This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
For a passing infatuation it is the beauty that counts, for a life-long love it is the goodness that counts.
People |
Todd Rundgren, fully Todd Harry Rundgren
It may not necessarily reflect my current frame of mind. Sometimes I have to put myself at the point in time of the voice that I'm trying to sing with.
Why don't you want to do what you know you should do The reason you don't is that you're in conflict with yourself.
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
As unrefined and basic as an animal's emotional equipment may be, it is not insensitive to freedom. Somewhere in the archives of crudest instinct is recorded the truth that it is better to be endangered and free than captive and comfortable.
Adventure | Government | People | Risk | Will | Government |
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
On the campus of Outlaw College, professors of essential insanities would characterize the conflicting attitudes of Nina Jablonski and Leigh-Cheri as indicative of a general conflict between social idealism and romanticism. As any of the learned professors would explain, plied with sufficient tequila, no matter how fervently a romantic might support a movement, he or she eventually must withdraw from active participation in that movement because the group ethic - the supremacy of the organization over the individual - is an affront to intimacy. Intimacy is the principal source of the sugars with which this life is sweetened. It is absolutely vital to the essential insanities.
Capacity | Imagination | Observation | People | Will | World |
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
I've sucked way too much cement for this year. Bad juju rising off them city sidewalks. I need to babble with a brook or two, inhale starlight, make friends with some trees.
Imagination | Men | People |
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
All dreams continue in the beyond.
Depression | People |
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
Could the Cheerios be in bad voice? Might not they handle well on curves? Do they ejaculate too quickly? Has age affected their timing or are they merely in a mid-season slump? Afflicted with nervous exhaustion or broken hearts, are the Cheerios smiling bravely, insisting that the show must go on?
Beauty | Conscience | Efficiency | People | Sacrifice | Will | Beauty | Old |
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
Meditation... disolves the mind. It erases itself. Throws the ego out on its big brittle ass.
People |
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
Okay, we have just passed through the Michener zone, and , assuming that narcolepsy hasn’t leadened our lids, that we’ve not been Lao-this’d and Lao-that’ed into a comatose state, we’re now in a position, as we rejoin the narrative flow, to conclude that Fan Nan Nan was a Lao Theung community. Are we not?
But I remember now I am in this earthly world, where to do harm is often laudable, to do good sometime accounted dangerous folly. Macbeth, Act iv, Scene 2
People |
The more things for which you develop a fondness the richer the life you live.
Daniel Gilbert, fully Daniel Todd Gilbert, aka Professor Happiness
The fact that we often judge the pleasure of an experience by its ending can cause us to make some curious choices.
Conversation | Music | People | Price | Public | Time | Words | World |
Dan Pink, fully Daniel H. Pink
In flow, the relationship between what a person had to do and what he could do was perfect. The challenge wasn't too easy. Nor was it too difficult. It was a notch or two beyond his current abilities, which stretched the body and mind in a way that made the effort itself the most delicious reward. That balance produced a degree of focus and satisfaction that easily surpassed other, more quotidian, experiences. In flow, people lived so deeply in the moment, and felt so utterly in control, that their sense of time, place, and even self melted away. They were autonomous, of course. But more than that, they were engaged.
People |
Cut him out in little stars. Romeo and Juliet, Act iii, Scene 2