=?cp932?Q?Norwegian_Wood_=81\Haruki_Murakami?=

1) Memory is a funny thing. When I was in the scene I hardly paid it
any attention. I never stopped to think of it as something that would
make a lasting impression, certainly never imagined that 18 years
later I would recall it in such detail. I didn't give a damn about the
scenery that day. I was thinking about myself. I was thinking about
the beautiful girl walking next to me. I was thinking about the two of
us together, and then about myself again. I was at that age, that time
of life when every sight, every feeling, every thought came back, like
a boomerang, to me. And worse, I was in love. Love with complications.
Scenery was the last thing on my mind. \ Norwegian Wood
2) Tell me how you could say such a thingc You're not telling me
anything I don't know already. 'Relax your body, and the rest of you
will lighten up.' What's the point of saying that to me? If I relaxed
my body now, I'd fall apart. I've always lived like this, and it's the
only way I know how to go on living. If I relaxed for a second, I'd
never find my way back. I'd go to pieces, and the pieces would be
blown away. Why can't you see that? How can you talk about watching
over me if you can't see that?c I'm confused. Really confused. And
it's a lot deeper than you think. Deeper . . . darker . . . colder. \
Norwegian Wood
3) I don't know, sometimes I think I've got this hard kernel in my
heart, and nothing much can get inside it. I doubt if I can really
love anybody. \ Norwegian Wood
4) That's what I mean by possibility. It's all around you. How can you
ignore it? You have a certain ability and the opportunity to use it;
can you keep your mouth shut and let it pass? \ NW
5) Nobody likes being alone that much. I don't go out if my way to
make friends, that's all. It just leads to disappointment. \ NW
50) Life doesn't require ideals. It requires standards of action. \ NW
6) For a certain kind of person, love begins from something tiny or
silly. From something like that or it doesn't begin at all. \ NW
7) It's always a long, long process, and at the end you almost can't
tell whether the person is alive or dead. All that's left is pain and
suffering... That's the kind of death that frightens me. The shadow of
death slowly, slowly eats away at the region of life, and before you
know it everything's dark and you can't see, and the people around you
think of you as more dead than alive. I hate that. I couldn't stand
it. \ NW
8) It was the usual midday university scene, bust as I sat watching it
with renewed attention, I became aware of something. In his or her own
way, everyone I saw before me looked happy. Whether they were really
happy or just looked it, I couldn't tell. But they did look happy on
this pleasant early afternoon in late September, and because of that I
felt a kind of loneliness new to me, as if I were the only one here
who was not truly part of the scene.
9) The dead will always be dead, but we have to go on living.
10) When it's raining like thisc it feels as if we're the only ones in
the world. I wish it would just keep raining so the three of us could
stay together.
11) Of course life frightens me sometimes. I don't happen to take that
as the premise for everything else, though. I'm going to give it 100
per cent and go as far as I can. I'll take what I want and leave what
I don't want. That's how I intend to live my life, and if things go
bad, I'll stop and reconsider at that point. If you think about it, an
unfair society I'd a society that makes it possible for you to exploit
your abilities to the limit.
12) If you're in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until
your eyes get used to the dark.
13) Things will go where they're supposed to go if you just let them
take their natural course. Despite your best efforts, people are going
to be hurt when it's time for them to be hurt. Life is like that.
14) By living our lives, we nurture death. True as this might be, it
was only one of the truths we had to learn. What I learned from
Naoko's death was this: no truth can cure the sadness we feel from
losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness,
can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see that sadness through to the
end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in
facing the next sadness that comes to us without warning.
15) Sometimes I feel like the caretaker of a museum \ a huge, empty
museum where no one ever comes, and I'm watching over it for no one
but myself.
16) We all have to die like that sometime. I will, and so will you.
17) Letters are just pieces of paper... Burn them, and what stays in
your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish.
18) I have to talk to you... I have a million things to talk to you
about. A million things we have to talk about. All I want in this
world is you. I want to see you and talk. I want the two of us to
begin everything from the beginning.

miki

=?cp932?Q?Autobiography_of_a_Face_=81\_Lucy_Grealy?=

1) Partly I was honing my self-consciousness into a torture device,
sharp and efficient enough to last me the rest of my life.
2) I'd pause confrontationally, like some Dickensian ghost, imagining
that my presence served as an uneasy reminder if what might be.
3) I am filled with questions I rarely allow myself, such as, how do
we go about turning into the people we are meant to be? What relation
do the human beings in that picture have to the people they are now?
How is it that all of us were caught together in that brief moment of
time, me standing there pretending I wasn't hurt by a single thing in
this world while they lined up for their turn on the pony, some of the
excited and some of them scared, but all of them neatly, at my
insistence, one in front of the other, like all the days ahead.
4) How could one doubt that the order in which one was picked for the
softball team was anything but concurrent with the order in which Life
would he handing out favors?
5) I was a tomboy par excellence.
6) Anxiety and anticipation, I was to learn, are the essential
ingredients in (i)suffering(i) from pain, as opposed to feeling pain
pure and simple.
7) When a film's heroine innocently coughs, you know that two scenes
later, at most, she'll be in an oxygen tent; when a man bumps into a
woman at the train station, you know that man will become the woman's
lover and/or murderer. In everyday life, where we cough often and are
always bumping into people, our daily actions rarely reverberate so
lucidly. Once we love or hate someone, we can think back and remember
that first casual encounter. But what of all the chance meetings that
nothing ever comes of? While our bodies move ever forward on the time
line, our minds continuously trace backward, seeking shape and meaning
as deftly as any arrow seeking its mark.
8) A year before, my class had gone on a field trip to a museum where
I became fascinated with a medieval chart showing how women contained
minute individuals, all perfectly formed and lined up like so many
sardines in a can, just below their navels. What's more, these
individuals contained more minute versions of themselves, who in turn
held even more. Our fates were already perfectly mapped out within us,
just as we once waited perfectly inside of our mothers, who themselves
were held within the depths of their mothers, our great-grandmothers.
9) Sometimes it is as difficult to know what the past holds as it is
to know the future, and just as an answer to a riddle seems so obvious
once it is revealed, it seems curious to me now that I passed through
all those early moments with no idea of their weight.
10) This went against every belief I held dear. One had to be good.
One must never complain or struggle. One must never, under any
circumstances, show fear and, prime directive above all, one must
never, ever cry. I was nothing if no harsh.
11) The chaos held me tightly, endlessly.
12) I began a lifelong affair with nostalgia, with only the vaguest
notions of what I was nostalgic for.
13) I felt my face flush. Things seemed to rush at me as if I were the
focal point of some unseesable camera's close-up. Immediately I
regretted all my assumptions. The embarrassment I felt then stays with
me still, though of course it wasn't embarrassment. That feeling was
about as different from embarrassment as a patch of soil is from a
tree, an egg case from a spider, a lump of stone from a sculpted hand
lying heavily on an even stonier lap. It was the moment when I
understood unequivocally: I was in this alone.
14) Sometimes the briefest moments capture us, force us to take them
in, and demand that we live the rest of our lives in reference to them.
15) The second week of chemo was worse in that I knew what to expect.
This presented a curious reversal of fear for me, because I already
understood that with other types of pain the fear of not knowing about
it usually brought about more suffering than the thing itself. This
was different. This was dread. It wasn't some unknown black thing
hovering and threatening in the shadows; it had already revealed
itself to me and, knowing that I knew I couldn't escape, took its time
stalking me. This was everything I ever needed to know about Fate.
16) Moments never repeat themselves exactly.
17) I viewed other people both critically and sympathetically. Why
couldn't they just stop complaining so much, just let go and see how
good they actually had it? Everyone seemed to be waiting for something
to happen that would allow them to move forward, waiting for some
shadowy future moment to begin their lives in earnest. Everybody, from
my mother to the characters I read about in books (who were as actual
and important as real people to me), was always looking at someone
else's life and envying it, wishing to occupy it. I wanted them to
stop, to see how much they already had, how they had their health and
their strength. I imagined how my life would be if I had half their
fortune. Then I would catch myself, guilty of exactly the thing I was
accusing others of. As clear-headed as I was, sometimes I felt that
the only reason for this clarity was to see how hypocritically I lived
my own life.
18) Pain, if nothing else, was honest and open — you knew exactly
what you were dealing with.
19) Beauty, as defined by society at large, seemed to be only about
who was best at looking like everyone else.
20) Life in general was cruel and offered only different types of
voids and chaos. The only way to tolerate it, to have any hope of
escaping it, I reasoned, was to know my own strength, to defy life by
surviving it.
21) Now I knew that joy was a kind of fearlessness, a letting go of
expectations that the world should be anything other than what it was.
And I felt I'd at last discovered the means with which to actively
seek out this kind of being, this kind of beauty.
22) The general plot of life is sometimes shaped by the different ways
genuine intelligence combines with equally genuine ignorance.
23) I read various philosophers and imagined my soul, separate and
clear of my heart and mind. At times I was so lonely I was amazed I
didn't just expire right there on the spot, as if loneliness that
strong were a divine thunderbolt that could strike me down at any
moment, whether I was in bed, at a crowded dinner table, or an epty
roadside stop.
24) I used to think truth was eternal, that once I (i)knew(i), once I
(i)saw(i), it would be with me forever, a constant by which everything
else could be measured. I know now that this isn't so, that most
truths are inherently unretainable, that we have to work hard all our
lives to remember the most basic things. Society is no help. It tells
us again and again that we can most be ourselves by acting and looking
like someone else, only to leave our original faces behind to turn
into ghosts that will inevitably resent and haunt us. As I sat there
in the café, it suddenly occurred to me that it is no mistake when
sometimes in films and literature the dead know they are dead only
after being offered that most irrefutable proof: they can no longer
see themselves in the mirror.

