Joseph Campbell

[JakeTulane]

"Defer not till tomorrow to be wise, tomorrow's sun to thee may never rise." - William Congreve

[JakeTulane]

"The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success. Talent is only a starting point in this business. You've got to keep on working that talent. Someday I'll reach for it and it won't be there." - Irving Berlin

[MountainStar]

Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

[jenny]

“The only sin passion can commit is to be joyless.” – Dorothy L. Sayers

[Janstevie]

Families are like fudge, mostly sweet with a few nuts.

[BestButchBoy]

"Let the others have the beauty. I've got the charisma."
~Carine Roitfeld


:: FOR ME, THIS FALLS UNDER DON'T HATE ME BECAUSE I'M NOT HANDSOME.

[femmedyke]

“Whatsoever that be within us that feels,
thinks,
desires,
and animates,
is something celestial,
divine,
and,
consequently,
imperishable.”
Aristotle

[MountainStar]

"Most folks are about as happy as
they make up their minds to be."
- Abraham Lincoln

[Spirit Dancer]

Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.
Jonathan Swift

[Spirit Dancer]

You owe no one as much as you owe yourself. You owe yourself the action that opens for you the doors of goodness, the variety, and the excitement of effort and success, of battle and victory. Making payment on this debt to yourself is the exact opposite of selfishness. You can best pay your debt to society, that has made you what you are, by being just yourself with all your might and as a matter of course. . . . You fulfill the promise that lies latent within you by keeping your promises to yourself.

David Harold Fink

[Fancy]

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.”

~Einstein

[Fancy]

"Don't ask what the world needs..ask what makes you come alive, then go do that. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive"
- Rev Howard Thurman

[jenny]

"The main dangers in this life are the people who want to change everything... or nothing." ~ Nancy Astor

[Tucker]

The only abnormality is the incapacity to love.

[femmedyke]

"Thinking of a series of dreams
Where the time and the tempo fly
And there's no exit in any direction
'Cept the one that you can't see with your eyes"
Bob Dylan

[jenny]

"Opportunity is missed by most because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." Thomas Edison

[BestButchBoy]

"Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius."
-- Fulton J. Sheen

[Nat]

THE .DOC FILE OF J ALFRED PRUFROCK
with deepest apologies to T.S. Eliot

by livejournaler "copperbadge" (http://copperbadge.livejournal.com/3102544.html)

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a laptop, put in sleep mode on a table
Let us go through certain half-deserted streets
The blinking-light retreats
Of restless nights in free-wifi cafes
And public libraries with internet
Streets that follow like messageboard argument
of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming blog post
Oh, do not ask, "What, yaoi?"
Let us go and post an entry.

In the room the players come and go
Talking of their scores on Halo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the Windows PC
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the Macintosh
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening
Lingered upon the trackpads in their case
Let fall upon its back the crumbs that fall to keyboards,
Slipped by the flashdrive, made a sudden leap
and seeing that it was a soft October night
Curled once about the mouse, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the desk,
Rubbing its back upon the Windows PC;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the icons that you meet;
There will be time to murder and respawn
And time for all the Chrome and Firefox
That drag and drop a website on your plate;
Time for .doc and time for .ppt
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred fanfics and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the players come and go
Talking of their scores on Halo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Is this wanky?" "Is this fair?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair
With a comment on the level of your player
[They will say: "How his server's lagging slow!"]
My morning cosplay, collar mounting firmly to the chin
My website rich and modest, but accessed by a simple login
[They will say: "But how his content's growing thin!"]
Do I dare
Disturb the interwebs?
In a minute there is time
For fanfictions and revisions which Google Docs may reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the RPs, archives, messageboards
I have measured out my life with usernames.
I know the voices dying with a 404
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the mods already, known them all --
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase
And when I am banhammered, sprawling on a pin,
When I am banned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the fragments of my browser cache?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the sites already, known them all —-
Sites that are Web two-oh, white and bare
[But on my cellphone, still given to fail!]
It is the javascript impress
That makes them so digress?
Sites that stretch out like a table, or word-wrap like a shawl
And should I then presume?
And how should I log in?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through archived files
And watched the dialup sequences that blink
No more from AOL in lonely Windows?

