Fly Quotes - page 51
There is one writer, and, perhaps, many who do not write, to whom the contraction of these pernicious privileges appears very dangerous, and who startle at the thoughts of England free, and America in chains. Children fly from their own shadow, and rhetoricians are frighted by their own voices. Chains is, undoubtedly, a dreadful word; but, perhaps, the masters of civil wisdom may discover some gradations between chains and anarchy. Chains need not be put upon those who will be restrained without them. This contest may end in the softer phrase of English superiority and American obedience.
We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?
Samuel Johnson
Men will seem to see new destructions in the sky. The flames that fall from it will seem to rise in it and to fly from it with terror. They will hear every kind of animals speak in human language. They will instantaneously run in person in various parts of the world, without motion. They will see the greatest splendour in the midst of darkness. O! marvel of the human race! What madness has led you thus! You will speak with animals of every species and they with you in human speech. You will see yourself fall from great heights without any harm and torrents will accompany you, and will mingle with their rapid course.
Mike Jones
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.
Joseph Heller
You will say, 'How can chance assemble in one place all the things necessary to produce an oak tree?' My answer is that it would be no miracle if the matter thus arranged had not formed an oak. But it would have been a very great miracle if, once the matter was thus arranged, an oak had not been formed. A few less of some shapes, and it would have been an elm, a poplar, a willow, an elder, heather or moss. A little more of some other shapes and it might have been a sensitive plant, an oyster in its shell, a worm, a fly, a frog, a sparrow, an ape or a man.
Cyrano de Bergerac
What wonder if the novel claim had clashed
With old requirement, seemed to supersede
Too much the customary law? But, brave,
Thou at first prompting of what I call God,
And fools call Nature, didst hear, comprehend,
Accept the obligation laid on thee,
Mother elect, to save the unborn child,
As brute and bird do, reptile and the fly,
Ay and, I nothing doubt, even tree, shrub, plant
And flower o' the field, all in a common pact
To worthily defend the trust of trusts,
Life from the Ever Living: - didst resist -
Anticipate the office that is mine -
And with his own sword stay the upraised arm,
The endeavour of the wicked, and defend
Him who, - again in my default, - was there
For visible providence: one less true than thou
To touch, i' the past, less practised in the right,
Approved less far in all docility
To all instruction, - how had such an one
Made scruple "Is this motion a decree?"
Robert Browning
His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly's wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless.
Ernest Hemingway
One of these days you're going to have a visitation. You're going to be walking down the street and across the street you're going to look and see God standing over there on the street corner motioning to you, saying, "Come to me, come to me." And you will know it's God, there will be no doubt in your mind - he has slitty little eyes like Buddha, and he's got a long nice beard and blood on his hands. He's got a big Charlton Heston jaw like Moses, he's stacked like Venus, and he has a great jeweled scimitar like Mohammed. And God will tell you to come to him and sing his praises. And he will promise that if you do, all of the muses that ever visited Shakespeare will fly in your ear and out of your mouth like golden pennies. It's the job of the writer in America to say, "Fuck you God, fuck you and the Old Testament that you rode in on, fuck you." The job of the writer is to kiss no ass, no matter how big and holy and white and tempting and powerful.
Ken Kesey
[It's] 2006 and pot is still controversial. That's hilarious. Pot's still illegal and no one has a jet pack. What the fuck is going on?! Isn't this Silicon Valley? Where's the jet packs, bitch?! I just wanna go up to everyone making cell phones and say, "Hey, that's small enough. Stop right there. Just keep them working." 72 inch TV? That's plenty big, dude. Just keep them working. No, you'll never get pot and you'll never get a jet pack. And you'll certainly never get the two of them at the same time. Civilization would fucking crumble. Be honest, would you work? 'Cuz I wouldn't work. Who the fuck is gonna show up for work at the mortgage company when you can smoke pot and fly?!
Joe Rogan
When I talk of the purpose of life, I am thinking not only of human life, but of all life on Earth and of the life which must exist upon other planets throughout the universe. It is only of life on Earth, however, that one can speak with any certainty. It seems to me that all life on Earth, the sum total of life upon the Earth, has purpose. If the means were available, we could trace our ancestry - yours and mine - back to the first blob of life-like material that came into being on the planet. The same thing could be done for the spider that spun his web in the grass, and of the grass in which the web was spun, the bird sitting in the tree and the tree in which he sits, the toad waiting for the fly beneath the bush, and for the fly and bush. We are all genetic brothers. The chain of life, tracing back to that primordial day of life's beginning, is unbroken...
