They also serve . . .

[pegkerr]

I asked an attorney to sign a couple pleadings today as he was passing by my desk; they had been prepared by one of the associates for whom I work, who said we'd be filing them in federal court today. The attorney told me that he was still working on the related brief, and wasn't sure it would go out today, but that he'd get back to me

Comments

They also....

[markiv1111]

I did hear that a major organization of surfers had declared Jesus Christ to be an honorary member. "They also surf who only stand on waves."

Nate

Re: They also....

[pegkerr]

*cracks up*

[glinda_w]

Three lines, the first two and the last, from the Millay sonnet "On Hearing a Symphony of Beethoven"

Sweet sounds, oh, beautiful music, do not cease!
Reject me not into the world again.

Music my rampart, and my only one.

They've always, since I read the poem as a teenager, been words I've said, or thought... whatever else happens in my life is, in the end, transient; music is the constant.

[avengangle]

And then it occurred to me: how many legal secretaries routinely quote Milton in their day-to-day working lives?

Probably more than one might think; how many people are working jobs unrelated to their undergraduate degrees?

Apparently my husband (a computer guy with a degree in music, by the way) quoted Shakespeare (he can't remember what, but something from Hamlet) in an email, and came back the next day to find an email from his boss, asking him to explain what it meant. I wish he'd saved the email, but he didn't.

[huladavid]

Yeah, you're right, God's gonna judge us on not using our talents, but at the same time, God understands.

[lapin_agile]

A very good question: it makes me see that I tend to quote literature in order to be sardonic.

Often, these days, I find myself muttering Hamlet's "Words, words, words." In other passages of life, though, my favorite has been:The very deep did rot: oh Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea. (Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner)
I think that I learned this habit of quoting in order to mock-scowl at myself or at the world from my father, who had it from his mother, who had it from hers. My father favors lines like "the boy stood on the burning deck...", whereas my grandmother and great-grandmother were committed fans of "it was a chilly day for Willy when the mercury went down."

Do others quote uplifting lines?

[dreamshark]

*hee* One of my favorite poems. Speaking of Coleridge, I have been known to quote the final verse of Kubla Khan on the slimmest of pretexts:

... And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise"

I'm pretty sure that was the poet's vision of himself as a blazing 18th century version of a rock star. Great stuff, that laudanum.