Thirty three, he said, its not such a bad age, got a nice sort of rhythm to it, still young enough to swing on a playground swing.
So every year when this day rolls around I ask the patient readers of From The Morgue to give me a small gift – to comment with a quote of some kind.
Last year put it nicely:
It can be a quote from a song or a poem or a movie or a conversation or an advertising brochure or a blog or a speech or a legal opinion or a sports commentary or a magazine article or a comic book or a novel or a motivational poster or the website you have open on the other browser tab.
Give me a quote that means something to you, or a quote that means nothing to you, or a quote that couldn’t mean anything to anybody even if they tried.
Every year, this collection of random bits of the world makes me happy, and I like to be happy on my birthday. C’mon and indulge me.
This is the sixth year I’ve done this! Previous Birthday Wisdoms: 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004
Also, best wishes to my newest birthday buddy: Arthur son of Chuckles, one year old today!
Love’s the boy stood on the burning deck
trying to recite “The boy stood on
the burning deck”. Love’s the son
stood stammering elocution
while the poor ship in flames went down.
Love’s the obstinate boy, the ship,
even the swimming sailors, who
would like a schoolroom platform, too
or an excuse to stay
on deck. And love’s the burning boy.
— Elizabeth Bishop
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/999.html
Happy birthday!
Stephanie
“There’s no point in being grown up if you can’t be childish sometimes.”
Ring the bells that still can ring
forget your perfect offering
there is a crack (a crack) in everything
that’s how the light gets in
that’s hot the light gets in
– Leonard Cohen
I’ma do the things that I wanna do
I ain’t got a thing to prove to you
I’ll eat my candy with my pork and beans
excuse my manners if I make a scene
I ain’t gonna wear the clothes that you like
I’m fine and dandy with the me inside
one look in the mirror and I’m tickled pink
I don’t give a hoot about what you think
– Weezer
Song lyrics that mean something to me. Happy birthday honey!
I can’t remember where I came across this, but I really like it:
“If nothing we do matters, then the only thing that matters is what we do.”
And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.
– Abe Lincoln
Happy birthday!
“Love is when you can’t sleep because reality is finally better than your dreams,” -Dr. Seuss.
“After the smoke cleared, the man in the pink thong was victorious.”- a lucid me on marker fumes.
Here’s my advice from right now: don’t pretend that you know how to cook stinging nettles. Because you don’t. And you will be stung.
Don’t eat things that can sting you.
blake makes friends but only for a minute
he prefers the things he orders from the internet
and blake’s been having trouble with his head again
he takes his pills but never takes his medicine
he tells me that he’s fine
and the sad thing is he’s right
and when its 2 o’clock it feels like 9…
– “Blake Says”, by Amanda Palmer.
Happy birthday!
Here’s a quote from me that I made up after reading your blog entry:
“You’re never too old to swing on playground swings. You might want to think twice about the seesaw though if you’re likely to break a hip”
Happy birthday:)
Days we have shared together
Memories from the past
thoughts and dreams
we talked about
these are things that last
That’s how it is with friendship
two minds that think as one
laughing at such silly things
long after they have gone
Friends don’t need special occasions
or birthdays to say
just how much a friendship means
regardless of the day
Happy Birthday
“There’s too much talk in this world, and not enough stadiums full of lesbians.”
“You wouldn’t think jagged bone digging into raw nerves would hurt, but it does.”
“Well, I suppose now is the time for me to say something profound… Nothing comes to mind.”
In an age where all is change
Anything we can imagine
We can build it
– Idle Faction
happy birthday! here is some random flotsam and jetsam from my psyche
“Boys will come a dime by the dozen
That ain’t nuthin’ but 10 cent lovin'”
–Otis Redding
And
“This evening’s too quiet, oh we need a real riot
to shake and to break and to bite like a snake.
We’re stuck in this attic so bored and so static,
tomorrow they’ll ask us to throw off our masks…
We still live in silence like sworn threats of violence.
I long for an end and it’s coming round the bend.
If we live through this night and still feel all right.
We’ll flee to Siam or a bar in Amsterdam.”
–Katzenjammer
I made this half-pony half-monkey monster to please you
But I get the feeling that you don’t like it
What’s with all the screaming?
You like monkeys, you like ponies
Maybe you don’t like monsters so much
Maybe I used too many monkeys
Isn’t it enough to know that I ruined a pony making a gift for you?
— “Skullcrusher Mountain”, Jonathan Coulter
Football is not a matter of life and death – it is far more important than that!
Bill S.
Happy Birthday!
I read this on Grandma Mehrten’s ex-fridge: ‘If the world was an orange, it would probably be too small.’
“You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!”
‘Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood
When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form.
“Come in,” she said,
“I’ll give you shelter from the storm.”
…
Suddenly I turned around and she was standin’ there
With silver bracelets on her wrists and flowers in her hair.
She walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns.
