Gotta mine my backlog o' stuff again because I'm so braindead this weekend and semi-sick. Back's acting up and this swine flu stuff is no joke, son! (Okay, it's not really the swine flu, at least to my knowledge, but it's fun to watch people run for cover when you say that; it's a lot more impressive than just saying "I feel icky and congested and sleep a lot.")
For a long time I've wanted to do a blog posts on quotes from punk rock songs, because there's much knowledge there. As Ian MacKaye said of hardcore songs, "I'm going to say
exactly what's on my mind, and I'm going to do it in 32 seconds." Much wisdom (or at least amusing stupidity) can be found when people do that. But, compiling such a thing would require that I start listening to all my punk rock to mine out the quotes, and that could take years, and free time is always in short supply. So, I figured I'd just do quotes from various sources, things I've written down in a book I keep. Rest assured there'll be some punk rock mixed in, but some are just badass, wise, or funny lines from books, movies, etc.
The title of the blog post is a quote from the show
Maude, by the way. R.I.P., Bea Arthur
==============
"I don't wanna be figured out!" - Urban Waste lyrics
"We're not happy 'til you're not happy." - Toxic Narcotic lyrics
"We don't wanna play/
And that's what we'll do!" - Instant Asshole lyrics
"Keep your mind on what you're doing, not on what you've done." - Yul Brynner,
Death Rage."She was harder to shake than a 7 with the other guy's dice." -
The Marines Are Coming."Go on, wave a flag and make me laugh." - Lee Marvin,
Prime Cut"Beer and barracuda, reds and monocaine
Pure nectar of antipathy, behind that stage at dawn
To those who would resign their souls
To Transmaniacon M.C.
...
We're pain, we're steel, a plot of knives
We're Transmaniacon M.C." - Blue Oyster Cult lyrics
"This ain't the garden of Eden
There ain't no angels above
And things ain't what they used to be
And this ain't the summer of love." - Blue Oyster Cult lyrics
"It went over like Dice Clay warming up the crowd at Lilith Fair." -
The Slasher"Nice legs. What time do they open?" -
Papparazzi"You'll know what the sun's all about
When the lights go out." - Black Keys lyrics
"I dance like a special ed kid who's just been handed a sparkler." - Patton Oswalt
"You are going to miss out on everything cool and die angry!" -Patton Oswalt
"Why'd you give me ecstasy when I'm by myself all weekend? You'd buy Anne Frank a drumset, ya bastard!" - Doug Stanhope
"You don't threaten unless you can hit." - Peter Rabe,
The Box"He sat a short while longer and enjoyed disliking her." - Peter Rabe,
The Box"Is that what you really think or is that want they'd want you to think?" -
V For Vendetta"When your enemy has no scruples, your own scruples become another weapon in his hand." - Sam Harris,
The End of Faith"No river is shallow to a man who can't swim." - Paladin,
Have Gun Will Travel"A man who knows he is a fool is not a great fool." - Lao Tze
"I've Enjoyed As Much As I Can Stand" - Porter Waggoner song title
"A Walt Disney concept in a Sam Peckinpah world." -
Tales of the Zombie"I hope your son has two assholes so you'll be busy all day long!" -
Iron-Fisted Monk"People with opinions go around bothering one another." - Buddha
"Better not to start. Once you start, better to finish it." - Buddha
"While visiting Mecca, tie down your camel." - old Arab saying
"You've been here only six weeks and I'm gonna do for you what it took somebody six months to do for me. Nothin'." - Robert Blake,
Electra Glide in Blue"Announcing your plans is a good way to hear God laugh." - Al Swearingen,
Deadwood"You know what he's saying right now? 'Black bastard can't throw
me out!' Know where he's saying it? Out in the parking lot." - Morgan Freeman in
Lean On Me"What's the difference between brave and stupid?"
