"Yeah, I took Spanish class, but I couldn't understand what the teacher was saying."

~Elaine Reid, on why she can't speak Spanish

"This is a word we use to plug
holes with. It's the right size for those warm
blanks in speech, for those red heart-
shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing
like real hearts. Add lace
and you can sell
it. We insert it also in the one empty
space on the printed form
that comes with no instructions. There are whole
magazines with not much in them
but the word love, you can
rub it all over your body and you
can cook with it too. How do we know
it isn't what goes on at the cool
debaucheries of slugs under damp
pieces of cardboard? As for the weed-
seedlings nosing their tough snouts up
among the lettuces, they shout it.
Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising
their glittering knives in salute.

Then there's the two
of us. This word
is far too short for us, it has only
four letters, too sparse
to fill those deep bare
vacuums between the stars
that press on us with their deafness.
It's not love we don't wish
to fall into, but that fear.
this word is not enough but it will
have to do. It's a single
vowel in this metallic
silence, a mouth that says
O again and again in wonder
and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffside. You can
hold on or let go."
~Margaret Atwood

"Seeing rows of people step outside of their cars on the highway (or the Interstate as they call it in Arkansas) still gives me the kid-giddies of having breakfast for dinner."
~SKL

"As I lived according to the highest light that I had, I discovered that other light was given, and that I opened myself to receiving more light as I lived the light I had."
~Peace Pilgrim

"Life's as kind as you let it be."
~Charles Bukowski, Hot Water Music

"I looked at the deer and we both had an understanding -- we are both meat."
~Ron Toews, on his backyard epiphany

"Life's no piece of cake, mind you, but the recipe's my own to fool with."
~Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

"You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait. You need not even wait, just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."

~Franz Kafka

"I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me and the heart appoints. If you are noble, I will love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this not selfishly but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, and all men's, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth."

~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

"Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire."
~Reggie Leach

"Don't ask the barber whether you need a haircut."
~Daniel S. Greenberg

"After ecstasy, the laundry."
~Zen statement

"Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm."
~Robert Louis Stevenson

"Try everything once except incest and folk dancing."
~Thomas Beecham

"I, the fiery light of divine wisdom,
I ignite the beauty of the plains,
I sparkle the waters.
I burn the sun and the moon and the stars,
With wisdom I order all rightly.
I adorn the earth.
I am the breeze that nurtures all things green.
I am the rain coming from the dew
That causes the grasses to laugh
With the joy of life.
I call forth tears, the aroma of holy work.
I am the yearning for good."
~Hildegard of Bingen

"This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life. This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new. . . Thy infinite gifts come to me only on those very small hands of mine. Ages pass, and still thou pourest, and still there is room to fill."

~Rabindranath Tagore

"You can be sure that when the season is right, your desires will manifest."

~Deepak Chopra, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success

"The hero is not fed on sweets

Daily his own heart he eats..."

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Women. The world's largest untapped natural resource."

~care.org

"You are born as freedom. It is just that you have been conditioned to forget it."
~Osho (thanks Elaine)

"Where's my &*%@ing boyfriend?! He's so late. . . to my life!"

~Jamie Masters

"Earthquakes show me who I am; and they show that I'm scared little bitch."
~Elaine Reid

"You must learn to get in touch with the innermost essence of your being. This true essence is beyond the ego. It is fearless; it is free; it is immune to criticism; it does not fear any challenge. It is beneath no one, superior to no one, and full of magic, mystery, and enchantment."

~Deepak Chopra, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success

"A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog."
~Jack London

"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you."
~Rashi

“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.”
~Mother Teresa

"I have the strangest dreams about people below the waste."
~Matthew Oden

“The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”
~Jack London

"My entire being feels like an exposed nerve; raw and caught in a cold wind." ~Anna Groth-Shive
...

"Good. that means you are alive." ~me

"A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it."
~Jean de La Fontaine (thanks jG)