I Hope You Dance

I hope you never lose your sense of wonder
You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger
May you never take one single breath for granted
God forbid love ever leave you empty handed

I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens
Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance
Never settle for the path of least resistance
Livin' might mean takin' chances but they're worth takin'
Lovin' might be a mistake but it's worth makin'

Don't let some hell bent heart leave you bitter
When you come close to sellin' out reconsider
Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.

Time is a wheel in constant motion always rolling us along
Tell me who wants to look back on their years and wonder where those years have gone

If you want to feel rich, just count all the things you have that money can't buy.

Notes from the Underground

"Love is God's mystery and should be hidden from outsiders' eyes, whatever happens. This makes it holier, better. The husband and the wife respect each other more, and a great deal is founded on respect. And if there has been love, if they were married for love, why should love cease? Isn't it possible to keep it alive? It is a rare case when it's impossible. Besides, if the husband happens to be a kind and honest man, how can love pass? It's true, the feeling of the early married days will pass, but the love that will come afterwards will be still better. Man and wife will grow close in spirit; they'll have no secrets from each other. And when children start coming, the hardest times will seem happy, so long as there is love and courage. Work goes like a song, and even if you have to deny yourself a piece of bread once in a while for the children's sake, life's full of joy all the same. After all they'll love you for it afterwards; so that you're really saving for your own future.

The children start growing up, and you feel that you are setting an example for them; that even when you die, they'll carry your thoughts and feelings inside them all their lives, for you've bequeathed them your image, and they will grow up in your likeness. So you see, this is a great duty, and how can the mother and father help but grow closer? Some people say it is a hardship to have c hildren. But who says so? It's a joy from heaven! Do you love babies, Liza? I love them terribly. You know- imagine a pink little boy suckling your breast. What husband's heart could turn against his wife, seeing her with his child? The baby, rosy, plump, spreads out his arms and legs, luxuriating in your warmth; his little hands and feet are firm like ripe apples, the nails clean and tiny, so tiny they are comical to see, and the eyes look at you as though he already understands everything. And when he suckles, he tug at your breast with his little hand, playing. His father will com over, and the baby will turn from the breast, bend backward, look at him and laugh- as if it were God knows how funny- then start suckling again. Or else, when the teeth begin to come, he'll take a nip at his mother's breast and look at her out of the corner of his eye; 'See, i bit you!' Isn't this the greatest happiness in the world when the three of them, the husband, wife, and child are together? For such moments, a lot can be forgiven. No, Liza, I suppose one has to learn how to live himself before accusing others!"

fyodor dostoevsky

The Whispering Gallery

She's turning away, about to step
out of the concave cuddle of Italian tiles
before walking through the grand

doorway to cross 42nd Street
to glance up at The Glory of Commerce
as she hails a yellow taxicab
when he whispers, I love you, Harriet.

Did he say something to himself,
something he swore he'd never think
again? Or, was she now limestone
like Minerva, a half-revealed secret,
her breasts insinuating the same
domed wisdom? Maybe his mind

was already heading home to Hoboken—
his body facing hers—his unsure feet
rushing to make a connection
with Sinatra's ghost
amongst a trainload of love cries
from the Rustic Cabin to Caesar's Palace.
Hugged there under the curved grandeur,
she says, I love you, too, Johnny.

-Yusef Komunyakaa

"The love of God is like the ocean, you can see its beginning, but not its end."

Blue Like Jazz

"I once listened to an Indian on television say that God was in the wind and the water, and I wondered how beautiful that was because it meant you could swim in Him or have Him brush your face in a breeze. I am early in my story, but I believe I will stretch out into eternity, and in heaven I will reflect upon these early days, these days when it seemed God was down a dirt road, walking toward me. Years ago He was a swinging speck in the distance; now He is close enough I can hear His singing. Soon I will see the lines on His face."

Donald Miller

Charlie Chaplin

"The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury."