"I don't know. Maybe it's just timing." - dialogue from
Tour Of Duty"Then there was the war, and I married it because there was nothing else when I reached the age of falling in love." - Guy Sajer,
The Forgotten Soldier"I could find some satisfaction
I could destroy everything you built
I got no values, nothing to say
I got no values, might as well blow you away
Don't you try pacification
When you know it won't work
I might try some annihilation
Bury your face right in the dirt." - Black Flag lyrics
"Rock is dead! Long live paper and scissors!" - Adam Rust
"Religion: it's a powerful healing force in a world torn apart... by religion." - Jon Stewart
"I wouldn't wanna do anything to hurt God. He's got enough trouble with the Russians and all." - Beaver Cleaver
"Learn to listen to that which is not spoken." -
Circle of Iron"Two birds tied together have four wings but cannot fly." -
Circle of Iron"As the camel falls to its knees, more knives are drawn." - Bedouin saying
"When the time comes to hang the capitalists, they will be eager to sell us the rope." - Lenin
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions for vegetarianism, as long as the wolves remain of a different opinion." - Marc "Animal" MacYoung
"If you are going to hunt tigers, you must learn all you can about them. How they hunt, sleep, make love, everything. If you don't, you're not hunting, you're just walking in the woods." - Marc "Animal" MacYoung
"If attitude was all it took, we'd all be famous." - The Tupperware Kid
"You cannot rely on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." - Mark Twain
"Most problems resolve themselves into self-evident solutions if you have enough information that is reliable, and you can eliminate emotion from the evaluation of it." - Mel Tappan
"Violence is the first option, and the last choice, of the competent." - Frank Gasperik
"If you can't be grateful for what you've received, be grateful for what you've escaped." - quote on a box of tea
"We could fall into a barrel of nipples and come out sucking our thumbs." - Lemmy from Motorhead
"A man with one watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure." - anonymous
"To make an enemy, do someone a favor." - anonymous
"You know what you've got when you have three lawyers up to their necks in shit? Not enough shit!" - Blake Clark
"You're a man with a fork in a land of soup." -
Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead"I am Godzilla! You are Japan!" -
Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead"There are men whom one hates until a certain moment when one sees, through a chink in their armor, the writhing of something nailed down and in torment." - Gerald Kersh
"No snowflake in an avalanche feels responsible." - anonymous
"When I grow up to be a man, I'd like to be upright, like you!"
"Good. You must be upright. There was a saying in my village, 'You must sing to keep out sorrows. Walk each road to keep them clear. Sharpen swords to keep off rust. Stand upright to stay a man.'"
"Mmmm!"
(both laugh)
"Hey, last night you told us the story of a man who was wrong. My sister said the man was you!"
"She's a smart girl."
"She thinks you're a good man. That's why she told me to teach you... IRON... FINGER!"
- absurd dialogue from
Invincible Armor"God finds you naked and leaves you dying.
What happens in between is up to you." - Robin Hichcock
"The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese." - anonymous
"You never pushed a noun against a verb except to blow something up." - Spencer Tracy,
Inherit the Wind"One scavenger dies, many are fed." - William Smith,
Piranha"You're about as handy as a trap door in a canoe." - Jack Webb,
The D.I."The next time you jump me, Joey, you have the decency to make it look like something." - Jack Webb,
The D.I."What's the matter with revenge? It's the perfect way to get even!" - Archie Bunker
"One thing about a hammer... it's quiet." - Richard Laymon
"How can you trust a man who wears both a belt and suspenders? Man can't even trust his own pants!" - Henry Fonda,
Once Upon A Time In The West"Funds are short, but brain is big, and hair is shiny!" - Tresseme shampoo commercial
"Nellie was a tramp when State Street was a prairie." - Jack Nicholson,
Studs Lonigan"Your penis has a heart, just like you
So follow your penis's heart!
Your penis also has a big ol' vein!
And a hole at the top, where the stuff comes out!"
- Penis Genie singing to Doug Stanhope on
The Man Show"Karate is one of the oldest forms of self-defense known to man."
"It ain't older than runnin'!" - dialogue from
Sanford & Son"Why does Madonna use these two fingers to masturbate with? Because they're mine!" - Stephen Tyler
"For me it's about the three M's - music, money, and mmmmmm, pussy!" - Stephen Tyler
"Illusions are the truths we live by until we know better." - Nancy Gibbs
"Whenever there is any doubt, there is no doubt. That's the first thing they teach you."
