February 9 Quotes & Sayings

The Beatles first appeared on our show on February 9, 1964, and I have never seen any scenes to compare with the bedlam that was occasioned by their debut. Broadway was jammed with people for almost eight blocks. They screamed, yelled, and stopped traffic. It was indescribable ... There has never been anything like it in show business, and the New York City police were very happy it didn't - and wouldn't - happen again. — Ed Sullivan

It is growing cold. Winter is putting footsteps in the meadow. What whiteness boasts that sun that comes into this wood! One would say milk-colored maidens are dancing on the petals of orchids. How coldly burns our sun! One would say its rays of light are shards of snow, one imagines the sun lives upon a snow crested peak on this day. One would say she is a woman who wears a gown of winter frost that blinds the eyes. Helplessness has weakened me. Wandering has wearied my legs. — Roman Payne

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.
[The New Statesman, February 25, 1933] — Cyril Connolly

Violets are God's apology for February ... — Barbara Johnson

DARWIN'S "SACRED CAUSE"?
Much ink has been dedicated to determining Charles Darwin's role in "scientific racism." The only way to empirically and scientifically determine his role is to organize the events as a timeline, and thus placing them into context of historical events. Political analysis without historical context is all sail and no rudder. In America we are constantly made aware that both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the same day, in the same year, February 12, 1809. Adrian Desmond and James Moore famous 2009 book, "Darwin's Sacred Cause," leverages this factoid in an effort to place Charles Darwin at par with Abraham Lincoln in the abolition of slavery. This fraudulently steals away credit from Abraham Lincoln, who took a bullet to the head for the cause, and transfers it by inference to an aristocrat whom remained in his plush abode throughout the conflict and never lifted a finger for the cause. — A.E. Samaan

If I could be God for a day, I would instantly replace July and August with two Septembers so the twelve months of the new calendar year would consist of January, February, March, April, May, June, September, September, September, October, November, December. On second thought, I'd also replace December with another September, thus deleting the Mas season and ending the year with a fourth September. The Mas season, once known as Christmas until we took Christ out of it, leaving only mas, the Spanish word for more, is my least favorable month of the year because of the greed-mandated financial, emotional and spiritual stresses that the economy-dependent celebration of Mas imposes. — Lionel Fisher

Nothing is more likely to start me screaming like a madwoman than New York in February with its piles of blackened snow full of yellow holes drilled by dogs. — Florence King

In February there is everything to hope for and nothing to regret. — Patience Strong

Roebling rejoined the Army of the Potomac in February 1863 back at Fredericksburg, where he was quartered late one night in an old stone jail, from which he would emerge the following morning with a story that would be told in the family for years and years to come. The place had little or no light, it seems, and Roebling, all alone, groping his way about, discovered an old chest that aroused his curiosity. He lifted the lid and reaching inside, his hand touched a stone-cold face. The lid came back down with a bang. Deciding to investigate no further, he cleared a place on the floor, stretched out, and went to sleep. At daybreak he opened the chest to see what sort of corpse had been keeping him company through the night and found instead a stone statue of George Washington's mother that had been stored away for safekeeping. — David McCullough

February's so gloomy in this part of the world", said Mrs. de Roo, "don't you think? It's not so much a month as a twenty-eight day long Monday morning — David Mitchell

Valentine's Day money-saving tips: Break up on February 13th, get back together on the 15th. In place of bubble bath, use lavender-scented dish-washing liquid. Forget rose petals. Sprinkle the bed with sliced beets! — David Letterman

Funeralese has had its ups and downs. The word 'morticians,' first used in Embalmers Monthly for February, 1895, was barred by the Chicago Tribune in 1932, 'not for lack of sympathy with the ambition of undertakers to be well regarded, but because of it. If they haven't the sense to save themselves from their own lexicographers, we shall not be guilty of abetting them in their folly. — Jessica Mitford

What's good about March? Well, for one thing, it keeps February and April apart. — Walt Kelly

Look at the films of Walt Disney: 'Snow White' came out in February 1938, and I can't think of another film from that year that's watched as much. The same is true of 'Bambi,' 'Dumbo' ... even, frankly, 'Toy Story,' which is probably watched more than any other movie of 1995. — John Lasseter

Let me just suggest to everybody, and I hear - last February [2015], I said we needed to have people on the ground in a coalition with Europe and our allies. This is not going to get done just by working with the Sunnis. And it is not going to get done if we just embed a few people. — John Kasich

December is the toughest month of the year. Others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, October, August, and February. — Mark Twain

On February the fourteenth, 1890, I was born. Everybody was furious, especially my Father, who still is. As soon as I became conscious of anything I was furious too... — Nina Hamnett

