Al > Al's Quotes

“Hearts with one purpose alone/Through summer and winter seem/Enchanted to a stone/To trouble the living stream.”
― William Butler Yeats

“there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love and the best at war finally are those who preach peace”
― charles bukowski

“Any asshole can chase a skirt, art takes discipline.”
― Charles Bukowski

“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
― Mark Twain

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth.”
― William W. Purkey

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
― Mark Twain

“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
― Mark Twain

“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.”
― Mark Twain

“Be careful about reading health books. Some fine day you'll die of a misprint.”
― Markus Herz

“Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.”
― Mark Twain

“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.”
― Mark Twain, Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World

“Go to heaven for the climate and hell for the company.”
― Benjamin Franklin Wade

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
― Mark Twain

“The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.”
― Calvin Trillin

“Who knows how to make love stay?

1. Tell love you are going to Junior's Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if loves stays, it can have half. It will stay.

2. Tell love you want a momento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a moustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay.

3. Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love will be there in the morning.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

“...disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business....”
― Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

“Just because you're naked doesn't mean you're sexy. Just because you're cynical doesn't mean you're cool.”
― Tom Robbins

“We are our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

“Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won't adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question. The words "make" and "stay" become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

“There are only two mantras, yum and yuck, mine is yum.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

“What difference does it make if the Gospel is mostly a lie? It's an engrossing story and the words of its hero are excellent words to live by, even today.”
― Tom Robbins

“A sense of humor...is superior to any religion so far devised.”
― Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

“Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“I would prefer not to.”
― Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener

“Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.”
― Billy Collins, The Apple that Astonished Paris

“One of these days I'm-a make me a book out of you.”
― Billy Collins

“Tolle, lege: take up and read.”
― St. Augustine, Confessions

“Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.”
― St. Augustine

“I think resentment is when you take the poison and wait for the other person to die”
― M.T., A Sponsorship Guide for 12-Step Programs

“Good writin' ain't necessarily good readin'.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest