Louis Armstrong quote: “The Brick House was one of the toughest joints I ever played in … Guys would drink and fight one another like circle sa…”

“About five years ago, somebody showed me some web sites that had my material all over them, and I thought that was fascinating. One reason was, I'd never seen my jokes written one right after another like that. I write on drawing paper—I don't even like lines on the paper—so I have notebooks all over the place with handwritten pieces of my act in them. So to see it go by, all typed out neatly, was like, "Wow." And then two or three years ago, someone showed me a site, and half of it that said I wrote it, I didn't write. Recently, I saw one, and I didn't write any of it. What's disturbing is that with a few of these jokes, I wish I had thought of them. A giant amount of them, I'm embarrassed that people think I thought of them, because some are really bad.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Interviews

“About five years ago, somebody showed me some web sites that had my material all over them, and I thought that was fascinating. One reason was, I'd never seen my jokes written one right after another like that. I write on drawing paper—I don't even like lines on the paper—so I have notebooks all over the place with handwritten pieces of my act in them. So to see it go by, all typed out neatly, was like, "Wow."”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

And then two or three years ago, someone showed me a site, and half of it that said I wrote it, I didn't write. Recently, I saw one, and I didn't write any of it. What's disturbing is that with a few of these jokes, I wish I had thought of them. A giant amount of them, I'm embarrassed that people think I thought of them, because some are really bad.
[The Tenacity of the Cockroach: Conversations with Entertainment's Most Enduring Outsiders, Thompson, Steven, 2002, Three Rivers Press, 0609809911, September 9, 2012, http://www.avclub.com/articles/steven-wright,13796/]
Interviews

“I act like shit don't faze me
Inside it drives me crazy
My insecurities could eat me alive
But then I see my baby
Suddenly I'm not crazy
It all makes sense when I look into her eyes”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Hailie's Song"
2000s, The Eminem Show (2002)

“You see a guy with one leg, he's got a story. "Land mine '69." You see a guy with one arm, he's got a story, too. "Snow blower, bottle of whiskey." You see a guy with one tooth, what would the story be? "Well, uh, I like a lot of taffy."”

Dave Attell (1965) comedian

Comedy Central Presents: Dave Attell

“"There's nothing to beat these old English country houses." said Charlie, becoming lyrical. "All those parks and gardens and terraces and stuff. Makes you think of bygone ages and knights in armour and all like that. I saw one of these joints in a movie in Cicero once with Fred Astaire in it, and I remember thinking those guys have it pretty soft."”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

From P.G. Wodehouse's Do Butlers Burgle Banks? (1968).

“Little Fly,
Thy summer’s play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I dance,
And drink, and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

The Fly, st. 1–3
1790s, Songs of Experience (1794)

“You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually it's quite fun to fight them, you know. It's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up there with you. I like brawling.”

James Mattis (1950) 26th and current United States Secretary of Defense; United States Marine Corps general

Panel discussion in San Diego, California (1 February 2005) as quoted in "General: It's 'fun to shoot some people'" CNN (4 February 2005) http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/02/03/general.shoot/(For a more contextualized explanation of General Mattis' remarks, see this essay by one of the Marines who served under Mattis: "Breaking the Warrior Code" The American Spectator (February 11, 2005) by John R. Guardiano https://spectator.org/48978_breaking-warrior-code/

“I didn't even know that chickens could fly, and suddenly one was landing on me. It happened when I was visiting a farm sanctuary. If I had been younger I would have asked my parents if I could take her home, please! After all, she chose me. Never mind that she chose everybody; she was a particularly friendly chicken. She made soft, strange cooing sounds and nestled into my arms like a happy kitten. … In fact she was an ordinary chicken, but simply one who had no reason to believe that people were after her. This is how chickens and humans would relate to one another if one was not exploited and the other doing the exploiting. Very much like cats and dogs. They just wait for the chance.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (1941) American writer and activist

Source: The Pig Who Sang to the Moon (2003), Ch. 2, p. 57

“I feel now if I think of it, it will come out in the painting. In other words, if I want to make the whole painting look like a bottle, like a lot of bottles - for instance maybe the end of the day, when everything is very light, but not in sunlight necessarily - and so if I have this image of this bottle and if I really think about it, it will come out in the painting. That doesn’t mean that people notice a bottle, but I know when I succeed in it – then the painting would have this.”

Willem de Kooning (1904–1997) Dutch painter

interview conducted by David Sylvester for the BBC, 1962; as quoted in Abstract Expressionism: Creators and Critics, edited by Clifford Ross, Abrahams Publishers, New York 1990, p. 49.
1960's

“All the stories I would like to write persecute me. When I am in my chamber, it seems as if they are all around me, like little devils, and while one tugs at my ear, another tweaks my nose, and each says to me, 'Sir, write me, I am beautiful.”

Umberto Eco book The Island of the Day Before

Source: The Island of the Day Before

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