Category Archives: quotes

food+drink, memes, personal, quotes

Listography – Finals

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For one week only Kate Takes 5 has this week handed over the Listography to Keith at Chronicles of a Reluctant Housedad. And Keith is asking us to think about our five finals: final farewells, final suppers, final resting places, etc. So here are five thoughts about some final things for me …

Final Supper: Lamb Sag Madras with Bombay Aloo, Cauliflower Bhaji and Lemon Rice.
I love curry in almost all its guises. So almost any curry would do.

Final Drink: Several pints of Adnams’ East Green.
I was pretty nearly weaned on Adnams’ Bitter (well I was a post-grad at the time) and to this day it is their beers I enjoy the most. East Green is a recent eco-friendly brew which for me just has the edge on Adnams’ Bitter.

Final Words: “Oh fuck …”
Well what else is there to say?

Final Act: Hug Noreen and cry.
‘Cos I shall miss her and ‘cos I’ve not been a better husband and lover.

Final Destination: Hell.
Just think of all the interesting people there are to meet in Hell: Oscar Wilde, Emperor Claudius, Richard Feynman, Isaac Newton, Joseph Campbell as well as an assortment of artists, pornographers and thinkers. Should be a good party!

amusements, current affairs, history, natural history, photography, quotes, sexuality, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

This week’s collection …

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
[Mark Twain]

Now I know foreigners do things strangely but …

The 31-year-old king of the tiny Himalayan country of Bhutan announces his intention to marry this October.
[BBC News report]

Oh, that’s alright then. As long as he’s not marrying last October. That would be necrophilia.

I masturbate because it makes me feel warm, embodied, juicy, alert, calm, self-possessed, and fulfilled. I masturbate to celebrate my body and my sovereignty. I masturbate and am not ashamed to do so. There are other things I do when I’m alone that are far more embarrassing.
[Allison at http://thesexpositivephotoproject.blogspot.com]

One really shouldn’t laugh at other misfortune, especially in wartime …

9 May 1941 … We’d just got down to the Victoria in Turners Hill when there was a whoosh and a bang as a [250kg high explosive] bomb fell where the Fire Station is now – it was old Bertie Simpkins’ junk yard then. Mrs Whiddon who lived opposite had an old lavatory pan come in through her front bedroom window!
[Peter Rooke, Cheshunt at War 1939-1945]

Flowers always make people better, happier and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine to the soul.
[Luther Burbank]

Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.
[Dorothea Lang]

Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?
[Monty Python and the Holy Grail]

amusements, books, history, pleasures, quotes, topographical

Quotes of the Week

A small selection of this week’s strange and interesting findings …

Hogwash entered the room, and, having entered, decided, upon entry, having viewed all there was, and some of what was not, to be seen, to remove himself, once more, from the room by the same route through which he had, so recently, entered.
[Craig Brown, The Marsh-Marlowe Letters, parodying Anthony Powell]

He possessed that opportune facility for turning out several thousand words on any subject whatever at the shortest possible notice: politics; sport; books; finance; science; art; fashion – as he himself said, ‘War, Famine, Pestilence or Death on a Pale Horse.’ All were equal when it came to Bagshaw’s typewriter. He could take on anything, and – to be fair – what he produced, even off the cuff, was no worse than was to be read most of the time. You never wondered how on earth the stuff had ever managed to be printed.
[Anthony Powell, Books Do Furnish a Room]

I just love Tudor/Restoration “irregular” spelling …

[I]n 1558-59 St Mary Woolnoth paid ‘one Robert Bennett syngyngeman for servynge in the churche at dyvers tymes from the begynnynge of August tyll Michaelmas’.
[John Harley, The World of William Byrd: Musicians, Merchants and Magnates]

London is a patchwork of the fabulous and the shit.
[Antonia at Whoopee]

Too right!

Finally something bringing us right up to date …

This train reduces CO2 emissions
[Slogan on a Southern Trains emu at Clapham, 19/05/2011]

I’m not sure how this is achieved: presumably the train selectively sucks CO2 from the atmosphere. One suspects they mean “this train causes the emission of less CO2 than other trains/modes of transport. But that’s not what it says, guys!

natural history, quotes, thoughts, topographical

Quotes of the Week

A rather more eclectic mix than usual this week. I just love some of the names in this first quote …


Transport on Water: Barge Driving Race – Saturday 18 June 2011
Race Start 1200
A number of Thames barges will be raced, under oars, from Greenwich to Westminster Bridge on Saturday 18th June 2011. The race will start at Greenwich at 1200 from 3 start lines for the different classes of barge, off Greenwich Pier, off Trafalgar Tavern (lower end of Scrap Iron Park) and off Tunnel Glucose Wharf. Each start line will be marked by 2 pellet buoys, one on each side of the river.
[Port of London – River Thames, Notice to Mariners, M34 of 2011]

Scrap Iron Park indeed!