…
Well, the deputy walks on hard nails and the preacher rides a mount
But nothing really matters much, it’s doom alone that counts
And the one-eyed undertaker, he blows a futile horn.
…
Well, I’m livin’ in a foreign country but I’m bound to cross the line
Beauty walks a razor’s edge, someday I’ll make it mine.
If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born.
“Come in,” she said,
“I’ll give you shelter from the storm.”
— Bob Dylan, _Shelter from the Storm_
‘You can’t deepfry chicken coated in baking soda instead of cornflour!’
overheard in the kitchen of Tia and Regan – it turns out you can, but it tastes really really awful.
happy birthday!
Never sniff a lighted candle because the flame will go up your nose and burn your nostril hair.
– p drinkwater
“In God we trust; all others must bring data”
W. Edwards Deming
DIMEBAG DARRELL
Just roll with it man
TREVOR DUNN
Eliminate the bullshit from your life. Practice your ass off. Listen to everything.
DARRYL JENIFER:
“We don’t have no gimmick, I ain’t no gimmick man. You see the Clash on stage and they’re all high on some kind of speed. If I want some energy, I just drink some orange juice and go out and rock harder than all of them.”
PS The name should follow the quote. I always put the name first because that’s how my brain sorts list’s!
“You can’t always get what you want,
but if you try some times, you might find,
you get what you need”
– The Rolling Stones, You Can’t Always Get What You Want
“If you keep doing what you’ve always done,
you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got”
– Unknown
And one of my personal favourites:
“I never saved anything for the swim back”
– Vincent Freeman in Gattaca
“May the Bird of Paradise fly up your nose, may an elephant caress you with its toes” Little Jimmy Dickens
From a couple of days ago:
G: Do you think you love me more than when we got married?
E: Yes. Definitely.
G: I love you more too.
Happy 1st Married Birthday!
“I’ll go in first – in case you would know what you’re talking about and Kingsley would have a gun and would be a little desperate. I got a big belly. Makes a nice target.”
Jim Patton to Phillip Marlowe in The Lady in the Lake. I’ve been catching up on Raymond Chandler’s stuff as of late. I loved that line.
Happy birthday, cos!
I feel like someone’s got to bring the Achewood…
[[edited by morgue – the stuff I chopped out here is now in the next comment only]]
Pat: Oh there you go, joinin’ in, just like always! I guess friends DON’T change!
Ray: No, Really! They are really silly people! Stop listening to them!
Pat: What the… why the hell you care so much?
Roast Beef: They suck pretty bad huh Ray
Ray (hands cupped round his mouth to make his voice carry): That’s Right, Roast Beef! Say, how you doin’?
Roast Beef: Pretty good now that I am 239,000 miles from The Cure.
OOPS. I stuffed up my birthday quote. Stink.
I thought this was the most relevant with the nuptials in the past year and all:
Ray: Alright, it’s go-time, dude. You need a little fix a’ diamond juice?
Roast Beef: Yeah man hit me with some before I go down that gauntlet of smiles
[drinks]
Roast Beef: Alright dogg, let’s get MARRIED! Let’s get married TO A LADY!
Ray: We gonna marry the HELL outta that woman!
When one has much to put in them, a day has a hundred pockets.
F.Nietzsche
There’s nothing so disappointing as something that would be delicious if you did the research first. Like toasting pumpkin seeds with garlic and lime-infused avacado oil, without looking on the internet and waving off concerns of your nearest and dearest, and then finding, oh yeah, you have to shell them first. And the outside tastes so nice!
(I guess “delicious” isn’t always the right word to describe the positive outcome that you’ve missed out on.)
On the other hand — sometimes the disappointment is the funnier anecdote, and it can be more interesting to just go, instead of looking at a map first. It helps if you don’t have to be there in time for a baptism, mind you.
Happy birthday. I hope your year goes well.
This is my favorite quote of all time:
Rocky Balboa: Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and roses. It is very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there pernamently if you let. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it abin’t about hard you can hit; its about hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done. Now if you know what you’r worth. then go and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hit, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where your are because of him or her or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain’t you. You’re better thatn that!
Happy birthday Morgan. Youre 33 and I’m nearly 44. I can relate to how 33 has nice ring to it/
Language is the universal whore that everyone is trying to turn into a virgin.
Stephen Fry.-
Much love Morgue,
C+M
“Communication is peer pressure.”
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Nelson Mandela’s inaugural speech
written by Marianne Williamson.
Happy birthday.
For no apparent reason, my favourite western quote:
“It’s sad that governments are chiefed by the double tongues. There is iron in your words of death for all Comanche to see, and so there is iron in your words of life. No signed paper can hold the iron. It must come from men. The words of Ten Bears carries the same iron of life and death. It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life… or death. It shall be life.”
Ten Bears to Joesy Wales
“Hrrrrrmmmmmm”
Bonus Eastwood quote from Gran Torino
“‘Ere! You two are nuffing wiffout ‘is guidance! ‘Cause ‘e’s the drug king, and ‘e MADE YOU!”
