On memories

Cowboy does not intend that the memory should ever die. There are memories that live for him as his present reality does not, and he shines them daily, like the finish of a fine new car, to keep them bright.

- Walter Jon Williams, Hardwired

On drugs

Dope comes in just two dosages: too much and not enough.

- P.J. O'Rouke, Tune In, Turn On, Go To The Office Late On Monday

On dissociation

Sometimes it feels like the world's stuffed with feathers
table-bottom gum just holding it together
a cold son
I am

- Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Cold Son

On being special

We're special
in other ways
ways our
mothers appreciate

- Built To Spill, Kicked It In The Sun

On the event of love

When two people fall in love, their "meeting" - whether that meeting be their first hours together, or the length of their entire courtship - forms an event for them in relation to which they change their lives. This certainly does not mean that their lives are simply going to be the better for it; on the contrary, love may involve debt, alienated friends, and rupture with one's family. The point is that love changes their relation to the world irrevocably. The duration of the lover's relationship depends upon their fidelity to that event and how they change according to what they discover through their love.

- Oliver Feltham & Justin Clemens, from the introduction to Alan Badiou's Infinite Thought

I hope

Yeah, time's the great destroyer... but when it finally takes us over, I hope we float away together.

-Low, Walk Into The Sea

Chesterton reminds me of Pynchon, who reminds me of Lovecraft

These tall, these star-blotting Muslim angels...

- Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

On needs

Our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so intertwined that we cannot think straightly of one without the others

- M.F.K. Fisher, The Art Of Eating

On not worrying

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof

- Matthew, 6:34

On sickness

how long can i contain
this wretched that no cure can tame
feel
it coursing through me still
never knew
that i
could be
so ill

- Pale Saints Hair Shoes

Tonight we'll stay alive

Don't you try to shoot up the sky, to shoot up the sky,
tonight,
we'll stay alive

- The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, Stay Alive

Too late

Been meaning to tell you what I've been thinking of
You an me forever
Let's fall back in love

- Slow Club Let's Fall Back In Love

Philosophy by stealth

Parapsychology has no word for the uneasy feeling you have when you're in the presence of yourself. *

...

* Although, strictly speaking, humans feel it all the time.

- Terry Pratchett, Soul Music

More on being happy

There ought to be a prison for dudes who think they can make some happiness in this life.

Roast Beef, Achewood

Fly forever

Which arrow flies forever?
The arrow that has hit its mark.

- Vladimir Nabokov, A Russian Beauty

Sometimes it's better to let go

I said "How could he ever leave you?
You two were good, you were so right."
She said "I wish that he just left me;
He'd be alive, alive tonight."

St. Etienne, Like A Motorway

When I see the towers fall...

When I see the towers fall,
It cannot be denied that,
As a spectacle,
It is a realization of the mind.

- Shackleton, Blood On My Hands

All you need

All You Need Is Love Was Not True

- Xinlisupreme, All You Need Is Love Was Not True

Hope

You might sometimes think you're sinking, but I'll laugh and tell you it's just fine.

- Slowdive, Alison, as paraphrased by Isis.

You were the dawn

It's not that I can't go on without you
Got a lot of things to do
Busy, busy all the time
Still I can't stop thinking about you

- Electrelane, Birds