miki

Random quotes

1) I'm thinking I would like to dance in the rain with this person. I
would like to lie next to him in the dark and watch him breathe and
watch him sleep and wonder what he's dreaming about and not get an
inferiority complex if the dreams aren't about me.
2) I always think of each night as a song. Or each moment as a song.
But now I'm seeing we don't live in a single song. We move from song
to song, from lyric to lyric, from chord to chord. There is no ending
here. It's an infinite playlist.
3) I mean, who you want to screw and whether you screw them? Those are
important questions, I guess. But they're not that important. You know
what's important? Who would you die for? Who would do you wake up at
five forty-five in the morning for even though you don't even know why
he needs you?
4) I mean, I don't know how the world broke. And I don't know if
there's a God who can help us fix it. But the fact that the world is
broken - I absolutely believe that. Just look around us. Every minute
- every single second - there are a million things you could be
thinking about. A million things you could be worrying about. Our
world - don't you just feel we're becoming more fragmented? I used to
think that when I got older, the world would make so much more sense.
But you know what? The older I get, the more confusing it is to me.
The more complicated it is. Harder. You'd think we'd be getting better
at it. But there's just more and more chaos. The pieces - they're
everywhere. And nobody knows what to do about it. I find myself
grasping, Nick. You know that feeling? That feeling when you just want
the right thing to fall into the right place, not only because it's
right, but because it would mean that such a thing is still possible?
I want to believe that.
5) I wanted to talk to someone. But who? It's moments like this, when
you need someone the most, that your world seems smallest.
6) There are just lots of possibilities in the world... I need to keep
my mind open for what could happen and not decide that the world is
hopeless if what I want to happen doesn't happen. Because something
else great might happen in between.
7) In a field, I am the absence of field. In a crowd, I am the absence
of crowd. In a dream, I am the absence of dream. But I don't want to
live as an absence. I move to keep things whole. Because sometimes I
feel drunk on positivity. Sometimes I feel amazement at the tangle of
words and lives, and I want to be a part of that tangle. "Game over,"
you say, and I don't know which I take more exception to - the fact
that you say it's over or the fact that you say it's a game. It's only
over when one of us keeps the notebook for good. It's only a game if
there is an absence of meaning. And we've already gone too far for that.
8) Things change all the time, mostly in little ways.
9) The universe doesn't decide what's right or not right. You do.
10) You see, Dash - I was never the girl in your head. And you were
never the boy in my head. I think we both knew that. It's only when we
try to make the girl or boy in our head real that the true trouble
comes. I did that with Carlos, and it was a bad failure. Be careful
what you're doing, because no one is ever who you want them to be. And
the less you really know them, the more likely you are to confuse them
with the girl or boy in your head.
11) You like someone who can't like you back because unrequited love
can be survived in a way that once-requited love cannot.
12) gIt doesn't have to be on Valentine's Day. It doesn't have to be
by the time you turn eighteen or thirty-three or fifty-nine. It
doesn't have to conform to whatever is usual. It doesn't have to be
kismet at once, or rhapsody by the third date.
It just has to be. In time. In place. In spirit.
It just has to be.h
\ David Levithan
13) gMaybe our favorite quotations say more about us than about the
stories and people we're quoting.h
14) And it's not a betrayal of someone you've loved and who's gone if
you then give love to another person. As long as that person is worthy
of it.
15) I don'tc really know what's happening to me... I'm getting more
and more mixed up. I'm sorry I hurt you. It was wrong. You're the last
person I want to hurt. Please don't be angry with me. I'm just not
doing very much right at the moment.
16) That's what happens when you die. You disappear. Goodnight, Vienna.
17) He said it's the engine that started creation and keeps it
running. He said it's there all the time, even if we can't hear it,
and it'll never ever die. I know that sounds a bit strange but that's
what he said. I've no idea if it's true or not.
18) I don't think that's how your dad saw the firmament. I think he
saw it as a place of beauty. And he used to sat it's not just above us
but inside us as well. He said we carry our own firmament with us.
It's physical and metaphysical. He said some of the sounds he heard -
some of the sounds you hear - can't be measured or recorded because
they're too subtle and the only instrument sensitive enough to pick
them up is the human soul.
19) If our lives are just dreams, why do they hurt so much?
20) sometimes a man doesn't know what to do about things
and sometimes it's best to lie very still
and try not to think at all
about anything
21) my dear, I say, there are men out there now
picking tomatoes, lettuce, even cotton,
there are men and women dying under the sun,
there are men and women dying in factories
for nothing, a pittancec
I can hear the sound of human lives being ripped to piecesc
you don't know how lucky we
arec
22) all that really mattered was
going someplace
the faster the better
because it left less waiting to die.
23) you must some day die for nothing
as I
have lived.
24) pull a string, a puppet movesc:
each man must realize
that if can all disappear very
quickly:
25) and you'll be standing, drunk,
in the center of it and she'll ask:
my god, what's the matter?
and you'll answer: I don't know,
I don't knowc
26) the motion of the human heart goes on
and on
and on and on
for a while.
27) voices - charles bukowski
28) I know I went mad, almost as
an act of theory:
the lost are found
the sick are healthy
the non-creators are the creators.
29) he just typewrites. sometimes even
bad writers tell the truth.
30) I know that my chances have narrowed down to
almost nothing
31) (what you
must understand
is
that most things
just won't work, so
you don't try to save
them, and by the time you learn this
you've run out of years)
32) we have
said the necessary things, and
getting out is next, only I'd like
to say
no matter what they've said,
I've never been mad
at anything.
33) dreamlessly - Charles bukowski
34) New Year's Eve always terrifies
me

life knows nothing of years.
35) and I think,
I will never understand men,
but I have lived
it through.
36) She reminded him of the laws of electromagnetism;
F= qv x B
where F, force, was Cora, and q the charged particles were in his body
and v the rate at which they were being sucked backwards toward her. B
was the inside of the Renault, a moving magnetic field, with the sun
dappling, the air rushing and Felicity chatting and the white lines of
the road flicking past, like heartbeats.
37) I don't believe in no Sidhe, Rur. That's baby stuff. I believe in
now. That's all there is. Here and now. Today.
38) We sat in silence. But silent words are the loudest.
39) I smiled. I held the life of the person I loved most like a frail
moth in the palm of my hand. But it was safe there. Safe always.
40) Suffering Saviour. Dying's like this, he thought. Painful.
Beautiful. You stretch out your hands. You meet it like a lover, on
cruise-control to your coffinc In the midst of life, Fergus. In the
midst of life we are in death.
41) They say drowning's a pleasant death.
42) The ocean is vast, Fergus. You can see no end to it. It's like
looking at eternity.
43) Perhaps he'd always had a suspicion that whatever it was she felt
for him was different from what he felt for her. He saw her eyes,
always mocking and laughing, as if everything that had happened was a
jaunty spin of a Ferris wheel.
44) Life is like that... Meetings. Partings.
45) He said that we suffer more from the sins of omission than the
sins of commission... I suppose that often more harm is done by what
we fail to do than by what we do.
46) This is the best that life can bring, I thought. The best that
life can bring, and the worst.
47) Death is not a reaper, like they say, nor even a friend. It is a
dark, fierce water, an inundation.
48) I took my last breathe and let it go, jumping into the next day.
Silver light fizzes and shot apart. Love fell in particles, like snow.
49) Cells would die and be born. New places and faces would jostle
with the old. Letters would go back and forth bringing news and
conversation... He'd years of the changing to come. The studying, the
books, exams, arguments, theories. The jokes and pints, laughter,
kisses and songs. Life was like running, ninety per cent sweat and
toil, ten per cent joy.
50) For aren't memories the true ghosts of our lives? Do they not
drive all of us to words and acts we regret from time to time?
51) The truth is that monsters are real, and ghosts are real, too.
They live inside us, and sometime they win.
52) A guy and a girl can be just friends, but at one point or another,
they will fall for each other... Maybe temporarily, maybe at the wrong
time, maybe too late, or maybe forever.
53) I don't pretend to know what love is for everyone, but I can tell
you what it is for me: love is knowing all about someone, and still
wanting to be with them more than any other person, love is trusting
them enough to tell them everything about yourself, including the
things you might be ashamed of, love is feeling comfortable and safe
with someone, but still getting weak knees when they walk into a room
and smile at you.
54) Tis fine to be an idealist sometimes, although it makes u
depressed when the cold harsh light of reality intrudes on your
idealistic visions... -- Louis
55) We sit silently and watch the world around us. This has taken a
lifetime to learn. It seems only the old are able to sit next to one
another and not say anything and still feel content. The young, brash
and impatient, must always break the silence. It is a waste, for
silence is pure. Silence is holy. It draws people together because
only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking.
56) When adults say, "Teenagers think they are invincible," with that
sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are.
We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken.
We think we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we
cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and
manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of
losing and failing. But that part of us is greater than the sum of our
parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail. Thomas
Edison's last words were "It's very beautiful over there." I don't
know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's
beautiful.
57) Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as
the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.
58) After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the
inexpressible is music.
59) i think music in itself is healing. Its an explosive expression of
humanity.
60) Random musings are little sparks of random epicness... -- Louis
61) life is but a dream for the dead, i wont go down by myself, i'll
go down with my friends.
62) wot will it take to show u that its not the life it seems. I've
told u time and time again u sing the words but dunno wot it means, to
be a joking look, another line without a hook, i held u close as we
both shook for the last time, take a good hard look! (61 & 62 from
louis, mcr)
63) Hmmm, i wonder wot colour my soul would be, if any... I kinda
imagine a soul, if they exist, to look like a kinda misty cloud of
swirling colours... like an aura! Or an ocean thats forever changing
in colour, depth and how peaceful/violent it's surface is, according
to the emotional and mental state of the person who's soul it is... --
Louis
64) i see now the virtue in madness, for this country knows no law nor
any boundary. I pity the poor shades confined to the Euclidean prison
that is sanity. All things are possible here and i am what madness has
made me. Whole. And complete. And free at last.
65) Was it possible, Danny wondered, to be glad you had done something
and still be so ashamed of that something that you tried not to think
of it?
66) tell the truth and save a lie
67) Dying was a part of living. You had to keep tuning in to that if
you were expected to be a whole person. And if the fact of your own
death was hard to understand, at least it wasn't impossible to accept.
68) But because he was human he could not help a bitter wish that the
cup had never been passed his way.
69) the Road to Hell is paved with frozen door-to-door salesmen. On
the weekends many of the younger demons go ice skating down it.
70) Living by your wits is always knowing where the wasps are.
71) Yes, they promise... but they lie.
72) The world's a hard place, Danny. It don't care. It don't hate you
and me, but it don't love us, either. Terrible things happen in the
world, and they're things no one can explain. Good people die in bad,
painful ways and leave the folks that love them all alone. Sometimes
it seems like it's only the bad people who stay healthy and prosper.
The world don't love you, but your momma does and so do I. You're a
good boy. You grieve for your daddy, and when you feel you have to cry
over what happened to him, you go into a closet under your covers and
cry until it's all out of you again. That's what a good son has to do.
But see that you get in. That's your job in this hard world, to keep
your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. Pull your act
together and just go on.
73) u mean everything to me. there are some things u haven't been
yet, but they will come in time.
74) This is the first thing
I have understood:
Time is the echo of an axe
Within a wood. -- Philip Larkin
75) Every person is worth your time, Hannibal. If at first appearance
a person seems dull, then look harder, look INTO him.
76) To remember is not always a blessing.
77) gWe fell in love, despite our differences, and once we did,
something rare and beautiful was created. For me, love like that has
only happened once, and that's why every minute we spent together has
been seared in my memory. I'll never forget a single moment of it.h
\ Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook
78) gPromise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you
believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."
-- A. A. Milne
79) "it does not do to rely too much on silent majorities, evey, for
silence is a fragile thing... One loud noise and its gone."
80) "noise is relative to the silence preceding it. The more absolute
the hush, the more shocking the thunderclap."

Forever delayed / the manic street preachers

01)A DESIGN FOR LIFE:
THE CREATION CONTINUES INCESSANTLY THROUGH THE MEDIA OF MAN. BUT MAN
DOES NOT CREATEc HE DISCOVERS. THOSE WHO LOOK FOR THE LAWS OF NATURE
AS A SUPPORT FOR THEIR NEW WORKS COLLABORATE WITH THE CREATOR. COPIERS
DO NOT COLLABORATE. BECAUSE OF THIS, ORIGINALITY CONSISTS IN RETURNING
TO THE ORIGIN
\ Antonio Gaudi

02)MOTORCYCLE EMPTINESS
I TALK TO GOD BUT THE SKY IS EMPTY \ Sylvia Plath

03)IF YOU TOLERATE THIS YOUR CHILDREN WILL BE NEXT
GREAT ARTISTS HAVE NO COUNTRY \ Alfred Du Masset

04)LA TRISTESSE DURERA (SCREAM TO A SIGH)
THE SADNESS WILL NEVER GO AWAY \ Van Gogh (suicide note)

05)THERE BY THE GRACE OF GOD
I FEEL SO ALONE SOMETIMES/THE NIGHT IS QUIET FOR ME/I WOULD LOVE TO BE
ABLE TO SLEEP/I'M GLAD EVERYONE IS GONE NOW/I WILL PROBABLY NOT REST
TONIGHT/I HAVE NO NEED FOR ALL THIS/HELP ME LORD \ Elvis Presley

06)YOU LOVE US
REGARD ALL ART CRITICS AS USELESS AND DANGEROUS \ Manifesto of the
Futurists