I should have been a line of ragged code,
Scuttling through the compiler, breaking apps.

And the messageboard, the website, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep...tired...or it malingers
Returning 404, here in front of me.
Should I, after iPhone apps and prices,
Have the strength to force AT&T to crisis?
But though I have wept and emailed, wept and played,
Though I have seen my avatar brought in upon a platter,
I am no hacker -- and here's no great matter;
I have seen the screen of my laptop flicker,
And I have seen the eternal bluescreen hold my eye, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the games, social media, the blogs,
Among the twitters, among some talk of IRC logs,
Would it have been worth while
To have bitten off the fandom with a smile,
To have squeezed the internet into a ball
To roll it toward some ass on Yahoo Questions
To say, "I am Babbage, come from the dead,
Come back to ban you all, I shall ban you all" --
If one, sending a textmessage, autocorrected
Should say: "That is not what I typed at all.
That is not it. LOL."

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would have been worth while
After the LOLcats and the macros and the youtube clips,
After the spambots, after the blog space, after LiveJournal trailing on the floor --
And Digg, and so much more? --
It is impossible to type just what I mean!
But as if a new .avi threw the nerves in patterns on the screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, texting or throwing back Red Bull,
And turning towards the PC, should say,
"That is not what I typed at all.
That is not it. OH LOL."

No! I am not Lovelace,
nor was meant to be,
Am on some messageboard, one that will do
To send things viral, start a meme or two,
Edit the wiki, no doubt an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Pwning, sometimes, but anonymous,
Filled with citations, all a bit obtuse;
These edits, indeed, almost ridiculous --
Can you not work Google?

I grow old... I grow old...
I shall add some links to my blog roll.

Shall I change my default pic? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall play some World of Warcraft, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the servers singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen cats talking in capslock on the web,
All up in ur fridge, eatin' ur food
When my laptop lights the darkness white and black.

We have lingered in the tubes of internet,
By URLS wreathed with info, loaded-down
Till cellphones ringing wake us, and we drown.

[FeminineAllure]

“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself.”
Harvey S. Firestone

"Those who can, DO; Those who can't, BULLY" "Bullies thrive wherever authority is weak"

“You will never reach higher ground if you are always pushing others down.” Jeffrey Benjamin

I do not at all have the mind of a bully... in my mind bullies are intolerant of contrary opinion, domineering and rather cowardly. I would hope that none of those terms could be fairly used in describing me.
Conrad Black

[jenny]

"Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in." ~ Isaac Asimov

[Rook]

hmm, not bad

Sean: Thought about what you said to me the other day, about my painting. Stayed up half the night thinking about it. Something occurred to me... fell into a deep peaceful sleep, and haven't thought about you since. Do you know what occurred to me?
Will: No.
Sean: You're just a kid, you don't have the faintest idea what you're talkin' about.
Will: Why thank you.
Sean: It's all right. You've never been out of Boston.
Will: Nope.
Sean: So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you... I don't see an intelligent, confident man... I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you're a genius Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my fucking life apart. You're an orphan right?
[Will nods]
Sean: You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally... I don't give a shit about all that, because you know what, I can't learn anything from you, I can't read in some fuckin' book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't want to do that do you sport? You're terrified of what you might say .

[Tucker]

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal... Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

[Mister Bent]

"All men are somewhat ridiculous and grotesque, just because they are men."
- Friedrich Von Schlegel


"Men have always detested women’s gossip because they suspect the truth: their measurements are being taken and compared."
- Erica Jong


"All men have something to hide. The brighter the picture, the darker the negative."
-Rupert Thorne (on Batman, The Animated Series)

[Diva]

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.

~From a headstone in Ireland

[Diva]

For some moments in life there are no words.

