Calabias Quotes & Sayings

Keats's odes are among my favorite poems ever. As are Neruda's. So yes, I think my poems are odes, though I really just see those titles as ways of more or less orienting the poem. I've never thought about this until now, but I guess you could say that one effect of all the titles, their pervasiveness in the book, might be to once again, as so many other things do, put into question the meaning of the word "for," which I suppose is one of the great human questions: what is all this for? Why, and for whom, are we doing whatever we are doing? — Matthew Zapruder

School was not a place I enjoyed. — Sean Harris

I need thy presence every passing hour; What but thy grace can foil the tempter's power? — Henry Francis Lyte

Although the Irish language is connected with the many recollections that twine around the hearts of Irishmen, yet the superior utility of the English tongue, as the medium of all modern communication, is so great that I can witness without a sigh the gradual decline of the Irish language. — Daniel O'Connell

Success, however, does nothing to diminish the knowledge that failure stalks everything you do. — Michael Chabon

I was 18 and making 150 quid a week, which was a lot of money to me. Then there was a bad winter and I got paid off. Then my firm, JW Henderson of Bowling Green Street, Leith, went bust. If they hadn't folded, I'd probably still be scaffolding and loving it. — Jamie Sives

Who can love to walk in the dark? But providence doth often so dispose. — Oliver Cromwell

In more ways than any of us can name, love is wrapped up with the idea of expectation. — Sharon Salzberg

A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians. — Frank Zappa

She had regained what I thought she had lost forever, the magical sadness which had drawn me to her, the thwarted look that had seemed to say, Surely I was made for some other purpose than this? — Evelyn Waugh

Shopping seemed to take an entirely too important place in women's lives. You never saw men milling around in men's departments. They made quick work of it. I used to wonder if shopping was a form of escape for women who had no worthwhile interests. — Mary Barnett Gilson

I had been poor myself, and knew what awaited him in the world. He would find that they who fawned on him most would be first to turn their backs on him now. He would be rudely disillusioned regarding the fables of love and friendship, and would become cynical, bitter, and sceptical of there being any disinterested good in human nature. — Miles Franklin

Sorry, I should have warned you. Apologies are the keystone of an enduring relationship. Failing to apologize for mistakes, or getting onto a treadmill of belittling insults, is a bad warning sign. So far we've avoided it, but . — Charles Stross