I turn 32 around midday today, in about a dozen hours. What kind of age is that, 32? It seems a meaningless age to be. (I sincerely hope it is.)
As is traditional here at From the Morgue, I ask my readers to add a quotation of some kind to the comments as a birthday gift.
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.
Previous Birthday Wisdoms: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007
52 thoughts on “Birthday Wisdom 2K8”
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I randomly bring you the wonderful work of a particular xkcd. Apparently a huge group of people actually turned up at the time and date co-ordinates mentioned in the strip.
Happy birthday to you, dear Morgue.
Above was me, and also my linky didn’t work. So: http://xkcd.com/240/
“I kick ass for the Lord!” – Father McGruder, Braindead.
“What is light becomes dark. What is dark becomes light. Some look into the third dimension and see nothingness. Others see the very face of God!” – Fluffy Guy #1, Intermission in the Third Dimension.
“For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina – or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” ”
Barack Obama, March 2008
“I am not a crook.” – Richard Nixon
“All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk.” –Ronald Reagan
“Read my lips: no new taxes.” – George H.W. Bush
“I did not have sex with that woman.” – Bill Clinton
“The battle in Iraq is noble, it is necessary, and it is just.” – George W. Bush
‘In Ireland, the cut-off point for corruption is “did you buy your own island with public money?” ‘cos anything less than that, and people don’t really care.’
“Elephants are set to replace heavy plant on construction sites in the [UK] government’s latest drive to cut carbon emissions.”
http://www.building.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=284&storycode=3110032&c=1
Happy birthday!
“Why can’t the boys be the toys
That the girls want the boys to be;
And why can’t the girls see the world
That the boys want the girls to see?”
Sugababes – In the Middle.
Happy Birthday Moose.
“Simply by sailing in a new direction
You could enlarge the world.”
– Allen Curnow
From Superbad:
“McLovin? What kind of a stupid name is that, Fogell? What, are you trying to be an Irish R&B singer?”
and
“mclovin, im sorry i cock blocked you…we should be guiding your cock, not blocking it”
I love that dern movie
I wish that he would notice me
Like he notices Defender & Centipede
– ‘Video Kid’ by Klymaxx
“It’s my life
It’s now or never
I ain’t gonna live forever
I just want to live while I’m alive”
Bon Jovi – It’s my life
(heard on the radio on the drive in this morning)
… to thine own self be true
And it must follow as the night the day
Thou canst not then be false to any man
Happy birthday bro – I hope a fantastic year is in store for you xxx
Amd why do all the things have to change
Just when they
mean the most?
It always happens that way
– It’s all over, The God Machine
My chair was nearest to the fire
In every company
That talked of love or politics
Ere Time transfigured me.
— W.B. Yeats, “The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner”
Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.
— Oscar Wilde
Have a wonderful day. x
“Ashes to ashes, funk to funky
We know major toms a junkie
Strung out in heavens high
Hitting an all-time low”
~ David Bowie, because I love the TV show of the same name.
“i m listening music and watching cricket…i sponered 4 children s education and develop my society normally i m doing social works..I m always want to help others”
~ An internet scammer.
“It’s still real to me, damn it!”
“Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories.”
— John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, 1647-1680.
“YO NO NAKA WA
JIGOKU NO UE NO
HANAMI KANA”
which roughly translated, goes
“In this world
we walk upon the roof of Hell
gazing at flowers”
Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)
Also, George Barnes'(?) retort to loser Harley Race’s post-match complaint that Barnes wasn’t a suitable opponent because he’d just turned as the result of an open challenge. Race is growling and ranting at the camera (the only wrestler second to Andre the Giant for stringing non-sequiters together). Race is the sole person in shot, shouting to be heard above the (Australian) studio audience. Suddenly, a cool, calm and collected Barnes leans into shot, over the interviewer’s microphone and can barely be heard above the audience:
“Yeah, but I bloody well beat you, didn’t I?!”
I WOULD include the late Terry Gordy’s 1995 IWA King of the Deathmatch post-match comments, but they’d be de-sworn. And rightly so.
“I’ll hit you so hard, you’ll starve to death rolling!”
“Georgeous” Jimmy Garvin
And as always, the final words go to “Rowdy” Roddy Piper: “I’m so quick, I could spit in the wind, duck, and let it hit the old lady behind me!”
“You’ve grown so tall, you’ve grown so fast”
Talking Heads – Wild Wild Life
“Coercion, after all, merely captures man. Freedom captivates him.”
Robert S. McNamara
“To the one who knows how to look and feel, every moment of this free wandering life is an enchantment” Alexandra David-Neel. Enjoy the enchantment of the coming year.
