DOUBLETALK what does it mean to say, i'm sorry
sorry not to have thought
sorry you got mad
sorry to have been caught
pity me now 'cause i'm sad.

what does it mean to say, i was wrong
wrong to be so green
wrong i've been such a dolt
wrong but you know what i mean
anyway it's not my fault.

what does it mean to say, reconcile with me
i want to be trusted again
i promise you won't get bit
i really mean it this time
besides you started it.

BARTLEBYIn the beginning, it was just us and Him. Angels and God. And then He created the humans. And He gave them more than He ever gave us. Ours was designed to be a life of servitude and worship — adoration. But He gave the humans more — He gave them a choice. They can choose to ignore God, choose to acknowledge Him. All this time we've been down here, everyday I felt the absence of the Divine presence. And it pained me... as I'm sure it must have pained you some times, even though you'd gloss over it with jokes. But we feel his absence, and why? Because of the way He made us — as servants. Had we been given free will, we could ignore the pain... like them.

SPIKEI know you'll never love me. I know I'm a monster. But you treat me like a man and that's ...

HOLDENAll the parents and mothers and everybody went over and stood right under the roof of the carousel, so they wouldn't get soaked to the skin or anything, but I stuck around on the bench for quite a while. I got pretty soaking wet, especially my neck and my pants. My hunting hat really gave me quite a lot of protection, in a way, but I got soaked anyway. I didn't care, though. I felt so damn happy all of a sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around, I was damn near bawling, I felt so damn happy, if you want to know the truth. I don't know why. It was just that she looked so damn nice, the way she kept going around and around, in her blue coat and all. God, I wish you could've been there.

PHILOCTETESI hate it, I always hated it, and I am
a part of it myself.
and a part of you,
for my part is the chorus, and the chorus
is more or less the borderline between
the you and me and the it of it.
between the gods' and human beings' sense of things.
and that's the borderline that poetry
operates on too, always in between
what you would like to happen and what will —
whether you like it or not.

ZATARAtalking backwards
because time will not go backwards
because I will walk until I see an answer
graffiti written backwards on the wall invisible
because I am getting ahead...
watch my dust.

the fear is of the unknown.
we kill the things we do not understand.
here:
           talk backwards
           animate a dream
here:
           talk backwards
           glamours mask the fear.

the need to get ahead, the burning need.
(watch my dust, my daughter, watch my dust.)
I need more than illusion,
we do it with mirrors,
and rabbits
athanors
and doves...

I thought I had found my way to
the center of the invisible labyrinth;
and I had — perhaps — discovered no more than the entrance.

watch my dust.

when the magic appears, when the lights go up,
when I'm dressed in my top hat
and my coat of many pockets
when I'm talking backwards...

then I knew that I was edging through the maze.
and once I had gone past delusion
past the others
all "the great", "the amazing", "the master of illusion",
past all of them
once they had seen my dust,
I found
           emptiness
           the hollow place at the center of the maze
           no returning
           no way back

           not even speaking backwards
           not even walking backwards

I retreated into safety,
the world of illusion,
in the stage,
in the footlights,
all eyes upon me and no one really seeing,

because I do not talk backwards:
because I do not say,
(thgin emoceb seilfrettub)
and the night does not become butterflies.
I give nothing of myself to the audience,
as I do it with mirrors
and string
and sleight
           the delusion of illusion and the hand
           deceives the eye...

my life is strobed like lightning by a follow-spot,
and looking backwards I can only see
the corpses of the animals and birds
who strutted with me on the darkened stage
and helped me fool them all.

charms of birds
           and hatfuls of dead rabbits.

I take my last bow with pride, as proudly as
befits a conjure man
going down in flames,
up as smoke.

DARK HARBORYou know, I look at you and it's funny, you don't remind me of myself exactly but you remind me of a certain time I remember what I used to think love was then; that it was like fireworks, the explosions, the highlights, but it is not.

It's time: to go through the seasons together through change through the ups and downs, to be able to look at your beloved and say, "We did that together as one, we chose each other above all things". That’s love. It's unexplainable. It’s a secret that can only be known once you’ve done the time.


NORMAN REEDUSI never had a sheltered life where I did what everybody else did or did what I was told was the cool thing to do. To play a character that's a badass that kills everyone — I've gotten in fights, I know what that's like. Sleeping with your mother — I haven't done that yet, but I might.

