Your Quote of the Day

I used to correspond with a woman who worked in the New Zealand embassy in Tokyo. She mailed me some English language books. One was a novelized story about a real life Christian priest who went to Japan, despite the ban on Christian religion. It was called Silence. The other one I recall was a history of Japan. Most engrossing. It was enough years ago I have forgotten a lot, but it helped my understanding quite a bit. I just recalled, there was another book describing modern (1960s modern) Japanese society.
I wandered off base in Osaka one time, just to see where my feet would take me. The taxi drivers all assumed I was looking for the red light district but I wanted to see something of the city. I ended up in a suburban neighborhood that looked on the surface much like some of the neighborhoods in some American communities. I passed a group of boys playing in a field. One of them called out, "Hello," to me. His friends looked at him impressed as I said, "Hello," back. After a time I got lost. I approached a very old man, who smiled then held his head, shaking it to indicate he thought I had had too much to drink. But he knew what I wanted and he set me back on the right street to the base. I did this sort of thing in Hawaii too, because I only made about 37 dollars every two weeks and could not afford to do much.

“Kakimi chertyami oni viigrali holodnuyu voinu?"
This translates roughly to: "How the hell did these people win the Cold War?”
― Dave Barry, Big Trouble

Dear landlord

Please don’t put a price on my soul

My burden is heavy

My dreams are beyond control

When that steamboat whistle blows

I’m gonna give you all I got to give

And I do hope you receive it well

Dependin’ on the way you feel that you live



Dear landlord

Please heed these words that I speak

I know you’ve suffered much

But in this you are not so unique

All of us, at times, we might work too hard

To have it too fast and too much

And anyone can fill his life up

With things he can see but he just cannot touch



Dear landlord

Please don’t dismiss my case

I’m not about to argue

I’m not about to move to no other place

Now, each of us has his own special gift

And you know this was meant to be true

And if you don’t underestimate me

I won’t underestimate you

- Bob Dylan

"Ninety-nine percent of the world's lovers are not with their first choice. That's what makes the jukebox play."
------ Willie Nelson, who should know a thing or two about this subject, since the Patsy Cline song "Crazy," which Willie wrote, is the most played jukebox song of all time

"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men" - Plato

I hate when old people poke you at a wedding and say "you're next".
So next time I was at a funeral I poked them and said "you're next".

"Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you."
--Pericles

“Real transformation requires real honesty. If you want to move forward — get real with yourself.”
Bryant McGill

Will someone please pass the biscuits?

I have tried in my way to be free.
Leonard Cohen.

Where's the red wine?

"And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand..."
--Job 2:6 (King James Bible)

(unrelated to previous quote )

"To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy."
--Sun Tzu

"Life begins on the other side of despair."
--Sartre

A New Yorker is bragging about how the Big Apple is the fastest place in the world. Its pace is incredible.
"Why," he says. "On my way to work one morning, I saw them laying the foundation for twenty story building. By the time I headed home, it was finished."
The Chicagoan says, "That's cute, but not fast. Let me tell you about my Windy City. I went to work at seven in the morning, and they were laying the foundation for a sixty-story building. When I started home at four ----"
The New Yorker cut in, "Don't tell me the building was finished."
"Finished, nothing. They were putting out tenants for nonpayment of rent."

Good one !

“
Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. An intelligent, sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you’ll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way.” – Janet Fitch, White Oleander

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.” – Jack Kerouac, On The Road

“Writers don’t make any money at all. We make about a dollar. It is terrible. But then again we don’t work either. We sit around in our underwear until noon then go downstairs and make coffee, fry some eggs, read the paper, read part of a book, smell the book, wonder if perhaps we ourselves should work on our book, smell the book again, throw the book across the room because we are quite jealous that any other person wrote a book, feel terribly guilty about throwing the schmuck’s book across the room because we secretly wonder if God in heaven noticed our evil jealousy, or worse, our laziness. We then lie across the couch facedown and mumble to God to forgive us because we are secretly afraid He is going to dry up all our words because we envied another man’s stupid words. And for this, as I said, we are paid a dollar. We are worth so much more.” – Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller