2009 May 10: From the new Star Trek movie:
"What is necessary is never unwise."
2008 October 7: Alex Castellanos, Republican strategist, on the presidential debate...
"I learned tonight that McCain wants to buy everyone a house and Obama wants to give everyone health care, which I think is remarkable for a country that's broke."
2008 September 25: Virginia in re. her pending divorce...
"I realize this: that belonging is claimed. Not given. And it is ephemeral."
2008 September 24: Jeff Roland
Even if it is not a secret garden, it has inhabitants, some of whom look rather friendly, while others quite frankly don't... unless a hidden message about a certain episode of a nearly lethal drowning, as well as some other elements drawn from my tormented life, well, not that tormented but wait...doesn't it just look like flowers?
2008 August 29: A quote from the almost-famous Paul Begala...
"When you're 72 and you have had four bouts with cancer, you ought to choose a qualified VP."
2008 August 28:
If you want to carve a piece of rock crystal, take a two- or three-year-old goat and bind its feet together and cut a hole between its breast and stomach, in the place where the heart is, and put the crystal in there, so that it lies in its blood until it is hot. At once take it out and engrave whatever you want on it, while this heat lasts. When it begins to cool and become hard, put it back in the goat's blood, take it out again when it is hot, and engrave it. Keep on doing so until you finish the carving. Finally, heat it again, take it out and rub it with a woolen cloth so that you may render it brilliant with the same blood.
2008 August 17: Greg Bear, on flying as opposed to space travel...
How nice just to fly in the thin film of air, and avoid the larger issues. Flying was like a marvelous kind of sleep, above the hard reality of waking, but below the greater blackness of death.
2008 August 11: Philip Pullman...
"Do not be afraid of the obvious."
2008 August 10: Two (ordinal) from the late Tim Leary...
1 = "In the information age, you don't teach philosophy as they did after feudalism. You perform it. If Aristotle were alive today he'd have a talk show."
2 = "We are dealing with the best-educated generation in history. But they've got a brain dressed up with nowhere to go."
2008 August 1: A quote from a Tribe thread...
"i was a perfect angel for the first 13 years of my life
and then i turned 14.. "
2008 June 12: Guest speaker...
"The Mall of America was the largest mall in the world, but that was three years ago. Today, it wouldn't make the top ten."
2008 May 31:
"He's the type of person that gives you provincial morons a bad name."
2008 May 31: Little league coach to catcher, during a baseball game...
"Is that three outs?"
2008 May 28: Amusing airport mishear...
This is a special security announcement: Loki is not allowed in the terminal.
2008 April 10: Just a little bit more Kipling...
"All sensible men are of the same religion, but no sensible man ever tells."
2008 April 4:
"That's all you need for a complete flight of fancy: To see something differently, once."
2008 March 31: The second of two from Day Watch...
- "Don't you make mistakes?"
- "I don't cry over them."
2008 March 31: The first of two from Day Watch...
I hold the world in my hand. But where I go, the world cannot follow.
2008 March 18: Somebody else's father...
"R was beating a small book with his flashlight and the battery flew through the air and was lost. He asked me to fix it. I explained that the battery went up in the air and was lost now. Then he asked to speak to Gramma. So we called Gramma in Colorado to say good morning. R then asked her to look for the battery when she is on the airplane up in the air.
"The logic is flawless. Even if the battery stayed up in the air, I do not want my mom to cruise through the kitchen in a 747 to recover it."
2008 March 16: On Germany...
"Yes, you make a great car. And yes, you occasionally start world wars."
2008 March 15: A wise remark from a VC person...
"Overfunding can kill a company as quickly as underfunding it."
2008 Feb 21: Jared, from Labyrinth:
"I ask for so little. Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave. "
2008 Feb 19:
"It's a gateway drug!"
"Oh, good, what's through the gate?"
2008 January 28: These two seem related...
General George S. Patton: "If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking."
Microsoft Exec: "If you don't make mistakes you aren't working on hard enough problems. And that's a big mistake."
2008 January 23: A third-millenium quandary...
"I don't know whether to thank you, or to accuse you of being co-dependent. "
2008 January 20: Robert Smith, 1989
"Don't go looking for the power of strangeness."
