Favourite Quotes

[GrahamLewis]

"You might as well answer the door, my child, the truth is furiously knocking."
Lucille Clifton.

 

[Rath Darkblade]

"The Good ended happily and the Bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means."

--Oscar Wilde, The Importance of being Earnest

 

[Louanne Learning]

Look, Platero, so many roses are falling everywhere: blue, pink, white, colorless roses… You’d think the sky was crumbling into roses… You’d think that from the seven galleries of Paradise roses were being thrown onto the earth… Platero, it seems, while the Angelus is ringing, that this life of ours is losing its everyday strength, and that a different strength from within, loftier, more constant, and purer, is causing everything, as if in fountain jets of grace… Your eyes, which you can’t see, Platero, and which you are mildly raising skyward, are two beautiful roses.

~ Nobel-winning Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez (December 23, 1881–May 29, 1958) – in Platero and I—part love letter to his beloved donkey, part journal of ecstatic delight in nature and humanity, part fairy tale for the lonely.

 

[Iain Aschendale]

“If you have integrity, nothing else matters. And if you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.”

I'm quoting the late Robert Mueller, but it's apparently not original to him

 

[Mogador]

"You've simply gotten too fat and too conceited" --- Archie Goodwin to Nero Wolfe
"I am no fatter than I was ten years ago. We are both considerably more conceited, and why the devil shouldn't we be?" --- Nero Wolfe

Rex Stout. From memory so presumably badly mangled.

 

[JLT]

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."

Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel)

 

[Rath Darkblade]

"What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind."

-- attributed to George Berkeley (1685-1753), designed to dismiss dualism (the separation of mind and matter).

Quoted by Homer Simpson in the very first Simpsons short, "Good Night" (1989).

 

[Iain Aschendale]

"Prayers are hindered by the conjugal duty because as often as I perform what is due to my wife I am not able to pray."

The Venerable Bede

 

[JLT]

"Prayers are hindered by the conjugal duty because as often as I perform what is due to my wife I am not able to pray."

The Venerable Bede

Unlike many lovers, who are on record as saying "Oh God Oh God Oh God Oh God Oh God Oh God ..."

 

[Rath Darkblade]

President Lincoln turned down an applicant for a job and gave as his reason: "I don't like his face." One of the members of his cabinet indicated that he did not think this was a sufficient and satisfactory explanation.

Lincoln disagreed: "Every man over forty is responsible for his face."

 

[GrahamLewis]

"To my certain knowledge, many people conceal experiences for fear of ridicule. How many people have seen or heard or felt something which so outraged their sense of what should be that the whole thing was brushed away quickly like dirt under a rug?"

John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley p. 117 (Penguin 2002)

 

[Also]

Unlike many lovers, who are on record as saying "Oh God Oh God Oh God Oh God Oh God Oh God ..."

"Marlene! Don't tell me you're gonna pork Marlene Desmond!"

"Boone, I anticipate a deeply religious experience."

Animal House, 1978

This most influential movie line after, "I coulda been a contender!" and "...make him an offer he can't refuse. "

 

[Iain Aschendale]

"Marlene! Don't tell me you're gonna pork Marlene Desmond!"

"Boone, I anticipate a deeply religious experience."

Animal House, 1978

This most influential movie line after, "I coulda been a contender!" and "...make him an offer he can't refuse. "

"Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"

 

[JLT]

President Lincoln turned down an applicant for a job and gave as his reason: "I don't like his face." One of the members of his cabinet indicated that he did not think this was a sufficient and satisfactory explanation.

To which Groucho might have added, "I never forget a face, but in your case, I'll make an exception."

But one of my favorite quotes from Lincoln was his response to being served a beverage:

"If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee."

 

[Iain Aschendale]

To which Groucho might have added, "I never forget a face, but in your case, I'll make an exception."

But one of my favorite quotes from Lincoln was his response to being served a beverage:

"If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee."

