Sean & Abigail Bengson "The Keep Going On Song"

I pray my rage is fire & it cleans my mind out
so I can listen…
we don't know we don't know we are making this up as we go

Stanley Plumly, "At Night"

When did I know that I'd have to cary it around
in order to have it when I need it, say in a pocket

the dark itself not dark enough but needing to be
added to, handful by handful if necessary, until

the way my mother would sit all night in a room
without the lights, smoking, until she disappeared?

...

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e. the standards of thought) no longer exist.

Phillip Larkin, "Days"

What are days for?

Days are where we live.   

They come, they wake us   

Time and time over.

They are to be happy in:   

Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question

Brings the priest and the doctor   

In their long coats

Running over the fields.

Malcolm Gladwell

The older I get, the more I understand that the only way to say valuable things is to lose your fear of being correct.

De Medicina – Aulus Cornelius Celsus c25 B.C – 50 A.D.

Live in rooms full of light.  Avoid heavy food.  Be moderate in drinking of wine.  Take massage, baths, exercise and gymnastics.  Fight insomnia with gentle rocking or the sound of running water.  Change surroundings and take long journeys.  Strictly avoid frightening ideas.  Indulge in cheerful conversation and amusements.  Listen to music

Rebecca Traister, "The Only Strategy Left for Democrats"

It is not nefarious to make people's lives better in the hope that they will keep you in power so that you can continue to make their lives better: that's actually a healthy view of how a government and its people might ideally operate.

Father Daniel Berrigan on Dorothy Day

She lived as though the truth were true.

Gertude Stein

Everybody gets so much information all day that they lose their common sense.

Hieu Minh Nguyen, "The New Decade"

…

If you were here we'd dance, I think.

If you were here, you'd know what to do

what to do with all this time

Horace, Odes I, ii, "How to Live" (65-8 BC)

Don't waste your time, Leucónoe, living in fear and hope
of the imprevisible future; forget the horoscope.
Accept whatever happens. Whether the gods allow
us fifty winters more or drop us at this one now
which flings the high Tyrrhenian waves on the stone piers,
decant your wine; the days are more fun than the years
which pass us by while we discuss them. Act with zest
one day at a time, and never mind the rest.