"Who taught you?"
"I don't remember. That's the second thing they teach you."
- dialogue from the movie
Ronin"You know, this used to be a hell of a good country. I can't understand what's gone wrong with it. ... They're not scared of you. They're scared of what you represent to 'em... and what you represent to them is freedom. ... Talking about it and bein' it are two different things. It's real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. 'Course, don't ever tell anybody they're not free 'cuz then they're gonna get real busy killin' an' maimin' to prove that they are. Oh, yeah, they gonna talk to you and talk to you and talk to you 'bout individual freedom, but they see a free individual, it's gonna scare 'em. It makes 'em dangerous." - Jack Nicholson in
Easy Rider.
"I desire what is good. Therefore, everyone who doesn't agree with me is a traitor." - King George III of England
"Some people hide behind the first amendment. Maybe because they're being shot at by people hiding behind the second!" - Jon Stewart
"More people have died in the name of religion than have ever died of cancer. And we try to
cure cancer." - Nightcrawler in an X-Men comic
"The truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing the matter with that. Except it ain't so." - Mark Twain
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Winston Churchill
"Don't be humble. You're not that great." - Golda Meir
"Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad. ... Sanity is not statistical." - George Orwell,
1984"Never mumble around a paranoid." - old saying
"This movie has something for everyone... who hates fun." - movie critic on
The Daily Show"The suspense... might interest you!" - Stephen Colbert
"Quickest way to find the needle: burn the haystack." -
Oz"All women do is laugh, and sing, and say the word 'pussy.' You ask any doctor and he'll tell you that." - crazy homeless lady in
Ms. .45"The only time Chevy Chase has a funny bone in his body is when I fuck him in the ass." - Richard Belzer
"Masturbate in Hell!" - Chow Yun Fat, as he shoots a bad guy in
Full Contact"Some people say I'm too patronizing. 'Patronizing,' of course, means talking to people like they're
stupid." - Al Gore, on
Saturday Night Live"It's hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head." - Sally Kepmton
"Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt." - Clarence Darrow
"There's so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?" - Dick Cavett
"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten." - unknown
"Zeal without knowledge is fire without light." - Fuller Thomas
"Wherever you find injustice, the proper form of politeness is attack." - T-Bone Slim
"Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don't allow our enemies to have guns why should we allow them to have ideas?" - Joseph Stalin
"When elephants fight, it's the grass that suffers." - African proverb
"Humility is the first of the virtues... for other people." - Oliver Wendell Holmes
"The first duty of the revolutionary is to get away with it." - Abbie Hoffman
"Loyalty to the country always; loyalty to the government only when it deserves it." - Mark Twain
"One cannot say that all conservatives are stupid people, one can say that most stupid people are conservative." - John Stuart Mill
"Fighting crime by building more jails is like fighting cancer by building more cemeteries." - Paul Kelly
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." - James Kenneth Galbraith
"It is a tribute to the American people that our leaders perceived that they had to lie to us. It is not a tribute to us that we were so easily misled." - Daniel Ellsberg
"In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant." - Charles de Gaulle
"The Constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself." - John Ciardi
"He whom many fear, has himself many to fear." Publilius Syrus
"If you don't know where you're going, any road'll take you there." - George Harrison
"To kill a coward is easier than trying to find a way to insult him." -
Master of the Flying Guillotine"I HATE YOUR FACE!" - sudden outburst of English dialogue in the midst of Hindu in
Farz.
"Let's have some new cliches." - Sam Goldwyn
"All my life I felt so close to God, and it wasn't him after all." -
God Told Me To"Love is a feather; hatred is a hammer." - Jim Goad,
Shit Magnet"I never see that prettiest thing -
A cherry bough gone white with Spring -
But what I think, 'How gay 'twould be
To hang me from a flowering tree.'"
