Tatum Layne > Tatum's Quotes

“Flowers

On the third of June, at a minute past two,
where once was a person, a flower now grew.

Five daisies arranged on a large outdoor stage
in front of a ten-acre pasture of sage.

In a changing room, a lily poses.
At the DMV, rows of roses.

The world was much crueler an hour ago.
I’m glad someone decided to give flowers a go.”
― Bo Burnham, Egghead; or, You Can't Survive on Ideas Alone

“I love you just the way you are
but you don't see you like I do.
You shouldn't try so hard to be perfect.
Trust me, perfect should try to be you.”
― Bo Burnham, Egghead; or, You Can't Survive on Ideas Alone

“You How, may I ask, did you get so you, you beautiful true-to-you doer? I’ve met many today but can honestly say that I’ve never met anyone you-er.”
― Bo Burnham, Egghead: Or, You Can't Survive on Ideas Alone

“Read this to yourself. Read it silently.
Don't move your lips. Don't make a sound.
Listen to yourself. Listen without hearing anything.
What a wonderfully weird thing, huh?

NOW MAKE THIS PART LOUD!
SCREAM IT IN YOUR MIND!
DROWN EVERYTHING OUT.
Now, hear a whisper. A tiny whisper.

Now, read this next line in your best crotchety-
old man voice:
"Hello there, sonny. Does your town have a post office?"
Awesome! Who was that? Whose voice was that?
It sure wasn't yours!

How do you do that?
How?!
It must've been magic.”
― Bo Burnham, Egghead; or, You Can't Survive on Ideas Alone

“It is my belief that the World (or, if you will, the House, since the two are for all practical purposes identical) wishes an Inhabitant for Itself to be a witness to its Beauty and the recipient of its Mercies.

If I leave, then the House will have no Inhabitant and how will I bear the thought of it Empty?”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“Oh, the torment bred in the race,
the grinding scream of death
and the stroke that hits the vein,
the hemorrhage none can staunch, the grief,
the curse no man can bear.

But there is a cure in the house, and not outside it, no,
not from others but from them,
their bloody strife. We sing to you,
dark gods beneath the earth.

Now hear, you blissful powers underground --
answer the call, send help.
Bless the children, give them triumph now.”
― Aeschylus, The Oresteia Trilogy: Agamemnon, the Libation-Bearers and the Furies

“This was always going to happen.
She's been dead since the beginning.”
― Aeschylus, Aeschylus: The Oresteia

“I know how men in exile feed on dreams”
― Aeschylus

“Only through suffering do we learn”
― Aeschylus

“In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
― Aeschylus

“Thus he died, and all the life struggled out of him;
and as he died he spattered me with the dark red
and violent driven rain of bitter-savored blood
to make me glad, as gardens stand among the showers
of God in glory at the birthtime of the buds.”
― Aeschylus, Aeschylus: The Oresteia

“that we must suffer, suffer into truth.
We cannot sleep, and drop by drop at the heart
the pain of pain remembered comes again
and we resist, but ripeness comes as well.
From the gods enthroned on the awesome rowing-bench
there comes a violent love.”
― Aeschylus, Agamemnon

“Who, except the gods, can live time through forever without any pain?”
― Aeschylus

“Yet again, isn’t there something terrible in randomness—the idea that at the very bottom of its calculations, real depravity has no master plan of any kind, it’s just a dreamy whim that slides out of people when they are trapped or bored or too lazy to analyze their own mania.”
― Aeschylus, An Oresteia: Agamemnon by Aiskhylos; Elektra by Sophokles; Orestes by Euripides