SONNET FOR THE END OF THE WORLD[...] Quite unexpectedly the top blew off.
And there, there overhead, there, there hung over
Those thousands of white faces, those dazed faces
There in the starless dark, the poise, the hover
There with vast wings across the cancelled skies
There in the sudden blackness, the black pall
Of nothing, nothing, nothing — nothing at all!

DARKNESS, TAKE MY HANDPatrick,

the issue is pain. understand this. [...]

I'm not sure why I'm writing you, patrick. who I am as I write this isn't who I am during My day job, nor who I am when I kill. I wear a lot of faces, and some you'll never see, and some you'd never want to. I've seen a few of your faces — a pretty one, a violent one, a reflective one, some others — and I wonder which you'll wear if we ever meet with carrion between us. I do wonder.

all guiltless, I've heard, will meet reporach. maybe so. and so be it. I'm not sure the worthy victims are worth all the trouble actually.

I dreamed once that I was stranded on a planet of the whitest sand, and the sky was white. that's all there was — me, spilling drifts of white sand as wide as oceans, and a burning white sky. I was alone. and small. after days of wandering, I could smell My own rot, and I knew I'd die in these drifts of white under a hot sky, and I prayed for shade, and eventually it came. and it had a voice and a name. "Come," Darkness said, "come with me." but I was weak, I was rotting, I couldn't rise to My knees. "Darkness," I said, "take My hand. Take Me away from this place." and Darkness did.


so you see what I'm teaching you, patrick?

RUSHDIEWhat is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist. Without the freedom to challenge, even to satirize all orthodoxies, it ceases to exist. Language and the imagination cannot be imprisoned, or art will die, and with it, a little of what makes us human.

EISENHOWEREvery gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the houses of its children. This is not a way of life. ... Under the cloud of war, it is humanity hanging itself on a cross of iron.

THIS MIND IS BUDDHA Two monks were arguing about whether their train was moving. One said:
"Our train is moving."
The other said: "The train on the tracks next to us is moving."
The sixth patriarch happened to be walking down the aisle. He asked them: "Would I look good in short shorts?"

ILIAD [...] For a young man is all decorous
when he is cut down in battle and torn with the sharp bronze, and lies there
dead, and though dead still all that shows about him is beautiful ...

SONGyou've made up your mind, it was time, it was over
after we had come so far
I would not have chosen the road you have taken
it has left us miles apart.

ELIZABETH BIRMINGHAMThe archangel Gabriel cornered me in the shower. I rinsed the shampoo out of my hair, I opened my eyes, and there he stood. Wet and skinny and blond with huge wings that didn't have feathers, but iridescent scales. A little reptilian, but pitiful and puny in spite of that. He squinted against the water, shielded his eyes with his left hand. "Blessed art thou among women," he said, but it came out nearly a question. A man tries a line like that he should at least say it like he means it. Otherwise it's a little insulting, I think. Am I blessed? Am I not blessed? Is this angel in my shower being sarcastic?

KOANSubhuti was Buddha's disciple. He was able to understand the potency of emptiness, the viewpoint that nothing exists except in its relationship of subjectivity and objectivity.

One day Subhuti, in a mood of sublime emptiness, was sitting under a tree. Flowers began to fall about him.

"We are praising you for your discourse on emptiness," the gods whispered to him.

"But I have not spoken of emptiness," said Subhuti.

"You have not spoken of emptiness, we have not heard emptiness," responded the gods. "This is true emptiness." And blossoms showered upon Subhuto as rain.

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTSWe're on a road movie to Berlin.
Can't drive out the way we drove in.
So sneak out this glass of bourbon,
then we'll go.

We were once so close to heaven
Peter came out, and gave us a medal:
declaring us the nicest of the damned.

Time won't find the lost.
It'll sweep up our skeleton bones.
So take the wheel
and I will take the pedal.

THE VIRGIN SUICIDESBut we have never found an answer. It didn't matter in the end how old they were, or that they were girls, but only that we had loved them. And that they hadn't heard us calling: still do not hear us calling them from out of those rooms, where they went to be alone for all time. And where we will never find the pieces to put them back together.

