Stuff About Things #19

"He laughs all the time, but if you get into a fight, I'm telling you man, you better pray he's on your side."
     — The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay

When Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Audie Murphy was asked why he took on an entire company of German infantry by himself, he replied famously, "They were killing my friends."

"I'm always of the mindset that any asshole victory is short-lived. It just is. They lose. Assholes lose. They're annoying, they cause momentary hardships, but they ultimately lose, and that's a good thing."
     — Jon Stewart

"I've decided it's pretty rookie to be a dick."
     — Jason Bateman

"I'm a bit of a people-pleaser, unfortunately. My wife says it's hard to be married to me. She wishes I was more of an asshole."
     — Hugh Jackman

"I realize now that an infinite acreage of things unknown will lose their venom once properly introduced."
     — Zach Braff

"I like someone who gets up everyday and is incredibly excited about whatever he's going to learn, whether it's politics, art, his own spirituality, or just meeting someone new. You have to be interested in the rest of the world. Everything is so much bigger than you are."
     — Rashida Jones

"We're supposed to be tired. That's how you build a career."
     — Lady Gaga

"They conquer who believe they can."
     — John Dryden

"Trials and difficult people are all just unwitting pegs on your way up the climbing wall of life."
     — Ewan McGregor

"Malice is only another name for mediocrity."
     — Patrick Kavanagh

"Hawk's capacity for silence was limitless, and I could endure more of it than I usually got."
     — Spenser, Hundred Dollar Baby by Robert B. Parker

"Cosmic love is ruthlessly loving: whether you like it or not, it loves you, it teaches you, teases you, plays with you, surprises you."
     — John C. Lilly

"Before we can become prophetic, we have to be authentic human beings, people who can exist outside a structure, who can create their own existence, who have within themselves the resources for affirming their identity and their freedom in any situation in which they find themselves. This means people capable of creating a life for themselves who are not identified with a structure."
     — Thomas Merton

"Hell is easy to define. It would be spending eternity with evangelicals."
     — Don Koons

"You gotta trust your stuff."
     — Bob Wickman, relief pitcher

"Life not lived to be safe. Safe make you weak, make you slow, make you tired."
     — Pony Flores, Blue-Eyed Devil by Robert B. Parker

"Crazy Horse laughed and said, 'You are not speaking to a white man. Whites are the only ones who make rules for other people. Camp where you please.'"
     — Crazy Horse: A Life by Larry McMurtry

"The more knowledge you get, the more questions you ask. That is life."
     — Georges St-Pierre, fighter

"When force of circumstance upsets your equanimity, lose no time in recovering your self-control, and do not remain out of tune longer than you can help. Habitual recurrence to the harmony will increase your mastery of it."
     — Marcus Aurelius

"If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?"
     — Rumi

"Listen, I've done a few odd things in my life, and this is one of the odder ones. It's good for you, keeps your chops in shape, you have to wind yourself up in a different way."
     — Mick Jagger

"A good example is the best sermon."
     — Ben Franklin

"I am one of those who think like Nobel, that humanity will draw more good than evil from new discoveries."
     — Marie Curie

"We are all failures – at least the best of us."
     — James Matthew Barrie