chelidon’s blog

I thought I would start this blog, the second of my short and fleeting life, with some quotes that I enjoy.

"Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and ignorant;
they too have their story."
- Max Ehrmann, "Desiderata"

"When a person has a poor ear for music he will flat and sharp right along without knowing it.  He keeps near the tune, but it is NOT the tune.  When a person has a poor ear for words, the result is a literary flatting and sharping; you perceive what he is intending to say, but you also perceive that he doesn't SAY it."
-Mark Twain

"The truth is that I don't really believe in writing.  My own least of all...I use the word writing as an antonym of waiting.  Instead of waiting, there's writing."
-Roberto Bolano

"First of all:

I am tired.
I am true of heart!

And also:

You are tired.
You are true of heart!"
-Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

"with my lighting bolts a-glowin' i can see where i am goin'.
better look out below!"
-Arcade Fire, Funeral

"Dr. Jules Hilbert: Hell Harold, you could just eat nothing but pancakes if you wanted.
Harold Crick: What is wrong with you?  Hey, I don't want to eat nothing but pancakes, I want to live!  I mean, who in their right mind in a choice between pancakes and living chooses pancakes?
Dr. Jules Hilbert: Harold, if you pause to think, you'd realize that the answer is inextricably contingent upon that type of life being led...and, of course, the quality of the pancakes."
-Stranger Than Fiction

and obviously from the name

"Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam uti chelidon-- O swallow swallow
Le Prince d'Aquitaine a la tour abolie"
-T. S. Eliot, The Wasteland