Fresh Stuff Added Sept. 1, 2003

 

 

 

Life is nothing but memories.

As each moment passes it becomes history.

You must hold onto the memories, savouring it,

But they only remain golden when shared.

 

 

For life is a shadow, a cloud on the meadow,

And love is a whisper, a kiss ‘neath a rainbow

And ever we travel, and seek to unravel,

The spirit that urges us all just to follow.

 

 

Always listen to fear, but never be ruled by it. Fear is like a cowardly friend. His advice is not always wrong, but, given the chance he will drag you down into the pit he dwells in.

            David Gemmel

 

 

Yield and you need not break.

Bent, you can straighten.

Emptied, you can hold.
Torn, you can mend.

            Tao

 

Even in the darkest moments, light exists if you have faith to see it. Fear is a poison produced by the mind, and courage is the antidote stored ready always in the soul. In misfortune lies the seed of future triumph. They have no hope who have no belief in the intelligent design of all things, but those who see meaning in every day will live in joy.

            Dean Koontz

 

 

Though praised by nature poets, solitude is just isolation, and lonileness curls in the heart like a worm in an apple, eating hope and leaving a hollow structure.

            Dean Koontz

 

 

None of us can ever save himself; we are the instruments of one another’s salvation, and only by the hope that we give to others do we lift ourselves out of the darkness and into the light.

            Dean Koontz

 

 

One door away from heaven

We live each day and hour.

One door away from heaven

But it lies beyond our power

To open the door to heaven

And enter when we choose.

One door away from heaven

And the key is ours to lose.

One door away from heaven

But oh, the entry dues.

            Dean Koontz

 
There was a madness in the scheme of life that men were forced to accept either with resigned fury or blunt indifference. There could be no final resolution – except, perhaps, in death.

            Anne Rice

 

 

Of earth return to earth, but any part

Sent down from heaven, must ascend again

Recalled to the high temples of the sky

And death does not destroy the elements

 

Our terrors and our darknesses of mind

Must be dispelled, then, not by sunshine’s rays,

Not by those shining arrows of light,

But by insight into nature, and a scheme

Of systematic contemplation

            Anne Rice


To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children, to earn the approbation of honest critics; to appreciate beauty; to give of one's self, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived--that is to have succeeded.
            Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.

 

                        All above by John Ciardi

 

No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.

 

 

Half of kingship is considering what the other fellow will hear, rather than what you’re going to say.

 

 

 

You say you love

I.

You say you love; but with a voice
Chaster than a nun's, who singeth
The soft Vespers to herself
While the chime-bell ringeth -
O love me truly!

II.

You say you love; but with a smile
Cold as sunrise in September,
As you were Saint Cupid's nun,
And kept his weeks of Ember.
O love me truly!

III.

You say you love - but then your lips
Coral tinted teach no blisses.
More than coral in the sea -
They never pout for kisses -
O love me truly!

IV.

You say you love; but then your hand
No soft squeeze for squeeze returneth,
It is like a statue's dead -
While mine to passion burneth -
O love me truly!

V.

O breathe a word or two of fire!
Smile, as if those words should burn be,
Squeeze as lovers should - O kiss
And in thy heart inurn me!
O love me truly!

Posthumous and fugitive Poems

 

 

People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, yet when the darkness sets in their true beauty is only revealed if there is a light from within.

            Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

 

 

IF I KNEW
 
 If I knew it would be the last time 
 That I'd see you fall asleep 
 I would tuck you in more tightly 
 and pray the Lord, your soul to keep. 
 
 If I knew it would be the last time 
 that I see you walk out the door, 
 I would give you a hug and kiss 
 and call you back for one more. 
 
 If I knew it would be the last time 
 I'd hear your voice lifted up in praise, 
 I would video tape each action and word 
 so I could play them back day after day. 
 
 If I knew it would be the last time 
 I could spare an extra minute, 
 to stop and say "I LOVE YOU" 
 instead of assuming you would know I do. 
 
 If I knew it would be the last time 
 I would be there to share your day, 
 Well I'm sure you'll have so many more, 
 so I can let just this one slip away. 
 
 For surely there's always tomorrow 
 to make up for an oversight, 
 and we always get a second chance 
 to make everything just right. 
 
 There will always be another day 
 to say "I love you", 
 And certainly there's another chance 
 to say our "anything I can do?" 
 
 But just in case I might be wrong 
 and today is all I get, 
 I'd like to say how much I love you 
 and I hope we never forget. 
 
 Tomorrow is not promised to anyone, 
 young or old alike, 
 And today may be the last chance 
 you get to hold your loved one tight. 
 
 So if you're waiting for tomorrow, 
 why not do it today? 
 For if tomorrow never comes, 
 you'll surely regret the day. 
 
 That you didn't take extra time 
 for a smile, a hug, or a kiss 
 and you were too busy to grant someone, 
 what turned out to be their one last wish. 
 
 So hold your loved ones close today 
 and whisper in their ear, 
 Tell them how much you love them 
 and that you'll always hold them dear. 
 
 Take time to say "I'm sorry," 
 "Please forgive me," "Thank You," or "It's OK" 
 And if tomorrow never comes, 
 you'll have no regrets about today. 

 

 

Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

            Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

 

 

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.

            Winston Churchill

 

 

Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.

            Dr. Martin Luther King, jr

 

 

There once was a wave way out in the middle of the ocean. He was having so much fun floating along, enjoying the sun glinting off the water, before he noticed the shore up ahead. All the other waves were crashing apon the shore and he got scared. There was another older wave ahead of him and he tried to calm the smaller wave. He said you’ve been having so much fun being a wave that you haven’t noticed that you’re just part of the larger ocean floating along.

 

 

We do not stop playing because we grow old; 

we grow old because we stop playing.

 

 

It's not who we are that holds us back, it's who we think we we're not.

               Michael Nolan

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