118th & Nowhere
“I believe God is managing affairs and that He doesn’t need any advice from me. With God in charge, I believe everything will work out for the best in the end. So what is there to worry about.”, Henry Ford
August 2011
July 2011
“By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is the easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest.”, Confucius
“Everything we do is infused with the energy with which we do it. If we’re frantic, life will be frantic. If we’re peaceful, life will be peaceful. And so our goal in any situation becomes inner peace.”, Marianne Williamson
“I’m sick of following my dreams. I’m just going to ask them where they’re going and hook up with them later.”, Mitch Hedberg
“Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused.”, Paulo Coelho
“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”, Marcus Aurelius
“There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”, Nelson Mandela
“Imagine being killed by a bow and arrow. That would suck, an arrow killed you? They would never solve the crime. ‘Look at that dead guy. Let’s go that way.”, Mitch Hedberg
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”, Mohandas Gandhi
“If you truly loved yourself, you could never hurt another.”
—Buddha
“Everyone dies. It is the final and only ever lasting justice. Evil exists; it is intelligence in the service of entropy. When the side of a mountain slides to kill a village, this is not evil, for evil requires intent. Should a sentient being cause that landslide, there is evil; and requires justice as a consequence, so that civilization can exist. There is no greater good than justice; and only if law serves justice is it a good law. It is said correctly that law exists not for the just but for the unjust, for the just carry the law in their hearts, and do not need to call it from afar. I bow to no one and give service only for cause.”
—
- Boba Fett
“Even the greatest of trees can rot from within, but the vigilant gardener keeps attentive to the signs of decay. The Gardener is not afraid to cut through the polished skin to tear away a malignant heart, to save the life of that tree. Those who seek shade under that tree would best remember the work of that gardener.”
—Uueg Tching
“
if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.
don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
” —So you want to be a writer - Charles Bukowski (via henrycharlesbukowski)“It may have been in pieces, but I gave you the best of me.”, Jim Morrison
“An aristocracy in a republic is like a chicken whose head has been cut off; it may run about in a lively way, but in fact it is dead.”, Nancy Mitford
“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”, Marilyn Monroe
“I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they’re right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”, Marilyn Monroe
“People don’t realize how a man’s whole life can be changed by one book.”, Malcolm X
“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.”, Ralph Waldo Emerson
“In a world filled with hate, we must still dare to hope. In a world filled with anger, we must still dare to comfort. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to believe.”, Michael Jackson
“Politics have no relation to morals.”, Niccolo Machiavelli
“We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity.”, Malcolm X
Vent (July 18)
I’m dying slowly…the place I called home for two decades now chokes me…the air I breathe is a mixture of los angeles smog and the miasma that emanates from this corpse of what once was a thriving family. Shards of broken promises form the floor beneath my feet and they often slice my flesh as a daily reminder of a newfound truth…I can no longer trust you. If I am to continue loving you as the boy you raised I have 2 leave before I cross an already thin line into a hatred so deep it will undoubtedly consume who I am. Every sunrise burns against broken skin that was damaged by words of dissapproval where affection was expected and every night that falls chills me to the core of a soul that once learned to expect warmth from home…I can’t blame you totally. You had no choice but to hold onto the one piece of a woman everyone seemed to love and when he started to act independently and subsequently against your “benevolent” intentions in your minds it was only right to cast him aside and shatter his pride until he’d mindlessly conform to your designs. I haven’t been the best son but I’ve witnessed worse cases than I receive a love unconditional from those in the parental positions you love to flaunt as if the title mother was so easily obtained. Consider this my goodbye. Cause I’m done voicing my pains to ears that won’t consider straining cartilage to understand. Seems like I only matter when I’m far away so I’m gone…you’ll watch me fade day by day but I know that you won’t notice until the last cell of my essence is rooted in new soil allowing me to grow beyond what you envisioned for me.
“A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.”
-- Albert Einstein
“When I had nothing to lose, I had everything. When I stopped being who I am, I found myself.”, Paulo Coelho
“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”, Lao Tzu
“Man is always prey to his truths. Once he has admitted them, he cannot free himself from them.”, Albert Camus
“Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we have learned here. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and the acceptance of love back into our hearts.”, Marianne Williamson
“To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”, Sun Tzu
“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”, Oscar Wilde
“Speaking generally, punishment hardens and numbs, it produces concentration, it sharpens the consciousness of alienation, it strengthens the power of resistance.”, Friedrich Nietzsche
“What does not destroy me, makes me strong.”, Friedrich Nietzsche
“A politician divides mankind into two classes: tools and enemies.”, Friedrich Nietzsche
“Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart and the senses.”, Lao Tzu
“People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.”, George Bernard Shaw
“Children are happy because they don’t have a file in their minds called ‘All the Things That Could Go Wrong.”, Marianne Williamson
“Insanity in individuals is rare - but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule.”, Friedrich Nietzsche
“I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experiences behind him.”, Eleanor Roosevelt
“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”, Marcus Aurelius
“God created man in His own image, says the Bible; philosophers reverse the process: they create God in theirs.”, Georg C. Lichtenberg
“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”, Paulo Coelho
“Do not think that love in order to be genuine has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired. Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”, Mother Teresa
“If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because our culture has no use for it.”, Anais Nin
“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.”, Maya Angelou
“For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.”, Plato