07)AUSTRALIA
SLEEP AWAY
THE YEARS
SLEEP AWAY
THE PAIN
WAKE
TOMORROW\
A GIRL AGAIN
\ Hal Summers

08)YOU STOLE THE SUN FROM MY HEART
ART IS THE LIE THAT HELPS US UNDERSTAND THE TRUTH \ Pablo Picasso

09)KEVIN CARTER
WORDS THEMSELVES\THE VERY MATERIAL OF OUR DISCOURSE INCREASINGLY TAKE
ON MASKS OR DISGUISES \ Dennis Potter

10)TSUNAMI
BEFORE US STANDS YESTERDAY \ Ted Hughes

11)THE MASSES AGAINST THE CLASSES
LIFE CAN ONLY BE UNDERSTOOD BACKWARDS, BUT IT MUST BE LIVED FORWARDS \
Kierkegaard

12)FROM DESPAIR TO WHERE
IN THIS COUNTRY, PEOPLE DIE EMOTIONALLY AT 21, MAYBE YOUNGER. MY
RESPONSIBILITY AS AN ARTIST IS TO HELP THEM GET PAST 21 \ John
Cassavetes

13)DOOR TO RIVER
I REALLY CANNOT CARRY ON LIVING WITH ALL THAT STUFF INSIDE OF ME \
Tracy Emin

14)EVERYTHING MUST GO
MAYBE I AM NOT VERY HUMAN\WHAT I WANTED TO DO WAS TO PAINT SUNLIGHT ON
THE INSIDE OF A HOUSE \ Edward Hopper

15)FASTER
THEY ARE DECEIVED WHO FLATTER THEMSELVES THAT THE IGNORANT AND DEBASED
SLAVES HAS NO CONCEPTION OF THE MAGNITUDE OF HIS WRONGS. THEY ARE
DECEIVED WHO IMAGINE THAT HE ARISES FROM HIS KNEES WITH BACK LACERATED
AND BLEEDING, CHERISHING ONLY A SPIRIT OF MEEKNESS AND FORGIVENESS. A
DAY MAY COME\IT WILL, IF HIS PRAYER IS HEARD A TERRIBLE DAY OF
VENGEANCE, WHEN THE MASTER IN HIS TUN WILL CRY IN VAIN FOR MERCY \
Solomon Northup, 1845

16)LITTLE BABY NOTHING
THE MALE CHROMOSOME IS AN INCOMPLETE FEMALE CHROMOSOME. IN OTHER WORDS
THE MALE IS A WALKING ABORTION; ABORTED AT THE GENE STAGE. TO BE MALE
IS TO BE DEFICIENT, EMOTIONALLY LIMITED; MALENESS IS A DEFICIENCY
DISEASE AND MALES ARE EMOTIONAL CRIPPLES \ Valerie Solanas

17)SUICIDE IS PAINLESS (THEME FROM MASH)
THE QUICKEST WAY IF ENDING A WAR IS TO LOSE IT \ George Orwell

18)SO WHY SO SAD
I LOCE THE AUTUMN FOR ITS SENSE OF MELANCHOLY SEEMS TO STRIKE MY NEED
FOR SADNESS. THERE IS POETRY IN THE DYING OF THE YEAR AND MYSTERY AS
WELL \ Kyffin Williams

19)THE EVERLASTING
PERHAPS MY BEST YEARS ARE GONE BUT I WOULDN'T WANT THEM BACK, NOT WITH
THE FIRE IN ME NOW \ Samuel Beckett

20)MOTOWN JUNK
ROCK AND ROLL ADOLESCENTS STORM INTO THE STREETS OF ALL NATIONS. THEY
RUSH INTO THE LOUVRE AND THROW ACID IN THE MONA LISA'S FACE. THEY OPEN
ZOOS, INSANE ASYLUMS, PRISONS, BURST WATER MAINS WITH AIR HAMMERS,
CHOP THE FLOOR OUT OF PASSENGER PLANE LAVATORIES, SHOOT OUT
LIGHTHOUSES, TURN SEWERS ONTO THE WATER SUPPLY, ADMINISTER INJECTIONS
WITH BICYCLE PUMPS, THEY SHIT ON THE FLOOR OF THE UNITED NATIONS AND
WIPE THEIR ASS WITH TREATIES, PACTS, ALLIANCES \ William Burroughs

