4001) "There are certain chance meetings with strangers that interest us from the first moment, before a word is spoken."-Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
4002) "A male gynecologist is like an auto mechanic who never owned a car."-Carrie Snow
4003) "Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry with your girlfriends."-Laurie Kuslansky
4004) "A man's got to do what a man's got to do. A woman must do what he can't."-Rhonda Hansome
4005) "Every time I close the door on reality it comes in through the windows."-Jennifer Unlimited
4006) "I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once."-Jennifer Unlimited
4007) "When I was young, I was put in a school for retarded kids for two years before they realized I actually had a hearing loss. And they called ME slow!"-Kathy Buckley
4008) In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man; if you want anything done, ask a woman."-Margaret Thatcher
4009) "I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career."-Gloria Steinem
4010) "Two things a man cannot hide: that he is drunk, and that he is in love."-Antiphanes
4011) "Children don't read to find identity. They don't read to free themselves of guilt, to quench the thirst for rebellion, or to get rid of alienation. They have no use for psychology. They detest sociology....They still believe in good, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation and other such obsolete stuff."-Isaac Bashevis Singer
4012) "I've a friend my age whose parents met in Auschwitz on the Day of Liberation/ She lives in San Francisco, a good job, just moved into a new house/ I've a friend who lies in her hospital bed/ After fifteen operations from a botched appendectomy/ I go to visit her with a heart heavy from the things on my mind,/ And she cheers me up/ I saw my dad tell jokes, and teach me how to laugh,/ Thirty years after his parents, and brothers, sister were all shot,/ Murdered in the streets of Lithuania/ I see trees growing tall and the sun coming up, and the ocean roaring home,/ And know I must go on, I must go on/ It would be cowardly to stop/ It would be an aberration to do anything else/ Amid something you tried to remember for days/ The fog is suddenly lifted/ The haze is gone from your mind/ And it's not so much that your memory finally heeded/ But you gave up needing to need it/ Hey, the fog has gone/ Hey, the fog has gone/ It's time for you to come out/ There's no longer a reason to die"-Dan Bern, "Lithuania"
4013) "Raised up my hand & said I solemnly swear/ One January day/ And just like that I was the President/ Of the USA/ Just like that I was the President/ Of the USA/ There were limos, bands & speeches/ And parties to go to/ I said all that will have to wait/ There's just so much to do/ Them parties will have to wait/ There's so much to do/ My first day I offered statehood/ To Cuba and Mexico/ Cuba-1 state, Mexico-6/ All or nothin' that's how it goes/ No more border patrols & human smuggling/ & we'll deal with our own neighborhood/ And a few more stars & some green in the flag/ Seems, like it might be good/ And maybe Israel and Palestine/ Will follow our lead and just combine/ And then become Israelstine-who knows?/ Anyway that's my first day/ Second day I told Detroit/ Start makin' cars that don't use gas/ And I give everybody a big rebate/ And they started sellin' fast/ We'll stop burnin' up the air we breathe/ And makin' the planet boil/ And we won't have to kiss the ass/ Of whoever's got the oil/Since before Hoover, the farmers have got/ The short end of the stick/ With the help of our Cuban brothers/ We'll be Communistic (Collective farms!)/ Capitalism is a fine thing/ If it works, then great, OK/ But if not, gotta try something else/ That's what I did on my 3rd day/ My 4th day all of our troops came home/ From all around the earth/ Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran/ More trouble than they're worth/ I was tempted to say, 'I'm sorry/ We'll rebuild you with money and men'/ But I just said, 'You're on your own/ And don't fuck with us again'/ My 5th day I changed the army/ So it's all of us or none/ We'll all tie knots, & walk through mud/ Pitch tents and fire a gun/ With just a few of us as warriors/ And the rest of us gone soft/ Martians could come & zap us/ Ain't gonna happen on my watch/ Day 6 I swore no prisoners more/ Would face their death inside/ Thou Shalt Not Kill applies to us all/ Too many mistakes, besides/ Day 6 I swore no prisoner more/ Would ever face his death/ At least until my jury hears/ The Crimes of President Bush/ Day 7 was hot, I legalized pot/ And none of this decriminalizing crap/ Let it grow in glory, end of story/ Then I burned one & took a nap/ Hemp will help the farmers/ We'll grow hemp everywhere/ One acre of hemp's like 10 acres of trees/ And hemp grows back next year/ My 8th day I made health care/ Cover everyone/ If you get sick, see a doctor/ That's how my government's run/ And by the way, abortion/ Is included in this plan/ No one tells a girl how to treat her body/ Least of all some man/ My 9th day I said, 'Sorry/ This government is no fool/ Ain't gonna pay you extra to send your kid/ To some weird-ass wacko school/ We'll do our best to make our schools/ Best anyplace on earth/ If