tragically unhip | quotes

"it would be easier to peel off a three-day-old Band-Aid from a hairy kneecap than to remove the patina of Baptist upbringing that coats my psyche." {Mary Ellen Snodgrass}

"when i told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, "Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?" {Quentin Crisp}

"as I descended the stairs, the years between us seemed accumulated everywhere, filling the house, and it seemed strange to me, how love and habit blurred so thoroughly to make a life." {Sue Monk Kidd}

"bed is the poor man's opera." {Italian Proverb}

"i'm optimistic about the future, but not about the future of this civilization. i'm optimistic about the civilization which will replace this one." {James Baldwin}

"it's so curious: one can resist tears and "behave" very well in the hardest hours of grief. but then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer....and everything collapses." {Colette}

"live to the point of tears." {Albert Camus}

"don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful." {Ann Landers}

"it's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars." {Garrison Keillor}

"it's a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. it gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and what is sand." {Madeleine L'Engle}

"remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something, and has lost something." {H. Jackson Brown, Jr.}

"even our misfortunes are a part of our belongings." {Antoine de Saint-Exupery}

"we understand death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one whom we love." {Madame de Stael}

"Well, you are about to start the greatest improvisation of all. With no script. No idea what’s going to happen, often with people and places you have never seen before. And you are not in control. So say “yes.” And if you’re lucky, you’ll find people who will say “yes” back. Now will saying “yes” get you in trouble at times? Will saying “yes” lead you to doing some foolish things? Yes it will. But don’t be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying “yes” begins things. Saying “yes” is how things grow. Saying “yes” leads to knowledge. “Yes” is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say “yes...

"there is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and recovered hope." {george eliot}

"if only we'd stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time." ( via ) {edith wharton}

"never wear anything that panics the cat." {p.j. o'rourke}

"i've used up all my sick days so i'm calling in dead." {Tom and Ray, Cartalk }

"the price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it." {Henry David Thoreau}

"Never write when you can talk. Never talk when you can nod. And never put anything in an e-mail." {ELIOT SPITZER, New York state attorney general}