- Dorothy Parker
"Aside from the killin', I was always nice to everybody my whole life." - Henry Lee Lucas
"Inspector Clay is dead -- murdered! -- and somebody's responsible!" -
Plan 9 From Outer Space"SHIT AND FUCK TO YOU! THE INTERRUPTION AND GODDAMN TO YOU!" - Linda Barry,
Cruddy"There's a man in my belly wants your company, son." - Linda Barry
"Expect the Unexpected. And whenever possible, BE the Unexpected." - Linda Barry
"I never did finish my letter to Jesus. I tried for a while but I couldn't think of anything else to say besides, 'Have a Good Summer and Stay Crazy.'" - Linda Barry
"He who trusts numbers, loses to the few. Despising his foe, he is blind. He thinks lies are truth. He thinks truth lies." -
Lone Wolf & Cub"I live in the weak and the wounded." - "Simon" in
Session 9"There oughtta be more hide-tannin' and less psychology, by jim!" - redneck in
White Lightning"What works is what's right." -
Angels Hard As They Come"I'll shoot you continuously, see how you deal with it." -
18 Bronzemen"Reality hasn't the least obligation to be interesting." - Jorge Luis Borges, "Death & The Compass."
"You show me a good loser and I'll wrestle him every day!" - Jerry Lawler
"Only your real friends tell you when your face is dirty." Sicilian proverb
"If I die before I wake
I think I got an even break." - Corrosion of Conformity
"You were born on third base and think you hit a triple." - Doug Allyn
"Hey, Jack, you know much about electronics? It takes two wires to make something like, say, a lightbulb work, right? It takes a positive wire and a negative wire. Well, I'm that negative wire, Jack, y'see, I help power that light bulb, I help bring light into the world. I'm needed!" - Craig Sheffer,
The Road Killers"Please excuse all the blood." - suicide note of Dead, lead singer for Mayhem, who blew his head off with a shotgun
"When faced with two choices, choose the third." - Yiddish proverb
"Most Christians profess to believe in Hell. Yet have you ever met a Christian who seemed as afraid of Hell as he was of cancer?" - George Orwell
"Hell is other people." - J.P. Sartre
"It amuses me! It's as much fun as a carload of gorillas!" -
Sister Streetfighter"Cain once asked Lucifer why, with all his powers, he never did humanity any good, and Lucifer replied, 'Why hasn't Jehovah?'" - legend
"Power should be confined to those who aren't in love with it." - Socrates(?)
"They'll be riding on the pony through the woooooods
They'll be riding 20 ponies through your heaaaaaad
I'm-a fuckin' ride a pony
You can... ride the pony with me
There'll be ponies on the ponies when you're deaaaaad! Word!"
- Patty Poundcake of
Miss Muffy's Muff Mob"Don't you wanna be a cowboy and wear fuzzy pants?" -
Little Rascals"Adulthood is Hell." - H. P. Lovecraft
"An amateur will look at you and decide
if he can take you. A pro will look at you and decide
how to take you." -- Mark "Animal" MacYoung
"I found out why cats lick themselves. They're
delicious!" - Al Snow
"Oh, look, one bastard walks in, another bastard walks out! You want to know who you are? Huh? You want to know whose son you are? You don't, I do, everybody does... you're the son of a thousand fathers, all bastards like you! And your mother, it's best not to talk of her!" - Tuco,
The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly"Sounds like sensible advice... the kind I been ignorin' since I was born." - Woverine
"When all else fails
Dead men tell no tales." - Motorhead lyrics
"Nobody knows the trouble I've seen
But it can be arranged." - Motorhead lyrics
"Do not dig valleys deeper to increase hills." - Tai Kung
"If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough." - country song
"It always seemed to me that my existence consisted purely and exclusively of nothing but the most outrageous nonsense." - Thomas Ligotti, "The Clown Puppet"
"You think you can stop me with your stuff that you do?!?" - giant dust mite in
Squee comics
"This suit is bad!"
"It's bad all right. Matter of fact, I'd have two of them if I was you."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. One to shit on and one to cover it up with."