THE SPADE OF REASON [...] the neural circuits that process sensation are the same neural circuits that create emotion. The difference between sensation and emotion is that information flows the other way. Emotion is nothing more than sensation in reverse [...] the word itself — e-motion — means "flowing out." Emotion is simply sensation we create.

Reason. The most elegant function of the human brain. When we reason we are using the same circuits in our brains that we use to process sensation and emotion because those are the only circuits we have inside our heads. At the neural level, there is no difference between thinking and feeling. We only like to think there is because thinking makes us feel good.

MICHAEL PENNI'm the walking wounded
I say it to your face
but I can't find my place
so tell me now what more do you need?
take me to Walter Reed tonight.

ARIONNow about the art itself. About magic... I think I speak with some authority. By means of magic I have lived for many... millions... of years. And I've had the time to do a great deal of thinking. And what I think is this. The whole thing is a crock of dirt. Not worth the price I paid. Nor for one second.

SPIDER JERUSALEMDid you ever want to set someone's head on fire, just to see what it looked like? Did you ever stand in the street and think to yourself, I could make that nun go blind just by giving her a kiss? Did you ever lay out plans for stitching babies and stray cats into a Perfect New Human? Did you ever stand naked surrounded by people who want your gleaming sperm, squirting frankincense, soma, and testosterone from every pore? If so, then you're the bastard who stole my drugs Friday night. And I'll find you. Oh, yes.

BIG SECRET #73Like quantum mechanics, the rules of life only exist when someone is looking at them, and they only change when the same observer looks for the same thing twice.

Know the rules other people live by. Know them well. Know them in the same way terrorists know about cars: so that you know where to put the bomb.

OK GOwhat to do? sweetheart, you'll find ...
mediocre people do exceptional things all the time.

THE HIGH PARTYbut mine eyes have seen the glory of
the fields of flowers
and factory floors and
my mind's content to rest
for hours behind my loved ones' doors and
if there's a war, another shitty war
to fight for babylon then it's the
perfect storm in a tea cup but
you must drink it down.

ANGELS OF THE LOVE AFFAIR"Angels of the love affair, do you know that other,
the dark one, that other me?"

PLANETARYThat was you, wasn't it? The little boy? How do you do it? How do you cope?
Do you remember your parents?
Yes.
Do you remember their smiles?
Yes.
Do you remember times when they made you feel safe?
Yes.
That's what you hold onto. That's what you can do for other people. You can give them safety. You can show them they're not alone. That's how you make the world make sense. And if you can do that — you can stop the world from making more people like us. And no one will have to be scared anymore.

BORDENNever show anyone. They'll beg you and flatter you for the secret, but as soon as you give it up you'll be nothing to them. The secret impresses no one — the trick you use it for is everything.

TO ANNA AKHMATOVAI sent you a rose in a glass of champagne
while the gypsies played as the gypsies do.
Then you turned to the man you were with and said:
"You see his eyes? He's in love with me too."

SOPHIE'S WORLDA Greek philosopher who lived more than two thousand years ago believed that philosophy had its origin in man's sense of wonder. Man thought it was so astonishing to be alive that philosophical questions arose of their own accord. It is like watching a magic trick. We cannot understand how it is done. So we ask: how can the magician change a couple of white silk scarves into a live rabbit? In the case of the rabbit, we know the magician has tricked us. What we would like to know it just how he did it. But when it comes to the world it's somewhat different. We know that the world is not all sleight of hand and deception because here we are in it, we are part of it. Actually, we are the white rabbit being pulled out of the hat. The only difference between us and the white rabbit is that the rabbit does not realize it is taking part in a magic trick. Unlike us. We feel we are part of something mysterious and we would like to know how it all works.

KOANOne of the younger monks climbed up the mountain for two days, and when he was admitted to the presence of the master, he asked, "O Master, please tell me, what is Fate?"

The master contemplated for a time, and then said, "It is that which gives meaning to the Beasts of Burden. It is that which Man must bear upon his back. It is that which drives the urgency of the cities and causes men to build roads and highways, and upon them inns and roadhouses."

The young monk thought a minute and said, "Oh. So that is Fate."

The master looked up, startled. "Fate? Fate did you say?" said the master. "I'm sorry. I thought you said Freight."

"Oh?" said the young monk. "Well, I wanted to know what Freight was, too."

