Source: Fahrenheit 451
“Well — yes. In modern times, of course.”
Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967) American theoretical physicist and professor of physics
Answer to a student at Rochester University who asked whether the bomb exploded at Alamogordo was the first one to be detonated, as quoted in Doomsday, 1999 A.D. (1982) by Charles Berlitz, p. 129
Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress
Source: Seriously... I'm Kidding
“In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing
About the dark times.”
Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director
In den finsteren Zeiten
Wird da auch gesungen werden?
Da wird auch gesungen werden.
Von den finsteren Zeiten.
"Motto to the 'Svendborg Poems' " [Motto der 'Svendborger Gedichte] (1939), trans. John Willett in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 320
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)
“Yes, time can be buoyed by wordlessness, but it needs to be anchored in words.”
David Levithan (1972) American author and editor
Source: Two Boys Kissing
Robert Herrick book Hesperides
"To the Virgins to Make Much of Time". Compare: "Gather the rose of love whilest yet is time", Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, book ii. canto xii. stanza 75. ; "Let us crown ourselves with rose-buds, before they be withered", Wisdom of Solomon, ii. 8.
Hesperides (1648)
Context: Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying,
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun,
The higher he's a-getting
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.
“Ye Gods! annihilate but space and time,
And make two lovers happy.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet
Martinus Scriblerus on the Art of Sinking in Poetry, Chap. xi, reported in William Warburton, The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq (1751) p. 196.
Samuel Beckett book Molloy
Molloy (1951)
Context: To decompose is to live too, I know, I know, don't torment me, but one sometimes forgets. And of that life too I shall tell you perhaps one day, the day I know that when I thought I knew I was merely existing and that passion without form or stations will have devoured me down to the rotting flesh itself and that when I know that I know nothing, am only crying out as I have always cried out, more or less piercingly, more or less openly. Let me cry out then, it's said to be good for you. Yes let me cry out, this time, then another time perhaps, then perhaps a last time.
