I turn 28 at midday Friday April 2, New Zealand time. Slightly after, actually. After going through life convinced I was a morning baby, turns out I’m a pm kid.
So. I am asking everyone who reads this to give me a birthday gift. The gift is this: put a favourite quote in the comments.
A quote from anyone. Philosopher or heavy metal lyricist. Superhero or politician. Funny or serious, bathetic or inspirational.
This will make me a happy moose.
Happy birthday, me!
44 thoughts on “Birthday Wisdom”
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“If you can talk brilliantly about a problem, it can create the consoling illusion that it has been mastered.”
— Stanley Kubrick
“at least a wild goose chase gives you some exercise”
— Neal Stephenson
Advice from my late Mum:
– Always wear clean underwear in case you get run over by a bus.
– Don’t put that in your mouth, you don’t know where it’s been.
– Fine words butter no parsnips.
Safety advice from a friend’s Dad:
– Never put your finger where you wouldn’t put your penis.
I don’t have the book here right now, so I may be slightly mis-quoting, but…
“…And Max, the king of the wild things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.”
from ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ by Maurice Sendak. The man had his priorities right!
Also…
“NOBODY, my dear, could call me a fussy man, but I do like a little bit of butter on my bread.”
from ‘The King’s Breakfast’ by A.A. Milne.
And, just to totally surprise you… my mother’s most oft-quoted bible verse and not a bad one to live your life by…
“Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report: if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
Philippians iv. 8.
“BECAUSE I AM THE MAXX!”
“Quincy, Quincy, Quincy the wonder Hampster,
He doesn’t bite, he doesn’t squeal,
He just runs around on his hampster wheel,
Quincy, Quincy, Quincy the wonder Hampster,
Viva la-la Quincy!”
billy
Be who you are and say what you feel, because
those who mind don’t matter, and those who
matter don’t mind.–Dr. Suess
I want to quote but I can’t, the look on your Mum’s face when she talked about your nickname being Morgue (you were all supposed to have NO nicknames!) and how you used to work at the hospital wearing your school rugby shirt with “Morgue” emblazoned across the back.
Also, remember the time you dropped Margie and I off after Slayers East and I stayed in the car a bit longer chatting with you? When I came out I remember Margie with this incredulous and suspicious look saying….
“Where you guys kissing??!!”
I remember this from my Grandmother a long time ago, “although you’re not old enough to understand this now, you’ll look back and remember these times as some of the best of your life.”
I think she was right too.
“Listen … do you guys smell that?”
Ghostbusters
I change favourites regularly but here’s today’s:
I am only one
But I am one
I cannot do everything
But I can do something
I will not refuse to do
That which I can
-Emily Dickinson
I also like the Maori proverb:
What is the most important thing in the world?
He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
(It is people, it is people, it is people).
From “LET’S SPEAK ALIEN – In Ten Easy Lessons” in “A Primer In SF Xenolinguistics” by Justin B. Rye (http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/lingo.html ):
LESSON THREE:
Initial K is especially popular (Kazon, Klendathu, Krell, K’kree). Incidentally, there’s a good reason for this (and one I’ll credit to Steve Mowbray): aliens are obsessed with triangles, a particular shade of green, the number three, and the letter K because they learned everything they know from our TV broadcasts. To be more specific, from a particular episode of “Sesame Street”.
This was one of Percy’s favourites:
The moving finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on:nor all your piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.
(Translation: Carpe Diem)
H.B.T.Y
Whoops. The Xenolinguistic one was me. In penance, here’s another from the inimitable R. Sean Borgstrom (of Hitherby Dragons, Nobilis, etc) about when zombie Richard Nixon attacks.
***
You’ll be sitting around planning Democratic strategy, and his zombie Pekingese minions will come in and start measuring your brain, and you’ll go, ‘Er, what?’ And they’ll say, ‘We’re just here to … adjust the … wastebaskets.’
And you’ll say, ‘Oh, carry on, then’, but they’re not wastebasket adjusters, they’re zombie Pekingese minions of a corrupt and evil ex-President who wants to eat your brain.
“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)” ― Walt Whitman, _Song of Myself_
Also, “अहम् ब्रह्मास्मि” (“I am Brahman”): say it enough times and you find it is true.
“Now, if you can look into the mirror of relationship exactly as you look into the ordinary mirror, then there is no end to self-knowledge. It is like entering a fathomless ocean which has no shore. Most of us want to reach an end, we want to be able to say, ‘I have arrived at self-knowledge and I am happy’; but it is not like that at all. If you can look at yourself without condemning what you see, without comparing yourself with somebody else, without wishing to be more beautiful or more virtuous; if you can just observe what you are and move with it, then you will find that it is possible to go infinitely far. Then there is no end to the journey, and that is the mystery, the beauty of it.” ― Jiddu Krishnamurti, _This Matter of Culture_
And finally, the Buddha’s advice to his monks: “There are these trees, go, sit.”
Happy birthday Morgue!
“In the long run we are all dead” — J. M. Keynes
There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening – Marshall McLuhan
“Some say the best way to forget your troubles is to wear tight shoes but I say go out and hug somebody.” (Barbara Johnson in Bear Hugs)
“Be a participating observer” – RSC Chartres
Two phrases that bring you to mind.
“To live in love towards our actions, & to let live in the understanding of the other person’s will is the fundamental maxim of free men.”
Rudolf Steiner
“Why be normal.”
Morgan Davie
Aroha nui Brother.
“Now I will believe that there are Unicorns” – The Tempest.