WE INVITE EVERYONE TO QUESTION THE ENTIRE CULTURE WE TAKE FOR GRANTED
\ Group Material

miki

nick and norah's infinite playlist

1) I am the clockwork, I am the one who takes this thing called music
and lines it up with this thing called time. I am the ticking, I am
the pulsing, I am underneath every part of this moment.
2) I'm the girl who knows he's capable of poetry, because like I said,
there are things I just know. I'm the one who could give him that old-
fashioned song title of a thing called Devotion and True Love (However
Complicated), if he ever gave a girl like me a second glance… maybe I
would have walked along Battery Park with him at sunrise, holding his
hand, knowing I would become the one who would believe in him.
3) My heart understands the direction we're going in, because it
starts pounding like it's got something really damn important to say,
and by the time I'm out of my head enough to really use my eyes,
there's someone in out way, and that someone is the girl who took the
key to my heart and swallowed it with a smile.
4) It's my turn to lead now, and I can barely do that. It's not that
I'm drunk or stoned or spiralling high. It's just that I'm defeated.
And that's impairing all of my senses.
5) There's only one hopeful chord in this cacophony, and it's this
girl I'm following.
6) but the truth is I don't feel like I can carry anyone but myself
right now. The streets are empty. I am empty. Or, no - I am full of
pain. It's my life that's empty.
7) "Tal," she says with an edge usually reserved for cutlery, "you
haven't missed me for one fucking minute. You have never for one
single second in your entire pathetic life missed me. You might have
missed fucking with my head, and you might have missed the
satisfaction you so clearly got from demolishing me, but those are
your emotions you're missing, not mine. I'm afraid I can't help you."
8) How did such a reputably smart girl get herself in this
predicament, on the brink of adulthood, with no future to grab on to?
9) Somehow my head presses Nick's T-shirt and in this moment I am
forgetting about time and Tal because maybe my life isn't over. Maybe
it's only beginning.
10) Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness
possible. - Proust
11) God, he made great playlists for her. Tal's mixes for me were all
Dylan and Yma Sumac crap. Nick could mix Cesaria Evora to Wilco to Ani
followed by Rancid, capped off with Patsy Cline blending into a Fugazi
finale. Although at some point, if our whatever-it-is-happening-this-
night progresses, I'll have to reeducate Nick on the poor use of Patti
Smith and Velvet Underground tracks on lovesick playlists. Fucking
hate them. Patti Smith was a poser suck-up, and Lou Reed was just a
plain dick.
12) Time to go back out there and make this right. I am brand-new. I
can change. Only not for Tal. For me.
13) I am doing everything right. And it is getting the exact right
reaction. This is like a miracle to me.
14) This should divert me, but my mind keeps returning to a simple,
scary fact:
I am liking Norah.
15) "There's no such thing as ready," she says. "There's only willing."
16) I owe you a kind of explanation. I know you probably think I'm a
horrid bitch from the planet Schizophrenia, but I'm honestly not
trying to mess with your head. I'm just messing with my own head and I
seem to have dragged you along for the ride. I think you're nice to me
and that scares the fuck out of me. Because when a guy's a jerk or an
asshole, it's easier because you know exactly where you stand. Since
trust isn't an option, you don't have to get all freaked out about
maybe having to trust him. Right now I am thinking about ten things at
the same time, and at least four of those things have to do with you.
If you want to leave right now and drive home and forget my name and
forget what I look like, I wouldn't blame you in the least. But what
I'm trying to say is that if you did that I would be sorry. And not
just sorry in an I-apologize-I'm-so-sorry way, but sorry in a sad-that-
something-that-could've-happened-didn't way. That's it. You can go now.
17) I am here and I am now and there's nowhere I'd rather be
18) We're sparking, and part of me just wants to sit back and watch.
19) I am falling into it, the black of it, the pit of it. It screams
that time is an angry machine. Music is an angry machine. We are all
angry machines.
20) I flinch and Norah sees it and I have no way of saying it's not
her, it's not now, it's the ten thousand thens that she has nothing to
do with. I lean in and kiss her again, the same way you do when you
run to your room and blast the music when your parents start shouting.
I know it wormy work and it doesn't work because some things you don't
need to hear in order to hear. The mind has an ear of its own and
sometimes memory is the fiercest fucking DJ alive.
21) Somehow we stay together. We are graced, and we are together, and
the twoliness us trumping the loneliness and the doubt and the fear.
We are making it through. Thank you, music. Damn you, memories. Thank
you, present.
22) I hate the regret, pumping though every artery of my body, craving
a cheeseburger right now. I hate time and I hate this night and if I
truly believed in God outside of that momentary lapse of faith, I'd
hate Her too.
23) It's like that mythic God take human beings at creation and
divides us into subsets: Group A gets the hot looks, sex appeal, and
lots of action with natural ease (Caroline); Group B is the makeover
prospects who will figure it all out and eventually get their action
(Tris); and Group C is the rest of the poor schmucks (me) for whom God
has decided, You're on your own. Don't expect much.
24) I kind of hate Nick right now, too, but there's someone else
higher on my list, someone I hate more than Saddam Hussein and any
asshole named Bush combined, hate more than that fuckhead who canceled
My So-Called Life and left me with a too-small boxed DVD set that does
not answer the questions of whether Angelo and Jordan Catalano ever
did it or if Patty and Graham got a divorce, or if there really was
something to all that lesbian subtext between Rayanne and Sharon. I
need to fucking find that person I hate most, so I can hopefully at
least kill that other hate, the one called regret.
25) Nick is - was - this thing, this person, I discovered out of
nowhere and then discovered I wanted - and once I tasted it, I yearned
for it - but I know I must accept defeat because this whole night was
an accident, clearly. My heart literally aches, that shit is not made
up; it hurts for an unexpected, brief time warp of suddenly wanting
and longing and believing, but not having. Who am I kidding? The best
parts of Nick were ones he doesn't even know I know he has -the
lyrics, the playlists, the loyalty - and all of them, dedicated to Tris.
26) That's okay. He'll make some girl, the right girl, a great
boyfriend one day. He'll be the love of some lucky girl's life, and
maybe after I've had some sleep after this epic night, I'll be glad
for him and the future he's waiting to grab, once Tris truly sets him
free.
27) I head for the door, but not before imparting some last saintly
wisdom upon Tris. "Be more careful next time, bitch," I tell her.
28) Fuck her.
Fuck her for getting in that cab. Fuck her for fucking with my mind.
Fuck her for not knowing what she wants. Fuck her for dragging me into
it. Fuck her for being such a fantastic kisser. Fuck her for ruining
my favourite band.
Fuck her for barely saying a word to me before she left. Fuck her for
not waving. Fuck her for getting my hopes up. Fuck her for making my
hopes useless. Fuck her for taking off with my fucking jacket.
Fuck me.
Fuck me for always getting into situations like this. Fuck me for
caring. Fuck me for not knowing the words that would've made her stay.
Fuck me for NOT knowing what I want. Fuck me for wavering. Fuck me for
not kissing her back in the right way. Fuck me for getting my hopes
up. Fuck me for not having more realistic hopes. Fuck me for giving
her my fucking jacket.
Fuck.
29) My pride shut me up, my hurt shut me down, and together they
ganged up in my hope and let her get away.
30) Why do we even bother? Why do we make ourselves so open to such
easy damage? Is it all loneliness? Is it all fear? Or is it just to
experience those narcotic moments of belonging with someone else?
31) Fuck this.
Fuck this wondering. Fuck this trying and trying. Fuck this belief
that two people can become one ideal. Fuck this helplessness. Fuck
this waiting for something to happen that probably won't ever happen.
32) She never could take it... Never. Put her on the spit and she'll
refuse to admit that the spot is there.
33) When someone breaks up with you, their beauty - which you took
such satisfaction in - suddenly becomes unfair.
34) Let me give you some free advice. She's a runner for sure - she'll
run away every time without saying a word. But here's the thing - you
are NOT a runner. And deep down, I don't think Norah wants to run,
either. She just feels like she has to. Partly because she's a
tiresome spoiled-brat smartass with no fashion sense. And partly
because she's a fucking human being.
35) I'm through with you for tonight... Find that other fuck-up and
have fucked-up children together. Don't name them after fruits or
months. Be original and just name them like children.
36) Happy endings don't happen. Merle Haggard knows it, and now I know
it.
37) Life fails. Songs don't always.
I'm on the curb. Taking it all in, including the nothing. Where I am,
how I am, who I am, what I'm not.
It starts to come to me.

on Ludlow
the world goes so slow
all the things I don't know
closing in

on Ludlow
the sidewalk shadow
keeps pleading don't go
but you won't hear

Alright, Nick. Louder.

WHO WILL APOLOGIZE FOR HOWWE ARE?
WHO WILL NAVIGATE WHEN WE'VEGONE THIS FAR?
ANSWER ME
ANSWER THIS
ANSWER ALL THE QUESTIONS THAT
I'M TOO AFRAID TO ASK

ON LUDLOW
YOU LET ME KNOW
AND I LET YOU GO
AND WE WERE WRONG WRONGWRONG

ON LUDLOW
THERE'S A SHADOW
THAT LETS THE TRUTH SHOW
AND WE WERE WRONG WRONG
WRONG

NEVER AGAIN
IS WHAT I ALWAYS SAY

NEVER AGAIN
IS WHAT I ALWAYS SAY

NEVER AGAIN
IS WHAT I ALWAYS SAY

Take it back down.

on Ludlow
it's just a stone's throw
from where we could go
to where we are
on Ludlow
find me on Ludlow
on Ludlow
find me here…
38) "Other bands, it's about sex. Or pain. Or some fantasy. But the
Beatles, they knew what they were doing. You know the reason The
Beatles made it so big?"
"What?"
"'I Wanna Hold Your Hand.' First single. Fucking brilliant. Perhaps
the most fucking brilliant song ever written. Because they nailed it.
That's what everyone wants. Not 24-7 hot wet sex. Not a marriage that
lasts a hundred years. Not a Porsche or a blow job or a million-dollar
crib. No. They wanna hold your hand. They have such a feeling that
THEY CAN'T HIDE. Every single successful love song of the past fifty
years can be traced back to 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand.' And every single
successful love story has those unbearable and unbearably exciting
moments of hand-holding. Trust me. I've thought a lot about this."
39) "I mean, where do these words all come from? I sit here on this
sidewalk and they just APPEAR to me."
"Maybe they're always there and you just need to live enough life to
get them to make sense," Dev says.
40) And could you pass on the message that it's not enough to be
sitting alone on a sidewalk writing a song for a girl if you don't
have the guts to at least try talking to her again?
41) He's here. Holy shit. Memo to Merle Haggard: Miracles really do
happen.
42) World domination is exhausting and cliché. People ought to just
focus on being individual responsible citizens of the earth instead of
assholes.
43) I don't see why ogling same-sex kissing should be the exclusive
domain of frat boys whacking off to lesbian action, that's so sexist.
Feminism should be all inclusive - it should be about sexual
liberation, equal pay for equal work, and the fundamental girl right
of boy2boy appreciation.
44) "A true friend's work is never done,'" I singsong.
"'Bulimia is so '87, Heather,'" he answers.
HOLY SHIT squared. I think I just had my first orgasm.
45) Maybe this is my way of creating the illusion of control over
something I have no control over. Like, if it's just a story I'm
telling or a song I'm singing, then I'll be okay because I'm the guy
who's providing the words. Which is not the way life works at all. Or
at least not when it's unfair.
46) Then, to my amazement, she leans in and starts to sing the
refrain. Not in a full voice, so everyone in the restaurant can hear.
But like a stero turned low, or a car radio on a lonely night. She
sings me back to me:
The way you're singing in your sleep
The way you look before you leap
The strange illusions that you keep
You don't know
But I'm noticing