– anonymous, Legend of the Shoe Store
“It’s about time the people who run this planet of yours realized that to be dependent on a mineral slime just doesn’t make sense”.
The Doctor (Who)
“It’s about time the people who run this planet of yours realized that to be dependent on a mineral slime just doesn’t make sense”.
The Doctor (Who)
I’ve got a Dungeon Master’s Guide
I’ve got a 12-sided die
I’ve got Kitty Pryde
And Nightcrawler too
Waiting there for me
Yes I do, I do
Weezer – for some reason I have this going around in my head
Considering 33 is such a gospel-y age, you can have the following (and it’s modern translation):
“Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.”
Matthew 10:16
“Be conservative in what you do; be liberal in what you accept from others.”
Jon Postel, The Robustness Principle
“And the spiral nebulae!? Well?! Don’t tell me you don’t know what THAT means! SPY-ral!! And the expanding universe, the retreating galaxies! Where are they going? What are they running from? And the Doppler shift to the RED!! Highly suspicious – no, more! A clear admission of guilt!!’
– Stanislaus Lem, Memoirs Found In A Bathtub
I am currently surrounded by folks who are (for the most part) better at the words thing than me so for no reason whatsoever you get this:
“Hurm” x
“Excalibur can no more cleave truth from falsehood than a stick or a spoon.”
Mike W. Barr from the DC Comics book Camelot 3000.
Illustrated by the awesome Brian Bolland.
“Alright, people – and I use the word derogatarily – we can do this the wrong way or my way!”
– Howard the Duck
Happy Birthday!
“The kindly hand of nature subsequently covered them over with friendly sand and loam without destroying their delicate tracery, and preserved them against the ravages of all the passing centuries.”
The Mystery of the Moa by T Lindsay Buck
Special bonus round from Piet Hein:
MEETING THE EYE
You’ll probably find
that it suits your book
to be a bit cleverer
than you look.
Observe that the easiest
method by far
is to look a bit stupider
than you are.
The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets
Proverbs 26:13
A day late and probably more than a dollar short, but…
I thought I’d refer to our old friend Tom Lehrer tis year for some typically thought-provoking lyrics:
“We’ll all go togeher when we go”
Introduction:
‘I am reminded at this point of a fellow I used to know whose name was Henry, only to give you an idea of what an individualist he was, he spelt it hen3ry. The ‘3’ was silent, you see.
hen3ry was finally independent having inherited his father’s tar-and-feather business and was therefore able to devote his full time to such intellectual pursuits as writing. In addition he indulged in a good deal of philosophizing.
Like so many contemporary philosophers he especially enjoyed giving helpful advice to people who were happier than he was. One particular bit of advice which I recall, which is the reason I bring up this whole, dreary story, is something he said once before they took him away to the Massachussetts State Home for the Bewilderd. He said: “Life is like a sewer: what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.”
It always seems to me that this is precisely the sort of dynamic, positive thinking that we so desperately need in these trying times of crisis and universal broo-ha-ha, and so with this in mind I have here a modern positive dynamic uplifting song. In the tradition of the great old revival hymns, although this one might more accurately be termed a survival hymn.’
Lyrics
“When you attend a funeral,
It is sad to think that sooner or
Later those you love will do the same for you.
And you may have thought it tragic,
Not to mention other adjec-
Tives, to think of all the weeping they will do.
But dont you worry.
No more ashes, no more sackcloth.
And an armband made of black cloth
Will some day never more adorn a sleeve.
For if the bomb that drops on you
Gets your friends and neighbors too,
There’ll be nobody left behind to grieve.
And we will all go together when we go.
What a comforting fact that is to know.
Universal bereavement,
An inspiring achievement,
Yes, we all will go together when we go.
We will all go together when we go.
All suffused with an incandescent glow.
No one will have the endurance
To collect on his insurance,
Lloyds of London will be loaded when they go.
Oh we will all fry together when we fry.
We’ll be french fried potatoes by and by.
There will be no more misery
When the world is a rotisserie,
Yes, we will all fry together when we fry.
Down by the old maelstrom,
There’ll be a storm before the calm.
And we will all bake together when we bake.
There’ll be nobody present at the wake.
With complete participation
In that grand incineration,
Nearly three billion hunks of well-done steak.
Oh we will all char together when we char.
And let there be no moaning of the bar.
Just sing out a te deum
When you see that i.c.b.m.,
And the party will be ‘come as you are’.
Oh we will all burn together when we burn.
There’ll be no need to stand and wait your turn.
When it’s time for the fallout
And Saint Peter calls us all out,
We’ll just drop our agendas and adjourn.
You will all go directly to your respective valhallas.
Go directly, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollas.
And we will all go together when we go.
Evry hottenhot and evry eskimo.
When the air becomes uranious,
And we will all go simultaneous.
Yes we all will go together
When we all go together,
Yes we all will go together when we go.”
Happy Birthday Morgue. 33 is a great year! Loads of love and hug, T xxxx