I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from conventions and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy… If it meant that, I did not want it.
Emma Goldman
Often misquoted as some variation of “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.”
“I do not want art for a few, any more than I want education for a few, or freedom for a few.”
William Morris
I see my recent desire to acquire The Strawberry Thief-print rugs, and cover our big living room walls with a Morris floral is entirely justified on many levels.
That quotation is as wonderful and gorgeous as his artwork.
I think I may have found your ideal football shirt
From “Deconstructing Harry”:
“All people know the same truth. Our lives consist of how we choose to distort it.”
“Between air conditioning and the Pope, I chose air conditioning.”
“Tradition is the illusion of permanence.”
“Be careful what you swallow. Chew!”
–Gwendolyn Brooks
Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.
– Peter Clemenza
Great ad-lib at the end there by actor Castellano.
Are bon mots allowed?
“Don’t mop under the psycho.”
— Crow T. Robot
A funny line, to be sure, but I have also found it to be very good advice on more than one occasion. And on such occasions it is also good to laugh.
You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.
-James Baldwin
Mais oui, mon cher!
We console ourselves with the flesh
for all the iniquities in the world.
– Anaïs Nin, A Spy in the House of Love
Nice one.
And I’m reminded of her also writing:
We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.
Tuns out she credited the Talmud in the same breath, and that many others had also said as much:
Yes. The promise of endings there.
It’s just peer pressure. From dead people.