~David Seltzer, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

[Diva]

When [s]he shall die
Take [her]him and cut [her]him out in little stars
And [s]he will make the face of heav'n so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.

~William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

[Janstevie]

The first sign of maturity is discovering the volume knob also turns to the left.

[Semantics]

I am troubled
Immeasurably
By your eyes
I am struck
By the feather
Of your soft
Reply
The sound of glass
Speaks quick
Disdain
And conceals
What your eyes fight
To explain.

Jim Morrison

[BestButchBoy]

“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.”
~Saul Bellow

[jenny]

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. " ~ Mark Twain

[FeminineAllure]

A true friend knows your weaknesses but shows you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your spirit; recognizes your disabilities but emphasizes your possibilities.” - William Arthur Ward

Read more: http://www.disabled-world.com/disability/disability-quotes.php#ixzz10eupogwh

Your words, like thoughts and emotions, have the power to change your experience and the world we live in. This applies to both the words we say out loud to others as well as self-talk. If you tell yourself that you're not a good person, you begin to manifest this reality. Fill your mind with positive words and this is how your life will unfold.

Sandra Ingerman

[jenny]

“A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination." ~ Nelson Mandela

[femmedyke]

“Vertigo is the conflict between the fear of falling and the desire to fall.”
Salman Rushdie

[Tucker]

People living deeply have no fear of death.

[jenny]

"Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start
from now and make a brand new ending." ~ Carl Bard

[Duchess]

Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.(f)

Henry Miller (http://www.butchfemmeplanet.com/quote/436)

[Spirit Dancer]

Life is the childhood of our immortality.
Goethe

[JakeTulane]

“Never let a problem to be solved become more important than the person to be loved.” - Barbara Johnson

[JakeTulane]

“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.” - Anna Quindlen

[JakeTulane]

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank

[Glenn]

"It was through the sexual orgasm that Religion was discovered."-Osho

[Jesse]

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu

[BestButchBoy]

"If you’re afraid of butter, just use cream."
~Julia Child

[Kätzchen]

A paper should be like a mini-skirt:
long enough to cover everything,
but short enough to keep it interesting.

[Mitmo01]

" A Sucker for that quick reward...."Metallica

[Mitmo01]

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.--Charles Dickens

[Mitmo01]

When choosing between two evils,
I always try to choose the one I haven't tried before.


MAE WEST

[jenny]

"If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down." ~ Ray Bradbury

[jenny]

"To change one’s life: 1. Start immediately. 2. Do it flamboyantly. 3. No exceptions." ~ William James

[Janstevie]

Truth fears no questions.

[Tucker]

"I still get nightmares. In fact I get them so often I should be used to them by now. Im not. No one ever really gets used to nightmares."

[Butterbean]

The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life is the source from which self-respect springs.

~Joan Didion

[FeminineAllure]

You could learn alot from a box of crayons
Some are Sharp, some are pretty
Some are Dull, Some have weird names
And All are different colors
But they All live in the same Box

Anonymous



"Life is about using the whole box of crayons." ~ RuPaul

[JakeTulane]

"There are many persons ready to do what is right because in their hearts they know it is right. But they hesitate, waiting for the other fellow to make the make the first move - and he, in turn, waits for you." - Marian Anderson

[JakeTulane]

"It is only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth, and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up, that we will begin to live each day to the fullest; as if it was the only one we had." - Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

[JakeTulane]

"While you are experimenting, do not remain content with the surface of things. Don't become a mere recorder of facts, but try to penetrate the mystery of their origin." - Isabel Allende

[jenny]

"Strive for that greatness of spirit that measures life not by its disappointments, but by its possibilities." ~W.E.B. DuBois

[Fancy]

“Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.”
~Emerson

[BestButchBoy]

"Heavens to Murgatroid!"
~Snagglepuss

[Semantics]

Behold


People wake up in the middle of the night.
No, not in the middle. Deep in their brains.
They know the present, the little braveries.
We lock our doors from the inside.
We want to be delivered.
We want the patience of mirrors.
We want not to be torn in two by a brown river.
We want the courage to dive
Off the high board into human eyes.
Behold the door.
The lock’s alive.



