Quotes, Poems, & Sayings...

[Fancy]

Go further than you planned. Ask for the moon: you will be surprised how often you get it.

Paulo Coelho

[wolfbittenpoet]

so you want to be a writer?
by Charles Bukowski

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.


if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

[JakeTulane]

"We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it." - Abraham Lincoln

We've all found ourselves traveling down the low road at one time or another. You know the road. It's the one filled with nitpicking and faultfinding. The road packed with sniping and backbiting. The road fraught with sadness and despair, crammed to the hilt with negative comments and spiteful remarks.

It's a road where trashing your friends is an everyday occurrence. It's a road where besmirching your enemies is common practice. It's a road where regularly defaming people we hardly know is widely accepted.

It's a pathetic, pitiful, pothole riddled road.

[JakeTulane]

"The high road is always respected and rewarded." Scott Hamilton

How many times have you found yourself wandering that low road? You're out there passing judgment on people you know - and don't know. You're running down colleagues and co-workers. You're even denigrating friends and family; belittling, maligning and smearing virtually everyone in sight, dishing out criticism like it's going out of style.

You don't want to be there, but you're there. You don't like what you're doing, but you're doing it nonetheless. And you're totally, completely, 100% miserable.

Let's face it, trashing and tearing others down is no way to build a life. Or make yourself happy. Or bring one sliver of value to anyone on earth. Be honest, how do you feel when you're being critical of others? Does it make you feel better? Does it make your life happier or more fulfilling? Does it make you look better in the eyes of those around you?

No it doesn't; not even close.

[JakeTulane]

"The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share our riches but to reveal to him his own." Benjamin Disraeli

Hey, it's easy to find fault. It's easy to point out flaws. It's easy to criticize and critique the shortcomings of others. But easy or not, it's just plain wrong. And it will never get you anywhere close to realizing your dreams. You've got to get off - and stay off - of the low road. And don't go back.

Instead of tearing others down, why not take the high road and look for ways to build people up? Instead of raising a ruckus with people you know, why don't you look for ways to make them feel better about themselves? Instead of fussing and fuming and getting all riled up arguing with others, why don't you look for the best in the people all around you?

Take the high road. Tell them how much you admire them, how much you appreciate them. How much they mean to you.

Even when others pass judgment on you, you've got to rise about it. Don't stoop to their level; don't join their club. Don't say two can play this game. Rather than join them on the low road and start hurling insults back and forth, I want you to take the high ground and look for a ways to lift them up. That's right; I want you to look for the best in your detractors, even when they're ripping you to shreds. Why? Because chances are pretty good they hate the low road as much as you do. They desperately want to feel better, do better and be better. They just need to discover the best within themselves.

And you can help.

[JustLovelyJenn]

Love is often gentle, desire always a rage. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

[JustLovelyJenn]

Even if you fall on your face, you're still moving forward.
~Victor Kiam

[purepisces]

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. ~ Ellen Parr

[Fancy]

"everything is a pullover if you don't unbutton it."

-Littleman

[always2late]

"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion" - William Inge

[Ms. Meander]

Truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.
Herman Melville

[Fancy]

I got treated very badly in Texas. They don't treat beatniks too good in Texas. Port Arthur people thought I was a beatnik, though they'd never seen one and neither had I.


Janis Joplin

[jelli]

"You closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them too-even when you are in the dark. Even when you're falling."

[I'mOneToo]

"How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood" -- somebody a long time ago

(in my head since hearing a 10 year old repeating it, now it's stuck and hope leaving it here will help it go away)

[Fancy]

I may talk slow, but I think fast.

(a coworker)

[ruffryder]

Being imperfect is my best trait. Kuan Yin

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without. - Buddha

Confusion is when you argue with what is - Byron Katie

Welcome to the present moment. Here. Now. The only moment there ever is. Eckhart Tolle

Your soul - that inner quiet space - is yours to consult. It will always guide you in the right direction. Wayne Dyer

In every challenging situation life provides, there is an opportunity for learning and growth. -Brian Piergrossi

[Kätzchen]

When I die if you need to weep
Cry for your brother or sister
Walking the street beside you:
And when you need me put your arms around anyone
And give them what you need to give me.

I want to leave you something -
Something better than words or sounds.

Look for me in the people I've known or loved
And if you cannot give me away
At least let me live in your eyes and not on your mind.

You can love me most by letting hands touch hands;
By letting bodies touch bodies;
And by letting go of children that need to be free.

Love doesn't die; people do.
So when all that's left of me is love,
Give me away.

-Merritt Malloy

[Butterbean]

I walk without flinching through the burning cathedral of the summer. My bank of wild grass is majestic and full of music. It is a fire that solitude presses against my lips.

~Violette Leduc, Mad in Pursuit

[Daywalker]

"...as an aside, when in English class I remembered being taught Pronouns
n stuff. I do not remember being taught to use them as a way
to segregate folks from one another. I must
have missed class that day."

~ DW ~

[Butterbean]

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

~Friedrich Nietzsche