07 14 10

... “An officer should never put himself in a position where he takes anything from his men.”

... from “Beyond Band of Brothers”, by Major Dick Winters


05 06 10

... “Something rolled down his throat to his stomach, cold and empty, his old feeling of the dropping hole. He leaned against the table, closing his eyes. It had never been quite real to him before that this was the thing actually expected of him—to fill a sheet of paper, to create something on a sheet of paper.”

... from “The Fountainhead”, by Ayn Rand


03 21 10

... “I’m supposed to cut back on dangling participles, and I’m not allowed to split any infinitives for at least another week.”

... 82-year-old Hall of Fame announcer, Vin Scully, on returning to work after an injury from a fall


03 19 10

... “I’d tried, long ago, to return the knocks, pounding the ceiling with a broom handle, getting up on a stepladder to follow the footfalls, only to find that, as the one below, I was unable to fend off the knocking; because to knock up is not the same as to knock down, and any sound that resides at the feet most certainly isn’t the same as a sound that comes down upon the head.”

... from “The Knocking”, by David Means


02 08 10

... “What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.”

... Holden Caulfield


02 08 10

... “Take most people, they’re crazy about cars. They worry if they get a little scratch on them, and they’re always talking about how many miles they get to a gallon, and if they get a brand-new car already they start thinking about trading it in for one that’s even newer. I don’t even like old cars. I mean they don’t even interest me. I’d rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for God’s sake.”

... Holden Caulfield


02 08 10

... “All the kids kept trying to grab for the gold ring, and so was old Phoebe, and I was sort of afraid she’d fall off the goddam horse, but I didn’t say anything or do anything. The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it’s bad if you say anything to them.”

... Holden Caulfield


01 23 10

... “All I ask of you is one thing: please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism -- it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”

... Conan O'Brien


01 21 10

... “SAMO as an end to bogus pseudo intellectual. My mouth, therefore an error. Plush safe... he think.”

... SAMO (aka JMB)


01 14 10

... “You can teach technique. You cannot teach passion.”

... Chef Mark Peel


01 05 10

... “We were under a big blue umbrella, side-by-side on two chaise lounges, whose plastic covers sizzled against our suits and flesh; I turned my head to look at Brenda and smelled that pleasant little burning odor in the skin of my shoulders.”

... from “Goodbye, Columbus”, by Philip Roth


12 28 09

... “Some years ago I discovered that all the work I had done that was meaningful and significant came out of an affectionate relationship with a client.
And I am not talking about professionalism; I am talking about affection.”

... Milton Glaser


10 14 09

... “Average is dumb.”

... Harvey Pekar


08 30 09

... “Talking about art is like dancing about architecture.”

... David Bowie


08 28 09

... “The world belongs to the energetic.”

... R.W. Emerson


08 28 09

... “Yeeeeeea.”

... Amper


05 04 09

... “Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”

... Clemenza


05 04 09

... “Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.”

... Frank LLoyd Wright


04 22 09

... “He shoots, he scores!”

... from various voices heard this week


03 02 09

... “That’s right, Browning,” said the Under Secretary. “You’ve said exactly the wrong thing. I’ve got to be going.” He stood up and turned and went out, all dignity.

... from “Graven Image”, by John O'Hara


02 24 09

... She runs across her yard with her pizza, jumps over a stump, goes into the house. She could have gone around the stump. It was more fun to leap over the stump, like a gazelle. So that’s how you have fun.

... from Eeeee Eee Eeee, a novel by Tao Lin


02 18 09

... And the piano, it sounds like a carnival / And the microphone smells like a beer / And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar / And say, “man, what are you doin here?”

... Billy Joel