Brian Danchilla

|  Freelance Developer, Author, Music Enthusiast

Favorite Quotes

Point of no return

Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.

-- Franz Kafka



Infinity

Happiness is to see the world in a grain of sand, and Heaven in a wild flower, to hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in a single hour.

-- William Blake



Veggie Tales

I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants.

-- A. Whitney Brown



Enjoy life

Eat, drink and be merry... For tommorrow we die.

-- Epicurus



Fear of death

Let no man fear to die we love to sleep all, And death is but the sounder sleep

-- Beaumont



Dreams

Dreams are the eraser dust I blow off my page. They fade into the emptiness, another dark gray day. Dreams are only memories of the plans I had back then. Dreams are eraser dust and now I use a pen.

-- Edgar Allan Poe



Technology vs Magic

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

-- Arthur C. Clarke



Scientific Discovery

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny..."

-- Isaac Asimov



Important Points

If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time -- a tremendous whack.

-- Winston Churchill



True Beauty

Beauty is only skin deep, and the world is full of thin skinned people.

-- Richard Armour



Conformance

Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream

-- Malcolm Muggeridge



Order/Chaos

Without order nothing can exist - without chaos nothing can evolve

-- unknown



Never stop

It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.

-- Confucius



adaptation

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one that is most adaptable to change.

-- Charles Darwin



isolation

"We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies?all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes."

-- Aldous Huxley, "The Doors of Perception"



understanding

Everyone hears only what he understands.

-- Goethe



offsetting

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

-- intro to '1984' by George Orwell



the doors of perception

"If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would, appear to man as it is, infinite."

-- William Blake



mad as a hatter

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat. "We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad." "How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

-- Lewis Carroll ("Alice in Wonderland")



madness

 

"Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting."

-- John Russell



advice

"Why is it that people who always give advice never insist on taking it?"

-- James Bond, Casino Royale



who am I?

"Who am I? I'm the guy that does his f@#kin' job! You must be the other guy! 

-- Dignam, The Departed



puzzle pieces

"Listen, supergirl, I'm going to break you down into so many pieces that my grandmother, who can do a 1000 piece puzzle of a clear blue sky in under an hour, will never be able to put you together again, ever, even if she does go back in time to when her vision was perfect."

-- Dr. Cox to JD, Scrubs



Repetition

Repetition is the cause of success or failure.

-- Brian Danchilla



Suffering

We live without hope but always with desire.

-- dante's the divine comedy, inferno, canto #4



Invented Dice

<pre>B-Movie Actress: So what do you do?

Harry: I'm retired, I invented dice as a kid.</pre>

-- Robert Downey, Jr. "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang"



More Modesty

"you like that song? i wrote that. that's a good song there."

-- banjo playing guy on "Cola wars" documentary



Modesty
"As a lyricist, singer, and performer, Morrissey has created a mythology unrivaled in popular music. In fact, you have to go back to the legends of American cinema or British theatre to find an artist whose creative identity-whose public presentation of themselves-is so sealed within one particular sense of constancy... when one thinks about Morrissey's conversion from pop star into an entire cultural brand, it is tempting to make comparisons with Andy Warhol...he is one of the very few pop lyricists whose writing is judged by the highest standards of contemporary literature-a rare charateristic shared by a select few, such as Dylan and The Beatles-thus prompting the journalist Paul Morley to say(with reference to Britain's most prestigious literary award),"You could swap every winner of the Booker Prize for one song by Morrissey"...In many ways, he represents what is known in modern European philosophy as "the will to self-create"; another term for this would be auto-fact-in other words, the ability within an individual to realise himself as a mythology; a person who embodies an entire perception of life...One day there will most probably be a Faculty of Morrissey Studies in more than one distinguished seat of learning..."
-- Michael Bracewell's liner notes of "The Best of Morrissey"



Involvement
Tell me and I will forget;
Show me and I may remember;
Involve me and I will understand.
-- Chinese Proverb



Action

Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

-- Chinese Proverb



Teaching

When one teaches, two learn.

-- Robert Half



Limits
Always listen to the experts. They will tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it
-- Robert A. Heinlein



Invention
Everything that can be invented has been invented.
-- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899



Opening paragraph of A Tale of Two Cities
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
-- Charles Dickens



Matthew Good - Hello Time Bomb

if life is for the livid, check me tomorrow

--
matthew good
Our dreams are a reflection of ourselves

Our dreams are a reflection of ourselves: in dreams, no matter how many characters appear, we meet ourselves.

 

-- unknown



In the beginning...

In the beginning, there was nothing. And the Lord said 'Let there be light' and there was still nothing, but now you could see it.

-- Terry Pratchett



song to the siren

I'm as puzzled as a newborn child.
I'm as troubled as the tide.

--
tim buckley
song to the siren

Did I dream you dreamed about me?

--
tim buckley
draw the line
Well we had to pull on something
so we're grabbing at the threads
and now the world's unravelin'
inside our very heads

Glasses smeared with lipstick
hungry eyes out in the street
Same old bodies moving to the same old beat

Had to draw the line
Had to draw the line

All this talk of hypnotising
we can ill afford
to give ourselves to sentiment
when our time is oh so short

Names beneath the lichen
on these, cemetery stones
There are carnivals of silver fish
waiting to dance upon our bones

Had to draw the line
help me draw the line
help me draw the line
help me draw the line

I've been doubting yours baby
I've been doubting mine
I've been out of circulation
where the sun don't shine
I've been doubting fame and wealth,
charity, even love itself
draw the line

I aint saying he's bad baby,
I aint saying he's good
Merely that he ain't so different
'neath the executioner's hood

In the name of liberty,
in the name of brotherhood
had to draw the line
had to draw the line

Need to take some pride baby
need to take some heart
need to take evasive action
when the rumpass start

Here we are buck naked yeah
but where should we begin ?
when it's not the flesh we're after
but the howlin' ghost within

help me draw the line
help me draw the line
help me draw the line
need to draw the line
help me draw the line
need to draw the line
had to draw the line
(pack your bags we're going home)
(pack you're bags we're going home)
--
david gray
lioness

want my heart to break,
if it must break,
in your jaws

--
songs ohia
waiting for the night

if she hung around too much i might take her for granted
but when i was away, she seemed an angel
the only one who really cared about me
the only one without an angle

--
tom petty
kathleen

Telling myself I could be strong
Or some such brave bullshit

--
david gray
lies

Said the moon was ours
The hell with the day
The sunlight is always
Gonna take love away

--
black keys
duo glide

she wants her land back from the sea
she wants her soul in the trembling leaves

--
daniel lanois
true love song

wanted like a substitute, i've been working offly hard for you
...
it's a dark path and a heck of a toll

--
kings of leon
born losers 2

she could never flat out say that she don't want me, cause i could never say that half-way ain't enough

--
matthew good
born losers

when the lights come on this whole place gets ugly, but when they're out strangers fall in love

--
matthew good
nantes

Well it's been a long time, long time now
since I've seen you smile.
And I'll gamble away my fright.
And I'll gamble away my time.
And in a year, a year or so
this will slip into the sea

--
beirut
love will tear us apart

is my timing that flawed?
you've turned away on your side...
and love, love will tear us apart

--
joy division

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