2008 January 17: Dan...
"Hey, 0 out of 3 ain't bad."
2007 December 28:
"Dying of plastic surgery, that would be a double! Two ways of not getting old, in one."
2007 December 21: Debi...
"I never buy common evil when pure evil is available."
2007 December 17: Hugh...
"The sullen face of an illiterate virgin. She couldn't be better!"
2007 December 15: Hat made from bird counts as half alive...
"If loving your hat is wrong, I don't want to be right."
2007 November 27: Something from Tim Powers...
"Has aught been heard of the Fulgury Bird
in the isles to the west of Man?
For hither the gilded galleys of men
have sailed since the world began.
With painted sails and mariners' songs
We come with trumpets and brazen gongs
To procure that for which His Majesty longs,
The remarkable Fulgury Bird."
2007 November 9: Haiku, set of four...
spring arrow
to hit
the future
summer arrow
to hit
the moment
autumn arrow
to hit
the past
winter arrow
to hit
eternity
2007 November 2:
"Buddha was merely a teacher. He was never a dragonfly, or a fountain."
2007 November 1 - - George Carlin:
"The worst thing about e-mail is that you can't interrupt the other person. You have to read the whole thing and then e-mail them back, pointing out all their mistakes and faulty assumptions. It's frustrating and it's time-consuming. God bless phone calls."
2007 October 20:
"Your wife sent something to look for you."
2007 October 18:
"What is the matter with my people? They do not seem to realize that I am their leader. Did I not tell them?"
2007 October 13:
"When you have a fat friend, there are no see-saws. Only catapults."
2007 October 12: Elections are coming; are you ready to vote on initiatives?
"Should we not eat un-babies not on this un-day?"
2007 October 11: A comment from a lady at the Women's Studies department:
"She shaved it for Jesus."
2007 October 2: A quote from an anime flick:
"Overspecialize and you breed in weakness. It's slow death."
2007 September 26:
- - "She makes noises like a chipmunk."
- - "I thought somebody was torturing a collie."
2007 September 21:
It often requires more courage to read some books than it does to fight a battle.
- - Sutton Elbert Griggs (1872-1930)
2007 September 17: The new word learned today is"counterphobic"
Relating to or characterized by a preference for or the seeking out of a situation that is feared.
2007 September 15:
"He refuses to worry or pray. He believes that if you don't have one, you don't need the other."
2007 September 11:
"Well... at least the Republicans are giving war a bad name."
2007 September 7:
"Please don't dump me before I'm done using your truck!"
2007 September 7:
"It looks like a Mexican whorehouse! We love it!"
2007 September 3: Somebody ELSE said this:
"33 is round, 45 is jagged. It has nothing to do with the way they look, it's what they represent."
2007 August 29:
"Drinking make Girl Human mean like Man in Charge."
2007 August 28:
A: The light is red from bending around the Earth's atmosphere and shining on the Moon.
R: You're taking all the fun out of it.
A: The Moon is being eaten by a giant goat.
2007 August 25:
The police aren't here to create disorder... They're here to *maintain* disorder!
2007 August 25:
Pintel: Parley? Damn to the depths whatever man what thought of "Parley".
Jack: That would be the French.
2007 August 22: Stephen Colbert:
"There's only so much poop that can fit into our national pants."
2007 August 20: Marylin Monroe:
Don't you know that a man being rich is like a girl being pretty? You wouldn't marry a girl just because she's pretty, but my goodness, doesn't it help?
2007 August 18: A ridiculous thing I said while talking to myself...
'Alleluia' is one syllable if you say it like you really mean it. That's the way Elvis would say it.
2007 August 15: A story from Daniel.
Daniel: "What's the soup du jour?"
Waiter: "Zat is zee soup of zee day!"
Daniel: "No thanks, I had that yesterday."
2007 August 15: From a chapter on synesthesia...
What a strange lot writers are, we questers after the perfect word, the glorious phrase that will somehow make the exquisite avalanche of consciousness sayable. We who live in mental barrios, where any roustabout idea may turn to honest labor, if only it gets the right incentive -- a bit of drink, a light flogging, a delicate seduction.
2007 August 10: Menu in a Greek restaurant with bellydancer included
COFFEE NUDGE
Brandy, Liqueur de cafe, creme de cacao and coffee, topped with whipped cream.
