My Made-Up Meme. Quotes to Live By, Parts 1-10
Idling over a strong and piping hot coffee while reading something at
budgie_uk's journal, I wondered about the power of quotations to those of us who still bother to read in this day and age.
I wondered if I could think of ten quotes that have either especially struck me, or have been something I have lived by, or have just been something that I have been attracted to. I found that, despite my atrocious and notorious failing in regard to remembering pretty much anything at all verbatim, I did remember a surprising number of quotes (even if I had to check the EXACT wording).
But I only wanted to pick one quote by each person (I tend to be attracted to people and end up liking a lot of what they say), so this may well turn out to be a multi-part meme. I haven't even touched William Blake or JB Priestley yet. Heh.
So here we go, in no particular order except that 1 & 2 are the first ever quotes I remember being deeply affected by in any significant way. :
1. "Originality is seldom appreciated by the unoriginal. That so few dare to be eccentric is one of the chief dangers of our times." MICHAEL ALWAY of el Records fame
2. "I went full of curiosity and the faint, unrecognized apprehension that here, at last, I should find that low door in the wall, which others, I knew, had found before me, which opened on an enclosed and enchanted garden, which was somewhere, not overlooked by any window, in the heart of that grey city." - Charles Ryder in EVELYN WAUGH'S Brideshead Revisited
3. "A man who does not think for himself does not think at all." OSCAR WILDE
4. "Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good." THOMAS PAINE
5. "The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost." GK CHESTERTON
6. "If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country. " EM FORSTER
7. "The consuming desire of most human beings is deliberately to plant their whole life in the hands of some other person. I would describe this method of searching for happiness as immature. Development of character consists solely in moving toward self-sufficiency. " QUENTIN CRISP
8. “Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better.” HENRY ROLLINS
9. “If I had a large amount of money I should found a hospital for those whose grip upon the world is so tenuous that they can be severely offended by words and phrases yet remain all unoffended by the injustice, violence and oppression that howls daily” STEPHEN FRY
and this one I found the other night when looking for something else and which has now shot into the top ten with a bullet:
10. “How did it happen that their lips came together? How does it happen that birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that the dawn whitens behind the stark shapes of trees on the quivering summit of the hill? A kiss, and all was said.” VICTOR HUGO
-- Notes ---
The hardest to whittle down there was Henry Rollins, amazingly enough. I had to pick one of three. The other two were either:
“Life is full of choices, if you have the guts to go for it. That's why I get immediately bored with anyone's complaining about how boring their life is, or how bad their town is. Fucking leave and go somewhere else. Or don't.”
or
“I think about the meaning of pain. Pain is personal. It really belongs to the one feeling it. Probably the only thing that is your own. I like mine.”
I'm grateful I discovered Henry when I did because by God, I've needed his kind of anger and determination a few times since and probably always will, to a degree. It's what keeps me feeling alive.