Cease to inquire what the future has in store, and take as a gift whatever the day brings forth.
[Horace]

I’m not a beatnik, I’m a Catholic.
[Jack Kerouac]

Which reminds me that in response to some god-botherer’s query “are you saved?” a friend once responded “Good God no, I’m a Roman Catholic”.

You kill ’em. We grill ’em.
[Bart Simpson, aka Matt Groening]

That sums up the feelings of last couple of days quite well!

To us, the moment 8:17 AM means something – something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance – did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stevenson were part inventors of time.
[Aldous Huxley]

Time can’t be measured in days the way money is measured in pesos and centavos, because all pesos are equal, while every day, perhaps every hour, is different.
[Jorge Luis Borges]

Earth laughs in flowers.
[Ralph Waldo Emerson]

If so then our garden is rolling on the floor peeing it’s pants ‘cos we have an absolute riot of roses at the moment. Our large apricot-coloured climber Lady Hillingdon currently has more flowers than leaves – it really is just one mass of flowers like never before.

amusements, books, current affairs, quotes, sexuality, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

A mixed bag of quotes this week …

When the British government set up the loss-making groundnut scheme in Africa in 1947, a law was passed which contained a paragraph that read: ‘In the Nuts (unground) (other than ground-nuts) Order, the expression nuts shall have reference to such nuts, other than ground-nuts, as would but for this amending Order not qualify as nuts (unground) (other than ground-nuts) by reason of their being nuts (unground).’
[Nigel Cawthorne; The Strange Laws of Old England]

We can reject everything else: religion, ideology, all received wisdom. But we cannot escape the necessity of love and compassion … This, then, is my true religion, my simple faith. In this sense, there is no need for temple or church, for mosque or synagogue, no need for complicated philosophy, doctrine or dogma. Our own heart, our own mind, is the temple. The doctrine is compassion. Love for others and respect for their rights and dignity, no matter who or what they are: ultimately these are all we need. So long as we practice these in our daily lives, then no matter if we are learned or unlearned, whether we believe in Buddha or God, or follow some other religion or none at all, as long as we have compassion for others and conduct ourselves with restraint out of a sense of responsibility, there is no doubt we will be happy.
[Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama]

If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.
[Voltaire]

‘A long time ago.’
‘I didn’t have white hair in those days,’ said Granny. ‘Everything was a different colour in those days.’
‘That’s true.’
‘It didn’t rain so much in the summer time.’
‘The sunsets were redder.’
‘There were more old people. The world was full of them,’ said the wizard.
‘Yes, I know. And now it’s full of young people. Funny, really.’
[Terry Pratchett; Equal Rites]

[S]he was opposed to books on strict moral grounds, since she had heard that many of them were written by dead people and therefore it stood to reason reading them would be as bad as necromancy.
[Terry Pratchett; Equal Rites]

Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.
[WC Fields]

I screwed in the first one. I realised how hot it really was that day. I screwed in the second one. Now I was sweltering, and my wrist ached like I’d manually pleasured a rugby team.
[Antonia at http://yetanotherbloomingblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-darlings.html]

beliefs, current affairs, history, quotes, sexuality, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

A huge selection this week, even with ignoring the royal wedding.

To most Christians, the Bible is like a software licence. Nobody actually reads it. They just scroll to the bottom and click “I agree”.
[Unknown]

Science has never drummed up quite as effective a tranquillizing agent as a sunny spring day.
[W Earl Hall]

Hey you! Yes, you, stop being unhappy with yourself, you are perfect. Stop wishing you looked like someone else or wishing people liked you as much as they like someone else, stop trying to get attention from those who hurt you. Stop hating your body, your face, your personality, your quirks, love them, without those things you wouldn’t be you, and why would you want to be anyone else? Be confident with who you are. Smile, it’ll draw people in, if anyone hates on you because you are happy with yourself then you stick your middle finger in the air and say screw it, my happiness will not depend on others any more. I’m happy because I love who I am. I love my flaws, I love my imperfections, they make me me. And ‘me’ is pretty amazing.
[Unknown]

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of 80 and gradually approach 18.
[Mark Twain]

A lie is a lie even if everyone believes it. The truth is the truth even if nobody believes it.
[Unknown]

