Favorite Book Excerpt

[RonB]

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

 

[simong]

One of my favourites. The French don't like it, but we (the English) do. Lol

 

[cosmicfolklore]

“When you have come to the edge of all the light you have
And step into the darkness of the unknown
Believe that one of the two will happen to you
Either you'll find something solid to stand on
Or you'll be taught how to fly!”
― Richard Bach Illusions: Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

 

[gamzultovah]

“When you have come to the edge of all the light you have
And step into the darkness of the unknown
Believe that one of the two will happen to you
Either you'll find something solid to stand on
Or you'll be taught how to fly!”
― Richard Bach Illusions: Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

Timely...for me anyway. This one went right into my notebook.

 

[olkofri]

Either you'll find something solid to stand on
Or you'll be taught how to fly!”

Not really. There was this bloke called Slith who "leaped over the edge of the World and is falling from us still through the unreverberate blackness of the abyss".

 

[alaskanpiper]

Oh, man. Impossible to pick just one. But none has made me my hair stand up quite as much as the last paragraphs of Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian." Those who have not read it will not understand it, but those who have will understand completely and remember.

"And they are dancing, the board floor slamming under the jackboots and the fiddlers grinning hideously over their canted pieces. Towering over them all is the judge and he is naked dancing, his small feet lively and quick and now in doubletime and bowing to the ladies, huge and pale and hairless, like an enormous infant. He never sleeps, he says. He says he’ll never die. He bows to the fiddlers and sashays backwards and throws back his head and laughs deep in his throat and he is a great favorite, the judge. He wafts his hat and the lunar dome of his skull passes palely under the lamps and he swings about and takes possession of one of the fiddles and he pirouettes and makes a pass, two passes, dancing and fiddling at once. His feet are light and nimble. He never sleeps. He says that he will never die. He dances in light and in shadow and he is a great favorite. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die."

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Not really. There was this bloke called Slith who "leaped over the edge of the World and is falling from us still through the unreverberate blackness of the abyss".

See, until you fail the landing, your still flying.

 

[mingc]

“There are four kinds of people in this world: cretins, fools, morons, and lunatics…Cretins don’t even talk; they sort of slobber and stumble…Fools are in great demand, especially on social occasions. They embarrass everyone but provide material for conversation…Fools don’t claim that cats bark, but they talk about cats when everyone else is talking about dogs. They offend all the rules of conversation, and when they really offend, they’re magnificent…Morons never do the wrong thing. They get their reasoning wrong. Like the fellow who says that all dogs are pets and all dogs bark, and cats are pets, too, therefore cats bark…Morons will occasionally say something that’s right, but they say it for the wrong reason…A lunatic is easily recognized. He is a moron who doesn’t know the ropes. The moron proves his thesis; he has logic, however twisted it may be. The lunatic on the other hand, doesn’t concern himself at all with logic; he works by short circuits. For him, everything proves everything else. The lunatic is all idée fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy. You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars…There are lunatics who don’t bring up the Templars, but those who do are the most insidious. At first they seem normal, then all of a sudden…”
― Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum

 

[olkofri]

See, until you fail the landing, your still flying.

Nope. When you fly you can control direction and speed. ?

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Nope. When you fly you can control direction and speed. ?

Maybe you can...

 

[bullet08]

Some comes to my mind. But I refuse to type that much with my thumbs.

 

[mingc]

Some comes to my mind. But I refuse to type that much with my thumbs.

Dude, cut and paste!

 

[Servant King]

“It is not the philosopher-scientist or the technician-scientist, the little man who cannot believe in God because he cannot take His temperature nor peruse His spectroscopic analysis, to whom the idea of any being greater than himself is repugnant. For if a man from another world knows enough to be able to travel through space, then he must know more science than us. He might even know a different type of science. He might even disprove our accepted theories, overturn our pet conceptions, dethrone our personal idols. Therefore, he must not exist."

Desmond Leslie, from Flying Saucers Have Landed (1953), by Desmond Leslie & George Adamski.

 

[rajangan]

"Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. Where is there a place for you to be? No place. Nothing outside you can give you any place," he said. "You needn't look at the sky because it's not going to open up and show no place behind it. You needn't to search for any hole in the ground to look through into somewhere else. You can't go neither forwards nor backwards into your daddy's time nor your children's if you have them. In yourself right now is all the place you've got. If there was any Fall, look there, if there was any Redemption, look there, and if you expect any Judgment, look there, because they all three will have to be in your time and your body and where in your time and your body can they be?"

- Hazel Motes in Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor

 

[simong]

Always found this quote a great help in life. Either if you're fixing your car or trying to work out if the Mrs. is cheating on you. Invaluable advice! Lol

 

[gamzultovah]

Always found this quote a great help in life. Either if you're fixing your car or trying to work out if the Mrs. is cheating on you. Invaluable advice! LolView attachment 72989

Wise words.

 

[cossackjack]

I'm an inveterate Rutiluphile...

Ode to Redheads in Even Cowgirls Get The Blues by Tom Robbins

"Red hair is a woman's game.
The harsh truth is, most red-haired men look like blonds who've spoiled from lack of refrigeration. They look like brown-haired men who've been composted. Yet that same pigmentation that on a man can resemble leaf mold or junk yard rust, a woman wears like a tiara of rubies.
Not only are female redheads frequently lovely but theirs is a loveliness that suggests both lust and danger, pleasure and violence, and is, therefore, to the male of the species virtually irresistible. Red O red were the tresses of the original femme fatale.
Of course, much of the "fatale" associated with redheads is illusory, a stereotypical projection on the part of sexually neurotic men. Plenty of redheads are as demure as rosebuds and as sweet as strawberry pie. However, the mere fact that they are perceived to be stormy, if not malicious, grants them a certain license and a certain power. It's as if bitchiness is their birthright. By virtue of their coloration, they possess an innate permit to be terrible and lascivious, which, even if never exercised, sets them apart from the remainder of womankind, who have traditionally been expected to be mild and pure.
Now that women are demolishing those old misogynistic expectations, will redheads lose their special magic, will Pippi Longstocking come to be regarded as just one of the girls? Hardly. To believe that blondes and brunettes are simply redheads in repressive drag is to believe that UFOs are kiddie balloons. All redheads, you see, are mutants.
Whether they spring from genes disarranged by earthly forces or are "planted" here by overlords from outer space is a matter for scholarly debate. It's enough for us to recognize that redheads are abnormal beings, bioelectrically connected to realms of strange power, rage, risk and ecstasy.
What is your mission among us, you daughters of ancient Henna, you agents of the harvest moon? Are those star maps that your freckles replicate? How do you explain the fact that you live longer than the average human? Where did you get such sensitive skin? And why are your curls the same shade as heartbreak?
Alas, inquiry is futile: Either they don't know or they won't say -- and who has the nerve to pressure a redhead? We may never learn their origin or meaning, but it probably doesn't matter. We will go on leaping out of our frying pans into their fire, grateful for the opportunity to be titillated by their vengeful fury, real or imagined, and to occasionally test our erotic mettle in the legendary inferno of their passion.
Redheaded women! Those blood oranges! Those cherry bombs! Those celestial shrews and queens of copper! May they never cease to stain our white-bread lives with super-natural catsup."​

 

[mawnansmiff]

From Dr. Samuel Johnson's dictionary of 1755 we have this enlightening definition...

MAN: Not A Woman.

Regards,

Jay.

 

[dino]

“Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said Stamford, introducing us.
“How are you?” he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength for which I should hardly have given him credit. “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.”
And so, it all began

 

[CoffeeAndBourbon]

The End.