The way your touch turns into arcs
The way you slide into the dak
The beating of my open heart
You don't know
But I'm noticing

And I'm moved, it's so beautiful. Not what I wrote, but to have it
given back like this. To have her remember the words and the tune. To
hear it in her voice.
47) It was about the feeling, you know? She caused it in me, but it
wasn't about her. It was about my reaction, what I wanted to feel and
then convinced myself that I felt, because I wanted it that bad. That
illusion. It was love because I created it as love.
48) "Okay. There's this one part of Judaism I really like.
Conceptually, I mean. It's called tikkun olam."
"Tikkun olam," I repeat.
"Exactly. Basically, it says that the world has been broken into
pieces. All this chaos, all this discord. And our job - everyone's job
- is to try to put the pieces back together. To make things whole
again."
"And you believe that?" I ask. Not as a challenge. As a genuine
question.
She shrugs, then negates the shrug with the thought in her eyes. "I
guess I do. I mean, I don't know how the world broke. And I don't know
if there's a God who can help us fix it. But the fact that the world
is broken - I absolutely believe that. Just look around us. Every
minute - every single second - there are a million things you could be
thinking about. A million things you could be worrying about. Our
world - don't you just feel we're becoming more fragmented? I used to
think that when I got older, the world would make so much more sense.
But you know what? The older I get, the more confusing it is to me.
The more complicated it is. Harder. You'd think we'd be getting better
at it. But there's just more and more chaos. The pieces - they're
everywhere. And nobody knows what to do about it. I find myself
grasping, Nick. You know that feeling? That feeling when you just want
the right thing to fall into the right place, not only because it's
right, but because it would mean that such a thing is still possible?
I want to believe that."
"Do you really think it's getting worse?" I ask. "I mean, aren't we
better off than we were twenty years ago? Or a hundred?"
"We're better off. But I don't know if the world's better off. I don't
know if the two are the same thing."
…Then it hits me.
"Maybe we're the pieces," I say…
"Maybe that's it," I say gently. "With what you were talking about
before. The world being broken. Maybe it isn't that we're supposed to
find the pieces and put them back together. Maybe WE'RE the pieces."
She doesn't reply, but I can tell she's listening carefully. I feel
like I'm understanding something for the first time, even if I'm not
entirely sure what it is yet.
"Maybe," I say, "what we're supposed to do is come together. That's
how we stop the breaking."
Tikkun olam.
49) Wherever Nick's sexuality lies (lays? - whatever: same diff), the
bottom line is: This Nick guy is too good to be true. He writes
amazing songs. He is so fucking cute. He's damn smart. And damn
sensitive. He's given me more adventure and confusion in one night
than I've had in a lifetime. My heart is achin again, scared, because
I want to know EVERYTHING about him now. The more he gives me, the
more I want. I want to know about his plans for the future, about his
family, about his music, his dreams, his sorrows, all that sentimental
bullshit.
50) What's of more concern: If I don't shut down my brain soon, my
imagination will take off so far about what COULD be with this guy,
that nothing will ever be able to just BE.
51) I'm thinking I would like to dance in the rain with this person. I
would like to lie next to him in the dark and watch him breathe and
watch him sleep and wonder what he's dreaming about and not get an
inferiority complex if the dreams aren't about me.
I don't know if Nick and I are going to be friends or lovers or if
he's going to be Will and I'm going to be Grace, which will be
disappointing along with boring, but whatever Nick and I are going to
be to each other, it can't be - it won't be - just a one-night-stand
thing.
I know this.
52) Singing in the rain. I'm singing in the rain. And it's such a
fucking glorious feeling. An unexpected downpour and I am just giving
myself into it. Because what the fuck else can you do? Run for cover?
Shriek or curse? No - when the rain falls you just let it fall and you
grin like a madman and you dance with it, because if you can make
yourself happy in the rain then you're doing pretty alright in life.
53) I say, "Slow." Because this is not a rush. This is real. This is
happening. And this is ours.
54) I want to kiss her without counting the seconds. I want to hold
her so long that I get to know her skin. I want, I want, I want.
55) And we are giddy, because dawn is here, we're at the center of the
world and we're the center of our own universe, and spring is here,
and the air smells wet and clean.
56) When is a night over? Is it the start of sunrise or the end of it?
Is it when you finally go to sleep or simply when you realize that you
have to? When the club closes or when everyone leaves? Normally, I
keep these kinds of questions to myself. But this time, I ask Norah.
"It's over when you decide it's over," she says. "When you call it a
night. The rest is just a matter of where the sun is in the sky. That
has nothing to do with us."
57) Can so much really happen in a night? The song was never really
over, but now I have the ending - I don't know how I'll phrase it, but
it will involve our returning, it will take in the strange pink light
and the Sunday-morning quiet. Because the song is us, and the song is
her, and this time I'm going to use her name. Norah Norah Norah - no
rhymes, really. Just truth.
I shouldn't want the song to end. I always this of each night as a
song. Or each moment as a song. But now I'm seeing we don't live in a
single song. We move from song to song, from lyric to lyric, from
chord to chord. There is no ending here. It's an infinite playlist.
58) But I'll wait for next time. Because I know there will be a next
time. I was looking forward to next time the minute I met her.
Throughout the night, I've been looking forward to next time, and the
time after that, and the time after that. I know this is something.
59) My heartbeat accelerates. I am in the here, in the now. I am also
in the future. I am holding her and wanting and knowing and hoping all
at once. We are the ones who take this thing called music and line it
up with this thing called time. We are the ticking, we are the
pulsing, we are underneath every part of this moment. And by making
the moment our own, we are rendering it timeless. There is no
audience. There are no instruments. There are only bodies and thoughts
and murmurs and looks. It's the concert rush to end all concert
rushes, because this is what matters. When the heart races, this is
what it's racing toward.
60) Some spray-painted graffiti on the wall asks, Is it nothing to you?
all you who pass by? Lamentations 1:12 and I think, No, Lord, whoever
the hell You are, this is not nothing to me. This counts.

miki

Once in your life

"Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can
completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you've
never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and
actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams
that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many
disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful
happens, you can't wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share
in your excitement. They are not embarassed to cry with you when you
are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never
do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good
enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about
yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any
pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they
are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will
think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that
became insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk
become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish
forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and
vivid it's like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more
brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was
infrequent or didn't exist at all. A phone call or two during the day
helps to get you through a long day's work and always brings a smile
to your face. In their presence, there's no need for continuous
conversation, but you find you're quite content in just having them
nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating
because you know they are important to this person who is so special
to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything
you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle
wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing
that there's a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your
heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible.
You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to
feel true pleasure that's so real it scares you. You find strength in
knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will
remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and
worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a
part of your life"
- Bob Marley

miki

=?cp932?Q?Will_Grayson,_Will_Grayson_=81\_John_Green_and_David_L?= =?cp932?Q?evithan?=

