Expecting life to treat

Expecting life to treat you well because

you are a good person is like expecting an angry

bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian.

- Shari R. Barr -

For a long time

For a long time it had seemed to me that

life was about to begin–real life.

But there was always some obstacle in the way,

something to be gotten through first,

some unfinished business,

time still to be served,a debt to be paid.

Then life would begin.

At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.

- Alfred D. Souza -

Eating loving singing

Eating, loving, singing and digesting are,

in truth, the four acts of the comic opera known as life,

and they pass like bubbles of a bottle of champagne.

Whoever lets them break without having enjoyed

them is a complete fool.

- Gioacchino Rossini -

You will never be happy

You will never be happy if you continue to

search for what happiness consists of.

You will never live if you are looking for

the meaning of life.

- Albert Camus -

Tis all a chequer

‘Tis all a chequer board of nights and days,
Where destiny with men for pieces plays;
Hither and thither, and mates, and slays.
- Edward Fitzgerald -

Don’t think of retiring

Don’t think of retiring from the world until

the world will be sorry that you retire.

I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or

laziness drive into a corner, and who does nothing

when he is there but sit and growl.

Let him come out as I do, and bark.

- Samuel Johnson -

Who will tell

Who will tell whether one happy moment of

love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright

morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all

the suffering and effort which life implies.

- Erich Fromm -

Life is like a box

Life… is like a box of chocolates – a cheap,

thoughtless, perfunctory gift that no one ever asks for,

unreturnable because all you get back is another box of chocolates.

So, you’re stuck with mostly undefinable whipped mint crap,

mindlessly wolfed down when there’s nothing else

to eat while you’re watching the game.

Sure, once is a while you get a peanut butter cup or an

English toffee but it’s gone too fast and the taste is fleeting.

In the end, you are left with nothing but broken bits filled

with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts, which,

if you are desperate enough to eat, leaves nothing but an

empty box of useless brown paper.

- The X-Files -

I arise in the morning

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to

improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world.

This makes it hard to plan the day.

- Elwyn Brooks White -

When I stand before God

When I stand before God at the end of my life,

I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left,

and could say, “I used everything you gave me.”

- Erma Bombeck -