“Happy Birthday”
“HAD I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
en wrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet,
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams”
W.B. Yeats
“don’t lose the dreams inside your head
they’ll only be there there till you’re dead
dream little darling …dream”
Dave Matthews Band
“Happy Birthday Morgue”
“has I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
En wrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet,
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams”
W.B. Yeats
“dot lose the dreams inside your head
they’ll only be there till you’re dead
dream little darling … dream”
Dave Matthews Band
“…people have better things to do with their language than simply convey facts. In the imaginations of the dryest of grammarians, perhaps, language—not speech, though; written language—is simply or reductively the tool that we use to transmit and record factual information. Everybody else, though, and I mean everybody, is answering to a series of more pressing concerns. Even when speaking prose, we are participating in aesthetic creation. Every utterance obeys rules of meter and rhythm as fundamental to language as its grammatical structure….
Sometimes it makes a body really want to rap these critics on the head; don’t you see that people are speaking here? Do you really imagine that people who say ‘between you and I’ don’t have anything better to do with their words than see that they conform to some superficial notion of grammar? Can you allow in your worldview the possibility that the greengrocer or urban youth has his own sense of language, and is actively wielding it, rather than simply trying and failing to follow all the rules?”
http://apodion.net/apo/ngd
Happy Birthday, Not a quote, just a reminder: You are born on the same day as Giovanni Cassonova – although clearly different centuries. Isn’t that awesome for the lady who gets to civil union or marry you:-)and a on bit of sage advice: if you ever buy a user pays phone but a security check on it:-)
“Fuck — at the time I thought I was trading my virginity for my sanity. You reach a point in life when you can’t keep both, right? So either you dictate the terms of the penetration, or the universe sticks it you you in its own way.
“For men I guess it’s the opposite. You pick the orifice, or the world swallows you whole.
“Or maybe I’m full of shit? Yeah, could be.”
–Steve Gerber, “Nevada”
I was in the grocery store. I saw a sign that said “pet supplies”. So I did.
Then I went outside and saw a sign that said “compact cars”.
— random Steve Wright quote
Happy Birthday!
So, I went and looked up Jenni’s post on the I Know, Right? game we played back in 2006! Here are quotes she selected.
Valerie (QB) after having fixed someone’s nails: Kelly? Can you blow?
Sakura (on Kelly and her boyfriend): Oh My God! He’s totally gonna want to do it with you at the dinner party!
Sakura: we’ve only got sake at my house and that’s just not English!
Sakura (on Kelly and her boyfriend): that was so weird that he didn’t even talk to you?
Val: Yeah, it totally means he wants to sleep with you.
Kelly: You know the whole thing with girls?
Chad: breasts?
and of course, Everyone in the game: That is so cockney!
I have never done anything to corrupt my office, I know in my heart of hearts that I have done no wrong and wronged no one.’
Bertie Ahern, 2nd April 2008
Remember, it’s only corruption if you get caught.
“Without truth it don’t mean nothing
Without hope you won’t get far”
– The Bats ‘smoking her wings’
Happy birthday x
“It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.”
Voltaire (1694 – 1778)
Happy Birthday, Moose.
“Well, you see, my wife passed away about a year ago and I’ve just started dating again. I’m seeing someone again for the first time in ages and she’s quite… adventurous in bed. So we were playing with some sex toys and… well… we lost one of them. It’s stopped moving now, but I was hoping you could help get it out.”
– Some guy I met while working in an emergency department
“Well, any sentence that has the words ‘anal retractors’ in it is never going to be a fun time.”
– Me, talking to another doctor so after the above quote
“Happy Birthday”
“Gaffa tape is like the force! It has a dark side, a light side and holds the universe together”
No clue where I heard that one.
Happy birthday amigo.
‘Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion.’ – Jed Babbin
(and for some actual wisdom – )
‘Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.’ – Howard Aiken
Nempe haec adsidue. iam clarum mane fenestras
intrat et angustas extendit lumine rimas.
stertimus, indomitum quod despumare Falernum
sufficiat, quinta dum linea tangitur umbra.
Persius, Sat. III.1-4
Happy Birthday!
(Sorry it’s a little late). My birthday gift to you is the suggestion that you see the movie Bobby.
“Fear not the path of truth for the lack of people walking on it.”
– Bobby Kennedy. From his last speech, June 6, 1968.
“Laws can embody standards; governments can enforce laws — but the final task is not a task for government. It is a task for each and every one of us. Every time we turn our heads the other way when we see the law flouted — when we tolerate what we know to be wrong — when we close our eyes and ears to the corrupt because we are too busy, or too frightened — when we fail to speak up and speak out — we strike a blow against freedom and decency and justice.”
-Bobby Kennedy. June 21, 1961
A character’s view on life from “The Third Policeman” by Flann O’Brien:
‘I would rather be without it,’ he said, ‘for there is queer small utility in it. You cannot eat it or drink it or smoke it in your pipe, it does not keep the rain out and it is a poor armful in the dark if you strip it and take it to bed with you after a night of porter when you are shivering with the red passion. It is a great mistake and a thing better done without, like bed-jars and foreign bacon.’
