e.e. cummings

hate blows a bubble of despair into
hugeness world system universe and bang
- fear buries a tomorrow under woe
and up comes yesterday most green and young

pleasure and pain are merely surfaces
(one itself showing, itself hiding one)
life's only and true value neither is
love makes the little thickness of the coin

comes here a man would have from madame death
nevertheless now and without winter spring?
she'll spin that spirit her own fingers with
and give him nothing (if he should not sing)

how much more than enough for both of us
darling. And if i sing you are my voice,

General wonder in our land,
And general consternation;
General gale on Bantry strand,
For general preservation.

General rich he shook with awe
At general insurrection;
General poor his sword did draw,
With general disaffection.

General blood was just at hand
As General Hoche appeared;
General woe fled through the land,
As general want was feared.

General gale our fears dispersed,
He conquered general dread;
General joy each heart has swelled,
As General Hoche has fled.

General love no blood has shed,
He left us general ease,
General horror he has fled,
Let God get general praise.

To that great General of the skies,
That sent us general gale,
With general love our voices rise
In one great general peal.
-Irish folk ballad

While still I may, I write for you
The love I lived, the dream I knew.
From our birthday, until we die,
Is but the winking of an eye,;
And we, our singing and our love,
The mariners of night above,
And all the wizard things that go
About my table to and fro,
Are passing on to where may be,
In truth's consuming ecstasy,
No place for love and dream at all;
For God goes by with white foot-fall.
I cast my heart into my rhymes,
That you, in the dim coming times,
May know how my heart went with them
After the red-rose-bordered hem.
William Butler Yeats; from 'To Ireland in the Coming Times'

[crowdmember yells out "Freebird"]

Please quit yelling that. It's not funny, it's not clever; it's stupid, it's repetitive. Why the fuck would you continue to yell that? I'm serious.

[crowdmember yells out "Kevin Matthews"]

Okay, Kevin Matthews. What does that mean now? [voice slowly rising] Now what does it mean? I understand where it comes from, so do you. Now what does it all mean? What is the culmination of yelling that?

[crowdmember yells out "Jimmy Shorts"]

Jimmy Shorts. He's not here. He's not gonna be here, now what? Now where are we? [voice rises faster] We're here with you interrupting me again, you fucking idiot! That's … you see where we're at? We're here at the same point again, where you, the fucking peon masses, can once again ruin anyone who tries to do anything because you don't know how to do it on your own! [shouting] That's where we're fucking at! Once again, the useless wastes of fucking flesh that has ruined everything good in this goddamn world! That's where we're at! Hitler had the right idea, he was just an underachiever! Kill 'em all, Adolf, all of 'em! Jew, Mexican, American, white, kill 'em all! Start over, the experiment didn't work! [despairingly] Rain forty days, please fucking rain to wash these turds off my fucking life! Wash these human wastes of flesh and bone off this planet! I pray to you, God, to kill these fucking people!

[crowdmember yells out "Freebird" again]

[utterly deflated] Freebird. And in the beginning there was the word "Freebird" and "Freebird" would be yelled throughout the centuries. "Freebird", the mantra of the moron! "Freebird", "Freebird", "Freebird", "Freebird". If we keep yelling this, one day we'll be funny. Keep doing it. "Freebird", "Freebird", "Freebird", "Freebird". We will sit at the feet of Kevin Matthews. "Freebird", "Freebird", "Freebird".

[audience joins in]

"Free–" I'm feeling enlightened! "Freebird". Oh, how holy. "Well, I don't think this is going to be a "get-laid" set for me, so, uh … [laughter] Well, Bill, good guess. But I'm not leaving, fuckers.

Bill Hicks's infamous tirade in Chicago, 1989

Recipe for a Wasted Hour
Sit down for a few hours of writing.
Get bored and play the Ninja game. Swear revenge on Flash game designers.
Delete N-game from laptop to avoid distraction.
Write about two paragraphs, get bored again.
Remember that Jazz Jackrabbit is still installed on laptop.
Make bitchin' Irish folk-punk playlist composed of equal parts Flogging Molly, the Pogues, the Murphys, add a dash of the Boondock Saints score and "Irish Whiskey" by the Cherry Poppin Daddies. Waste hours and hours kicking rabbity ass.
[Set language settings to "Deutsch" so it feels like you're accomplishing something.
Laugh at "Spaz hat den Dopefish gegessen."]