~Stan Rice

[Butterbean]

Dreams are illustrations... from the book your soul is writing about you.


~Marsha Norman

[JakeTulane]

"Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today?" -- Mary Manin Morrissey

[JakeTulane]

"I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it -- I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or myself. I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts. I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know -- but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and ways to find out more about me. However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me. If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded. I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me. I own me, and therefore, I can engineer me. I am me, and I am Okay." -- Virginia Satir

[JakeTulane]

"I really don't think life is about the I-could-have-beens. Life is only about the I-tried-to-do. I don't mind the failure but I can't imagine that I'd forgive myself if I didn't try." -- Nikki Giovanni

[Tucker]

Beauty without expression tires.

[jenny]

"Anger and resentment can stop you in your tracks. That's what I know now. It needs nothing to burn but the air and the life that it swallows and smothers. It's real, though - the fury, even when it isn't. It can change you... turn you... mold you and shape you into something you're not. The only upside to anger, then... is the person you become. Hopefully someone that wakes up one day and realizes they're not afraid to take the journey, someone that knows that the truth is, at best, a partially told story. That anger, like growth, comes in spurts and fits, and in its wake, leaves a new chance at acceptance, and the promise of calm." ~ Lavender "Popeye" Wolfmeyer, "The Upside of Anger"

[Tucker]

Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies, for instance.

[jenny]

"Everyone can be great because anyone can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t even have to make your subject and verb agree to serve…You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

[Ms. Meander]

People of little understanding are most apt to be angry when their sense is called into question.
~ Samuel Richardson

[BestButchBoy]

“If winning isn't everything, why do they keep score?”
~Vince Lombardi

[jenny]

"What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, its curved like a road through mountains." ~ A Streetcar Named Desire (Tennessee Williams, Writer)

[JakeTulane]

"The more anger towards the past you carry in your heart, the less capable you are of loving in the present." -- Barbara De Angelis

[JakeTulane]

"You know it's love when all you want is that person to be happy, even if you're not part of their happiness." -- Julia Roberts

[JakeTulane]

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." You must do the thing you think you cannot do." -- Eleanor Roosevelt

[Tucker]

We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.

[Fancy]

Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently.
You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.

~Maya Angelou

[Butterbean]

In music the passions enjoy themselves.


-Friedrich Nietzsche

[jenny]

"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted." ~Aesop

[BestButchBoy]

“The only time to eat diet food is while you're waiting for the steak to cook”
~Julia Child

[JakeTulane]

"You never find yourself until you face the truth." -- Pearl Bailey

[JakeTulane]

"To be kind to all, to like many and love a few, to be needed and wanted by those we love, is certainly the nearest we can come to happiness." -- Mary Stuart

[JakeTulane]

"Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn." -- Harriet Beecher Stowe

[Glenn]

Hail Mary Full Of Grace The Lord Is With Thee,
Blessed Art Thou Among Womwn And Blessed Is The Fruit Of Thy Womb Jesus. Holy Mary Mother Of God. Pray For Us Sinners
Now And At The Hour Of Our Death Amen.

Glory Be To The Father Daughter And The Holy Spirit
As It Was In The Beginning, Is Now, And Ever Shall Be..
World Without End Amen.


Hut 234...

[jenny]

"At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities." ~ Jean Houston

[Arwen]

Thank everyone who calls out your faults, your anger, your impatience, your egotism; do this consciously, voluntarily. -Jean Toomer, poet and novelist (1894-1967)

[Arwen]

"You can’t learn to write in college. It’s a very bad place for writers because the teachers always think they know more than you do—and they don’t. They have prejudices." Ray Bradbury

[jenny]

jenny... is highly suspicious...