Hymn of SekhmetMine is a heart of carnelian, crimson as murder on a holy day.
Mine is a heart of corneal, the gnarled roots of a dogwood and the bursting of flowers.
I am the broken wax seal on my lover's letters.
I am the phoenix, the fiery sun, consuming and resuming myself.
I will what I will.
Mine is a heart of carnelian, blood red as the crest of a phoenix.

LAW #17Humans are creatures of habit with an insatiable need to see familiarity in other people’s actions. Your predictability gives them a sense of control. Turn the tables: Be deliberately unpredictable. Behavior that seems to have no consistency or purpose will keep them off-balance, and they will wear themselves out trying to explain your moves. Taken to an extreme, this strategy can intimidate and terrorize.

RUSHMOREYou guys have it real easy. I never had it like this where I grew up. But I send my kids here because the fact is you go to one of the best schools in the country: Rushmore. Now, for some of you it doesn't matter. You were born rich and you're going to stay rich. But here's my advice to the rest of you: take dead aim on the rich boys. Get them in the crosshairs and take them down. Just remember, they can buy anything but they can't buy backbone. Don't let them forget it. Thank you.

BABY WITH THE BATHWATERMISS PRINGLE: I am sorry you will not let me help this child.

PRINCIPAL: Help this child! She may be the next Virginia Woolf, the next Sylvia Plath.

MISS PRINGLE: Dead, you mean.

PRINCIPAL: Who cares if she's dead as long as she publishes?!

DEARLY DEVOTED"Yes," I said. "And I can help."

I took a deep breath and felt an echo rolling through my bones, down across the years from Harry so long ago to me right now, under the same Florida nightscape Harry and I had stood under when he said the same thing to me.

"We have to get you squared away," I said, and Cody looked at me with large blinkless eyes and nodded.

"Okay," he said.

THE CRANE TAKES FLIGHToceans lay between us
and the things we think we need
but I've known many who
would gladly swim to get to where you are.
always more together than
the ones you think are better off
but, darling, no one's made it half as far.
and it's so hard
and I know how hard.
and I know how hard to pursue
when you're just not breaking through.
but don't you let them tell you that you're wrong.

BANKSYThe time of getting fame for your name on its own is over. Artwork that is only about wanting to be famous will never make you famous. Any fame is a by-product of making something that means something. You don't go to a restaurant and order a meal because you want to have a shit.

KELLY LINKThe specialist's hat makes a noise like an acouti;
a collared peccary;
a tapir;
a rabbit;
a squirrel;
a curassow;
moans like a whale in the water;
moans like the wind in my wife's hair;
makes a noise like a snake.

I have hung the hat of the specialist upon my wall,
widdershins around the chimneys once, twice, again.
The spokes click like a clock on the bicycle;
they tick down the days of a life of a man.

Dreary and dreadful beats the sea at the shore.
Ghastly and dripping is the mist at my door.
The clock in the hall is chiming, one, two, three, four...
the morning comes not, no, never, no more.

BOYsixty days and sixty nights
she marched away from the terrible Mr. Right.
Twenty years, a million fights;
you said it was French diplomacy and that you were never right.
(And you say that he misses you.
And you'll ask, on behalf of France
they're so passé without you.)
What on earth has happened here?
Might it be that France just isn't so sincere?

MODEST MOUSEthe universe works on a math equation that
never even ever really even ends in the end.
infinity spirals out creation;
we're on the tip of its tongue, and it is saying
we ain't sure where you stand
you ain't machines, and you ain't land
well I know what I have and want
but I don't know what I need
well, he said he said he said he said
"where's we're going, I'm dead".

PLATOOnly the dead have seen the end of war.

LAW #18The world is dangerous and enemies are everywhere — everyone has to protect themselves. A fortress seems the safest. But isolation exposes you to more dangers than it protects you from — it cuts you off from valuable information, it makes you conspicuous and an easy target. Better to circulate among people find allies, mingle. You are shielded from your enemies by the crowd.

XVIIIBetter this present than a past like that;
     Back to my darkening path again!
      No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain.
Will the night send a howlet or a bat?
I asked: when something on the dismal flat
      Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train.

THIRD EYE BLINDdream of lives we could've had before
the heat is broke down, open doorways
like waiting for the trick to score
seems that way sometimes.

can we try and take the high road?
though we don't know where it ends.
I wanna be your crystal baller.
wanna show you everything.

ELIZABETH KNAPPRifling through a box of photos, I find a black-and-white snapshot of a pile of bones, human and mostly femurs, some of them pointed at the camera so that you can see their hollow openings, like the ends of flutes. The bones are from the Massacre of Sabra and Shatila, you tell me. From this, I construct the story: three thousand women and children are bulldozed from their homes, led to a narrow ravine and shot. What is left is the impression that you were once there, and somehow I have followed you. We move through the blasted landscape like hungry ghosts, picking at what's left of the bodies, our bodies, stabbing at the remains like crows bickering over a load of moldy bread. This is not a dream, yet somehow the memory precedes me, as if you had intentionally placed the photograph there, years later, for me to find. It reminds me of the chapel in Kutná Hora made entirely out of human bones, a chapel I have seen but never visited. We walked past it once in early fall, when the Bohemian light cast silver shadows over the rooftops and cobblestones, before what was yours became mine, before the x-ray of your broken collarbone appeared in my files, its crack like the glaze of fire porcelain.

FRANZ FERDINANDif I like cocaine, I'm racing you
for organic fresh echincea
one kick's as good as another.
if I'm tired, I'm tired of telling you
I'm never tired, I'm always better than you
bye, boy, run to your mother.

THE JACKETSometimes I think we live through things only to be able to say that it happened — that it wasn't to someone else, it was to me. Sometimes we live to beat the odds. I'm not crazy, even though they thought I was. I live in the same world as everyone else. I just saw more of it, as I'm sure you have. They'll find my body tomorrow. You can check it out if you don't believe me. I've seen life after my death, and I'm telling you this because it's the only way to help you and your daughter have a better life of your own. Jean, you're gonna pass out one day smoking a cigarette and burn to death. Your daughter grows up living the same life you're living right now. And she misses you so much. Sometimes life can only really begin with the knowledge of death. That it can all end, even when you least want it to. The important thing in life is to believe that while you're alive, it's never too late. I promise you, Jean, no matter how bad things look, they look better awake than they do asleep. When you die, there's only one thing you want to happen: you wanna come back.

GUSTERfour, three, two, one
when out the barrel of a gun
keep my head way down
stay out, I'll stay in.
half dead, half numb
she's enough to make me warm
it's all so safe and sound.
goddamn you, movie star
can't you just play a minute more.

MUSIC WHEN THE LIGHTS GO OUTis it cruel or kind not to speak my mind
and to lie to you rather than hurt you?
well, I'll confess all of of my sins
after several large gins
but still I'll hide from you
hide what's inside from you.
and alarm bells ring
when you say your heart still sings
when you're with me
oh darling, please forgive me
but I no longer hear the music.

LAW #22When you are weaker, never fight for honor’s sake; choose surrender instead. Surrender gives you time to recover, time to torment and irritate your conqueror, time to wait for his power to wane. Do not give him the satisfaction of fighting and defeating you — surrender first. By turning the other cheek you infuriate and unsettle him. Make surrender a tool of power.

ELIJAH SNOWHeaven and Hell are nothing but siege engines set in a constant tug-of-war against each other, and souls provide the coal.

OF MONTREALyou keep me lit like antediluvian Troy
but one always reveres
what one's bound to destroy

ANNA AKHMATOVAYou will hear thunder and remember me,
And think: she wanted storms. The rim
Of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson,
And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire.

That day in Moscow, it will all come true,
when, for the last time, I take my leave,
And hasten to the heights I have longed for,
Leaving my shadow still to be with you.

ELLIOT SMITHa distorted reality is now
a necessity to be free

KOANWhen Mamiya, who later became a well-known preacher, went to a teacher for personal guidance, he was asked to explain the sound of one hand.

Mamiya concentrated upon what the sound of one hand might be. "You are not working hard enough," his teacher told him. "You are too attached to food, wealth, things, and that sound. It would be better if you died. That would solve the problem."

The next time Mamiya appeared before his teacher he was again asked what he had to show regarding the sound of one hand. Mamiya at once fell over as if dead.

"You are dead all right," observed the teacher. "But how about that sound?

"I haven't solved that yet," replied Mamiya, looking up.

"Dead men do not speak," said the teacher. "Get out!"

FRANZ FERDINANDso if you're lonely
you know I'm here, waiting for you.
I'm just a crosshair.
I'm just a shot away from you.

