Passing passages

Some of you young folks been saying to me, "Hey Pops, what you mean 'What a wonderful world'? How about all them wars all over the place? You call them wonderful? And how about hunger and pollution? That aint so wonderful either." Well how about listening to old Pops for a minute. Seems to me, it aint the world that's so bad but what we're doin' to it. And all I'm saying is, see, what a wonderful world it would be if only we'd give it a chance. Love baby, love. That's the secret, yeah. If lots more of us loved each other, we'd solve lots more problems. And then this world would be better. That's wha' ol' Pops keeps saying." ~ Louis Armstrong

It's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it. And then it flows through me like rain. And I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life. You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry, you will someday. ~ American Beauty

What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies. ~ Jack Kerouac, On the road

Before dinner, my grandmother read the newspaper, tsk-tsking and complaining to no one in particular that the world was going to hell. Everything was wrong; nothing was the way it used to be."What do you think was so good about the good old days?" I asked in exasperation. But I heard how harsh my voice was and didn't like it. I said, "What do you miss, I mean?" While she thought, I waited to make my point: that everything was much better now than it used to be; I'd cite the civil rights and women's movements." The boy who lit the street lamps in the evening," she said, finally. "He carried a stool with him." I understood then -- it was like missing Nantucket -- and I put my hand on top of hers. It occured to me that everything was more complicated than I thought. ~ Melissa Bank, The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing

At some point, you have to make a decision. Boundaries don't keep people out - they fence you in. Life is messy. That's how we're made. So, you can waste your life drawing lines or you can live your life crossing them. But, there are some lines that are way too dangerous to cross. Here's what I know. If you are willing to take the chance, the view from the other side is spectacular. ~ Grey's Anatomy

Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk — real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious. ~ Jack Kerouac, On the Road

You don't die enough to cry. ~ Jack Kerouac, On the Road

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways , but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness. We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life, not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbour. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done l

Back row to the left, A little to the side, Slightly out of the place, Look beyond the light, Where you'd least expect There's someone special. ~Someone special (Poets of the fall)

In the short term, it would make me happy to go play outside. In the long term, it would make me happier to do well and school and become successful. But in the very long term, I know which will make better memories. ~Calvin (& Hobbes)

Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody. ~ Catcher in the rye, J.D.Salinger

Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them - if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry. ~ Catcher in the rye, J.D.Salinger

After all the wars are over, a butterfly will still be beautiful. ~Ruskin Bond

Whenever he is discouraged, I tell him that if I can survive on three continents, then there is no obstacle he cannot conquer. While the astronauts, heroes forever, spent mere hours on the moon, I have remained in this new world for nearly thirty years. I know that my achievement is quite ordinary. I am not the only man to seek his fortune far from home, and certainly I am not the first. Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination. ~ 'The third and final continent', Jhumpa Lahiri

Well, it often happens that people with good eyesight fail to see what is right in front of them. They have too much to take in, I suppose. Whereas people who cannot see (or see very little) have to take in only the essentials, whatever registers most tellingly on their remaining senses. ~"The eyes have it", Ruskin Bond

If I hold back, I'm no good. I'm no good. I'd rather be good sometimes, than holding back all the time. ~ Janis Joplin.

He also experimented in boiling codeine cough syrup down to a black mash - that didn’t work too well. He spent long hours with Shakespeare - the "Immortal Bard," he called him - on his lap. In New Orleans he had begun to spend long hours with the Mayan Codices on his lap, and, although he went on talking, the book lay open all the time. I said once, "What’s going to happen to us when we die?" and he said, "When you die you’re just dead, that’s all." He had a set of chains in his room that he said he used with his psychoanalyst; they were experimenting with narcoanalysis and found that Old Bull had seven separate personalities, each growing worse and worse on the way down, till finally he was a raving idiot and had to be restrained with chains. The top personality was an English lord, the bottom the idiot. Halfway he was an old Negro who stood in line, waiting with everyone else, and said, "Some’s bastards, some’s ain’t, that’s the score." ~ On

"I wished I was on the same bus as her. A pain stabbed my heart as it did everytime I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world of ours." ~ On the road, Jack Kerouac

" I haven't yet sung the song I've come here to sing: I'm still in search of a tune to which to cling. " ~ Rabindranath Tagore

I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because 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 that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!' ~ On the road, Jack Kerouac.

Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee, And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me. ~Robert Frost, "Cluster of Faith," 1962

In the afternoon we went to Graetna, just Bull and me. We drove in his old Chevy. Dean's Hudson was low and sleek; Bull's Chevy was high and rattly. It was just like 1910. The bookie joint was located near the waterfront in a big chromium-leather bar that opened up in the back to a tremendous hall where entries and numbers were posted on the wall. Louisiana characters lounged around with Racing Forms. Bull and I had a beer, and casually Bull went over to the slot| machine and threw a half-dollar piece in. The counters I clicked "Jackpot" — "Jackpot" — "Jackpot" — and the last! "Jackpot" hung for just a moment and slipped back to "Cherry." He had lost a hundred dollars or more just by a hair. "Damn!" yelled Bull. "They got these things adjusted. You could see it right then. I had the jackpot and the mechanism clicked it back. Well, what you gonna do." We examined the Racing Form. I hadn't played the h

We hit all the dull bars in the French Quarter with Old Bull and went back home at midnight. That night Marylou took everything in the books; she took tea, goofballs, benny, liquor, and even asked Old Bull for a shot of M, which of course he didn't give her; he did give her a martini. She was so saturated with elements of all kinds that she came to a standstill and stood goofy on the porch with me. It was a wonderful porch Bull had. It ran clear around the house; by moonlight with the willows it looked like an old Southern mansion that had seen better days. In the house Jane sat reading the want ads in the living room; Bull was in the bathroom taking his fix, clutching his old black necktie in his teeth for a tourniquet and jabbing with the needle into his woesome arm with the thousand holes; Ed Dunkel was sprawled out with Galatea in the massive master bed that Old Bull and Jane never used; Dean was rolling tea; and Marylou and I imitated Southern aristocracy. "Why, Miss L

The ideal bar doesn't exist in America. An ideal bar is something that's gone beyond our ken. In nineteen ten a bar was a place where men went to meet during or after work, and all there was was a long counter, brass rails, spittoons, player piano for music, a few mirrors, and barrels of whisky at ten cents a shot together with barrels of beer at five cents a mug. Now all you get is chromium, drunken women, fags, hostile bartenders, anxious owners who hover around the door, worried about their leather seats and the law; just a lot of screaming at the wrong time and deadly silence when a stranger walks in. ~ On the raod, Jack Kerouac

I went with Dean to the sergeant's desk and we tried to explain to the police that we had no money. They said Dean would have to spend the night in jail if we didn't round up the money. Of course my aunt had it, fifteen dollars; she had twenty in all, and it was going to be just fine. And in fact while we were arguing with the cops one of them went out to peek at my aunt, who sat wrapped in the back of the car. She saw him. "Don't worry, I'm not a gun moll. If you want to come and search the car, go right ahead. I'm going home with my nephew, and this furniture isn't stolen; it's my niece's, she just had a baby and she's moving to her new house." This flabbergasted Sherlock and he went back in the station house. My aunt had to pay the fine for Dean or we'd be stuck in Washington; I had no license. He promised to pay it back, and he actually did, exactly a year and a half later and to my aunt's pleased surprise. My aunt — a resp

Every now and then a clear harmonic cry gave new suggestions of a tune that would someday be the only tune in the world and would raise men's souls to joy. ~ On the road, Jack Kerouac

Why think about that when all the golden land's ahead of you and all kinds of unforeseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you're alive to see? ~ On the road, Jack Kerouac

I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion ~ On the road, Jack Kerouac

As for me, I was scheduled to be a guest at the opera that afternoon, escorting Babe on my arm. I wore a suit of Tim's. Only a few days ago I'd come into Denver like a bum; now I was all racked up sharp in a suit, with a beautiful well-dressed blonde on my arm, bowing to dignitaries and chatting in the lobby under chandeliers. I wondered what Mississippi Gene would say if he could see me. The opera was Fidelio. "What gloom!" cried the baritone, rising out of the dungeon under a groaning stone. I cried for it. That's how I see life too. I was so interested in the opera that for a while I forgot the circumstances of my crazy life and got lost in the great mournful sounds of Beethoven and the rich Rembrandt tones of his story. "Well, Sal, how did you like the production for this year?" asked Denver D. Doll proudly in the street outside. He was connected with the opera association. "What gloom, what gloom," I said. "It's absolutely great.&

"What must I do ?" the shepherd asked. "Each morning, when you awaken, promise the dawn that you'll keep your heart as light as a feather. Commit again each night at the sunset." ~The book of the shepherd

Im beautiful in my way 'Cause God makes no mistakes I'm on the right track, baby I was born this way -Song, Gaga

'The thing you most hate about yourself is the most interesting part of you' - Glee

"Everywhere I see symptoms of a society sick in its soul: generations being brought up in fear of authority, living in fear of society, dying in fear of unknown. And I wonder: What is the use of a life that is spent in fear ? " ~Ramblings on the beach, Kabir Bedi