Recently in miscquotes Category

“It is Mardis Gras. Creole food everywhere. Crowds in costume jam the streets. A man dressed as a shrimp is thrown into a steaming pot of bisque. He protests, but no one believes he is not a crustacean. Finally he produces a driver’s license and is released.”

—Woody Allen, Reminiscences: Places and People, from Side Effects, 1980.

"I would suggest that academies be established where young people will learn to get really high . . . high as the Zen master is high when his arrow hits a target in the dark . . . high as the Karate master is high when he smatshes a brick with his fist . . . high . . . weightless . . . in space. This is the space age. Time to look beyond this run down radioactive cop rotten planet. Time to look beyond this animal body."

"William Burroughs, Academy 23: A Deconditioning, The Village Voice, 1967.

"We, all of us, have a need to identify our bodily rhythms with those of the cosmos.

The wind in a forest of fir. The spilling of grain in the fields. The migration of bird and seed. The trek of atom and star.

That is why we dance."

"Tom Robbins, To Dance, Helix magazine, 1967.

"Every joke is a tiny revolution."

"George Orwell, quoted by Emma Larkin in Finding George Orwell In Burma, 2005.

Last week I mentioned that the Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon, Burma, reminded me of the North Carolina State Fair. I think I should explain that comment further. The Shwedagon Pagoda consists of a massive, stunning gold pagoda, and a complex of hundreds of smaller pagodas and temples. When I visited it, the area was thronging with people and monks who were gradually circling the main pagoda on a beautiful day. Everyone seemed to be having a wonderful time. There was plenty to look at; there were painted concrete animals and characters, temple after temple, with spinning fortune-telling devices and other clever ways to give offerings at many of them. OK, the Shwedagon Pagoda was not nearly as crowded as the North Carolina State Fair, and it was much cleaner and more aesthetically more appealing than the North Carolina State Fair, but there was a similar sense of camraderie and excitement and plain old fun in the air.

Have I mentioned the great courtesy and sly humor of the people I spoke English with in Burma" At one point a man, perhaps noticing my eyes, showed me the way to a beatiful deep green wooden temple. It was built, he said, expressly for green-eyed people. There was no Buddha in it, because green-eyed people tend to be foreign and non-Buddhist. The temple was very tall, because green-eyed people tend to be tall. And, he added, tapping his head and smiling, "they tend to have good brains."

"My anxiety grew as I watched people stepping on and off what looked to me like moving stairs, and realized we would have to do the same. As far as I knew there was only one escalator in the whole of Burma, in Rangoon. It was quite a tourist attraction, and I had once gone to look at it, but discovered that it had not been in working order for years."

"Pascal Knoo Thwe, From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey, 2002.

"He was giving orders for a toothpick-case for himself, and till its size, shape, and ornaments were determined, all of which, after examining and debating for a quarter of an hour over every toothpick-case in the shop, were finally arranged by his own inventive fancy, he had no leisure to bestow any other attention on the two ladies, than what was comprised in three or four very broad stares; a kind of notice which served to imprint on Elinor the remembrance of a person and face, of strong, natural, sterling insignificance, though adorned in the first style of fashion."

"Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility, 1811.

"As I write you the stomping, rollicking, scintillating, solid, hot, strains of Guy Iturbi Ignacz Lombardo are filling the air. To say his occarino and glackenspiel sections have improved is an understatement."

"Jack Kerouac, The Town and the City, 1950.

Jack Kerouac's On the Road was written in three weeks, between April 2 and April 22, 1951; famously typed on a single roll (individual leaves of tracing paper spliced together with tape). There were no paragraph breaks, it was a single column of text that just went and went, like a road. The novel wasn't published until 1957, six years after it was written. Jack Kerouac, meanwhile, rewrote the story in a completely different, almost Joycean style (eventually published in 1972 as Visions of Cody), even as he helped its eventual publisher, Viking, rework the original draft extensively. This involved, outside of choosing the paragraph breaks, streamlining the story, avoiding libel suits by changing the names and identities of the characters, and avoiding obscenity charges by removing several of the more startling, and hilarious, scenes. Well, here's the big news: 56 years later, Viking has finally published, for the general public, On the Road: The Original Scroll. Was worth the wait' For me (I was born in 1958 and I've waited my whole life for this) it definitely was. What a kick! I laughed with Jack, I cried with Jack. Was Jack a great writer' Undeniably he was. There is now a trifecta of versions of On the Road: the novel as released in 1957, Visions of Cody and now The Original Scroll. Which one is the 'real' book' Which one is the 'best' one' You'll have to read them all before you can decide.

'And I had many a romantic fancy then, and sighed at my star. The truth of the matter is, you die, all you do is die, and yet you live, yes you live, and that's no Harvard lie.'

'Jack Kerouac, On the Road: The Original Scroll, 2007.

'Benny, tea, anything I KNOW none as good as coffee for real mental power kicks.'

'Jack Kerouac, in a 1951 letter to Neal Cassady; quoted by John Leland in Why Kerouac Matters, 2007.

''Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content. No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of the spring: no man can, at the same time, fill his cup from the source and from the mouth of the Nile.''

'Samuel Johnson, Rasselas, 1759.

''Being now resolved to be a poet, I saw every thing with a new purpose; my sphere of attention was suddenly magnified: no kind of knowledge was to be overlooked. I ranged mountains and deserts for images and resemblances, and pictured upon my mind every tree of the forest and flower of the valley. I observed with equal care the crags of the rock and the pinnacles of the palace. Sometimes I wandered along the mazes of the rivulet, and sometimes watched the changes of the summer clouds. To a poet nothing can be uselsess.''

'Samuel Johnson, Rasselas, 1759.

'The flow of talk goes forward. Words or no words we must make a sound of voices to each other and we will; but it will be better if we can launch a thought now and then on the stream of words.'

'Robert Frost, quoted in Antaeus, 20th Anniversary Issue, 1990.

'You are about to begin reading. . . . Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; the TV is always on in the next room. Tell the others right away, 'No, I don't want to watch TV!' Raise your voice'they won't hear you otherwise''I'm reading! I don't want to be disturbed!' Maybe they haven't heard you, with all that racket; speak louder, yell: 'I'm beginning to read!''

'Italo Calvino, quoted in Antaeus, 20th Anniversary Issue, 1990.

'The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes; he makes the best of us look like a piece of cheese.'

'W. Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale, 1930.

'[Ren'] Descartes never got up before noon . . . and it earned him the reputation of being lazy. Still, he managed to revolutionize the fields of physics, mathematics, and philosophy. Not bad for a lazy guy.'

'Leonard Mlodinow, Feynman's Rainbow, 2003.

'There is nothing we imagine which we do not already know. And our ability to imagine is our ability to remember what we have already once experienced and to apply it to some different situation.'

'Stephen Spender; quoted in Feynman's Rainbow by Leonard Mlodinow, 2003.

'Invention does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos.'

'Mary Shelley; quoted in Feynman's Rainbow by Leonard Mlodinow, 2003.

''A deaf composer's like a cook who's lost his sense of taste. A frog that's lost its webbed feet. A truck driver with his license revoked. That would throw anybody for a loop, don't you think' But Beethoven didn't let it get to him. Sure he must have been a little depressed at first, but he didn't let misfortune get him down. It was like, Problem' What problem' He composed more than ever and came up with better music than anything he'd ever written. I really admire the guy. . . .''

'Haruki Murakami, Kafka On The Shore, translated by Philip Gabriel, 2005.

'I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.'

'Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men In A Boat, 1889

Two recent movies that I might recommend, if you are inclined to trust me on movies, are Half Nelson and 10 Items Or Less. Half Nelson is about a crack addict history teacher. 10 Items Or Less is a wandering conversation between Morgan Freeman, as himself, and Paz Vega as a fed-up grocery store employee.

Two movies that I found entertaining and enlightening. For the sofa and the soul.

'The thing is this.

That of the all the several ways of beginning a book which are now in practice throughout the known world, I am confident my own way of doing it is the best'I'm sure it is the most religious'for I begin with writing the first sentence'and trusting to Almighty God for the second.'

'Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy, vol 8, 1765.

I've been obsessively collecting these color quotes for about three years, and it's almost time to stop. I am editing these into chapters that I am categorizing by hue, etcetera, and the process is nearly complete.

I'll self-publish it if I have to, such things can be done these days, but it only counts as credit in academia if someone else publishes it. This is 'peer review.' So I'm about to begin my search for a publisher, someone who will take these color quotes off my hands and then make us both famous. I personally think this book could be very big.

Does anyone know a publisher, or a book agent' I am seriously looking. I think I want a book agent. Are they anything like secret agents' Do they just show up at your door'

'This is the highest wisdom that I own,
The best that mankind ever knew:
Freedom and life are earned by those alone
Who conquer them each day anew.'

'Goethe, Faust, 1790; translated from the German by Walter Kaufman, 1961.

'For those of you who may have come to these pages in the course of a scholastic assignment and are impatient for information to relay to your professor (who, unless he is a total dolt, has it simmering in his brainpan already), the author suggests that you turn immediately to the end of the book and roust out those facts which seem necessary to your cause. Of course, should you do so, you will grow up half-educated and will likely suffer spiritual and sexual deprivations. But it is your decision.'

'Tom Robbins, from Another Roadside Attraction, 1971.

''The most important thing in life is style. That is, the style of one's existence'the characteristic mode of one's actions'is basically, ultimately what matters. For if man defines himself by doing, then style is doubly definitive because style describes the doing.''

'Tom Robbins, from Another Roadside Attraction, 1971.

''Human existence, beg to report, sir, is so complicated that the life of a single individual is nothing more than a bit of rubbish in comparison.''

