Quotes

Here's an archive of quotes I've had up on the blog over the years.

Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven. --Rabindranath Tagore, "Fireflies" (4/30/09)

I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, other-centered men can build up. -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1/19/09)

You gotta feel it Yes, you gotta feel it To get it right, even one time You gotta feel it Don't take notes Just clear out your mind Let go your pride Feel it inside -- Spoon (10/19/08)

I'm knocking on the doors of ya hummer hummer. I'm knocking on the doors of ya hummer hummer. -- M.I.A. (6/15/08)

We cannot measure national spirit by the Dow Jones Average, nor national achievement by the Gross National Product. For the Gross National Product includes air pollution, and ambulances to clear our highways from carnage. ... It grows with the production of napalm and missles and nuclear warheads.... And if the Gross National Product includes all this, there is much that it does not comprehend. It does not allow for the health of our families, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. ... It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile, and it can tell us everything about America -- except whether we are proud to be Americans. -- Robert F. Kennedy

Now the green blade rises from the buried grain, Wheat that in the dark earth many years has lain; Love lives again, that with the dead has been: Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green. -- John Crum

Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That's how the light gets in -- Leonard Cohen, 'Anthem'

You know you're my cookie baby and you're too smart I can see it in the lines of your school art True heart, I mean courage, expressed with care Go on draw them superheroes with the curly hair You're my daughter, my love, more than kin to me This for you and the woman that you finna be Tell that boy he's wrong Girls are strong Next time at show-and-tell play him our song -- The Coup, 'Wear Clean Draws'

Please, please, kids, stop fighting. Maybe Lisa's right about America being the land of opportunity, and maybe Adil's got a point about the machinery of capitalism being oiled with the blood of the workers. -- Homer Simpson

Oh-oh-oh come take my hand, We're riding out tonight to case the promised land -- Bruce Springsteen, Thunder Road

Starvation is the creation of the devil. a rebel, I'm bringin' food to the people like a widow bringin' flowers to a grave in the middle of the city. Isolation is a riddle to be surrounded by a million other people but to feel alone like a tree in a desert dried up like the skin of a lizard but full of colour like the spots of a leopard drum and bass pull me in like a shepherd scratch my itch like a needle on a record full of life like a man gone to Mecca sky high like an eagle up soaring I speak low but I'm like a lion roaring baritone like a Robeson recordin' I'm givin' thanks for bein' human every morning. -- Michael Franti, Stay Human

And it's so sad to see the world agree That they'd rather see their faces fill with flies All when I'd want to keep white roses in their eyes -- Neutral Milk Hotel, Holland 1945

They hang the man and flog the woman Who steals the goose from off the Common, But let the greater criminal loose Who steals the Common from the goose. -- Traditional (English)

A long time ago, I left my home, For a job in the fruit trees But I missed those hills with the windy pines, For their song seemed to suit me. -- Gillian Welch, "One More Dollar"

It's all about strikes now, so here's what's striking me That some punk could argue some moral ABCs When people are catching what bombers release. Well I'm on a mission to never agree... ...here comes the argument. -- Fugazi, "The Argument"

Facts are simple and facts are straight. Facts are lazy and facts are late Facts all come with points of view. Facts don't do what I want them to -- Talkingheads, "Crosseyed and Painless"

An inter-stellar burst! I am back to save the universe! -- Radiohead, "Airbag"

Godspeed to all the bakers at dawn, May they all cut their thumbs and bleed into their buns, 'til they melt away. -- the Shins, "New Slang"

On the margins, in revisions, where we both first learned forgiveness By the moonlight, in the forest, where our laughs spread out before us It was always ever gonna go too far, til someone turned the lights out at the bar Accept no imitations, baby, catch a collapsing star, but it's our limitations that make us what we are -- The Mendoza Line

When I heard the learn'd astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture room How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars -- Walt Whitman

If the children don't grow up, Our bodies get bigger, but our hearts get torn up. We're just a million little gods causin rain storms turnin every good thing to rust. I guess we'll just have to adjust. -- Wake Up, The Arcade Fire