Life can be

Life can be cruel and terrible, 

and anyone who expects to escape that fact is asking for a life at sea without storms.

~Harry Emerson Fosdick

Many more quotes with pictures can be found at my new website, Way Cool Quotes.

I lost everyone

I lost everyone I loved.
And then they locked me away.
With no where to hide from the pain.

~Baby Doll, Sucker Punch

Forget about winning

"Forget about winning and losing; forget about pride and pain. Let your opponent graze your skin and you smash into his flesh; let him smash into your flesh and you fracture his bones; let him fracture your bones and you take his life. Do not be concerned with escaping safely - lay your life before him."

~ Bruce Lee

The word "happiness"

The word “happiness” would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

~Carl Jung

Shrinking away

Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose.

~Carl Jung

So don't you see?

So don't you see? Everything that we do, the plans we make, the hopes we have, they're futile. Being good at a job, which I was, building a home, which I did, raising a family...which I had, none of it means anything because no matter how we try, how much we strive and struggle, it'll all come to naught. Life is a waste of time. So, that's why I'm counting on you to kill me. You will, won't you?

~Lemuel Idzik

In the pursuit of learning

In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired. In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.

~Lao Tsu

'Tis better

'Tis better to buy a small bouquet
And give to your friend this very day,
Than a bushel of roses white and red
To lay on his coffin after he's dead.

~an old Irish saying

I will not say

I will not say, Do not weep... not all tears are an evil.

~Gandalf, Lord of the Rings

Home is behind

Home is behind, the world ahead... And there are many paths to tread. Through shadow, to the edge of night, until the stars are all alight... Mist and shadow, cloud and shade, all shall fade... all... shall... fade...

~Pippin, song from Lord of the Rings

The world is changed.

The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it.

~Galadriel, The Lord of the Rings

If Aragorn survives

If Aragorn survives this war, you will still be parted. If Sauron is defeated and Aragorn made king and all that you hope for comes true you will still have to taste the bitterness of mortality. Whether by the sword or the slow decay of time, Aragorn will die. And there will be no comfort for you, no comfort to ease the pain of his passing. He will come to death an image of the splendor of the kings of Men in glory undimmed before the breaking of the world. But you, my daughter, you will linger on in darkness and in doubt as nightfall in winter that comes without a star. Here you will dwell bound to your grief under the fading trees until all the world is changed and the long years of your life are utterly spent.

~Elrond, The Lord of the Rings

The women of this country

The women of this country learned long ago, those without swords can still die upon them.

~Eowyn, The Lord of the Rings

Where is the horse and the rider?

Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like rain on the mountain, like wind in the meadow. The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow. How did it come to this?

~Theoden, Lord of the Rings

Come away

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

~William Butler Yeats, "The Stolen Child"

Don't die on me

Don’t die on me Gilly please, ’cause we’re supposed to die together remember, at the same time, you promised me that and this is not that day!

~Practical Magic, the movie

Each time my heart is broken

Each time my heart is broken it makes me feel more adventurous (and how the same names keep recurring on that interminable list!), but one of these days there’ll be nothing left with which to venture forth.

~Frank O'Hara

I love this land

"I love this land and the buffalo and will not part with it. I want you to understand well what I say. Write it on paper...I hear a great deal of good talk from the gentlemen the Great Father sends us, but they never do what they say. I don't want any of the medicine lodges (schools and churches) within the country. I want the children raised as I was.

I have heard you intend to settle us on a reservation near the mountains. I don't want to settle. I love to roam over the prairies. There I feel free and happy, but when we settle down we grow pale and die.

A long time ago this land belonged to our fathers, but when I go up to the river I see camps of soldiers on its banks. These soldiers cut down my timber, they kill my buffalo and when I see that, my heart feels like bursting."

~Santana, Kiowa Chief

My Father

"My Father: a long time has passed since first we came upon our lands; and our people have all sunk into their graves. They had sense. We are all young and foolish, and do not wish to do anything that they would not approve, were they living. We are fearful we shall offend their spirits if we sell our lands; and we are fearful we shall offend you if we do not sell them. This has caused us great perplexity of thought, because we have counselled among ourselves, and do not know how we can part with our lands.

My Father, we have sold you a great tract of land already; but it is not enough! We sold it to you for the benefit of your children, to farm and to live upon. We have now but a little left. We shall want it all for ourselves. We know not how long we shall live, and we wish to leave some lands for our children to hunt upon. You are gradually taking away our hunting grounds. Your children are driving us before them. We are growing uneasy. What lands you have you may retain. But we shall sell no more.

~Metea, a Potowatami chief of the Illinois nation

I love this land

"I love this land and the buffalo and will not part with it. I want you to understand well what I say. Write it on paper...I hear a great deal of good talk from the gentlemen the Great Father sends us, but they never do what they say. I don't want any of the medicine lodges (schools and churches) within the country. I want the children raised as I was.

I have heard you intend to settle us on a reservation near the mountains. I don't want to settle. I love to roam over the prairies. There I feel free and happy, but when we settle down we grow pale and die.

A long time ago this land belonged to our fathers, but when I go up to the river I see camps of soldiers on its banks. These soldiers cut down my timber, they kill my buffalo and when I see that, my heart feels like bursting."

~Santana, Kiowa Chief