they ain't good enough, think about it/ Before you go give birth'/ My 10th day I made it OK/ To marry whoever you/ Would be willing to ride with/ On a bicycle built for 2/ Marry a woman, marry a man/ Marry a monkey too/ Marry a big old rhino/ And visit 'em at the zoo/ And that was my first 10 days/ My first 2 working weeks/ Lots of work for the bureaucrats/ And the paper-pushing geeks/ After that we needed/ Some time to just have fun/ So we added some new holidays/ The next week, one by one/ Monday was National Nude Day/ Everyone disrobed/ Tuesday was National Stoned Day/ Everyone got stoned/ Wednesday was National Painting Day/ Thursday no television/ Friday was tennis, John McEnroe helped/ From his Cabinet position/ Saturday, Sex With Impunity Day/ With no repercussions/ Sunday, do it all-Nude, Stoned, Painting, no TV, Tennis, Sex-Enjoy!!/ Just be ready for work on Monday/ And mister, no discussion/ My Cabinet, as previously mentioned/ Includes John McEnroe/ And Wavy Gravy and Michael Franti/ And Ani Difranco/ Muhammad Ali, Madonna/ Maya Angelou, Bratt Pitt/ And Monica Lewinsky & Bill Clinton/ And we'll watch 'em both go at it/ And then I'll get that Stephen Hawking/ Make him a citizen & stuff/ He's the smartest guy in the world/ England's had him long enough/ I'll tell him you can be the head of whatever you want/ Just bring your thinking cap/ And I'll give him an office in Hollywood/ With all those ramps & crap/ I raised up my hand & said I solemnly swear/ One January day/ And just like that I was the President/ Of the USA/ Just like that/ Just like that/ Just like that I was the President/ Of the USA"-Dan Bern, "President"
4014) "Bush must be defeated.../ His evil gang unseated/ His base of power deleted/ His energy depleted/ Bush must be defeated/ Further services unneeded/ His departure speeded/ There's a land but you don't need it/ Bush must be defeated/ The rose garden weeded/ A new frontier reseeded/ We'll no longer let you bleed it/ Bush must be defeated/ This mistake not be repeated/ Our desires not go unheeded/ We will not twice be cheated/ Bush must be defeated/ His goodbye coffee heated/ Inaugural spats uncleated/ His White House bed unsheeted/ Bush must be defeated/ His welcome's been exceeded/ Successors must be greeted/ Imposter be excreted/ Bush must be defeated..."-Dan Bern, "Bush Must Be Defeated"
4015) "Every night at 8 p.m./ I fold my limbs and clear/ my mind, as inner peace/ I seek to find./ I sit very still, close my eyes, and picture/ the stain on one of my ties./ It's not what should happen, of that I'm aware,/ as I remind myself to buy underwear./Thoughts of life and beauty dwindle,/ as I consider the gas price swindle./ I worry that ants are taking over my house./ And what was that movie with Lindsay Crouse?/ I try very hard to ban from my mind,/ the recycling laws, and things of that kind./ I dwell on my neighbor, the one with the 'tude,/ I find her and her dog exceedingly rude./ I hate to admit that I've failed meditation,/ I've tried for a while, but without vindication./ Tranquility sounded like such a nice state./ It seems my arrival will just have to wait."-Fred Sahner, "Meditations", "Metropolitan Diary", The New York Times
4016) "Explanations should be as simple as possible, but no simpler."-Albert Einstein
4017) "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science."-Albert Einstein
4018) "It's a bewildering thing in human life that the thing that causes the greatest fear is the source of the greatest wisdom. One's greatest foolishness is one's biggest stepping stone. No one can become a wise man without being a terrible fool."-Carl Jung
4019) "Here's a good thing to do if you go to a party and you don't know anybody: First, take out the garbage. Then go around and collect any extra garbage that people might have, like a crumpled-up napkin, and take that out too. Pretty soon people will want to meet the busy garbage guy."- Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey"
4020) "The love that lasts the longest is the love that is never returned."-Somerset Maugham
4021) "I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather. Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car."-Emo Phillips
4022) "Things come apart so easily when they have been held together by lies."-Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out of Carolina
4023) "There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt. And how do you know laughter if there is no pain to compare it with?"-Erma Bombeck
4024) "Acquire the courage to believe in yourself. Many of the things that you have been taught were at one time the radical ideas of individuals who had the courage to believe what their own hearts and minds told them was true, rather than accept the common beliefs of their day."-Ching Ning Chu
4025) "Whoever you are, there is some younger person who thinks you are perfect. There is some work that will never be done if you don't do it. There is someone who would miss you if you were gone. There is a place that you alone can fill."-Jacob M. Braude
4026) "No matter where you live, every white-collar twentysomething in the country has one priority as soon as they get home from work: get undressed as soon as possible. I used to go from three-piece suit to boxers and dress socks in under six seconds flat."-Aaron Karo
