favorite quotes

[cquin]

"Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viola or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?"

-Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

[Rupert Pupkin]

For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives

In the valley of its making where executives

Would never want to tamper, flows on south

From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,

Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,

A way of happening, a mouth.

- W.H. Auden, "In Memory of W.B. Yeats"

[ComeBackZinc]

"All writing is pigshit." -- Antonin Artaud

Asian Theater Journal published a memorial article about my father last fall. My favorite quote is from a former student of his who became very close friends with him.

"That first day, I lay on the floor of Wesleyan’s ’92 Theater, as the young, somewhat wild-eyed Fritz exhorted us. ‘Artaud says we must be as victims at the stake, signaling to each other through the flames!’ he declaimed. ‘This is a workshop in transformation. And you will be transformed.’ And I was”

[skybythelight]

"Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viola or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?"

-Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

This was going to be mine. I had "Mere words!" tattooed on my inner arm during a particularly difficult semester when I needed reminding of exactly why I'm putting myself through this crazy thing.

[cquin]

This was going to be mine. I had "Mere words!" tattooed on my inner arm during a particularly difficult semester when I needed reminding of exactly why I'm putting myself through this crazy thing.

Really now! Okay, I'll confess: I've been considering getting some variation of that quote permanently inked onto my body. I've been browsing a bunch of tattoo forums and have never come across this particular quote--but now I know there's at least one other person out there with it!

[skybythelight]

It's a lovely quote, a favorite tattoo of mine, regardless of how simple it is.

[woolferine]

Really now! Okay, I'll confess: I've been considering getting some variation of that quote permanently inked onto my body. I've been browsing a bunch of tattoo forums and have never come across this particular quote--but now I know there's at least one other person out there with it!

I told myself if I made it to the other side of this application process that I would get an Eve Sedgwick quote/phrase tattooed on my body...and now I'm like, oh shit, I get to follow through on that promise! Haha.

Not in the literary vein as others on this thread, but a favorite quote nonetheless a la Judith Butler at OWS in October: "If hope is an impossible demand, then we demand the impossible."

[ekant]

"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."

This is the first stanza of William Blake's 'Auguries of Innocence'. One of my favorite verses (and poems) of all time. This verse kicks me in the face (in the best way possible) every time I read it. I've considered getting it tattooed to my body on numerous occasions.

[xfgdfrmgpo332]

(I second the above Blake). Can't pick a true favorite, but here are the incredible last two stanzas of Hart Crane's "Proem: To Brooklyn Bridge":

Under thy shadow by the piers I waited;

Only in darkness is thy shadow clear.

The City’s fiery parcels all undone,

Already snow submerges an iron year . . .

O Sleepless as the river under thee,

Vaulting the sea, the prairies’ dreaming sod,

Unto us lowliest sometime sweep, descend

And of the curveship lend a myth to God.

Edited February 29, 2012 by joega1111

[Julianne Pigoon]

Most of my favorite quotes are from my favorite author, Alasdair Gray.

“Who did the council fight?”

“It split in two and fought itself.”

“That’s suicide!”

“No, ordinary behaviour. The efficient half eats the less efficient half and grows stronger. War is just a violent way of doing what the people do calmly in peacetime: using the other half for food, heat, machinery and sexual pleasure. Man is the pie that bakes and eats himself, and the recipe is separation.”

"I'm afraid you'll have to take up art. Art is the only work open to people who can't get along with others and still want to be special."

"Which proves," said Lanark, who was eating a salad, "that the world's great stories are mostly a pack of lies."

[Gauche]

Finally made my first post here. Thought some of you might like this one:

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."

- Henry David Thoreau, Walden

[LivePoetry123]

Its so hard to pick a favorite! I think that these have come to mind because they seem to have some sort of relevance to the agonizing "application/waiting/rejection/acceptance/questioning academia" process we've all been going through.

We are alone

until the times change

and those who have betrayed

come back like pilgrims to this moment

when we did not yield

and call this darkness poetry.

--Leonard Cohen

A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

--Thomas Mann

[NowMoreSerious]

“The original is unfaithful to the translation.”

― Jorge Luis Borges

"Work is the curse of the drinking classes"

---Oscar Wilde

[bigrelief]

"Shakespeare is the happy hunting ground of all minds that have lost their balance."

--Joyce, Ulysses.

More than applicable to a paper I once wrote...

[Historiogaffe]

"If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing." — Kingsley Amis

"There is always a surprise in store for the anatomy or physiology of any criticism that might think it had mastered the game … [had looked] at the text without touching it, without laying a hand on the 'object,' without risking—which is the only chance of entering into the game, by getting a few fingers caught—the addition of some new thread." — Derrida, "Plato's Pharmacy"

"It's this trick of putting blood and sinew into the argument that is the best that science fiction has to offer. Science fiction isn’t a literature that tells you what will happen tomorrow. It is a literature that tells you how to prevent the bad tomorrows and usher in the good ones. It is an active and activist literature, with an agenda and a point of view." — Cory Doctorow, "

A Vocabulary for Speaking About the Future"

And every doodle in Tristram Shandy. My forever-favourite: the disappointing trajectory of the first four books.

Edited March 2, 2012 by speakwrite_

[viracity]

“This [oatmeal] represents your soul in its pure state. Your soul on the day you were born. You were perfect. You were happy. You were good.

Now, enter Concept Number Two: crap. Don't worry, folks. I don't use actual crap up here. Only imaginary crap. You'll have to supply the crap, using your mind. Now, if someone came up and crapped in your nice warm oatmeal, what would you say? Would you say: 'Wow, super, thanks, please continue crapping in my oatmeal'? Am I being silly? I'm being a little silly. But guess what, in real life people come up and crap in your oatmeal all the time--friends, co-workers, loved ones, even your kids, especially your kids!--and that's exactly what you do. You say, 'Thanks so much!' You say, 'Crap away!' You say, and here the metaphor breaks down a bit, 'Is there some way I can help you crap in my oatmeal?”

from a George Saunders short story.

Love Saunders!

My favorite quote (so much so, it's tattooed on my right shoulder blade):

"Yo no podre quejarme

si no encontre lo que buscaba."

Translated:

"I won't be able to complain

though I never found what I was looking for."

-Federico Garcia Lorca

[viracity]

Oh, in the vein of loving George Saunders...his short story "Sea Oak" is stunning. Definitely my favorite from his work. I think it's from the same collection as the story perrykm2 quoted above.

[TripWillis]

Oh, in the vein of loving George Saunders...his short story "Sea Oak" is stunning. Definitely my favorite from his work. I think it's from the same collection as the story perrykm2 quoted above.

I like "Adams" a lot. The word "wonk" always makes me crack up.

[viracity]

I like "Adams" a lot. The word "wonk" always makes me crack up.

Yes. Fantastic word (and story). Basically, I am a tad jealous of Saunders' writing.

[Venti White Choc. Mocha]

Vonnegut's tombstone reads, "Everything was beatiful, and nothing hurt."

[perrykm2]

George Saunders is hilarious. I had never laughed out loud reading anything until I read Pastoralia.

[crystalleem]

A few I love:

"Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become." - C.S. Lewis

"Art is the proper task of life." - Nietzsche

"The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for." - Oscar Wilde

Edited March 4, 2012 by crystalleem