February
Boris Pasternak
It's February. Get ink. Weep.
Write the heart out about it, sing
Another song of February
While raucous slush burns black with spring.
Six grivnas* for a buggy ride
Past booming bells, on screaming gears,
Out to a place where drizzles fall
Louder than any ink or tears
Where like a flock of charcoal pears,
A thousand blackbirds, ripped awry
From trees to puddles, knock dry grief
Into the deep end of the eye.
A thaw patch blackens underfoot.
The wind is gutted with a scream.
True verses are the most haphazard,
Rhyming the heart out on a theme.
*Grivna: a unit of currency. — Boris Pasternak

Do you recall telling Dr. Phillips during your appointment on February second of last year that you needed to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases because - let me make sure I get this correct here . . ."
Taylor read out loud from her file,

"Because, quote, 'your weasel-dick husband slept with a skanky whore stripper and the cheating bastard didn't use a rubber'?"

Ms. Campbell shot up in her chair. "She actually wrote that down?"

The jury tittered with amused laughter and sat up interestedly. Finally - things were starting to look a little more like Law & Order around here.

"I take it that's a yes?" Taylor asked. — Julie James

Let's zoom in on a particular form of synesthesia as an example. For most of us, February and Wednesday do not have any particular place in space. But some synesthetes experience precise locations in relation to their bodies for numbers, time units, and other concepts involving sequence or ordinality. They can point to the spot where the number 32 is, where December floats, or where the year 1966 lies.8 These objectified three-dimensional sequences are commonly called number forms, although more precisely the phenomenon is called spatial sequence synesthesia.9 The most common types of spatial sequence synesthesia involve days of the week, months of the year, the counting integers, or years grouped by decade. In addition to these common types, researchers have encountered spatial configurations for shoe and clothing sizes, baseball statistics, historical eras, salaries, TV channels, temperature, and more. — David Eagleman

Gray February skies, misty white sands, black rocks, and the sea seemed black too, like a monochrome photograph, with only the girl in the yellow raincoat adding any color to the world. — Neil Gaiman

We will have to see whether the practicing through the years has prepared me for the writing of a book. For this is the book I have always wanted and have worked and prayed to be able to write. We shall see whether I am capable. Surely I feel humble in the face of this work. And as our Roman friends would say when casting outside themselves for help, Ora pro mihi. February — John Steinbeck

the Chicago Tribune said on February 8, 1937: . . . . there is entertainment in erudition. — Judith C. Waller

In February 1991, I was rushed to the hospital in Los Angeles to have my feet amputated. Three years earlier, I had broken the national 100 meters hurdles record while a student at UCLA and was a favourite for the event at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. — Gail Devers

A public library is the most enduring of memorials, the trustiest monument for the preservation of an event or a name or an affection; for it, and it only, is respected by wars and revolutions, and survives them.
[Letter to the Millicent (Rogers) Library, February 22, 1894] — Mark Twain

And everyone knew there was no fucking way Colt would get near February. — Kristen Ashley

16 February. Can't see my way clear. As though everything I possessed had escaped me, and as though it would hardly satisfy me if it all returned. — Franz Kafka

January brings the snow / Makes your feet and fingers glow / February's ice and sleet / Freeze the toes right off your feet / Welcome March with wintry wind / Would thou wer't not so unkind / April brings the sweet spring showers / On and on for hours and hours ... — Michael Flanders

What I look for these days is that I don't have long speeches, the characters gets to sit down a lot, I don't have to learn any foreign languages, and it doesn't shoot in Minneapolis in February. That's mainly what I look for. — Alan Arkin

Facebook was founded on February 4, 2004. On February 5, we were feeling pretty confident, even from observing the first few hours of usage. Students used it like crazy. They'd sign up then spend the next 3-4 hours on it. Then we'd go to lecture hall and see it on every computer screen there. — Dustin Moskovitz

I love any excuse to come to New York - when it's not February. — K.A. Applegate

Crystal-clear revelation struck Zane like a bolt of summer lightning, sizzling through the chill of February air. — Abigail Roux

While the budget resolution is a nonbinding blueprint, it is, nevertheless, an important guideline for Congress. Once the President's proposed budget is received by Congress on the first Monday of February, Congress generally goes to work on appropriating the funds required. — Marsha Blackburn

That day -- Monday, 25 February 1980 -- unfolded, in the context of British politics, much like any other day. Government, in those days, happened rather like a tree falling in a forest when there was no one there to witness it. For those among the Great British Public who wanted to believe that something was happening, the assumption was that something was indeed most probably happening, while for those who still needed to see it, or hear it, to believe it, there remained a high degree of doubt that anything was happening at all. — Graham McCann