4027) "A mind is a wonderful thing as long as you don't have to use it."-Tim McCarver, baseball announcer
4028) "I'm very prepared to believe that the deep questions of existence will prove to be far more mysterious than anything that science has an inkling of at present, but that is not equivalent to saying that something else does have some understanding. If we come back in a thousand years, we would have our minds blown away by what science has discovered in the meantime, whereas religion or spirituality or mysticism will have discovered nothing more. They never have discovered anything. The fact that I do not subscribe to supernaturalism doesn't mean that I don't respond in an emotional way that one might almost describe as spiritual, if the word hadn't been debauched."- Richard Dawkins, biologist, Seed
4029) "This legacy of cheerful wit became the thing that sustained me and also, at times, burdened me. In spite of a sense of ever-present exasperation with my own body, I was rarely depressed and reacted to my awful life with joy, with humor, and with light. (In the nineties, when various critics reviewed some of my early novels, they would question how it was possible that the characters in these books could react to the conflicts in their lives with comedy. I never understood this comment. What else should they use to express their sorrow? Tears?)"-Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders
4030) "There is nothing as annoying as someone for whom the world is new. At least to those for whom the world is old."-Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders
4031) "What I've taken away from this, however, is the way in which we can become obsessed with clearing our good name, even after our innocence has been established. It is a very human impulse, but it's ultimately fraught with peril. The more we feel compelled to keep explaining ourselves, the less like others we become."-Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders
4032) "To my mind, an even deeper mystery than the secrets we keep is the mystery of the way our hearts incline toward this person and not that one, how one soul selects another for its company, how we recognize companion souls as we make our way through the world in awkward bodies that betray us at every turn."-Richard Russo, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders
4033) "Is it the fact that the world so often disappoints us that makes hope seem so far-fetched? What makes imagining the worst so easy? Is it really so much more plausible? Or, frightened children that we are, do we imagine the worst as a kind of totemic magic, in the hopes of fending it off in reality?"-Richard Russo, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders
4034) "Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well."-Josh Billings
4035) "In crises, the most daring course is often safest."-Robert Francis Kennedy
4036) "My neighbours do not wish to be loved./ They have made it clear that they prefer to go peacefully/ about their business and want me to do the same./ This ought not to surprise me as it does;/ I ought to know by now that most people have a hundred things/ they would rather do than have me love them./ There is a television, for instance; the truth is that almost everybody,/ given the choice between being loved and watching TV,/ would choose the latter. Love interrupts dinner,/ interferes with mowing the lawn, washing the car,/ or walking the dog. Love is a telephone ringing or a doorbell/ waking you moments after you've finally succeeded in getting to sleep./ So we must be careful, those of us who were born with/ the wrong number of fingers or the gift/ of loving; we must do our best to behave/ like normal members of society and not make nuisances/ of ourselves; otherwise it could go hard with us./ It is better to bite back your tears,/ swallow your laughter,/ and learn to fake the mildly self-deprecating titter/ favored by the bourgeoisie/ than to be left entirely alone, as you will be,/ if your disconformity embarrasses/ your neighbours; I wish I didn't keep forgetting/ that."- Alden Nowlan, "He Attempts to Love His Neighbours"
4037) "My dream is for me to be a poet who could make things like this sky come to life for someone else. If you see a sunset and try and describe it to someone in normal words, all you can say is, 'Boy, I saw a great sunset last night.' But if you are a poet, you give it to someone to feel for themselves. Like you make a little seed of what you saw, they swallow it, and it blooms again inside their own heart."-Elizabeth Berg, True to Form
4038) "...It is never about how good your voice is; it is only about feeling the urge to sing, and then having the courage to do it with the voice you are given. It is about what people try to share with each other, even if so many of us are off-key when we do it. It is about saying we are somewhere, when what we mean is we are as close as we are able to get."-Elizabeth Berg, True to Form
