Tough Guy

My heart moved through deep and silent water. No one, and nothing, could really hurt me. No one, and nothing, could make me very happy. I was tough, which is probably the saddest thing you can say about a man.
- Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

Paramount, NY, 9:34 A.M.

In the morning tiny bells go off
that light a darkened path
Reluctant as pinpricks
dawn pierces sleep
with nimble fingers
I am unwoven
the rich yoke of slumber
unraveled thread by thread
until I am naked and glistening
standing before the newness
of another day
a tiny form birthed of white linen
and restless dreams

- from "A Night Without Armor" a book of poems by Jewel

Free Will

It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured. I realized, somehow, through the screaming in my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them.
- first sentences of the novel Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts

She'll Always Have A Special Place

"She saved my life."
"What do you mean! What did she do, take a bullet for you or something?"
"In a sense. Sometimes life is a bullet."
- anonymous conversation

How To Tackle A Demon

"You know what old Jack Burton always says at a time like this?"
"Who?"
"Jack Burton- me. I always say, what the hell."
- Jack Burton before attacking 2,000 year old chinese demon Lo Pan, Big Trouble in Little China

Classic JT

"...And that's why life is so beautiful. You go through and you make your mistakes. There's a lot of pain, and a lot of suffering and lot of danger. And sometimes it seems like you just won't make it. But when you do, you see. It was all worth it. It's like Finding Nemo."
- from a conversation with Justin Tolliver

Neruda on Life

Thorns, shattered glass, sickness, crying: all day
they attack the honied contentment. And neither the tower,
nor the walls, nor secret passageways are of much help.
Trouble seeps through, into the sleepers' peace.

Sorrow rises and falls, comes near with its deep spoons,
and no one can live without this endless motion;
without it there would be no birth, no roof, no fence.
It happens: we have to account for it.

Eyes squeezed shut in love don't help,
nor soft beds far from the pestilent sick,
from the conquerer who advances, pace by pace, with his flag.

For life throbs like a bile, like a river: it opens
a bloody tunnel where eyes stare through at us,
the eyes of a huge and sorrowful family.

- from 100 Love Sonnets, by Pablo Neruda

Wandering About

what is a moment
glitter of precious metal
scent of a flower

listening to sirens
worry of a mundane thing
being one with Om

- Tommy Scott Young

Impermanence

"The time that I have spent with you over these last few months, I have truly enjoyed. I wished that it would never come to an end. But I guess that's... too much to ask."
Sarah the Assassin to Jin Ronin before she attempted to murder him, Samurai Champloo #21

Young and in Love

There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart's Desire.... that is, as beginnings go, not entirely novel, (for every tale about every young man there ever was or will be could start in a similar manner)
- first lines of the novel Stardust by Neil Gaiman

"I am the most miserable person who ever lived," he said to Lord Primus...
"You are young and in love," said Primus. "Every young man in your position is the most miserable young man who ever lived."
- Tristran Thorn to Lord Primus of Huon, Stardust

Be Yourself

In advance or retreat no sustained perserverance avails, except that one must not depart from one's nature. The superior man fosters his character and labors at his task, in order to do everything at the right time. Therefore he makes no mistake.
- Confucius

All in the universe derive from the Way
The interaction of yin and yang shapes and nourishes them,
And ever transforms them
In their endless evolutionary dance

Therefore, in its own way
Every entity celebrates the Way
Not out of any mandate
Not out of any obligation
But solely as the expression of its own true nature
- Lao Tzu