DEATH'S JEST-BOOKThe look of the world's a lie, a face made up
O'er graves and fiery depths; and nothing's true
But what is horrible. If man could see
The perils and diseases that he elbows,
Each day he walks a mile; which catch at him,
Which fall behind and graze him as he passes;
Then would he know that Life's a single pilgrim,
Fighting unarmed amongst a thousand soldiers.
It is this infinite invisible
Which we must learn to know, and yet to scorn,
And, from the scorn of that, regard the world
As from the edge of a far star.

JOSH JOPLIN GROUPhere within lies the king of Graceland
which makes the point all too clear
we stand in long lines praying our peace
and go home with a souvenir
only fools rush in
to save a desparate man
everybody falls in small degrees
everybody falls in small degrees
that's gravity.

ULALUMEBut Psyche, uplifting her finger,
      Said — sadly this star I mistrust —
     Her pallor I strangely mistrust!"

GUNFIGHTER NATIONI would have that sort of courage, knowing full well
the price of it is history.

LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVERIt was producing a new race of mankind, over-conscious in money and social and political side, on the spontaneous, intuitive side dead — but dead! Half-corpses, all of them: but with a terrible insistent consciousness in the other half. It was all an underworld. And quite incalculable.

SELF-PORTRAIT AS A JAPANESE STRIPPER     Look: ravaged at desire's hem,
at the back of the catwalk,
   I glisten, skulking, waiting

   to ignore, while suits sipping
sake from bamboo baskets
   bump knees under the table,

   loosen silk ties. I fix them
hard with the red split
   of my smile, slink like I

   was born to (sinking),
my bones sleek as a bird's
   and bracing for the funeral.

   Listen: burn me. Burn
the boredom of this being:
   night after night like a cat

   under the hideous moon,
or the burn unit after midnight.
   Mercy bleeds like that.

   Thongs-away. Seething, I bloom
like acid over writhing flesh,
   light one lipsticked tit at time.

THE JUNGLE QUEENI'm that part of you that escapes. I reflect what's deep inside, the image of strength and independence you felt before you were violated. But I am changing, I fear what I am becoming, Julie. But now that you have seen this, the world can never be the same size again.

ANTHEM FOR THE ALREADY DEFEATEDwell, they can take our bones
and bury them deep under the river
but we'll still be together
and we cannot be defeated.

they can take our fists
and chop them off at the wrist
and we will shake our arms with bloody stumps
and we cannot be defeated.

when we dance, we dance together
under the moon and under the weather
we will shake our arms forever in the night.

EDWARD BRYANTI write my little stories, knowing how we writers are all obliged to write from experience. We are to suck the lifeblood from the lives around us in the manner of vampires. The justification is that our creations will be richer, fuller to the point of bursting. Brutal honesty is the key.

There are no experiences too dreadful to cannibalize.

JAMES BRADLEYIn the end, nothing is true save that which we feel. Nothing we remember, nothing we believe, all are just stories and echoes. The past is a shifting sea where nothing is certain, and where the things we seek cannot be found, a place where we seek lands that rise from the mist into the glare of the sun and then vanish again, as quickly as they arrived. A shifting sea with nothing at its center, except illusions, and loss.

ARTHUR MILLERAn era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted.

GILESBut those of us who refused to pay the piper during our adolescence have a responsibility to shoulder the most unpleasant costs of adulthood.

AS YOU LIKE IT PHEBE
Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love.

SILVIUS
It is to be all made of sighs and fears,
And so am I for Phebe.

PHEBE
And I for Ganymede.

ORLANDO
And I for Rosalind.

ROSALIND
And I for no woman.

SILVIUS
It is to be all made of faith and service,
And so am I for Phebe.

PHEBE
And I for Ganymede.

ORLANDO
And I for Rosalind.

ROSALIND
And I for no woman.

SILVIUS
It is to be all made of fantasy
All made of passion, and all made of wishes,
All adoration, duty, and observance,
All humbleness, all patience, and impatience,
All purtity, all trial, all observance;
And so am I for Phebe.

PHEBE
And so am I for Ganymede.

ORLANDO
And so am I for Rosalind.

ROSALIND
And so am I for no woman.

PHEBE, SILVIUS, ORLANDO
If this be so, why blame me to love you?

