what is important

is not the dead bodies
but what is in the survivors' eyes

on idealism

If we (,said you,) take men only as they are, we make them worse.

If we treat them as for what they should be, we bring them to where they can be brought.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

i am this fiery snail

crawling home.

bluebird

There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out

but I'm too tough for him,

I say, stay in there, I'm not going to let anybody see you.

unfinished

What a weary time those years were - to have the desire and the need to live but not the ability.

ira glass in the building blocks

etc

too late

there are worse things

than being alone

but it often takes

decades to realize this

and most often when you do

it's too late

and there's nothing worse

than too late

dying

If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose

Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now.

you have to die a few times before you can really live

loneliness

real loneliness is not necessarily limited to when you are alone.

I've never been lonely. I've been in a room -- I've felt suicidal. I've been depressed. I've felt awful -- awful beyond all -- but I never felt that one other person could enter that room and cure what was bothering me...or that any number of people could enter that room. In other words, loneliness is something I've never been bothered with because I've always had this terrible itch for solitude. It's being at a party, or at a stadium full of people cheering for something, that I might feel loneliness. I'll quote Ibsen, "The strongest men are the most alone." I've never thought, "Well, some beautiful blonde will come in here and give me a fuck-job, rub my balls, and I'll feel good." No, that won't help. You know the typical crowd, "Wow, it's Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there?" Well, yeah. Because there's nothing out there.

sometimes you just have to pee in the sink

The shortest distance between two points is often unbearable

Life's as kind as you let it be

what matters most

세한연후지송백지부조

歲寒然後知松栢之不彫

(歲寒然後 知松栢之後彫 ?)

what matters most is how well you walk through the fire

Things get bad for all of us, almost continually, and what we do under the constant stress reveals who/what we are.

religion

at the end of the day, if there was indeed some body or presence standing there to judge me, I hoped I would be judged on whether I had lived a true life, not on whether I believed in a certain book, or whether I'd been baptized. If there was indeed a god at the end of my days, I hope he didn't say, 'But you were never a Christian, so you're going the other way from heaven.' If so, I was going to reply, 'You know what? You're right. Fine.'

lance armstrong

John Wooden

John Wooden

There is no progress without change

Never try to be better than someone else, always learn from others. Never cease trying to be the best you can be - that's under your control. If you get too engrossed and involved and concerned in regard to the things in which you have no control, it will adversely affect the things over which you have control.

If you make the effort to to the best of which you're capable, try and improve the situation that exists for you, I think that's success. And I don't think others can judge that. I think it's like character and reputation. Your reputation is what you are perceived to be; your character is what you really are. And I think that character is much more important than what you are perceived to be.

Don't whine. Don't complain. Don't make excuses.