“So much of our time is preparation, so much is routine, and so much retrospect, that the path of each man’s genius contracts itself to a very few hours.” Ralph Waldo Emerson.
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” GBS
I have two, sorry:
“When Hitler attacked the Jews I was not a Jew, therefore I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists, I
was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned. Then Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church, and there was nobody left to be concerned.”
-Rev. Martin Niemoller, a German pastor, in 1945. For me this is about how people can stop bad stuff but standing against it together.
“But you won’t see tomorrow if you cannot see today,
And you can’t just expect it all to go away.”
-Headless Chickens, “Inside Track”
“A red polygon is a red polygon … only because it knows it’s a red polygon” – Iggy Pop (I think)
And cause it’s ya birthday, you get a two for one or more correctly a birthday song (sung to the tune of the Mickey Mouse Club song)
“And now it’s time
To say HappyBirthday
From all the comp-an-y
M-O-R, G-A-N, M-O-O-S-E, Morgan Moose, Morgan Moose…”
It’s been so long I can’t remember the rest, but you get the idea
“Let’s remember to take it with us”
My Morgie
If Alan Turing was alive today, the homosexuality would be OK but he’d be in trouble for codebreaking.
— Martin Bacon
“Nothing lasts forever.”
– traditional
“Nothing ever goes away.”
– David Bowie
Sorry to post twice, but I always remember things straight afterwards…
“Happy endings are not always possible, but we are hopeful of new beginnings.”
– Oscar Zarantes
“is all that we see or seem
but a dream within a dream?” – Edgar Allen Poe.
“Kiss the fish!” – Alaistair Macallister
“I don’t believe you’re leaving ’cause me and Charles Manson like the same ice-cream
I think it’s that girl
and I think she’s pieces of me you’ve never seen
maybe she’s just pieces of me you’ve never seen..”
– Tori Amos ‘tear in your hand’
Happy Birthday Morgue, come back soon cause we miss you!
Morgue: “Yes we were.”
also I used to like to say “whether or not you know it, you are freakishly deformed” which just goes to show that we should embrace our differences.
happy birthday!
“When I find myself fading, I close my eyes and realize my friends are my energy.”
-Anon.
Oh and happy belated birthday. 🙂
The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.
– Galileo Galilei
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
-Hanlon’s Razor
All vague acquaintances should self-identify, so I can make them less vague acquaintances…
…There’s nothing unique about being unique. Every species is in its own way.
–Helena Cronin
Every officer in the British Army should be tattooed with his regimental crest. Not only does this encourage esprit de corps but also assists in the identification of casualties.
–Field Marshal Earl Roberts
The stoical summary of the whole duty of man, ‘Live according to nature’, would seem to imply that the cosmic process is an exemplar for human conduct. Ethics would thus become applied Natural History. In fact, a confused employment of the maxim, in this sense, has done immeasurable mischief in later times. It has furnished an axiomatic foundation for the philosophy of philosophasters and for the moralising of sentimentalists.
–T. H. Huxley
And finally, the one maxim that I hold closest to my heart: “This too shall pass, whatever it is.”
Happy birthday, man.
I’ve got two :p
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
–George Bernard Shaw
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
–Oscar Wilde
“Do the best you can, with what you have, where you are.” FDR
Happy Birthday M. Was happily revisiting the events of your 21st the other day….
Anyhoop, quotes.
“Like a cloud dropping rain I’m discarding all thought. I’ll dry up, leaving puddles on the ground. I’m like an opening band for the Sun” – Eddie Vedder, ‘Push me, pull me’, Pearl Jam
“I wish I was the full moon shining off a Camaro’s hood” – Vedder, ‘Wishlist’ Pearl Jam.
“We’re too young to reason, too grown up to dream”-Brian Ferry, ‘Slave to love’
“Fallen angel, casts a shadow up against the sun” Robbie Robertson, ‘Fallen Angel’
The first verse of ‘The logical song’ by Supertramp.
“You can never go home again Oatman. But I guess you can shop there.”- Martin Blank, ‘Grosse Pointe Blank’.
And finally, “Knowledge is not the same as wisdom”- Me, and “Thats one way of shifting it”, originally the chimps in the PG tips ad but now often Me also.
Paint me pink and call me George.
From Richie car car
Nothing lasts forever,
but the certainty of change.
– Bruce Dickinson, Darkness be my Friend.
hoppy birdy, morgue!
A very belated happy birthday Morgue. I do enjoy reading your emails and pass them on to Gerra, Lesley and Bev. Great to hear that you are thoroughly enjoying your holiday in the UK. I don’t have any wizardary poetic lines to send to you, but to say all the very best for another year and many more to come.
“Kryton change from blue alert to red alert.” “Are you sure sir? It does mean changing the bulb.”
All that springs to mind is Dr Seuss for some reason.
‘One fish two fish red fish blue fish
green fish red fish old fish new fish
This one has a little car
this one has a little star.
What a lot of fish there are!’
and
‘sighed maisy, a lazy bird
hatching an egg,
I’m tired and I’m bored
and I’ve kinks in my leg’
Well, Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday Morgue 🙂 (better late than never right?)
A couple of my favourites
“A small bluff, otherwise known as a lie.” Anita Blake
“Who know, maybe Death slept with a teddy bear? Naw.” Anita Blake
“One more time around
is all I ask for now,
a star to steer by, wind to
take me home again.” Geoff Tate – Queensryche
Gudday Morgue!
Only just found your blog for the first time today, so … REALLY late, and almost certainly going to be the last in this series 🙂 but I’ve found this one explains a lot:
“I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated.”
?Poul Anderson