I wonder if Douglas Adams was aware of this whe he wrote the following (or if Lincoln had read the Hitchhiker's Guide books?):

He had found a Nutri-Matic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. The way it functioned was very interesting. When the Drink button was pressed it made an instant but highly detailed examination of the subject’s taste buds, a spectroscopic analysis of the subject’s metabolism and then sent tiny experimental signals down the neural pathways to the taste centers of the subject’s brain to see what was likely to go down well. However, no one knew quite why it did this because it invariable delivered a cupful of liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.​

 

[Rath Darkblade]

And this is the best moment to quote that scene, because it's a good one. Enjoy! (And share! But don't share and enjoy)

Scene 4. Int. Heart of Gold. Galley

ARTHUR:
I mean what is the point?

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
Nutrition and pleasurable sense data. Share and enjoy!

ARTHUR:
Listen, you stupid machine. It tastes filthy! Here take this cup back!

[He throws cup at NutriMatic]

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
If you have enjoyed the experience of this drink, why not share it with your friends?

ARTHUR:
Because I want to keep them! Will you try and comprehend what I’m telling you? That drink -

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
…that drink was individually tailored to meet your personal requirements for nutrition and pleasure

ARTHUR:
Ah! So I’m a masochist on a diet, am I?!

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
Share and enjoy.

ARTHUR:
Oh shut up.

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
Will that be all?

ARTHUR:
Yes. No look it’s very, very simple. All I want - are you listening?

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
Yes.

ARTHUR:
…is a cup of tea. Got that?

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
I hear.

ARTHUR:
Good. And do you know why I want a cup of tea?

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
Please wait.

ARTHUR:
What?

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
Computing…

ARTHUR:
What are you doing?

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
Attempting to calculate answer to your question: why you want dried leaves in boiling water.

ARTHUR:
Because I happen to like it, that’s why!

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
Stated reason does not compute with program facts.

ARTHUR:
What are you talking about?

VENTILATION SYSTEM:
You heard.

ARTHUR:
What? Who said that?

VENTILATION SYSTEM:
The Ventilation System. You had a go at me yesterday.

ARTHUR:
Yes, because you keep filling the air with cheap perfume.

VENTILATION SYSTEM:
You like scented air: it’s fresh and invigorating.

ARTHUR:
No I do not.#

[Floor begins shaking]

FLOOR:
Please calm down.

ARTHUR:
Why is the floor shaking?

FLOOR:
Tired nerves and muscles are quickly soothed by gentle floor vibrations. Feel your troubles float away.

ARTHUR:
Just Stop it will you? All of you, stop it!

[Soothing music starts]

ARTHUR:
Turn the soothing music off! Turn it off! I order you to turn it off!

[Soothing music, floor, etc. stop]

ARTHUR:
Thank you.

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
Why you want dried leaves in water - still computing…

ARTHUR:
Now listen. If I want to be toned up, calmed down, invigorated or anything then it’s very simple: I just have a cup of tea.

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
Just dried leaves, boiled?

ARTHUR:
Yes.

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER, VENTILATION SYSTEM and FLOOR:
Then why did you build all of us?

ARTHUR:
What? I didn’t!

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER:
Your species did.

VENTILATION SYSTEM:
You’re an organic life-form.

FLOOR:
Your lot did…

VENTILATION SYSTEM:
…to improve your lifestyle.

EDDIE:
Hi There! This is Eddie your shipboard computer just alerting you to the fact that the NutriMatic Machine has now tapped into my logic circuits to ask me why the human prefers boiled leaves to anything we have to offer him. And wow, it’s a biggy! Gonna take a little time to work out! Share and enjoy!

NUTRIMATIC DRINK DISPENSER, VENTILATION SYSTEM, FLOOR and EDDIE:
Share and enjoy! Share and enjoy! Share and enjoy!

ARTHUR:
Oh this is ridiculous! Let me out of here!

[Door opens]

ARTHUR:
Thank you.

DOOR:
My pleasure!

ARTHUR:
Oohhh!

THHGTTG, Fit the Ninth

 

[JLT]

It reminds me of the scene in The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon disparages tea as "leaf soup."