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31_days2006-04-20 10:34 pm
incandescens) wrote in 31_days2006-04-20 10:34 pm
Sources for May Quotes
Sources for May Quotes
And for the curious, or for those (like me) who always have to know where their original comes from, here are sources and attributions. Not in any way necessary to whatever you may do with the quotes, but just in case they should interest you. I have only quoted excerpts from longer poems, not the whole thing.
May 1 -
I get so weary following this old road
It don't go nowhere but damnation
When I turn around what do I find?
Got evil in my bones and bad luck following behind.
The Also People , Ben Aaronovitch
May 2 -
And it's one for the morning glory,
Two for the early dew,
Three for a man who will stand his ground,
And four for the love of you.
One for the Morning Glory, John Barnes
May 3 -
"Nice in a bodyguard is about as useful as the ability to regurgitate whole lobsters."
Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
May 4 -
I have no time to sing with
The laureate at midnight
Composing songs in golden minor chords
And I may have been misled by
The lady in the lamplight
Who's dealing futures from the deck of swords.
Web of Angels, John M Ford
May 5 -
When he had finished explaining, Sun Tzu gave the signal for the practice to begin. But as soon as they heard the drums, the courtesans started laughing.
Sun Tzu, managing to stay calm, explained everything to them again. Once again the drums began. And once again, the harem fell about laughing.
Still calm, Sun Tzu announced that the courtesans had broken the rules of war, and that he would execute the Emperor's favourite concubines as punishment. He cut off the two princesses' heads with his own sword.
Now, when the drumbeats started, the concubines marched in silence.
Yes, I have finished.
Now tell me: what do you think is the moral of the story?
Set Piece, Kate Orman
May 6 -
The demon floated just above her, wings still, levitating. His voice was a tenor, musical and still a surprise to the ears even when prepared. "Nightseer." His wings fanned out, arms flexing, and a grin flashed white teeth.
She inclined her head, and greeted him. "Barbarros."
He fanned the night with his wings, and the wind pulled at loose strands of her hair. "So you have not forgotten me. How flattering."
"Barbarros, I would never forget you, your black magnificence, your masterful hand with whip or sword."
Nightseer, Laurell K Hamilton
May 7 -
At sounds so entrancing the angels dancing
Came out of their trance into time again,
And around the wicked in Hell's abysses
The huge flame flickered and eased their pain.
Song for St Cecilia's Day, WH Auden
May 8 -
If all I can say is I'm not in this swamp, I'm not in this swamp, then there is not a rope in front of me and there is not an alligator behind me and there is not a girl sitting at the edge eating a hot dog, and if I believe that, then dying would be the only answer because then Death couldn't come and say Peachy to me any more and, after all, she has a brother who believes in hope.
Afterword to The Sandman, Tori Amos
May 9 -
"If a person offend you and you are in doubt as to whether it was intentional or not, do not resort to extreme measures. Simply watch your chance and hit him with a brick."
"Advice to Youth" Speech, 1882, Mark Twain
May 10 -
I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the night grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.
The Ballad of the White Horse, GK Chesterton
May 11 -
"I am the spirit that denies, and justly so: for all things from the Void called forth, deserve to be destroyed. 'Twere better, then, naught were created. Thus, all which you as sin have rated - destruction - aught with evil blent - that is my proper element."
Mephistopheles, in Faust, by Goethe
May 12 -
Open, locks, to the Human's hand,
Schism, latches, and sever, turnkeys,
Fly open, bars, dissolve, untie, unchain, unfetter,
Slash and gash and carve and gnaw,
Pluck the splinters of iron, and slice the thews of steel,
Scission and sunder, steal and plunder.
Rebel Angel, Bridget Wood
May 13 -
Then turning to my love I said,
"The dead are dancing with the dead,
The dust is whirling with the dust."
But she, she heard the violin,
And left my side and entered in:
Love passed into the House of Lust.
