Wyszukiwarka

“Fight because you don't know how to die quietly. Win because you don't know how to lose.”

“Argue with anything else, but don't argue with your own nature.”

“...słyszy jak Eddie Dean podśpiewuje piosenkę, która jest tak upiornie znajoma, że w pierwszej chwili wydaje się przejawem delirium: Hey Jude... don't make it bad... take a saaad song... and make it better...”

“Someone who expresses a feeling along the lines of "I don't read fantasy or go to any of those movies, none of those is real". [...] They simply can't lift the weight of fantasy. The muscles of the imagination have grown too weak.”

“(...) I share almost ninety-nine per cent of my genes with a chimpanzee - and our longevity is virtually the same - but I don't think you have an inkling of how much more I comprehend, and yet I know I must tear myself away from it. For example, I have a good grasp of just how infinitely great outer space is and how it's divided into galaxies and clusters of galaxies, spirals and lone stars, and that there are healthy stars and febrile red giants, white dwarfs and neutron stars, planets ans asteroids. I know everything about the sun and moon, about the evolution of life on earth, about the Pharaohs and the Chinese dynasties, the countries of the world and their peoples as presently constituted, not to mention all the studying I've done on plants and animals, canals and lakes, rivers and mountain passes. Without even a pause for thought I can tell you the names of several hundred cities, I can tell you the names of nearly all the countries in the world, and I know the approximate populations of every one. I have a knowledge of the historical background of the different cultures, their religion and mythology, and to a certain extent also the history of their languages, in particular etymological relationships, especially within the Indo-European family of languages, but I can certainly reel off a goodly number of expressions from the Semitic language too, and the same from Chinese and Japanese, not to mention all the topographical and personal names I know. In addition, I'm acquainted with several hundred individuals personally, and just from my own small country I could, at the drop of a hat, supply you with several thousand names of loving fellow countrymen whom I know something about - fairly extensive biographical knowledge in some cases. And I needn't confine myself to Norwegians, we're living more and more in a global village, and soon the village square will cover the entire galaxy. On another level, there are all the people I'm genuinely fond of, although it isn't just people one gets attached to, but places as well: just think of the all the places I know like the back of my hand, and where I can tell if someone's gone chopped down a bush or moved a stone. Then there are books, especially all those that have taught me so much about the biosphere and outer space, but also literary works, and through them all the imaginary people whose lives I've come to know and who, at times, have meant a great deal to me. And then I couldn't live without music, and I'm very eclectic, everything from folk music and Renaissance music to Schonberg and Penderecki, but I have to admit, and this has a bearing on the very perspective we're trying to gain, I have to admit to having a particular penchant for romantic music, and this, don't forget, can also be found amongst the works of Bach and Gluck, not to mention Albinoni. But romantic music has existed in every age, and even Plato warned against it because he believed that melancholy could actually weaken the state, and it's patently clear when you get to Puccini and Mahler that music has become a direct expression of what I'm trying to get you to comprehend, that life is too short and that the way human beings are fashioned means they must take leave of far too much. If you've heard Mahler's Abschied from Das Lied von the Erde you'll know what I mean. Hopefully you'll have understood that it's the farewell itself I'm referring to, the actual leave- taking, and that this takes place in the self-same organ where everything I'm saying goodbye to is stored.”

“It is an impressively arrogant move to conclude that just because you don’t like something, it is empirically not good. I don’t like Chinese food, but I don’t write articles trying to prove it doesn’t exist.”

“„You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. Please, don’t take my sunshine away” ”

“What shapes us is not always our achievements but our omissions. Not lies; simply the truths we don’t tell.”

“You know the three Ages of Man, don’t you?” Hodges asks. Pete shakes his head, grinning. “Youth, middle age, and you look fucking terrific.”

“I call it the NotSorry Method. It has two steps: 1. Deciding what you don’t give a fuck about 2. Not giving a fuck about those things.”

“The shows aren’t making people gay. They’re just making people realize it’s even . . . I don’t know, a possibility. It’s like we’re all brainwashed from the time we’re babies to think that we have to be straight. ”

“I’m not flaunting anything. I’m just existing. This is me. I can’t hide myself. I can’t disappear. And even if I could, I don’t fucking want to. I have the same right to be here. I have the same right to exist.”

“Lesson learned? When people say, ‘You really, really must’ do something, it means you don’t really have to. No one ever says, ‘You really, really must deliver the baby during labor.’ When it’s true, it doesn’t need to be said.”

“Many boys will bring you flowers. But someday you'll meet a boy who will learn your favorite flower, your favorite song, your favorite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won't matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns you heart.”