4039) "Katryna had an epiphany this fall. While driving through post peak Massachusetts on her daily route, she noticed a hillside, all brown and gold, autumn's faded palette. And she realized with surprise that she actually preferred what we call 'post peak' to the traditional 'actual peak.' See, 'actual peak' involves a whole spectrum of anxiety: 'is it peak yet? is it now? Wait, I think I still see some green over there, so it can't be peak, but look, that maple is balding fast, and maybe I missed it after all!' Once we're in post peak, the fall proceeds in a stately, gradual manner, and by the time the last leaf has fallen, we are serenely resigned to the state of affairs. It's a nice time. We miss out on the leaf gazing, mountain climbing frenzy and trade that in for crackling fires and the anticipation of snow days."-Nerissa Nields
4040) "I collect and wear Mickey Mouse watches. This past fall, I boarded the train to New York at Metropark, in Woodbridge, N.J. At one of the stops, a boy about 5 entered the train with his mother. As the train was crowded, they sat next to me, the boy on his mother's lap. He noticed my watch, and looked up at my face. He repeatedly glanced at the watch, then at me, as though working out a difficult problem. Finally, with a very puzzled expression on his small face, he tapped me on the arm and said, 'Excuse me, but are you a grown-up?'"-Lollie W. Margolin, "Metropolitan Diary", The New York Times
4041) "The good thing about 'Sex and the City' is that you can, for the most part, watch any episode without having seen the previous one. I rarely watch continuous series. It's just too much like going to church or synagogue - you have to be there at the same time every week and people make you feel guilty if you miss it. I'm like the guy who only shows up on Easter - I only tune in for the season finale and pray I didn't miss too much."-Aaron Karo
4042) "If we believe in absurdities, we will commit atrocities."-Voltaire
4043) "And who knows? Somewhere out there in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow in my footsteps, and preside over the White House as the president's spouse. I wish him well."-Barbara Bush, commencement address to Wellesley College
4044) "Sometimes I think I would like to be a word—not a big important word, like 'love' or 'truth,' just a small ordinary word, like 'orange' or 'inkstain' or 'so,' a word that people use so often and so unthinkingly that its specialness has all been worn away like the roughness on a pebble in a creekbed, but that has a solid heft when you pick it up, and if you hold it to the light at just the right angle you can glimpse the spark at its core."-Katha Pollitt, The New Yorker
4045) "I would say that it is hard enough to make a plan for how you are going to spend an evening with somebody else. So to make a plan for how you are going to behave in 25 years seems based on a view of life that is incomprehensible to me."-Wallace Shawn, The New York Times Magazine
4046) "Except for death and paying taxes, everything in life is only for now!"-Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, "For Now", Avenue Q
4047) "Any real New Yorker is a you-name-it-we-have-it-snob...whose heart brims with sympathy for the millions of unfortunates who through misfortune, misguidedness or pure stupidity live anywhere else in the world."-Russell Lynes
4048) "Imagination is more important than knowledge, for knowledge is limited while imagination embraces the entire world."-Albert Einstein
4049) "A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom."-Robert Frost
4050) "At the very genesis of history, God himself was a matchmaker when he introduced Adam and Eve. But when you think about it, Adam and Eve were the only two humans on planet Earth, so why did God have to introduce them? Surely they would have bumped into each other."-Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis
4051) "In our first jobs out of college, we are so naive. We don't realize that being given a pager, cell phone or Blackberry by our company is very, very bad. Sure, the NYU chicks at the bar may think it's cool when you pull that little toy out of the holster on your belt to send a quick email, but everyone else just thinks you're a jackass. Plus, now your boss can find you wherever you go. You know what other organization has that capability? Prison. I do not believe this is a coincidence."-Aaron Karo
4052) "It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."-Thomas Jefferson
4053) "This [church advocacy on the court-ordered acceptance of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts] is the most intense outreach by the church to the Legislature that I have ever seen. It is absolutely stunning. I really wish I had seen a fraction of this vigor when it came to the protection of children."-Marian Walsh, state senator from the Boston neighborhood of West Roxbury
4054) "Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief."-Cicero
4055) "It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them."-Ralph Waldo Emerson
4056) "I took a speed reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia."-Woody Allen
4057) "A clever entrepreneur has tacked his business card/ Onto car windows peeking through grainy white cocoons/ 'I'll dig your car out for $10 an hour' says the sign./ How much to dig me out of/ This morass of self-loathing/ This vacuum of McJob misery/ This spiraling credit card debt that will probably keep me from/ ever holding public office?"-Kendra Stanton, "Snowdrifter"