Clifford D. Simak
Surah xix. 16-21: "And make mention in the Book, of Mary, when she went apart from her family, eastward, and took a veil to shroud herself from them: and We sent Our spirit to her, and he took before her the form of a perfect man. She said: 'I fly for refuge from thee to the God of Mercy! If thou fearest Him, begone from me.' He said: 'I am only a messenger of they Lord, that I may bestow on thee a holy son.' She said: 'How shall I have a son, when man hath never touched me? And I am not unchaste.' He said: 'So shall it be. Thy Lord hath said: "Easy is this with me; and we will make him a sign to mankind and a mercy from us. For it is a thing decreed."'"
Jesus Christ
We are being asked to sell the banner which has flown in Scotland with great success, a banner which is showing no sign of becoming unpopular. Clause Four has never meant nationalising Marks & Spencer. It has never meant nationalising the corner shop. Clause Four is a glimpse of the possible, a glimpse of what could be.
George Galloway
Weisinger, a couple of years ago, made up the following story: "Isaac Asimov was asked how Superman could fly faster than the speed of light, which was supposed to be an absolute limit. To this Asimov replied, 'That the speed of light is a limit is a theory; that Superman can travel faster than light is a fact.'"
Isaac Asimov
You never see a positive drug story on the news. They always have the same LSD story. You've all seen it: "Today a young man on acid ... thought he could fly ... jumped out of a building ... what a tragedy!" What a dick. He's an idiot. If he thought he could fly, why didn't he take off from the ground first? Check it out? You don't see geese lined up to catch elevators to fly south; they fly from the fucking ground. He's an idiot. He's dead. Good! We lost a moron? Fucking celebrate. There's one less moron in the world.
Bill Hicks
To tempt, and to be tempted, are things very nearly allied, and, in spite of the finest maxims of morality impressed upon the mind, whenever feeling has anything to do in the matter, no sooner is it excited than we have already gone vastly farther than we are aware of, and I have yet to learn how it is possible to prevent its being excited.
Flight alone is, perhaps, the only remedy; but there are cases and circumstances in which flight becomes impossible, for how is it possible to fly, shun, or turn one's back in the midst of a court? The very attempt would give rise to remarks. Now, if you do not fly, there is nothing, it seems to me, so difficult as to escape from that which is essentially agreeable. All that can be said in opposition to it will appear but a prudery quite out of harmony with the natural instincts of the human heart; besides, no one holds his heart in his hand, tightening or relaxing his grasp of it at pleasure.
Catherine II of Russia
If there be music in my reader, I would gladly wake it. Let fairytale of mine go for a firefly that now flashes, now is dark, but may flash again. Caught in a hand which does not love its kind, it will turn to an insignificant, ugly thing, that can neither flash nor fly.
The best way with music, I imagine, is not to bring the forces of our intellect to bear upon it, but to be still and let it work on that part of us for whose it exists. We spoil countless precious things by intellectual greed. He who will be a man, and will not be a child, must - he cannot help himself - become a little man, that is, a dwarf. He will, however, need no consolation, for he is sure to think himself a very large creature indeed.
If any strain of my "broken music" make a child's eyes flash, or his mother's grow for a moment dim, my labour will not have been in vain.
George MacDonald
I wish someone would just start Fly At Your Own Risk Airlines. How 'bout that? You can have your hair gel, you can have your lighter, you can have a fucking gun, how bout that? You can show up at the gate five minutes before the plane leaves, and pay in cash, like in the good ol' 1980s. The ticket just says "shit happens" on the back, because that's the way it is anyway.
Bill Maher
If our love song
Could fly over mountains,
Could laugh at the ocean,
Just like the films,
There's no reason
To feel all the hard times,
To lay down the hard lines.
It's absolutely true.Nothing much could happen
Nothing we can't shake
Oh we're absolute beginners
With nothing much at stake
As long as you're still smiling
There's nothing more I need
I absolutely love you
But we're absolute beginners.
But if my love is your love
We're certain to succeed.
David Bowie
They provide relief. Sometimes, it's the relief of the same genre as what we find in a church sanctuary when the minister ascends to the pulpit and late-morning sunlight is blasting through the windows behind him to gild him and the congregants before you as the choir reaches the climax of the doxology. Sometimes, it's the relief of a kind yet somehow firm-and-gentle hand at the back of the neck, kneading away not sorrow but the loneliness that can attend it. Sometimes, it's the relief of discovering you're no longer bound by the laws of gravity and that, yes, you can actually fly. Sometimes, it's an answer. Stories do all of these things for us. I'm convinced we'd be utterly lost without them.
Tochi Onyebuchi