The Harlot's House, Oscar Wilde
May 14 -
"Okay, it's not yet the finely detailed insanity you've come to expect from me; it's just a theory . . ."
Mulder, The X-Files
May 15 -
Hear this: when our masters' work is done, every living thing will have the status of a machine. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. [. . .] And you, like everyone else, will take your place on the production line. Maybe we'll let you be labor camp commandants. Sure is amazing what a little taste of power and a shiny uniform can do to even the most freedom-loving . . .
The Invisibles
May 16 -
"You'd do it, wouldn't you?"
"With infinite regret but negligible hesitation, yes."
Paint Your Dragon, Tom Holt
May 17 -
Black, black, black is the colour of my true love's heart,
His glance is like a poisoned dart:
The coldest eyes and the cruellest hands,
I love the ground whereon he stands.
Black is the Colour of my True Love's Heart, Ellis Peters
May 18 -
The bedchamber staff were hotly in dispute with the kitchen staff as to which of them was the most overworked; Madame was very particular about her bedchambers, they said, and she was very particular indeed about her own bedchamber. When you considered that you never knew just what you might be finding on the floor of Madame's bedchamber on mornings after a banquet, you might count yourself very fortunate if all you had to do was conjure up a few roast geese and maybe a swan or two to grace the table. Also, hadn't Madame the habit of drawing up a strict rota for her own night's activities. And if the kitchen staff thought it an easy task to have to keep an eye on the clock all night, and send in the young men every hour on the hour, they were welcome to try it.
The kitchen staff refused to be drawn. They said that when you remembered that Madame had the way of flinging nearly all the unsatisfactory lovers bodily through the window before breakfast, it cut down on the tidying up of a morning, never mind reducing the number of breakfasts to be carried in.
Rebel Angel, Bridget Wood
May 19 -
Dark deeds and secret matters. You can fix it but it doesn't last.
Bright flash, the mirror shatters. Who's reflected in the broken glass?
When the Black Knight moves, you can feel a hand disturb the game!
You can hear the city asking for the White Pawn's name.
Between the black squares and the white, there's gonna be a sacrifice tonight.
Before the Black Knight moves again, you'd better do the same!
Black Knight's Work, Cats Laughing
May 20 -
Who am I? I am Susan Ivanova. Commander. Daughter of Andrei and Sofie Ivanov. I am the right hand of vengeance, and the boot that is gonna kick your sorry ass all the way back to Earth, sweetheart. I am death incarnate, and I am the last living thing that you're ever going to see. God sent me.
Babylon 5: Between the Darkness and the Light
May 21 -
". . . Circumstances did not conspire against me. I was not led into anything, nor did I fall. I chose my life and my course. I chose to do wrong in the hope that right might come. I regret it. I would choose differently now. But the choice was mine. Deny that, falsify it, tinsel it over with pious, pitying justification, and you deny everything I am and every scrap of what little good I have been able to do in my life. Good or bad, give me credit for what I have done. I would rather go honestly to Hell, admitting that I leaped knowingly into error and folly, than enter into the sweetest Heaven men can dream of by whining that I had been pushed."
Freedom and Necessity, Steven Brust & Emma Bull
May 22 -
King Dives he was walking in his garden in the sun,
He shook his hand at heaven, and he called the wheels to run,
And the eyes of him were hateful eyes, the lips of him were curled,
And he called upon his father that is lord below the world,
Sitting in the Gate of Treason, in the gate of broken seals,
"Bend and bind them, bend and bind them, bend and bind them into wheels,
Then once more in all my garden there may swing and sound and sweep
The noise of all the sleepless things that sing the soul to sleep."
The Song of the Wheels, GK Chesterton
May 23 -
The lunatic, on the other hand, doesn't concern himself at all with logic; he works by short circuits. For him, everything proves everything else. The lunatic is all idee fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy. You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars.
Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco
May 24 -
I began by saying that I was most grateful to the mighty lords on the Commission, because they had put the problem so neatly and spoken on it so sagaciously. On the basis of their debate, I said, I had listed the various possibilities of dealing with undesirable matter: (a) tell it all, (b) tell it with discretion, (c) don't tell it. To tell it all (possibility a) was obviously unwise: people were quick to draw the wrong conclusions from facts and to form wrong opinions of people whom we wished to be highly regarded. Not to tell it (possibility c) was equally unwise; things had a way of being noised about and people always picked up what they were not supposed to know. This left us with possibility (b): tell it with discretion. Discretion, I said, was not the same as lying; surely the Wisest of Kings, Solomon, would never condone lying in a history of his father King David. Discretion was truth controlled by wisdom.
The King David Report, Stefan Heym
May 25 -
I'd be content with yesterday, she thought,
her memories like clothing in her hands:
her daughters small, herself reckless and young,
and Lot her shelter, and their wanderings.
If God must take, she thought, let him take all...
and shivered as the ground began to shake.
Lot's Wife, Karen Gershon
May 26 -
We only come to sleep, we only come to dream:
it is not true, not true, that we come to this world to live.
We come to change ourselves in green spring grass.
Our hearts grow green again, they open into crowns.
Our body is a flower - it blossoms, and then dries.
Nahuatl verse from the Aztec
May 27 -
I am your counsel, but you do not hear me,
I am the lover whom you will betray.
I am the victor, but you do not cheer me,
I am the holy dove whom you will slay.
I Am The Great Sun, Charles Causley
May 28 -
Little man, little man, one does not say must to princes.
Elizabeth I
May 29 -
I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered.
"I liked white better," I said.
"White!" he sneered. "It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken."
"In which case it is no longer white," said I. "And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."
The Fellowship Of The Ring, JRR Tolkien
May 30 -
The dose makes the poison.
Paracelsus
May 31 -
Fence blown down in a winter storm
darkened by the outstripped possession
Filed stretching out of the world
this book is as old as the people
There are traces of blood in a fairy tale
Singularities, Susan Howe
And for the curious, or for those (like me) who always have to know where their original comes from, here are sources and attributions. Not in any way necessary to whatever you may do with the quotes, but just in case they should interest you. I have only quoted excerpts from longer poems, not the whole thing.
May 1 -
I get so weary following this old road
It don't go nowhere but damnation
When I turn around what do I find?
Got evil in my bones and bad luck following behind.
The Also People , Ben Aaronovitch
May 2 -
And it's one for the morning glory,
Two for the early dew,
Three for a man who will stand his ground,
And four for the love of you.
One for the Morning Glory, John Barnes
May 3 -
"Nice in a bodyguard is about as useful as the ability to regurgitate whole lobsters."
Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
May 4 -
I have no time to sing with
The laureate at midnight
Composing songs in golden minor chords
And I may have been misled by
The lady in the lamplight
Who's dealing futures from the deck of swords.
Web of Angels, John M Ford
May 5 -
When he had finished explaining, Sun Tzu gave the signal for the practice to begin. But as soon as they heard the drums, the courtesans started laughing.
Sun Tzu, managing to stay calm, explained everything to them again. Once again the drums began. And once again, the harem fell about laughing.
Still calm, Sun Tzu announced that the courtesans had broken the rules of war, and that he would execute the Emperor's favourite concubines as punishment. He cut off the two princesses' heads with his own sword.
Now, when the drumbeats started, the concubines marched in silence.
Yes, I have finished.
Now tell me: what do you think is the moral of the story?
Set Piece, Kate Orman
May 6 -
The demon floated just above her, wings still, levitating. His voice was a tenor, musical and still a surprise to the ears even when prepared. "Nightseer." His wings fanned out, arms flexing, and a grin flashed white teeth.
She inclined her head, and greeted him. "Barbarros."
He fanned the night with his wings, and the wind pulled at loose strands of her hair. "So you have not forgotten me. How flattering."
"Barbarros, I would never forget you, your black magnificence, your masterful hand with whip or sword."
Nightseer, Laurell K Hamilton
May 7 -
At sounds so entrancing the angels dancing
Came out of their trance into time again,
And around the wicked in Hell's abysses
The huge flame flickered and eased their pain.
Song for St Cecilia's Day, WH Auden
May 8 -
If all I can say is I'm not in this swamp, I'm not in this swamp, then there is not a rope in front of me and there is not an alligator behind me and there is not a girl sitting at the edge eating a hot dog, and if I believe that, then dying would be the only answer because then Death couldn't come and say Peachy to me any more and, after all, she has a brother who believes in hope.
Afterword to The Sandman, Tori Amos
May 9 -
"If a person offend you and you are in doubt as to whether it was intentional or not, do not resort to extreme measures. Simply watch your chance and hit him with a brick."
"Advice to Youth" Speech, 1882, Mark Twain
May 10 -
I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the night grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.
The Ballad of the White Horse, GK Chesterton
May 11 -
"I am the spirit that denies, and justly so: for all things from the Void called forth, deserve to be destroyed. 'Twere better, then, naught were created. Thus, all which you as sin have rated - destruction - aught with evil blent - that is my proper element."
Mephistopheles, in Faust, by Goethe
May 12 -
Open, locks, to the Human's hand,
Schism, latches, and sever, turnkeys,
Fly open, bars, dissolve, untie, unchain, unfetter,
Slash and gash and carve and gnaw,
Pluck the splinters of iron, and slice the thews of steel,
Scission and sunder, steal and plunder.
Rebel Angel, Bridget Wood
May 13 -
Then turning to my love I said,
"The dead are dancing with the dead,
The dust is whirling with the dust."
But she, she heard the violin,
And left my side and entered in:
Love passed into the House of Lust.
The Harlot's House, Oscar Wilde
May 14 -
"Okay, it's not yet the finely detailed insanity you've come to expect from me; it's just a theory . . ."
Mulder, The X-Files
May 15 -
Hear this: when our masters' work is done, every living thing will have the status of a machine. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. [. . .] And you, like everyone else, will take your place on the production line. Maybe we'll let you be labor camp commandants. Sure is amazing what a little taste of power and a shiny uniform can do to even the most freedom-loving . . .
The Invisibles
May 16 -
"You'd do it, wouldn't you?"
"With infinite regret but negligible hesitation, yes."
Paint Your Dragon, Tom Holt
May 17 -
Black, black, black is the colour of my true love's heart,
His glance is like a poisoned dart:
The coldest eyes and the cruellest hands,
I love the ground whereon he stands.
Black is the Colour of my True Love's Heart, Ellis Peters
May 18 -
The bedchamber staff were hotly in dispute with the kitchen staff as to which of them was the most overworked; Madame was very particular about her bedchambers, they said, and she was very particular indeed about her own bedchamber. When you considered that you never knew just what you might be finding on the floor of Madame's bedchamber on mornings after a banquet, you might count yourself very fortunate if all you had to do was conjure up a few roast geese and maybe a swan or two to grace the table. Also, hadn't Madame the habit of drawing up a strict rota for her own night's activities. And if the kitchen staff thought it an easy task to have to keep an eye on the clock all night, and send in the young men every hour on the hour, they were welcome to try it.
The kitchen staff refused to be drawn. They said that when you remembered that Madame had the way of flinging nearly all the unsatisfactory lovers bodily through the window before breakfast, it cut down on the tidying up of a morning, never mind reducing the number of breakfasts to be carried in.
Rebel Angel, Bridget Wood
May 19 -
Dark deeds and secret matters. You can fix it but it doesn't last.
Bright flash, the mirror shatters. Who's reflected in the broken glass?
When the Black Knight moves, you can feel a hand disturb the game!
You can hear the city asking for the White Pawn's name.
Between the black squares and the white, there's gonna be a sacrifice tonight.
Before the Black Knight moves again, you'd better do the same!
Black Knight's Work, Cats Laughing
May 20 -
Who am I? I am Susan Ivanova. Commander. Daughter of Andrei and Sofie Ivanov. I am the right hand of vengeance, and the boot that is gonna kick your sorry ass all the way back to Earth, sweetheart. I am death incarnate, and I am the last living thing that you're ever going to see. God sent me.
Babylon 5: Between the Darkness and the Light
May 21 -
". . . Circumstances did not conspire against me. I was not led into anything, nor did I fall. I chose my life and my course. I chose to do wrong in the hope that right might come. I regret it. I would choose differently now. But the choice was mine. Deny that, falsify it, tinsel it over with pious, pitying justification, and you deny everything I am and every scrap of what little good I have been able to do in my life. Good or bad, give me credit for what I have done. I would rather go honestly to Hell, admitting that I leaped knowingly into error and folly, than enter into the sweetest Heaven men can dream of by whining that I had been pushed."
Freedom and Necessity, Steven Brust & Emma Bull
May 22 -
King Dives he was walking in his garden in the sun,
He shook his hand at heaven, and he called the wheels to run,
And the eyes of him were hateful eyes, the lips of him were curled,
And he called upon his father that is lord below the world,
Sitting in the Gate of Treason, in the gate of broken seals,
"Bend and bind them, bend and bind them, bend and bind them into wheels,
Then once more in all my garden there may swing and sound and sweep
The noise of all the sleepless things that sing the soul to sleep."
The Song of the Wheels, GK Chesterton
May 23 -
The lunatic, on the other hand, doesn't concern himself at all with logic; he works by short circuits. For him, everything proves everything else. The lunatic is all idee fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy. You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars.
Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco
May 24 -
I began by saying that I was most grateful to the mighty lords on the Commission, because they had put the problem so neatly and spoken on it so sagaciously. On the basis of their debate, I said, I had listed the various possibilities of dealing with undesirable matter: (a) tell it all, (b) tell it with discretion, (c) don't tell it. To tell it all (possibility a) was obviously unwise: people were quick to draw the wrong conclusions from facts and to form wrong opinions of people whom we wished to be highly regarded. Not to tell it (possibility c) was equally unwise; things had a way of being noised about and people always picked up what they were not supposed to know. This left us with possibility (b): tell it with discretion. Discretion, I said, was not the same as lying; surely the Wisest of Kings, Solomon, would never condone lying in a history of his father King David. Discretion was truth controlled by wisdom.
The King David Report, Stefan Heym
May 25 -
I'd be content with yesterday, she thought,
her memories like clothing in her hands:
her daughters small, herself reckless and young,
and Lot her shelter, and their wanderings.
If God must take, she thought, let him take all...
and shivered as the ground began to shake.
Lot's Wife, Karen Gershon
May 26 -
We only come to sleep, we only come to dream:
it is not true, not true, that we come to this world to live.
We come to change ourselves in green spring grass.
Our hearts grow green again, they open into crowns.
Our body is a flower - it blossoms, and then dries.
Nahuatl verse from the Aztec
May 27 -
I am your counsel, but you do not hear me,
I am the lover whom you will betray.
I am the victor, but you do not cheer me,
I am the holy dove whom you will slay.
I Am The Great Sun, Charles Causley
May 28 -
Little man, little man, one does not say must to princes.
Elizabeth I
May 29 -
I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered.
"I liked white better," I said.
"White!" he sneered. "It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken."
"In which case it is no longer white," said I. "And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."
The Fellowship Of The Ring, JRR Tolkien
May 30 -
The dose makes the poison.
Paracelsus
May 31 -
Fence blown down in a winter storm
darkened by the outstripped possession
Filed stretching out of the world
this book is as old as the people
There are traces of blood in a fairy tale
Singularities, Susan Howe