Spring Spleen Quotes & Sayings

The dream of death is only the dark smoke
Under which the fires of life are burning. — Hermann Hesse

Summer had come to sit on New York's face. — Tom Robbins

Today, a similar debate rages in black communities about the underlying causes of mass incarceration. While some argue that it is attributable primarily to racial bias and discrimination, others maintain that it is due to poor education, unraveling morals, and a lack of thrift and perseverance among the urban poor. Just as former slaves were viewed (even among some African Americans) as unworthy of full citizenship due to their lack of education and good morals, today similar arguments can be heard from black people across the political spectrum who believe that reform efforts should be focused on moral uplift and education for ghetto dwellers, rather than challenging the system of mass incarceration itself. — Michelle Alexander

Hear, nature, hear; dear goddess, hear!
Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend
To make this creature fruitful!
Into her womb convey sterility!
Dry up in her the organs of increase;
And from her derogate body never spring
A babe to honour her! If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen; that it may live,
And be a thwart disnatured torment to her!
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth;
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks;
Turn all her mother's pains and benefits
To laughter and contempt; that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child! Away, away! — William Shakespeare

Every year, I travel extensively in the autumn and the spring. I set most of the winter and summer aside for my family and my own tribal relatives. But during that traveling time, I often find myself visiting other native communities around the continent - perhaps a dozen or more each year. — Joseph Bruchac

It's your heart. No one else gets a say in that. — Jay Asher

I died last night. Seventy years too young. — Colin Thompson

Hard times are coming, when we'll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. — Ursula K. Le Guin

grow in Texas, several as common weeds. Next time you are weeding your garden, instead of throwing the
wood sorrel in the garbage, toss the leaves into a salad or use them to flavor a soup. The fresh leaves and tender green fruit pods add a zingy sour flavor to vegetable dishes. Wood sorrel is high in vitamin C and was used in the past to prevent and treat scurvy, which is caused by a vitamin C deficiency. Wood sorrel is available year-round (Gibbons and Tucker 1979; Fleming 1975; Zennie and Ogzewella 1977). — Delena Tull

I congratulate the outgoing Nigeria President Mr Goodluck Jonathan for his grace in conceding defeat. — Raila Odinga

I reached the stage where I was afraid to wiggle my leg, but then I thought 'why shouldn't I?' It's what I do and now I know how to turn an audience on again. — Steve Marriott

A wish is the link between what is and what could be. It is a vine woven into a bridge between the two. Once complete, the bridge is crossed and the wish then turns into what is while a far distant what could be becomes the catalyst for another wish. So you see, life is nothing more than a string of wishes connected by our own handwoven bridges. — Richelle E. Goodrich

The problem was that the only reality he could see what a nut-brown nymph who could whisper like a song and move like a river of honey. — Frank Lee

I am happy the leaves are growing large so quickly. Soon they will hide the neighbor and her screaming child. — Lydia Davis

Blame is a change-avoidance strategy. — Andy Stanley