'Jaroslav Hasek (1883-1923), The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the World War, translated from the Czech by Cecil Parrot, 1973.

Various squiggles used to denote cussing in comic books.

'33 Names of Things You Never Knew had Names.

'SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) - After 12 months of naked partisanship on Capitol Hill, on cable TV and in the blogosphere, the word of the year for 2006 is . . . 'truthiness.'

The word'if one can call it that'best summed up 2006, according to an online survey by dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster.

'Truthiness' was credited to Comedy Central satirist Stephen Colbert, who defined it as 'truth that comes from the gut, not books.'. . .

Colbert, who once derided the folks at Springfield-based Merriam-Webster as the 'word police' and a bunch of 'wordinistas,' was pleased.

'Though I'm no fan of reference books and their fact-based agendas, I am a fan of anyone who chooses to honor me,' he said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.'

'Adam Gorlick, Associated Press Writer, Friday December 8, 2006.

'The word bebop was thought to be onomatopoetic in origin, like klook-a-mop, and in fact may have been drived from the latter. Others said it had been invented by the jivey, irrepressible Fats Waller. Nobody liked it much, least of all the new jazzmen. But it stuck.'

'Ross Russell, a footnote from Bird Lives! The High Life & Hard Times of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker, 1973.

'To lead the house band at Minton's [Playhouse] Teddy Hill hired the very man he had fired less than a year before. Kenny 'Klook' Clarke. . . . 'Klook,' Clarke's nickname, had arisen from the onomato-poetic klook-a-mop, a kind of double bomb, one of Clarke's favorite percussion figures. . . . Now . . . Teddy Hill though about the bombs, the jagged zigzaggy rhythms that somehow worked, and . . . offered him the contract. . . .'

'Ross Russell, from Bird Lives! The High Life & Hard Times of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker, 1973.

BATESVILLE, Ark. (AP)' . . . The man, who has not been identified, was arrested Friday after trying to use the bill to buy cigarettes at a Batesville gas station.

'The bill was unmistakably fake due to the fact that the ink was running on the bill, the president's face was missing and for the president's name, it had the name Clinton on it,' said Deputy Nathan Stephens.

The sheriff's office expects to file counterfeiting charges against the suspect, authorities said.

'Of all the cases I've worked with phony money, this is the sorriest bill I've ever seen,' Lt. Brenda Bittle said.

'Batesville Guard, http://www.guardonline.com/, Oct 30, 9:30 PM EST.

'Freedoms are not given, they are taken.'

'Peter Kropotkin, from Words of a Rebel, a collection of his writing from 1872 to 1882.

'It is interesting to note that the third time a printer's mark was used, in 1470, it was a counterfeit of [Peter] Schoffer's mark.'

'Bernard Rudofsky, from Seven Designers Look at Trademark Design, edited by Egbert Jacobson, 1952.

'A SPLENDID ORCHESTRA
Is in town, but has not been engaged.
Also, . . .
MAGNIFICENT FIRE WORKS
were in contemplation for this occasion, but the
idea has been abandoned.
A GRAND TORCHLIGHT PROCESSION
May be expected; in fact, the public are privileged
to expect whatever they please.'

'Mark Twain, from an advertisement for a postwar San Francisco performance; quoted in Printer's Devil: Mark Twain and the American Publishing Revolution by Bruce Michelson, 2006.

'The question of the minimum house is the question of the basic minimum of space, air, light, and heat which is necessary to man. . . . Man from a biological viewpoint needs improved conditions of ventilation and lighting and only a small quantity of living space, especially if this is organized in a technically correct manner.'

'Walter Gropius, Die Soziologische Grundlagen der Minimalwohnung in Die Wohnung f'r das Existenzminimum, 3rd edition, 1933.

'Shop signs were gargantuan, the better to overwhelm customers. . . . A tooth-puller was represented by a tooth the size of an armchair, a glover by a glove with each finger big enough to hold a baby.'

'Barbara W. Tuchman, from A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, 1978.

'There is a riddle about a man who is locked in a room with nothing but a bed and a calendar, and the question is: How does he survive'

The answer is: He eats dates from the calendar and drinks water from the springs of the bed.'

'Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, from The Sirens of Titan, 1959.

''You want to fly through space' God has already given you the most wonderful space ship in all creation! Yes! Speed' You want speed' The space ship God has given you goes sixty-six thousand miles an hour'and will keep on running at that speed for all eternity, if God wills it. You want a space ship that will carry men in comfort' . . . He's given you a space ship that will carry billions of men, women and children! Yes! And they don't have to stay strapped in chairs or wear fishbowls over their heads. No! Not on God's space ship. The people on God's space ship can go swimming, and walk in the sunshine and play baseball and go ice skating and go for family rides in the family automobile on Sunday after church and a family chicken dinner!''

'Kurt Vonnegut, Jr; Reverend Bobby Denton, from The Sirens of Titan, 1959.