[Nat]

A good deed done to an animal is as meritorious as a good deed done to a human being, while an act of cruelty to an animal is as bad as an act of cruelty to a human being.

- Prophet Mohammed

[jenny]

‎"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." ~ Marcel Proust

[BestButchBoy]

"I bet you say that to all the wabbits." - Bugs Bunny

[JakeTulane]

"There is a law that man should love his neighbor as himself. In a few hundred years it should be as natural to mankind as breathing or the upright gait; but if he does not learn it he must perish." - Alfred Adler

[JakeTulane]

"When you make a mistake, don't look back at it long. Take the reason of the thing into your mind, and then look forward. Mistakes are lessons of wisdom. The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power." - Phyllis Bottome

[JakeTulane]

"The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us." - Voltaire

[BestButchBoy]

"Brylcreem — A Little Dab'll Do Ya!"
~Advert Jingle Tag Line

"Bryl-creem, a little dab'll do ya,
Use more, only if you dare,
But watch out,
The gals will all pursue ya,--
They'll love to put their fingers through your hair."

[Tucker]

"All dressed up and stuck at home with the ho."

[Janstevie]

How long is a minute, depends on which side of the bathroom door your on.

[Diva]

If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.

~George Carlin

[Diva]

The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.

~George Carlin

[Diva]

I see those picketers, and I think you know, if I weren't a loving, non-violent, spiritual person, I would really go over there and grab those signs and smash them over their heads and shove them up their asses. But...I'm a loving, spiritual person.

~Ellen DeGeneres

[Mister Bent]

"You work a little magic on their vulva, and the next thing you know, someone's in love."

- M. Bent

[Diva]

Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.

~Dr. Seuss

[always2late]

Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall. - Confucius

[JAGG]

" Lack of integrity, is the building block of failure."
" Integrity is the essence of everything successful."

[JAGG]

" Instant gratification, and a lack of self-restraint, is a receipe for moral bancruptcy."

[JAGG]

"There is no right way, to do the wrong thing."

[jenny]

"The universe is made of stories, not atoms." ~ Muriel Rukeyser

[moxie]

“I can't go back to yesterday - because I was a different person then." - Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

[chefhottie25]

old maids...sandra cisneros
My cousins and I,
we don't marry.
We're too old
by Mexican standards.
And the relatives
have long suspected
we can't anymore
in white.

My cousins and I,
we're all old
maids at thirty.

Who won't dress children,
and never saints--
though we undress them.

The aunts,
they've given up on us.
No longer nudge--You're next.

Instead--
What happened in your childhood?
What left you all mean teens?
Who hurt you, honey?

But we've studied
marriages too long--

Aunt Ariadne,
Tia Vashti,
Comadre Penelope,
querida Malintzin,
Senora Pumpkin Shell--

lessons that served us well.

[Jet]

"I swear Scout, you act more like a girl all the time." —Jim, To Kill A Mockingbird.

[Hack]

Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats. ~Voltaire

[Butterbean]

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

~George Eliot

[CrankyOldGuy]

I had a marketing idea that everybody hated, decency is sexy.
James L. Brooks

[femmedyke]

I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which came to me as blossom goes on as fruit. ~ Dawna Markova ~

[MysticOceansFL]

“There are moments in life, when the heart is so full of emotion That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its secret, Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered together”

[MsTinkerbelly]

Cynthia Nixon from a panal she was on:

“I want to say to the gentleman to my left, gay people who want to marry have no desire to redefine marriage in any way. When women got the vote they did not redefine voting. When African-Americans got the right to sit at a lunch counter alongside white people, they did not redefine eating out. They were simply invited to the table…We have no desire to change marriage. We want to be entitled to not only the same privileges, but the same responsibilities as straight people.”

[jenny]

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” – James Baldwin

[jenny]

“Truth is like heat or light; its vibrations are endless, and are endlessly felt.” – Margaret Deland

[jenny]

"If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging." ~ Will Rogers

[jenny]

‎"You must look into people, as well as at them." - Lord Chesterfield

[jenny]

“It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” – George Eliot

[Diva]

Do not worry about your originality. You could not get rid of it even if you wanted to.