Some of Ben's goals

By my return to America
Write a draft for my application to be a writing T.A. for the St. Paul's ASP
Learn a lot of German
Try not to spend more than 10 Euros a day on food

By the end of summer
Finish writing significant amounts of fiction
Make money
Read On Writing by Stephen King, Understanding Comics and Making Comics by Scott McCloud

By the end of fall semester
Raise my GPA above 3.25
Get some work ready to call a creative writing Honors thesis

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter - bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
"Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."

Stephen Crane wrote that.

My friend Joe Hills co-writes and publishes a webcomic called Jack of All Blades. You guys should check it out.

"This is gonna be great! We'll be all like *pew pew*, and they'll be all *boom boom* 'AAHH!' And then we'll have pancakes to celebrate and I'll be like, *gronhmgronhmgornhm*"
Futurama

"I seem to be having this tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle. As soon as I reach some kind of definite policy about what is my kind of music and my kind of restaurant and my kind of overdraft, people startblowing up my kind of planet and throwing me out of their kind of spaceships."

Man in Black: All right. Where is the poison? The battle of wits has begun. It ends when you decide and we both drink, and find out who is right... and who is dead.
Vizzini: But it's so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: are you the sort of man who would put the poison into his own goblet or his enemy's? Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.
Man in Black: You've made your decision then?
Vizzini: Not remotely. Because iocane comes from Australia, as everyone knows, and Australia is entirely peopled with criminals, and criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.
Man in Black: Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
Vizzini: Wait til I get going! Now, where was I?
Man in Black: Australia.
Vizzini: Yes, Australia. And you must have suspected I would have known the powder's origin, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.
Man in Black: You're just stalling now.
Vizzini: You'd like to think that, wouldn't you? You've beaten my giant, which means you're exceptionally strong, so you could've put the poison in your own goblet, trusting on your strength to save you, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But, you've also bested my Spaniard, which means you must have studied, and in studying you must have learned that man is mortal, so you would have put the poison as far from yourself as possible, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.
Man in Black: You're trying to trick me into giving away something. It won't work.
Vizzini: IT HAS WORKED! YOU'VE GIVEN EVERYTHING AWAY! I KNOW WHERE THE POISON IS!
Man in Black: Then make your choice.
Vizzini: I will, and I choose - What in the world can that be?
Vizzini: [Vizzini gestures up and away from the table. Roberts looks. Vizzini swaps the goblets]
Man in Black: What? Where? I don't see anything.
Vizzini: Well, I- I could have sworn I saw something. No matter.First, let's drink. Me from my glass, and you from yours.
Man in Black, Vizzini: [they drink ]
Man in Black: You guessed wrong.
Vizzini: You only think I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny! I switched glasses when your back was turned! Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha...
Vizzini: [Vizzini stops suddenly, and falls dead to the right]
Buttercup: And to think, all that time it was your cup that was poisoned.
Man in Black: They were both poisoned. I spent the last few years building up an immunity to iocane powder.

"Name one thing you're going to need the stupid fucking rope for."
the Boondock Saints

"You're crying."
"Lord Shaper is in dire need, and he doesn't love me."
"Would it be better if he was in dire need, and did love you?"
-The Cluracan and Nuala, from The Sandman by Neil Gaiman

"Klytus! Are your men on the right pills? Maybe you should execute their trainer!"
Ming the Merciless

Epigram Engraved on the Collar of a Dog Which I Gave to His Royal Highness
I am his Highness' dog at Kew;
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
-Alexander Pope

"The scariest, most terrifying thing that I fear?"
"Yes."
"My imagination."
"I thought you were going to say "Fear, itself."
"Then you have a small imagination."
Wizard and Glass, by Stephen King