thinking about you poems

I don't wish to be everything to everyone, but I would like to be something to someone. ~Javan



Censorship reflects society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime. ~Potter Stewart



Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right. ~H.L. Mencken, 1956



I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way. ~Franklin P. Adams



The secret to mountain biking is pretty simple. The slower you go the more likely it is you'll crash. ~Julie Furtado



Death is a delightful hiding place for weary men. ~Herodotus



Art is your personal diary where you may color your thoughts and emotions on a page. ~Sara, Los Cerros Middle School, 1999



We wanted to blast the world free of history.... picture yourself planting radishes and seed potatoes on the fifteenth green of a forgotten golf course. You'll hunt elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center, and dig clams next to the skeleton of the Space Needle leaning at a forty-five degree angle. We'll paint the skyscrapers with huge totem faces and goblin tikis, and every evening what's left of mankind will retreat to empty zoos and lock itself in cages as protection against the bears and big cats and wolves that pace and watch us from outside the cage bars at night. ~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 16



The enthusiastic, to those who are not, are always something of a trial. ~Alban Goodier



How is it that one match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box of matches to start a campfire? ~Christy Whitehead



I don't think it is so much the actual bath that most cats dislike; I think it's the fact that they have to spend a good part of the day putting their hair back in place. ~Debbie Peterson



Manners must adorn knowledge and smooth its way in the world, without them it is like a great rough diamond, very well in a closet by way of curiosity, and also for its intrinsic value; but most prized when polished. ~Lord Chesterfield



Art is indeed not the bread but the wine of life. ~Jean Paul Richter



The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new. ~Samuel Johnson



Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them. ~H.L. Mencken



I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form. ~Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat



The young people who come to me in the hope of hearing me utter a few memorable maxims are quite disappointed. Aphorisms are not my forte, I say nothing but banalities.... I listen to them and they go away delighted. ~Andre Gide



On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism. ~Barry Goldwater



He that hath knowledge spareth his words: and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit. ~Proverbs 17:27



Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive. ~Josephine Hart