1) When I was little, my dad used to tell me, "Will, you can pick your
friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's
nose." This seemed like a reasonably astute observation to me when I
was eight, but it turns out to be incorrect on a few levels. To begin
with, you can't possible pick your friends, or else I never would have
ended up with Tiny Cooper.
2) I'm not cynical... I'm practical.
3) I don't really understand the (I)point(i) if crying. Also, I feel
that crying is almost \ like aside from deaths of relatives or
whatever \ totally avoidable if you follow two very simple rules: 1.
Don't care too much. 2. Shut up. Everything unfortunate that has ever
happened to me has stemmed from failure to follow one of the rules.
4) History doesn't have curfew.
5) there's nothing wrong with me that I can fix.
6) That's the thing about Tiny: his problems are so huge that yours
can hide behind them.
7) "If you can't trust your gut then what can you trust?" And I say,
"You can trust that caring, as a rule, ends poorly," which is true.
Caring doesn't sometimes lead to misery. It always does.
8) Jesus. Stay calm, Tiny. You just need to go to sleep, baby.
Tomorrow makes everything a little better.
9) i am constantly torn between killing myself and killing everyone
around me.
those seem to be the two choices. everything else is just killing
time.
10) i feel bad for her \ i do. a damn shame, really, that i had to
have a mother. it can't be easy having me for a song. nothing can
prepare someone for that kind of disappointment.
11) i do not say 'good-bye.' i believe that's one of the bullshittiest
words ever invented. it's not like you're given the choice to say 'bad-
bye' or 'awful-bye' or 'couldn't-care-less-about-you-bye.' everytime
you leave, it's supposed to be a good one. well, i don't believe in
that. i believe (i) against(i) that.
12) she tries, and that's what makes it so pathetic. i just want to
say, 'i feel sorry for you, really i do.' but that might start a
conversation, a conversation might start a fight, and then i'd feel so
guilty i might have to move away to portland or something.
i need coffee.
13) at some point last year, her gloom met my doom and she thought it
was a good match.
14) i have no idea why anyone would want to become a teacher. i mean,
you have to spend the day with a group of kids who either hate your
guts or are kissing up to you to get a good grade. that has to get to
you after a while, being surrounded by people who will never like you
for any real reason. i'd feel bad for them if they weren't such
sadists and losers. with the sadists, it's all about the power and the
control. they teach so they can have an official reason to dominate
other people. and yhr losers make up pretty much all the other
teachers, from the ones who are too incompetent to do abything else to
the ones who want to be their students' best friends becayse they
never had friends when they were in high school.
15) when i look at the guys and girls at the other tables, i wonder
what they could possibly have to say to each other. they're all do
boring and they're all trying to make up for it by talking louder. i'd
rather just sit here and eat.
16) if therefs anything stupider than buddy lists, itfs lol. if
anyone ever uses lol with me, i rip my computer right out of the wall
and smash it over the nearest head. i mean, itfs not like anyone is
laughing out loud about the things they lol. i think it should be
spelled loll, like what a lobotomized personfs tongue does. loll.
loll. i canft think any more. loll. loll!

or ttyl. bitch, youfre not actually talking. that would require actual
vocal contact. or <3. you think that looks like a heart? if you do,
thatfs only because youfve never seen scrotum.

