Wednesday, February 24, 2016

The Best Words: February 2016

As a public service once a month, I share a few of my favorite things. These things are all quotes. If you also want to see what I think was funny on Twitter, here's the link. And here us goes!
“What a fantastic death abyss!”
-David Bowie, “The Heart’s Filthy Lesson”

“Art is advertising – just for important ideas and emotions.”
-Alain de Botton

“Millennials have been loaded with the “do what you love” mentality before we actually get a chance to do anything. So we’re all pulling out our hair trying to figure out what it is we love so that we can actually do it. So many of us in our culture are writhing in pain because we’re following our desires out of some distorted moral duty that says we have to be true to ourselves."
-Kyle Stiemsma

“As things fell apart, nobody paid much attention.”
-Talking Heads

“Being Loved: the feeling that another person properly recognizes and amply sympathizes with one’s buried distress.”
-Alain de Botton

“Remember, Grammar Nazis: It’s YOU’RE going to die alone.”
-Damien Fahey

"What are you doing?"
"Watching the new Rob Zombie movie. You a Rob Zombie fan?"
"I prefer his earlier, funnier movies."
-The West Wing

“What is the good of being an island, if you are not a volcanic island?”
-Wyndham Lewis

“If the school curriculum was shaped by contribution to future happiness, at least half would be on relationships.”
-Alain de Botton

“Ignorance is like sleep, your initial reaction is to be angry at the person who wakes you up.”
-Todd Marrone

"They police us. Spy on us. Tell us it makes us safer."
"Then do something about it, Mulder."
-The X-Files

Parenting is like being a juggler except all the balls are screaming.
-@KalvinMacleod

"What are you doing?"
"I'm making a joke."
"Oh, you don't have to do that. Relaxing makes me nervous, makes me feel like I'm missing something."
-The West Wing

 “[Millennials] want to wander the world, both in real life and in digital ways. They want to feel untethered. There is a trend among young adults of delaying the pressures of adult life as long as possible; they want to embrace a lifestyle of risk, exploration and unscripted moments...The generation has come to appreciate and take identity from a spiritual version of life on the road. In other words, it is a generation that is spiritually homeless.
Barna Research Group

“The quality of any creative endeavor tends to approach the level of taste of whoever is in charge.”
-John Gruber

“The visionaries aren’t always the ones who have the ideas, they are the ones who can clearly communicate their ideas to others.”
-Simon Sinek

“I don’t believe he was in love with anybody, I think that it was however a sex-tumult of sorts.”
-Wyndham Lewis, Tarr

When we hold each other, in the darkness, it doesn't make the darkness go away. The bad things are still out there. The nightmares are still walking. When we hold each other, we feel-- not safe, but better. "It's all right," we whisper. "I'm here. I love you." And we lie, "I'll never leave you." For just a moment or two the darkness doesn't seem so bad. When we hold each other.
-Neil Gaiman, Midnight Days

“The number one thing to steal from your competitors: Wisdom.”
-Seth Godin

“That was an important rule of any game: always make it easy for people to give you money.”

“Steal five dollars and you're a common thief. Steal thousands and you're either the government or a hero.”

“Speak softly and employ a huge man with a crowbar.”

“What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.”

“You might as well eat a dog-turd burger and wash it down with a jumbo cup of septic tank.”

“They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man's mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that, in the morning, it will be in a body that is going to be hanged.”
-Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“Life is too fleet for onomatopoeia.”
-Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“The purpose of CNN's BREAKING NEWS posture (caps intentional) isn't to create a better-informed citizenry. It's to make money.

“The reason that tech sites, stock sites, scandal rags and others attract attention is because it's fun. It's emotionally engaging to be involved in a story when we don't know how it's going to turn out. When the story is unfolding, when it's breaking, we become emotionally connected to it.
“The news we consume changes us. Not just the news manufactured by CNN, but the news manufactured by our boss, our investors, our customers.
“Our choice, then, is to decide whether we want to engage in the hobby of living through other people's breaking news instead of focusing on what's actually important.”
-Seth Godin

Boss, at start of weekend meeting: "I know you would rather be at home right now, binge-watching media content-"
Employee: "Hey, I just started season two of Media Content. No spoilers!"
-Brooklyn Nine-Nine

“And how shall I think of you?" He considered a moment and then laughed. "Think of me with my nose in a book!”

“Can a magician kill a man by magic?” Lord Wellington asked Strange. Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. “I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never would.”

 "[A gentleman] picks up a book and begins to read ... but he is not attending to what he reads and he has got to Page 22 before he discovers it is a novel – the sort of work which above all others he most despises – and he puts it down in disgust."

 "It has been remarked (by a lady infinitely cleverer than the present author) how kindly disposed the world in general feels to young people who either die or marry. Imagine then the interest that surrounded Miss Wintertowne! No young lady ever had such advantages before: for she died upon the Tuesday, was raised to life in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and was married upon the Thursday; which some people thought too much excitement for one week."

“Dear God!” cried Fitzroy Somerset, “What language is that?”
“I believe it is one of the dialects of Hell,” said Strange.
“Is it indeed?” said Somerset. “Well, that is remarkable.”

“Such nonsense!" declared Dr Greysteel. "Whoever heard of cats doing anything useful!"
 "Except for staring at one in a supercilious manner," said Strange. "That has a sort of moral usefulness, I suppose, in making one feel uncomfortable and encouraging sober reflection upon one's imperfections.”

“He understood for the first time that the world is not dumb at all, but merely waiting for someone to speak to it in a language it understands.”
-Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

“A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship.”
-John D. Rockefeller

“If you watch the wolf too hard, a mouse will bite you on the ankle”

“Two days' hunger made a fine sauce for anything.”

“The leaf lives its appointed time, and does not struggle against the wind that carries it away. The leaf does no harm, and finally falls to nourish new leaves. So it should be with all men and women.”

“Violence harms the one who does it as much as the one who receives it. You could cut down a tree with an axe. The axe does violence to the tree, and escapes unharmed. Is that how you see it? Wood is soft compared to steel, but the sharp steel is dulled as it chops, and the sap of the tree will rust and pit it. The mighty axe does violence to the helpless tree, and is harmed by it. So it is with men, though the harm is in the spirit.”
― Robert Jordan, The Eye of the World

“The need to be liked by people you don’t know – or like – should be treated as an illness like any other.”
-Alain de Botton
"I fear parties. I never know quite where to stand."
-Zero Theorem

“Revenge is sour.”
-George Orwell

“It’s my annivorcary. Anniversary of my divorce.”
-The West Wing

“Be warned, that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly toward a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature.”

-Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

“Woke up screaming on the wrong side of the Zen.”
-Strapping Young Lad

“Stop raising awareness for things. We’re still not doing anything about the stuff we are aware of.”
-Gary Janetti


-Phony McFakename

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