A fortune teller told me: Every place is a goldmine. You have only to give yourself time, sit in a tea-house watching the passers-by, stand in a corner of the market, go for a haircut. You pick up a thread — a word, a meeting, a friend of a friend of someone you just met — and soon the most insipid, most insignificant place becomes a mirror of the world, a window on life, a theatre of humanity. The goldmine is exactly over there where you are.
[Tiziano Terzani]

Why am I an atheist? I ask you: Why is anybody not an atheist? Everyone starts out being an atheist. No one is born with belief in anything. Infants are atheists until they are indoctrinated, I resent anyone pushing their religion on me. I don’t push my atheism on anybody else. Live and let live. Not many people practice that when it comes to religion.
[Andy Rooney]

Go now and live. Experience. Dream. Risk. Close your eyes and jump, enjoy the free-fall. Choose exhilaration over comfort. Choose magic over predictability. Choose potential over safety. Wake up to the magic of everyday life. Make friends with your intuition. Trust your gut. Discover the beauty of uncertainty. Know yourself fully before you make promises to another. Make millions of mistakes so that you will know how to choose what you really need. Know when to hold on and when to let go. Love hard and often and without reservation. Seek knowledge. Open yourself to possibility. Keep your heart open, your head high and your spirit free. Embrace your darkness along with your light. Be wrong every once in a while, and don’t be afraid to admit it. Awaken to the brilliance in ordinary moments. Tell the truth about yourself no matter what the cost. Own your reality without apology. See goodness in the world. Be Bold. Be Fierce. Be Grateful. Be Wild, crazy and gloriously free. Be you. Go now, and live.
[Unknown]

Every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.
[Evelyn Waugh]

But adults aren’t rational. I’m unsure why we expect adolescents to be.
[Prof. Kate Clancey]

War is a series of catastrophes that result in a victory.
[Georges Clemenceau]

A rumour without a leg to stand on will get around some other way.
[John Tudor]

Life is a comedy to those who think, A tragedy to those who feel, And an incomprehensible to those who think they feel.
[Graffito found on a university door when I was a student, circa 1973]

The written word sings in silence through the caverns of the mind.
[Victor Stok]

Her breasts were two lovely promontories. Wherever one looked one discovered soft open spaces, alluring estuaries, pleasant glades, hillocks, mounds, where pilgrims could have lingered in prayer, where they could have quenched their thirst at cooling springs.
[Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle]

[I]n all her splendour, with the rich abundance of her lovely milk-white flesh, her bold sweeping contours, her magnificent projections of poop and prow … a frightful incarnation of lewdness, a satanic vision, convulsed and writhing in the shameful pleasures of guilty love.
[Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle]

It must be strange being Prince William or Prince Harry on a stag night, shoving pictures of your gran into a lap-dancer’s bra.
[Origin Unknown]

beliefs, food+drink, people, quotes, science, thoughts, topographical

Quotes of the Week

Here’s this week’s selection of words that have caught my eye in the last week …

We’ve replaced the time we used to spend cooking food with watching people cook food on TV.
[Fiona Yeudall quoted in “Foodies: Are food crazies getting their just desserts?”, The Globe and Mail, 19 March 2011]


“No data yet,” he answered. “It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgement.”
[Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Sherlock Holmes]

It is important to reflect on the kindness of others. Every aspect of our present well-being is due to others’ hard work. The buildings we live and work in, the roads we travel, the clothes we wear, and the food we eat, are all provided by others. None of them would exist but for the kindness of so many people unknown to us.
[Dalai Lama]

London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.
[Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Sherlock Holmes]

Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
[Richard Feynman]

I grew convinc’d that truth, sincerity and integrity in dealings between man and man were of the utmost importance to the felicity of life.
[Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography]

If it’s not fun, you’re not doing it right.
[Bob Basso]

Marshall’s corollary to the last: If it isn’t fun, don’t do it.

amusements, beliefs, current affairs, quotes, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

This week’s selection of quotes.

You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk dancing.
[Arnold Bax]

Good judgement comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgement.
[Rita Mae Brown]

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
[Galileo Galilei]

If you believe in the existence of fairies at the bottom of the garden you are deemed fit for the bin. If you believe in parthenogenesis, ascension, transubstantiation and all the rest of it, you are deemed fit to govern the country.
[Jonathan Meades]

Christianity: one woman’s lie about an affair that got seriously fucking out of hand.
[Monica at Monicks Unleashed, http://monicks.net/]

The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered:
“Man … Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
[https://neilperkin.typepad.com/only_dead_fish/2011/03/something-to-remember.html]

I’d call you a c**t but you lack the warmth and depth.
[Amy Sedaris]

By nature a woman is an angel, but if her wings get broken she learns how to fly on a broom.
[unknown]