- George Pelecanos,
Sweet Forever"We came to wreck everything and ruin your life. God sent us." -
Romper STomper"Beware the fury of a patient man." - John Dryden
"Damn, you a dumb bitch! Where we gonna get a motherfuckin' robot?!" -
Miss Muffy & The Muff Mob"I feel all dead inside. I'm backed up in a dark corner and I don't know who's hitting me." -
The Dark Corner"Now 'happy' is something extremely subjective. One of our sillier Zembalan proverbs says '
the lost glove is happy.'" - Nabokov,
Pale Fire"Time to leap from that summit of illusion our world has achieved, a glorious plummet after so many centuries in which we erred on the side of excellence. When all the Creator had in mind was a third-rate sideshow of beatific puppetry." - Thomas Ligotti, "Mad Night of Atonement."
"You can't protest cutting down trees with a write-in campaign." - Charles Manson
"Practice not moving a muscle until you can do it all the time between meals. Practice breathing so shallow your chest doesn't move. Think about the person you hate most in the world and smile. The head plans, the hands kill, the heart only pumps blood." - Andrew Vachss,
Bomb Built In Hell"A man who shows his anger is a fool and fools don't live long. Revenge is dessert. First you eat the meal, no matter how fucking bad it tastes. Always,
always remember that. My patience is always one second longer than my enemy thinks it is." - Vachss,
Bomb"Dance to the music that is played." - Spanish proverb
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well." - Joe Ancis
"If people seem to be treating you with a little more respect lately, it's because you have an overactive imagination." - The Onion's horoscope page
"Never rely on your adversary to make a mistake, but give him plenty of room to do so. Then punish him for it." - David L. Robbins,
The War of the Rats"Zaitsev's words on marksmanship: think it through three times; set it up twice; fire once." - David L. Robbins
"I'm gonna kick your teeth so far down your throat you'll be able to chew your own ass out for pissin' me off." - The Undertaker
"The geek was made by fear. He was afraid of sobering up and getting the horrors. But what made him a drunk? Fear. Find out what they are afraid of and sell it back to them. That's the key." - William Lindsay Gresham,
Nightmare Alley"Somebody ought to stick a butcher knife up his rear end and kick the handle off." - Gresham
"Whop ut all the sin and wickedness and cussedness in the world? I say: who put the boll weevil? He growed. Well, mean people grow where the growing's good for 'em - same as the boll weevil. ... It's a hell of a world. A few at the top got all the dough. To get yours you got to pry 'em loose from some of it. And then they turn around and kick your teeth out for doing just what you did." - Gresham
"He was a hard man to say no to, but no was all you could say. Once you said yes, you'd keep right on saying it the rest of your life." - Jim Thompson,
Nothing Man"I may be wrong -- I have been wrong about so many things -- but I can't recall ever hearing or knowing of a son-of-a-bitch who did not do all right for himself. I'm talking about the
real sons-of-bitches, understand. The Grade-A, double-distilled, steam-heated variety. You take a man like that, a son-of-a-bitch who doesn't fight it -- who knows what he is and gives his all to it - and you've really got something. Rather,
he's got something. He's got all the things that are held out to you as a reward for being a non-son-of-a-bitch." - Jim Thompson, ibid.
"warrior, heed this
when you battle with demons
aim not at their hearts"
- Andrew Vachss
"the weasel stalking
nose to the ground, never hears
footsteps of the hawk"
-Andrew Vachss
"if love would die
along with death
this life wouldn't be so hard"
- Andrew Vachss
"I'm drunk, crazy, narrow-minded and spiteful!" - "White Trash" Johnny Webb
"Dead men are heavier than broken hearts." - Raymond Chandler
"If I've gotta die, I'm gonna die last." - Robert Mitchum,
Out of The Past"Rain is only a problem if you don't want to get wet." - old samurai saying
These pleasant young fellas are known collectively as Isis. They are currently on tour in support of their newest CD Wavering Radiant, travelling with the also awesome bands Pelican and Tombs... Go see 'em if they come near you - they're in Birmingham, Alabam' this Saturday!
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