~Robert Henri.

[Diva]

Bigotry and judgment are the height of insecurity.

~Jasmine Guy

[JakeTulane]

"Neither fire nor wind, birth nor death can erase our good deeds." - Buddha

[JakeTulane]

"Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows." - Helen Keller

[JakeTulane]

"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter." - E. E. Cummings

[MysticOceansFL]

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
by Confucius

[Arwen]

Relationship

"Union is only possible to those who are units. To be fit for relations in time, souls, whether of man or woman, must be able to do without them in the spirit."

-Margaret Fuller, Women in the Nineteenth Century (1845)

We are each whole, complete, and perfect just as we are. None of us needs another person to be fulfilled. There is no "other half" that needs to be found. Our primary relationship is with ourselves. And we can choose to share our selves, because we know what an unlimited supply of love is available to us! We learn and grow and give and receive from our relationships - and that is beautiful.

-Lissa Coffey

[Soon]

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.” – Bertrand Russell

[jenny]

“The only journey is the journey within.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

[Arwen]

“An authentic life is the most personal form of worship. Everyday life has become my prayer.” ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

[Fancy]

Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.
~Gandhi

[jenny]

"Give yourself over to absolute pleasure. Swim the warm waters of sins of the flesh - erotic nightmares beyond any measure, and sensual daydreams to treasure forever. Can't you just see it? Don't dream it, be it." ~ Frank, "Rocky Horror"

[Butterbean]

Help one another, is part of the religion of sisterhood.

~Louisa May Alcott

[Spirit Dancer]

What is good can resist defeat; what is bad cannot.
Rabindranath Tagore

[Spirit Dancer]

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you
as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens
to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.

John Homer Miller

[chefhottie25]

Day 29, Where The Self Divides...Jeffrey McDaniel

Loneliness is a privilege, and I'm grateful
for the afternoons I had as a child

to feed the crocodile I invented in my closet.
How the knob's wood expanded in my hand

when I threatened my friend with death.
Twenty years later he still has nightmares

where I get mad and fling open the door.
Upstairs our mothers were one mother
measuring emptiness by the milligram.

Their laughter clung to the ceiling
like helium balloons after a party.

Only they never came down, stayed there
without color or reason. Bruises are genetic.

By age ten we opened a window and snapped
our jaws at the world. A flashlight's subtle patch

on pavement rendered bewilderment
in nearly all who passed. A bucket of water

dumped from three stories up
onto the reliable shock of a stranger

made out hair electric, teeth sharp: milk bottles,
barbells came next. By twelve we slithered

from the house's skin, graffitied crack
room, rascal in the narrow throats of Philadelphia

and knocked over trashcans with our tails.
Under the dank wings of older kids on corners

we learned how to steal a chump's heart
without saying a word. By sixteen the boomerang

of anger curved back at us. My fingers trace the hemline
of a frenzy, passed down through the family
like an heirloom we can all squeeze into.

Each day I carry a colorless balloon and walk
my crocodile through the same streets.

Kids look at me funny, but I've got thick skin
and a firm belief in multiplication

[Ms. Meander]

'Fear of Lack' creates the thing it fears.

[Mister Bent]

"I remember yawning, because we were talking about emotional things."

- Finn Hudson, Glee

[jenny]

"There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing." ~ Brian Tracy

[Butterbean]

In the measurement world, we set a goal and strive to achieve it. In the universe of possibility, we set the context and let life unfold.

~B. Zander, The Art of Possibility

[JakeTulane]

"Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title." ~ Virginia Woolf

[JakeTulane]

'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
'I don't much care where --' said Alice.
'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
'--so long as I get somewhere,' Alice added as an explanation.
Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

[JakeTulane]

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." -
Mark Twain

[Fancy]

I would rather regret the things that I have done than the things that I have not.

- Lucille Ball

[Tucker]

I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.