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Lee's Favorite Quotations (Page 2)
| The Universe operates on a basic principle of economics:
everything has its cost. We pay to create our future, we pay for the
mistakes of the past. We pay for every change we make...and we pay just
as dearly if we refuse to change.
--Guild Bank Annals, Philosophical Register
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
Dune: House Harkonnen |
| We are all born as molecules in the heart of a billion stars; molecules
that do not understand politics or policies or differences. Over a
billion years, we foolish molecules forget who we are, and where we came
from. In desperate acts of ego we give ourselves names, fight over lines
on maps, and pretend our light is better than everyone else's. The flame
reminds us of the piece of those stars that lives on inside us: the
spark that tells us, "you know better."
From Babylon 5, by J. Michael Straczynski |
| Push yourself to recognize the extraordinary in the ordinary.
Printed on the inside of a Dove "Promise" candy wrapper |
So how do you measure the worth of a man
In wealth or strength or size?
In how much he gained or how much he gave?
The answer will come
The answer will come to him who tries
To look at his life through heaven's eyes.
Excerpt from Through Heaven's Eyes, lyrics by Stephen Schwartz
From Dream Works Pictures' The Prince of Egypt |
Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push us in the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.
Sir Francis Drake, 1577 |
| "For Drake is no longer in his hammock, children, nor is Arthur somewhere sleeping, and you may not lie idly expecting the second coming of anybody now, because the world is yours and it is up to you. Now especially since man has the strength to destroy this world, it is the responsibility of man to keep it alive, in all its beauty and marvellous joy."
Excerpt from Silver on the Tree, by Susan Cooper |
Out there
Strolling by the Seine
Taste a morning
Out there
Like ordinary men
Who freely walk about there
Just one day and then
I swear
I'll be content
With my share
Won't resent
Won't despair
Old and bent
I won't care
I'll have spent
One day
Out there
Excerpt from Out There, lyrics by Stephen Schwartz
From Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame |
| When he was very small he had been told the story of the man who was caught in a rainstorm and sought shelter in an old barn. He fell asleep in the hayloft, and when he woke it was deep midnight. He saw, walking on the rafters of the barn, a clowder of cats; they would walk the rafters and meet, and seem to pass a message. Then two cats met on a rafter very near where he lay hidden, and he heard one say to the other: "Tell Dildrum that Doldrum is dead." And so they parted. When the man got home that day, he told his wife what had happened, and what he had heard the cats say: "Tell Dildrum that Doldrum is dead." And on hearing that, their old family cat, dozing by the fire, leaped up with a shriek and cried out: "Then I'm to be king of the cats!" And it shot up the chimney, and was never seen again.
Excerpt from Aegypt, by John Crowley |
| And my dark soul is happy again, because it does not know how to be
anything else for very long, and because the pain is a deep dark sea in
which I would drown if I did not sail my little craft steadily over the
surface, steadily towards a sun which will never rise.
Excerpt from The Tale of the Body Thief, by Anne Rice |
Order
Design
Balance
Composition
Harmony
From Sunday in the Park with George, Stephen Sondheim |
| Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate
more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results
than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the
heap look inept. Who enjoys appearing inept?
-- A Guide to Trial and Error in Government, Bene Gesserit Archives
Excerpt from Heretics of Dune, by Frank Herbert |
| And then he thought: What can you do? These are clouds above us, and below us
there is ice and the earth.
Excerpt from The Carnival Dog, the Buyer of Diamonds, by
Ethan Canin |
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