Statement of purpose

by effenheimer at 08:40 AM on November 07, 2002

I see worlds and worlds of rooms and desks where men and women are gathered around in robes, coats, suits and dresses to say what I shall write speak talk and sing. And they tell me that I am locked and barred from singing the true feelings of my nakedest skin. You are gathered here this morning to burn my finest papers. You are here in this room, at this very hour, to tell me that there is something ugly, vile, vulgar about me somewhere, somehow, some way. I excuse your ignorance. I am not ashamed of me nor ashamed of myself. My body is naked now and it was born naked. —Woody Guthrie, singer/writer
The stench was overwhelming as I stood in the cesspool of my own bodily secretions pondering. The peculiar thing is that I didn’t want to move. I just wanted to stay there all the time ... pondering. —Matt Mercado, singer/songwriter Mind Bomb
If the human body’s obscene, complain to the manufacturer, not me. —Larry Flynt, pornographer/First Amendment advocate
Art is a lie that tells the truth. —Pablo Picasso, artist
Take away the right to say “fuck” and you take away the right to say “fuck the government.” I’m sorry if I’m not very funny tonight, but I’m not a comedian, I’m Lenny Bruce.” —Lenny Bruce, comedian/visionary
Writing is a struggle against silence. —Carlos Fuentes, writer
I am not a “good” writer. Not that I wouldn’t like to be. But when I try to write serious work, the audience laughs. I try to write something “funny” and the audience doesn’t react at all. I have to write vast amounts to come up with the nuggets of anything good at all. I feel like a prospector panning for gold who has to sift through tons of gravel just to find a few flecks. —Eric Bogosian, writer
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. —George Orwell, writer
What experience and history teach is that people and governments never have learned anything from history. —George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, philosopher
I’m just another task in God’s daily planner: The Renaissance penciled in for right after the Dark Ages. The Information Age is scheduled immediately after the Industrial Revolution. Then the Post-Modern Era, then The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Famine. Check. Pestilence. Check. War. Check. Death. Check. And between the big events, the earthquakes and tidal waves, God’s got me squeezed in for a cameo appearance. Then maybe in 30 years, or maybe next year, God’s daily planner has me finished ... all God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring. —Chuck Palahniuk, writer
Never mistake legibility for communication. —David Carson, writer/designer
If someone betrays you once it is their fault, if someone betrays you twice it is your fault. —Eleanor Roosevelt, former first lady
Most people live dejectedly in worldly joys or sorrows. They sit on the sidelines and do not join in the dance. The knights of infinity are dancers and possess elevation. They rise up and fall down again, and this is no mean pastime, nor unpleasant to behold. —Soren Kierkegaard, philosopher
Is it that they fear the pain of death or could it be they fear the joy of life? —Glen Phillips, singer/songwriter Toad The Wet Sprocket
Cautious, careful people always casting about to preserve their reputation or social standards never can bring about reform. Those who are really in earnest are willing to be anything or nothing in the world’s estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathies with despised ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences. —Susan B. Anthony, suffragette
I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ’Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death. —Thomas Paine
When choosing between two evils, always choose the one you haven’t tried yet. —Mae West
The ultimate measure of man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. —Martin Luther King Jr.
A warrior is a person who does things quickly with an intense, fresh and undelaying spirit. It is a matter of being determined to break right through to the other side. —Hagakure, samurai/philosopher
If a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man. —Anthony Burgess, writer
The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls. —Elizabeth Cady Stanton, women’s rights advocate