IAN BRADY There are no saints in this world, only liars, lunatics, and journalists.

ABOUT POWER There once was a king who ruled over a city. He was feared for his might and loved for his wisdom. In this city, there was a well from which the king and everyone in the city drank. One night, an enemy entered the city and poured seven drops of poison into the well that would cause all who drank the water to become mad. All the people drank of the water, but not the king, who, through his wisdom, knew what had happened.

And the people began to say, "The king is mad and has lost his reason. Look how strangely he behaves. We cannot be ruled by a madman, so he must be dethroned." The king grew fearful, for his subjects were preparing to rise against him. That night, the king went to the well and drank of the water. The next day, there was great rejoicing among the people, for their beloved king had finally regained his reason.

CONSTANTINESometimes I wonder if the price is really worth it... the rest of the time I just know it's not.

MANGLED LYRICit's not filthy, it's not crude
I want to get famous just so I can get sued.

Robert AngierYou never understood, why we did this. The audience knows the truth: the world is simple. It's miserable, solid all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second, then you can make them wonder, and then you got to see something really special. You really don't know? —It was the look on their faces.

such an infamous scenewell, I don't know why I came here tonight.
I got the feeling that something ain't right.
I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair,
and I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs.
clowns to the left of me,
jokers to the right, here I am —
stuck in the middle with you.

well, you started out with nothing,
and you're proud that you're a self-made man.
and your friends, they all come crawlin',
slap you on the back and say,
please.... please.....

Ephesians 6:12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

when Johnny comes marching homewhere are your legs that used to run
when first you went to carry a gun?
I fear your dancing days are done.
Johnny, I hardly knew you.

alan moore believes in grant morrisonYears later, in another place, he steps out of the dark and speaks to me. He whispers: "I'll tell you the ultimate secret of magic. Any cunt could do it."

TWELVE MONKEYSThen, they took everything about me and put it into a computer where they created this model of my mind. Yes! Using that model, they managed to generate every thought I could possibly have in the next, say, 10 years. Which they then filtered through a probability matrix of some kind to — to determine everything I was gonna do in that period. So you see, she knew I was gonna lead the Army of the Twelve Monkeys into the pages of history before it ever even occurred to me. She knows everything I'm ever gonna do before I know it myself. How's that?

HARVEY DANGERfarewell to the days of having it both ways
hell is other people: some people never learn.
when optimism fails
and my cooler head prevails
I will meet you at the point of diminishing returns.

KING'S CROSSINGthis is the place where time reverses
dead men talk to all the pretty nurses.
instruments shine on a silver tray
don't let me get carried away
don't let me get carried away.

Mortal LegaciesWe die every day, a thousand times an hour. Anyone who does this work sees it. Death. Their own. Their partners. Their loved ones. We go to work anyway. Death is powerless against you if you leave a legacy of good behind. Death is powerless against you if you do your job. My father saved the lives of over four thousand people, one at a time, with his bare hands and his mind. Death was with him the entire time.

Hymn to DemeterWe mortals are forced, though it may hurt us, to bear the gifts of the gods.

BLUE BEETLE #19HECTOR: This is it. All of it. Everything on your aunt.

BRENDA: E-everything?

NADIA: Yep.

BRENDA: ...

NADIA: Gonna open it?

BRENDA: Just tell me. Just... how many people has she killed?

NADIA: ... less.

BRENDA: "Less"? What kind of answer is "less"?

NADIA: Less in the last five years. She's seriously downsized her illegal activities. She's not a saint, but she's changed. Or trying to. And what's so important about the last five years?

BRENDA: ... it's when my mom got sick. First time I... first time I stayed with my aunt was five years ago.

NADIA: First time it occurred to La Dama — your tia amparo — that she might have to take care of you. Be your family.

HECTOR: You asked Nadia why we help Blue Beetle? We do it because we want what you've got.

BRENDA: What I...?

HECTOR: Jaime talks about you all the time. He listens to you, he respects you. There's a guy out there who really can change the world, and he does it all because he doesn't want to let you down.

NADIA: For god's sake, you changed your aunt's life. You help keep a superhero from going bonkers. You make a difference. You got any idea how rare that is? How much that matters to people like me and Hector? To have a chance to do what you do without even trying?

HECTOR: They lied so they wouldn't lose you.


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