4058) "There is no such thing as a 'self-made' man. We are made up of thousands of others. Everyone who has ever done a kind deed for us, or spoken one word of encouragement to us, has entered into the make-up of our character and of our thoughts."-George Matthew Adams
4059) "I see this world battered but not broken,/ There's a fallow heart, it's waiting on a sowing hand./ You can grow what you want, but one day it's gonna rise up,/ So plant what you need to make a better stand."-Amy Ray, "Tether"
4060) "If I ever opened a trampoline store, I don't think I'd call it Trampo-Land, because you might think it was a store for tramps, which is not the impression we are trying to convey with our store. On the other hand, we would not prohibit tramps from browsing, or testing the trampolines, unless a tramp's gyrations seemed to be getting out of control."-Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey"
4061) "To me, clowns aren't funny. In fact, they're kinda scary. I've wondered where this started, and I think it goes back to the time I went to the circus and a clown killed my dad."-Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey"
4062) "There's a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore looking like an idiot."-Steven Wright
4063) "One of the things that I realized a long time ago is that change is very difficult. There is enormous institutional resistance to change in this country. You cannot expect people with great privileges taken at the expense of ordinary working people to surrender them lightly. Change is hard work. Change does not happen simply because you go to a rally and simply because you make phone calls -- and I know how hard everybody has worked. But change is a process that you can never give up on. Change is the state of America and change is the state of humankind. The history of humanity is that determined people overcome obstacles. It is natural for people to resist, but it is also inevitable that we will win."-Governor Howard Dean, M.D., in his email announcing that he was no longer actively pursuing the presidency
4064) "Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."-Harold Whitman
4065) "Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she slept a good night's sleep, and will be able to eat breakfast, and doesn't hear her husband's ghost all the time, but only some of the time. Her grief is replaced with a useful sadness. Every parent who loses a child finds a way to laugh again. The timbre begins to fade. The edge dulls. The hurt lessens. Every love is carved from loss. Mine was. Yours is. Your great-great-great-grandchildren's will be. But we must learn to live in that love."-Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated
4066)"I'm sorry to myself/ my apologies begin here before everybody else/ I'm sorry to myself/ for treating me worse than I would anybody else"-Alanis Morrisette, "Sorry To Myself"
4067) "'cause if you're not trying/ to make something better/ then as far as i'm concerned/ you are just in the way"-Ani DiFranco, "What If No One's Watching"
4068) "Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity."-Charles Mingus, American Jazz Composer, Bass Musician
4069) "To know that one has a secret is to know half the secret itself."-Henry Ward Beecher, American Preacher, Orator, Writer
4070) "I have found it of enormous value when I can permit myself to understand another person. The way in which I have worded this statement may seem strange to you. Is it necessary to permit oneself to understand another? I think that it is. Our first reaction to most of the statements which we hear from other people is an immediate evaluation, or judgment, rather than an understanding of it. When someone expresses some feeling or attitude or belief, our tendency is, almost immediately, to feel 'That's right'; or 'That's stupid'; 'That's abnormal'; 'That's unreasonable'; 'That's incorrect'; 'That's not nice.' Very rarely do we permit ourselves to understand precisely what the meaning of his statement is to him. I believe this is because understanding is risky. If I let myself really understand another person, I might be changed by that understanding. And we all fear change. So as I say, it is not an easy thing to permit oneself to understand an individual, to enter thoroughly and completely and empathically into their frame of reference. It is also a rare thing."-Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person
4071) "If you are planning for a year, sow rice/ if you are planning for a decade, plant trees/ if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people."-Chinese proverb
4072) "Few people have the imagination for reality."-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
4073) "Generalizations are generally wrong."-Mary Wortley Montagu
4074) "Never lie when the truth is more profitable."-Stanislaw Jerszy Lec, Polish Aphorist, Poet, Satirist