Charlie Brown

"Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love."

The Sprout and the Bean

And as I said,
I slept as though dead, dreaming seamless dreams
of lead.
When you go away,
I am big-boned and fey;
in the dust of the day,
and in the dirt of the day.

joanna newsom

Herman Melville

"It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation."

For the times they are a-changin'...

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'

bob dylan

A Broken Appointment

You did not come,
And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb.
Yet less for loss of your dear presence there
Than that I thus found lacking in your make
That high compassion which can overbear
Reluctance for pure lovingkindness' sake
Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,
You did not come.

You love me not,
And love alone can lend you loyalty;
-I know and knew it. But, unto the store
Of human deeds divine in all but name,
Was it not worth a little hour or more
To add yet this: Once you, a woman, came
To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be
You love me not.

- Thomas Hardy

American History X

Well, my conclusion is: Hate is baggage. Life's too short to be pissed off all the time. It's just not worth it. Derek says it's always good to end a paper with a quote. He says someone else has already said it best. So if you can't top it, steal from them and go out strong. So I picked a guy I thought you'd like. 'We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.'

Happiness

"People spend their lives wanting things they shouldn't. The world confuses them into taking their love and aiming it where it doesn't belong... All it takes to be happy is to love the right things, in the right amounts. Not money. Not books. People. Adults who don't understand that sometimes never feel fulfilled."

St.Elmo's Fire

"It's St.Elmo's Fire. Electric flashes of light that appear in the dark skies out of nowhere. Sailors would guide entire journeys by it, but the joke was on them... there was no fire. There wasn't even a St.Elmo. They made it up. They made it up because they thought they needed it to keep them going when times got tough, just like you're making up all of this. We're going through this. It's our time at the edge."

"We live to love, and once love happens, I believe that we will love to live."

Jerry Maguire

"You had me at hello."-

Lust for Life

"But then, no artist is normal; if he were, he wouldn't be an artist. Normal men don't create works of art. They eat, sleep, hold down routine jobs, and die. You are hypersensitive to life and nature; that's why you are able to interpret for the rest of us. But if you are not careful, that very hypersensitiveness will lead you to your destruction. The strain of it breaks every artist in time."

irving stone

The Art of being a Pedestrian in New York

A pedestrian in New York City is more than just another poor soul walking down the street in just another super-sized American urban sprawl. The proof is in the proving that any heart-hardened New Yorker can tell an out-of-towner just from the way that he walks, much less the way that he talks. Pedestrians of New York do more than just walk, they jog, swerve, glide, duck, run, push and power through the avenues of their city with a speed and grace that is unmatched by those poor sauntering folks from other parts of the world. New Yorkers need to weave through foot traffic, dance across real traffic, dodge the occasional zealous bike messenger or errant cabbie, dive through closing subway doors and do it all without spilling a drop of coffee or tripping over the dog walker and his cadre of four-legged charges.
And they are adept at it.

New York pedestrians cannot be labeled walkers; they are rush hour sprinters, rainy curb vault jumpers, lunch rush acrobats and Times Square footwork artists. They are all of those things and they recognize those that are not, with the same keen sense of accuracy that a lion uses to find the weakest wildebeest in a traveling herd.

We do not take pity on the slow of step, those without split-second reactions and those without that trademarked New Yorker's sense of purpose and direction, that unmistakably arrogant and punctuated stride. Tourists are left dazed and buffeted about like leaves in a storm, stray notes in an orchestra too massive and foreign to be kept up with. In other cities, we would be in a rush, we would be rude and huffy and inconsiderate, but here at home we are just everyday pedestrians, in fear only of the moment when we are passed by one who is faster and more fleet of foot than we, and in that moment we will hang our heads in shame. -By Adam Redfield

With Arms Outstretched

i visit these
mountains with frequency
and i stand here with my arms out
now somedays they'll last longer than others
but this day by the lake went too fast