2007 August 7: From I don't remember where:
"I demand to be crucified in a purely Jewish section!"
2007 August 5: From Hairspray:
"When I'm high, I am Odetta. Let's get naked and smoke!"
2007 August 4: A note on a bucket...
Debora I got lost in the night. Outside light was too hot so Patty put me here. Would you please let me go when it get light?
2007 July 31: Meryn Cadell
"I dreamed I won the lottery in my Maidenform bra."
2007 July 25: Act 2, Scene 1, lines 131-133
"I am as peremptory as she proud-minded. / And where two raging fires meet together / They do consume the thing that makes them fury."
2007 July 21: This week's most amusing bit of technical documentation...
Quaternion.Slerp Method
Parameters:
q1 Source Quaternion structure.
q2 Source Quaternion structure.
t A value that indicates how far to interpolate between the quaternions.
Return Value:
A Quaternion structure that is the result of the interpolation.
2007 July 20: Courtesy of the Science Fiction Book Club...
"Come discover a planet where hot and horny females are the 8th wonder of the world, men are banished and great apes are the women's personal love slaves. Into this world comes a TV repairman / mad-scientist tuned into the erotic signals from this crazy, sex monkey paradise. DVD $9.99"
2007 July 18: From "The Fountain"
No, no. Listen, listen. He said that if they dug his father's body up, it would be gone. They planted a seed over his grave. The seed became a tree. Moses said his father became a part of that tree. He grew into the wood, into the bloom. And when a sparrow ate the tree's fruit, his father flew with the birds. He said... death was his father's road to awe. That's what he called it. The road to awe.
2007 July 14: Heard around the campfire...
Oh lord above,
Send down a dove
With wings as sharp as razors
To slit the throats
Of them thar blokes
What sells bad beer to sailors!
2007 July 11: More stuffs seen around at the Microsoft...
On a post-it note stuck to the top of a monitor: "YOU MUST EAT."
On a whiteboard: "REMEMBER: Your wife is at home."
2007 July 9: It has to be just the right kind of wrong color:
"Not just ordinary green dye, Gregor. Convincing Green Dye."
2007 July 7: Passport questionnaire TMI:
"I've never been widowed. I tried, though."
2007 July 3: In a disagreement over vegetables and a 4th of July barbecue:
"Eggplants taste squeaky!"
2007 July 2: Heather Lindsley
"If I'd known you'd be shooting wine out of your nose I'd have suggested a merlot."
2007 June 28: Beryl Markham
I could never tell where inspiration begins and impulse leaves off. I suppose the answer is in the outcome. If your hunch proves a good one, you were inspired; if it proves bad, you are guilty of yielding to thoughtless impulse.
2007 June 25: From Oliver Goldsmith, from "The Vicar of Wakefield"...
When any one of our relations was found to be a person of a very bad character, a troublesome guest, or one we desired to get rid of, upon his leaving my house I ever took care to lend him a riding-coat, or a pair of boots, or sometimes a horse of small value, and I always had the satisfaction of finding he never came back to return them.
2007 June 22: Heard today...
"There's a lot of crime. But we have good rappers!" <-- an expatriate from Atlanta, GA
2007 June 21: Overheard at Microsoft...
"Just stick a piece of duct tape on it and write 'billg' in sharpie" <-- instructions on how to requisition an unclaimed quad-proc CPU.
2007 June 20: Found something I wrote down that I overheard someone say into a cell phone while riding a bus in Las Vegas...
"Dude, I've taken my IQ test, I'm extremely above smart."
2007 May 22: It's from a short story by A. S. Byatt. She is British, of course <--
Any two people may be talking to each other, at any moment, in a civilised way about something trivial, or something, even, complex and delicate. And inside each of the two there runs a kind of dark river of unconnected thought, of secret fear, or violence, or bliss, hoped-for or lost, which keeps pace with the flow of talk and is neither seen nor heard. And at times, one or both of the two will catch sight or sound of this movement, in himself, or herself, or, more rarely, in the other. And it is like the quick slip of a waterfall into a pool, like a drop into darkness. The pace changes, the weight of the air, though the talk may run smoothly onwards without a ripple or quiver.
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