“A Wasn’t just isn't. He just isn't present. But you… You ARE YOU! And, now isn't that pleasant!”
Source: Happy Birthday to You!
“A Wasn’t just isn't. He just isn't present. But you… You ARE YOU! And, now isn't that pleasant!”
Source: Happy Birthday to You!
“You must be proud, bold, pleasant, resolute,
And now and then stab, when occasion serves.”
“It's a pleasant change to be in a country that isn't ruled by its people.”
Source: To Alfredo Stroessner, the Paraguayan dictator.
“If you plan for the worst, all surprises are pleasant.”
Gaul
(15 September 1992)
Variant: Always plan for the worst, that way all your surprises will be pleasant ones.
Source: The Shadow Rising
Episode 2, Chapter 13-14
The Power of Myth (1988)
Context: Campbell: Eternity isn't some later time. Eternity isn't a long time. Eternity has nothing to do with time. Eternity is that dimension of here and now which thinking and time cuts out. This is it. And if you don't get it here, you won't get it anywhere. And the experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life. There's a wonderful formula that the Buddhists have for the Bodhisattva, the one whose being (sattva) is illumination (bodhi), who realizes his identity with eternity and at the same time his participation in time. And the attitude is not to withdraw from the world when you realize how horrible it is, but to realize that this horror is simply the foreground of a wonder and to come back and participate in it. "All life is sorrowful" is the first Buddhist saying, and it is. It wouldn't be life if there were not temporality involved which is sorrow. Loss, loss, loss.
Moyers: That's a pessimistic note.
Campbell: Well, you have to say yes to it, you have to say it's great this way. It's the way God intended it.
Franny and Zooey (1961), Zooey (1957)
Context: I don't care where an actor acts. It can be in summer stock, it can be over a radio, it can be over television, it can be in a goddam Broadway theatre, complete with the most fashionable, most well-fed, most sunburned-looking audience you can imagine. But I'll tell you a terrible secret — Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. That includes your Professor Tupper, buddy. And all his goddam cousins by the dozens. There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know — listen to me, now — don't you know who that Fat Lady really is?... Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.
“Hi, everybody, and a very pleasant good (afternoon/evening) to you, wherever you may be.”
His most common opening line following the brief introduction of the upcoming broadcast