4075) "I have always found it puzzling that while millions of songs have been written about love and, by extension, sex, a mere handful have been written about food or eating, which is at least as important and often more satisfying. There's a great song I remember from my childhood called 'Just a Bowl of Butter Beans,' but it doesn't even have its own music -- it's sung to the tune of 'Just a Closer Walk With Thee.' We are reminded that 'The Lady Is a Tramp' because 'she gets too hungry for dinner at 8,' and among the pleasures of being taken 'out to the ballgame' is the box of Cracker Jacks. But I think we deserve more. If there is, for example, 'Shall We Dance?' why not 'Shall We Dine?'"-Julia Reed, The New York Times Magazine
4076) "When we're in college we make a lot of friends. It's easy. We have plenty of time to hang out and talk into the night. You begin to think that it will always be that easy and there will always be new friends coming down the pike... It's not true. Your good friends from college may be the best friends you ever have. Guard those relationships like gold, work hard to maintain them. When they have a wedding, go across the country to be there. When one of them gets sloppy about keeping in touch, keep trying. And when one of them needs your help, cross the globe to give it to them. If you do that, if you work hard, your friends will become a precious touchstone in your life; there aren't many things more valuable."-Lawrence Kasdan, University of Michigan commencement speech, May 5, 1990
4077) "Our admiration of fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease."-Charles Caleb Colton, British Sportsman, Writer
4078) "Later that day, I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic. Those that are old and familiar. Those that bring up lots of questions. Those that bring you somewhere unexpected. Those that bring you far from where you started. And those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you you love - well, that's just fabulous."-Carrie Bradshaw on "Sex and the City"
4079) "We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be. And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of these assumptions."-Stephen R. Covey
4080) "If God dwells inside us, like some people say, I sure hope He likes enchiladas, because that's what He's getting!"-Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey"
4081) "i think that there's an intensity [when you're in love]. where you FEEL everything in a very present, intense, and sometimes scary way. like you are at the same time rationally, intellectually, and viscerally connected. but the visceral isn't fleeting -- it's present a lot and it makes you present in a different way, which i think contributes to the temporal shift... everything was in my sight, in my touch, and it was clear and good. there wasn't clarity in a way that could be articulated. the intense emotion felt scary but right, it fit somehow and in the excitement and intensity there was a comfort that this was right and settled. and i think there's something in that feeling that you just can't get close enough. there's a striving for ever more depth."-Ariel Bierbaum
4082) Some people continue to believe that being gay is a choice. We've never met those people, so we're not sure what the thought process is there. (Although we imagine it's something like, 'Oh, gays? They're in it for the childhood ridicule, and they totally get off on being denied spousal healthcare.')"-Sarah G. Harrison, Nerve.com
4083) "We love because it is the only true adventure."-Nikki Giovanni
4084) "It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do."-Moliere
4085) "it was about acknowledging pain, boredom, and complacency in relationships, while at the same time appreciating those things as part of the beauty, intensity, excitement, and freedom that other people and (sigh) love can bring into your life."-Ariel Bierbaum, on "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"
4086) "Slipped under door of Apartment 8B from the diplomats in 7B:/ Your adorable daughter's a lively girl:/ She likes to run and jump and twirl,/ She likes to tackle Dad and Mom,/ She likes to play 'dynamite' and 'bomb.'/ We old folks, who live below/ Experience every step and blow/ Through our low-tech transmitter -/ We mean, our ceiling (that's your floor)./ We know the sweetheart isn't violent,/ We don't think children should be silent,/ Nor should they be calmed with drugs -/ All we ask is, get some rugs."-Andrew Sprung, "Metropolitan Diary", The New York Times
4087) "We saw him for the first time in years/ He'd invited us over to hang out and have a couple of beers/ His wife leaned over and said, 'Can I get you anything at all, my dear?'/ And he said, 'No, if you don't mind, I'd just like you to disappear,' and she said/ It's okay to be mean to the evil people who make life unbelievable/ But try to be nice to me/ We all watched him as he tore his napkin apart/ Then he threw his hands up and let the pieces scatter on the carpet/ He said, 'Mortality is an issue with me, it's good for my art/ Because I am very interested in the makings of a broken heart'.../ We all try to get through the day with just a little piece of happiness/ And we all try to frame our face in a background of success/ But we all find ourselves at the end of the day racing to undress/ And the people we kick around inevitably are the ones that we love best..."-Nerissa Nields, "Be Nice To Me"
4088) "The two best times to keep your mouth shut are when you're swimming and when you're angry."