(rofl! what? are you really rolling on the floor laughing? well,
please stay down there a sec while I KICK YOUR ASS.)
17) i check my email and it's mostly spam. what i want to knwo is
this: is there really someone in the whole world who gets an email
from hlyywkrrs@hothotmail.com, reads it, and says to himself, "you
know, what i really need to do is enlarge my penis 33%, and the way to
do it would be to send $69.99 to that nice lady ilena at VIRILITY
MAXIMUS CORP via this handy internet link!" if people are actually
falling for that, it's not their dicks they should be worried about.
18) soon we were swapping pictures and mp3s and telling each other how
everything pretty much sucked, but of course the ironic part was that
while we were talking about it the world didn't suck as much. except,
of course, for the part at the end when we had to return to the real
world.
19) i love that he knows who everyone is but nobody know who he is. if
i had actual friends that i felt i could talk to, this might causr
some conflict. but since right now there'd only need to be one car to
take people to my funeral, i think it's okay.
20) she doesn't believe in letting silence go. no, she has to fill it
up with talk. i want to tell her that's what the voices in your head
are for, to get you through all the silent parts. but she doesn't want
to be with her thoughts unless she's saying them out loud.
21) truth is, thinking about depression depresses the shit out of me
22) i never hoped for everything to get better \ only for one thing to
get better. and it never did. so eventually i gave up. i gave up every
single day.
but not with isaac. it scares me sometimes. wishing it to work.
23) i feel like my life is so scattered right now. like it's all these
small pieces of paper and someone's turned on the fan. but talking to
you makes me feel like the fan's been turned off for a little bit.
like things could actually make sense. you completely unscatter me,
and i appreciate that so much.
24) Jane: Yeah, well. Some people have lives; some people have music.
Me: And some people have neither.
25) I'm not asexual. I'm arelationshipal.
26) You like someone who can't like you back because unrequited love
can be survived in a way that once-requited love cannot.
27) because, here's the thing \ we're not that close. maura is the
kind of friend i enjoy swapping doomsday scenarios with. she's not,
however, someone who makes me want to prevent doomsday from happening.
28) still, i can't help thinking that 'getting a life' is something
only a complete idiot could believe. like you can just drive to a
store and get a life. see it in its shiny box and look inside the
plastic window and catch a glimpse of yourself in a new life and say,
'wow, i look much happier \ i think this is the life i need to get!'
takr it to the counter, ring it up, put it on your credit card. if
getting a life was that easy, we'd be one blissed-out race. but we're
not. so it's like, mom, your life isn't out there waiting, so don't
think all you have to do is find it and get it. no, your life is right
here. and, yeah, it sucks. lives usually do. so if you want things to
change, you don't need to get a life. you need to get off your ass.
29) all sorts of yayness floods my brain. love is such a drug.
30) she talks a lot about her problems in the past tense as a way to
convince us they're in the past. and maybe they are.
31) then there are nights like tonight, when the truth is what comes
out, because it's what we need the most. or maybe just one of us needs
it the most, but the other knows the right time to give it.
like now, when what i want most in the universe is to have him
beside me. he knows this...
32) boundbydad: and when you were ready, i'd kiss you once and lift
myself away, sit back on your bed and wait for you there, just so we
could lie there, and you could hold me, and i could hold you
boundbydad: and it would be so peaceful. completely peaceful. like the
feeling of sleep, but being awake in it together.
33) he is both the source of my happiness and the one i want to share
it with.
i have to believe that's a sign.
34) What do you think this is, eighteen thirty-two? When you like
someone and they like you, you fucking put your lips against their
lips and then you open your mouth a little, and then just a little
hint of tongue to spice things up. I mean, (i)God(i), Grayson.
Everybody's always got their panties in a twist about how the youth of
America are debaucherous, sex-crazed maniacs passing out handjobs like
they were lollipops, and you can't even kiss a girl who (i)definitely
likes you(i)?
35) Compromise is when you do what I tell you and I do what I want.
36) Great news for someone is always bad news for someone else.
37) at this moment, i want to jump ahead in time. or, if that doesn't
work, i'll settle for traveling back in time.
i want to jump ahead in time because in twenty hours i will be
with isaac in chicago, and i am willing to skip everything in between
in order to get to him faster. i don't care if in ten hours i'm going
to win the lottery, or if in twelve hours i'm going to get the chance
to graduate early from high school. i don't care if in fourteen hours
i am going to be jerking off and have the most life-altering orgasm in
all of unrecorded history. i would fast-forward past it all to be with
isaac instead of having to settle for thinking about him.
as for travelling back in time, it's really simple \ i want to go b
ack in time and kill the guy who invented math.
38) here's the thing about maura: it's always about her. always. now,
normally i don't mind this, because if everything's about her, then
nothing has to be about me. but sometimes her spotlight clinging drags
me in, and that's what i hate.
39) for the first time in my life i realize why hangers are called
hangers, because after fifteen minutes of trying things on and
throwing them aside, all i want to do is hook one to the top of my
closet door, lean my neck into the loop, and let my weight fall. my
mother will come in and think it's some autoerotic asphyxiation where
i didn't even have the time to get my dick out, and i won't be alive
to tell her that i think autoerotic asphyxiation is one of the dumbest
things in the whole universe, right up there with gay republicans.
40) i'm later than a pregnant girl's period
41) i close my eyes. and i scream. if my whole world is going to crash
down around me, then i am going to make the sound of the crashing. i
want to scream until all my bones break.
42) i get it now. i get it. the things you hope for the most are the
things that destroy you in the end.
43) The English language has a long and storied history. And in all
that time, no one has ever asked a "random question" about
"epiphanies" for "no reason." "Random questions" are the least random
of all questions.
44) Look, you're right. Maybe I don't like you the way someone should
like you. I don't like you in the call-you-and-read-you-a-poem-every-
night-before-you-go-to-bed way. I'm crazy, okay?
45) I've never known before what it feels like to (i)want(i) someone \
not to want to hook up with them or whatever, but to (I)want(i) them,
to want (i)them(i). And now I do. So maybe I do believe in epiphanies.
46)
To: The Locker Houdini
From: Will Grayson
Re: An Expert in the Field of Good Boyfriends?
Dear Jane,
Just so you know: e. e. cummings cheated on both of his wives. With
prostitutes.
Yours,
Will Grayson
47) it runs afoul of what i call the birdshot rule. you know, how
people say it's good luck if a bird shits on you? and people believe
it! i just want to grab them and say, 'dude, don't you realize this
whole superstition was made up because no one could think of anything
else good to say to a person who'd just been shit upon?' and people do
that all the time \ and not with something as temporary as birdshit,
either. you lose your job? great opportunity! failed at life? there's
only one way to go \ up!
48) i have to let go of some other things in order not to crash right
into the ground. i no longer give a fuck. i mean, i didn't think i
gave a fuck before. but that was amateur not-giving-a-fuck. this is
stop-at-nothing, don't-give-a-fuck freedom.
49) when things break, it's not the actual breaking that prevents them
from getting back together again. it's because a little piece gets
lost \ the two remain ends couldn't fit together even if they wanted
to. the whole shape has changed.
50) i will admit there's a certain degree of giving a fuck that goes
into not giving a fuck. by saying you don't care if the world falls
apart, in some small way you're saying you want it to stay together,
on your terms.
51) Not that smart. Not that hot. Not that nice. Not that funny.
That's me: I'm not that.
52) I think about how much depends upon a best friend. When you wake
up in the morning you swing your legs out of bed and you put your feet
on the ground and you stand up. You don't scoot to the edge of the bed
and look down to make sure the floor is there. The floor is always
there. Until it's not.
53) okay, so this is the reality: he is here. he is real. we are real.
54) this is what i never allow myself to need.
and of course i've been needing it all along.
55) i had no doubt that tiny (i) thought (i) he got depressed, but
that was probably because he had nothing to compare it to. still, what
could i say? that i didn't just (i) feel(i) depressed \ instead, if
was like the depression was the core of me, of every part if me, from
my mind to my bones? that if he got blue, i got black? that i hated
those pills so much, because i knew how much i relied on them to live?
no, i couldn't say any of this. because, when it all comes down to
it, nobody wants to hear it. no matter how much they like you or love
you, they don't want to hear it.
56) i think the idea of a 'mental health day' is something completely
invented by people who have no clue what it's like to have bad mental
health. the idea that your mind can be aired out in twenty-four hours
is kind of like saying heart disease can be cured if you eat the right
breakfast cereal. mental health days only exist for people who have
the luxury of saying 'i don't want to deal with things today' and then
can take the whole day off, while the rest of us are stuck fighting
the fights we always fight, wtj no one really caring one way or
another, unless we choose to bring a gun to school or ruin the morning
announcements with a suicide.
57) i'll break it down for you. (i)easy(I) \ with no difficulty
whatsoever. (i)for you(i) \ the opposite of 'for me'. (i) to say(i) \
to vocalize, sometimes ad nauseam. you have it so good that you don't
realize that when you have it bad, it's not a choice you're making.
58) i want to tell him: nobody ever told me how to deal with things
like this. shouldn't letting go be painless if you've never leaned how
to hold on?
59) minutes have to pass before i can admit that, yes, even though i
tell myself i'm feeling nothing, it's a lie. i want to say i'm feeling
remorse or regret or even guilt. but none of those words seem like
enoug. what i'm feeling is shame. raw, loathing shame. i don't want to
be the person i am. i don't want to be the person who just did what i
did.
60) need is never a good basis for any relationship. it has to be much
more than that.
61) NO. No no no. I don't want to (i) screw (i) you. I just (I) love
(i) you. When did who you want to screw become the whole game? Since
when is the person you want to screw the only person you get to love?
It's so stupid, Tiny! I mean, Jesus, who even gives a fuck about sex?!
People act like it's the most important thing humans do, but come on.
How can our sentient fucking lives revolve around something (i)slugs
(i) can do. I mean, who you want to screw and whether you screw them?
Those are important questions, I guess. But they're not (i)that(i)
important. you know what's important? Who would you (i) die(i) for?
Who do you wake up at five forty-five in the morning for even though
you don't even know why he needs you? Whose drunken nose would you
pick?!
62) When you date someone, you have the markers along the way, right:
You kiss, you have The Talk, you say the Three Little Words, you sit
on a swing set and break up. You can plot the points on a graph. And
you check up with each other along the way: Can I do this? If I say
this, will you say it back?
"Buf with friendship, there's nothing like that. Being in a
relationship, that's something you choose. Being friends, that's just
something you are."
63) i start holding my breath, not like you do when you pass a
graveyard or something like that. no. i'm trying to see how long i can
do it before i pass out or die. it's a really convenient pastime \ you
can do it pretty much anywhere. class. lunch. at the urinal. in the
discomfort of your own room.
the sucky part is that the moment always comes when i take the
next breath. i can only push myself so far.
64) c'mon, will \ you know there's no such thing as a complete lie.
there's always some truth in there.
65) the blackness has disappeared now. there's sadness instead.
66) i want to say to her: i just want to be myself. and i want to be
with someone who's just himself. that's all. i want to see through all
the performance and all the pretending and get right to the truth. and
maybe this is the most truth that maura and i will ever find \ an
acknowledgment of the lie, and of the feelings that fell behind it.
67) i just want you to be happy. if that's with me or with someone
else or with nobody. i just want you to be happy. i just want you to
be okay with life. with life as it is. and me, too. it is so hard to
accept that life is falling. falling and landing and falling and
landing. i agree it's not idea. i agree.
68) but there is the word, this world phil wrayson taught me once:
weltschmerzt. it's the depression you feel when the world as it is
does not line up with the world as you think it should be. i live in a
big goddamned weltschmerz ocean, you know? and so do you. and so does
everyone. because everyone thinks it should be possible just to keep
falling and falling forever, to feel the rush of the air on your face
as you fall, that air pulling your face into a brilliant goddamned
smile. and that (I)should(I) be possible. you (i) should (i) be able
to fall forever.
69) because i have spent my life falling. not the kind that tiny's
talking about. he's talking about love. i'm talking about life. in my
kind of falling, there's no landing. there's only hitting the ground.
hard. dead, or wanting to be dead. so the whole time you're falling,
it's the worst feeling in the world. because you feel you have no
control over it. because you know how it ends.
i don't want to fall. all i want to do is stand on solid ground.
70) maybe tonight you're scared of falling, and maybe there's somebody
here or somewhere else you're thinking about, worrying over, fretting
over, trying to figure out if you want to fall, or how and when you're
gonna land, and i gotta tell you friends that to stop thinking about
the landing, because it's all about fallingc myabe there is something
you're afraid to say, or someone you're afraid to love, or somewhere
you're afraid to go. it's gonna hurt. it's gonna hurt because it
matters.

miki