I don’t care if you had a shitty day and you’ve got a hangover and a rash on your ass and your life is crashing down around you, you better start typing. If you wait around for that state of grace, you’re fucked.
~Will Christopher Baer
Cultivate stillness and let life reveal itself
~Chris Brann
I think humor in music, and humor in just existing is a very wonderful thing. People that are overly serious I tend to find aren’t very happy, or at least not very fun to be around.
~Les Claypool
“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.”
~Darryl Jenifer (Bad Brains)
All that early Yeats…. so we have to have some late Yeats –
These masterful images because complete
Grew in pure mind, but out of what began?
A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street
[…] Now that my ladder’s gone,
I must lie down where all the ladders start,
In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.
from “The Circus Animals’ Desertion”
——————–
And here’s Gary Snyder’s “What you should know to be a poet”
all you can know about animals as persons.
the names of trees and flowers and weeds.
the names of stars and the movements of planets
` and the moon.
your own six senses, with a watchful elegant mind.
at least one kind of traditional magic:
divination, astrology, the *book of changes*, the tarot;
dreams.
the illusory demons and the illusory shining gods;
kiss the ass of the devil and eat shit;
fuck his horny barbed cock,
fuck the hag,
and all the celestial angels
` and maidens perfum’d and golden–
& then love the human: wives husbands and friends.
children’s games, comic books, bubble-gum,
the weirdness of television and advertising.
work long, dry hours of dull work swallowed and accepted
and livd with and finally lovd. exhaustion,
` hunger, rest.
the wild freedom of the dance, *extasy*
silent solitary illumination, *entasy*
real danger. gambles. and the edge of death.
Hadda be this scene
Maurice Levy: You are feeding off the violence and the despair of the drug trade. You are stealing from those who themselves are stealing the lifeblood from our city. You are a parasite who leeches off the culture of drugs…
Omar Little: Just like you, man.
Maurice Levy: Excuse me? What?
Omar Little: I got the shotgun. You got the briefcase. It’s all in the game though, right?
On writing.
“The only thing worth writing about is the conflict in the human heart.”
– William Faulkner
“Cut out all those exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very;” your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”
– Mark Twain
“You cannot discourage a real writer . . . Break a real writer’s hands, and s/he will tap out a story with feet or nose.”
– Harlan Ellison
“I don’t believe anything I write or say. I regard belief as a form of brain damage, the death of intelligence, the fracture of creativity, the atrophy of imagination. I have opinions but no Belief System.”
– Robert Anton Wilson
“The best quotes are the ones I can’t remember”
Me, just now
32? That’s NUMBERWANG!
You wouldn’t steal a handbag. You wouldn’t steal a car. You wouldn’t steal a baby. You wouldn’t shoot a policeman, and then steal his helmet. You wouldn’t go to the toilet in his helmet, and then send it to the policeman’s grieving widow. And then steal it again! Downloading films is stealing. If you do it you will face the consequences.
“Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.”
Groucho Marx
🙂
I may have quoted the following to you before, however, it doesn’t make it any the less true (for me at least)…
“the philosophers have only described the world, in various ways, the point is to change it”
Karl Marx
Happy Birthday Dude.
Andrew
‘This is the first book in what might just be the most awesome eight-book arc in the history of YA lit. It contains death and car accidents and underaged drinking and manslaughter trials and a wedding and attempted murder and actual murder and riots and fake attempted rape and abandoned babies and serial killers and boyfriend stealing and fashion models and kidnapping and tearful reunions with long-lost parents and house fires and TV dating shows and gang warfare and, of course, a prom.’
Concerning the Sweet Valley High Magna Edition: A Night to Remember.
Happy belated birthday
Lucy
Couldn’t resist quoting this one here.
Radio Scotland: “So what character do you play?”
Robert of ORC: “I tend to play a character called Kypax who is a Half-Orc; which basically means he’s just an Orc but only half.”
And something a bit more Scottish (well sorta).
MACLEOD : “I don’t like boats. I don’t like water. I’m a man, not a fish.”
RAMIREZ : “You complain endlessly. I wonder if I’m wasting my time with you, brother.”
MACLEOD : “Stop calling me brother. You look like a woman, you stupid haggis.”
RAMIREZ : “Haggis? What is haggis?”
MACLEOD : “A sheep’s stomach stuffed with meat and barley.”
RAMIREZ : “What do you do with it?”
MACLEOD : “You eat it.”
RAMIREZ : “How revolting.”
We can see that ‘genetically based’ does not mean “inevitable” or “unalterable” if we consider short-sightedness, which sometimes has a genetic basis but which often can be corrected by wearing eyeglasses.
-Danny Scoccia
A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.
-Andy Warhol
Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live.
-Mark Twain
“He marches to the beat of his own drum. In fact, he makes his own drums”
Any guesses where that one comes from?
R