4089) "Years ago I read about a woman in war-torn London who one day noticed a tiny piece of silver foil stuck in a storm drain. Through the nightly bombing raids, it stayed lodged in the drain, becoming a talisman for the woman, telling her that, despite daily cataclysms, small stabilities remained on which she could build hope. As a New York newcomer in the 70's, I felt something similar when I noticed, embedded in the downtown Times Square R platform, a white curved fragment of a clam shell, evidently scooped up with the beach sand used to make the concrete decades before. Month after month, year after year, I noted the shell, polished to a soft gleam by 10 million feet, halfway between the ramp (later steps) down to the platform and the newsstand. Mayors, presidents, my own ups and downs, even 9/11, came and went, and the shell was still there, speaking silently its own life and death on some unknown seashore, of the steam shovel that dug it up, the truck that carried it here, the workers who poured the concrete before I was born. 'Here I am,' said the shell. 'You come and go, I remain.' Imagine, then, my recent surprise when I found the platform roughly scraped down, awaiting a new surface, and my shell, my mute companion for a quarter century, gone forever. In this tumultuous city, we cling to whatever doesn't change. Then that changes, and we must start looking again."-Michael Lydon, "Metropolitan Diary", The New York Times
4090) "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no use being a damned fool about it."-W. C. Fields
4091) "The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself a fool."-William Shakespeare
4092) "I so hunger to wake up and be surprised with some really good news – by someone who totally steps out of himself or herself, imagines something different and thrusts out a hand."-Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times
4093) "Science differs from politics or religion, in precisely this one discipline: we agree in advance to simply reject our own findings when they have been shown to be in error."-Robert Pollack
4094) "When I was 12, I thought that when The New Orleans Times-Picayune wrote about the 'struggle for control of the West Bank,' it meant the other side of the Mississippi River. I thought that my shiny gold velour pants actually looked good. I kept a giant sack of Nabisco chocolate-chip cookies under my bed so that they might be available in an emergency -- a flood, say, or a hurricane -- that made it harder to get to the grocery store. From the safe distance of 43, '12' looks less an age than a disease, and for the most part, I've been able to forget all about it -- not the events and the people, but the feelings that gave them meaning. But there are exceptions. A few people, and a few experiences, simply refuse to be trivialized by time. There are teachers with a rare ability to enter a child's mind; it's as if their ability to get there at all gives them the right to stay forever."-Michael Lewis, The New York Times Magazine
4095) "Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too."-Voltaire
4096) "'Conservatives for Nader.' Not a large group. About the same size as 'Retarded Death Row Texans for Bush.'"-Jon Stewart
4097) "The New York subway has become the city's last bastion of hope for romantics. That's partly because the subway is one of the only places where people aren't subdivided into small cliques depending on social class or musical tastes. And instead of the carefully selected and touched-up photos that people present online, under the bright, fluorescent lights of the subway you can see exactly what someone looks like. There is no dark lighting to cover a premature wrinkle, a scary makeup job or a bad hair day. The subway exposes people when they are their most unfortunate selves, and I, for one, love it. Every day, millions of naturally stunning women parade in front of me, and all I have to do is look up from my seat to appreciate them."-Jason Gordon, The New York Times
4098) "Life is not the way it is supposed to be. It is the way it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference."-Virginia Satir
4099) "To a worm in horseradish, the whole world is horseradish."-Yiddish proverb
4100) "If music could only bring peace, I'd only be a musician/ If music could only bring peace, I'd only be a musician/ If songs could do more than dull this pain/ If melodies could break these chains..."-Pete Seeger, "Letter to Eve"