"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it."

- Roald Dahl

“Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity"

- Henry Van Dyke

Another gem from Seth Godin:

Once the water is deep enough that you must swim to stay afloat, does it really matter how deep the pool is?

A quote for the end of one year, and the start of another

I find I'm so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.

- Ellis Boyd 'Red' Redding (last lines from Shawshank Redemption)

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

- Timo Cruz in Coach Carter (2005)

Poetry Matters

Old slipper wearing pessimist
Had mentioned, when he wrote of Yeats:
'Poetry makes nothing happen...'And in the greater scheme of things
He's right... No poem ever stilled
The guns, prevented war, or stopped a fight.
But poems work as epitaphs;
Become the pillows for our dreams,
Gather us up when times are rough:
Provide a comfort, soothe our needs.
Poems can conjure life or death,
Daffodils or a thrush in spring;
Poems have room for all mankind -
From beauty to the kitchen sink;
Whether in free verse or in rhyme,
The good ones make you think.

-Patrick Osada

Meet Jeet Thayil

I recently chanced upon one of Jeet Thayil's poems and subsequently managed to get a copy of his first collection titled English. It is a brilliant and lyrical set of poems, written in a refreshingly simple style. These are two of my personal favourites.

September 10, 2001

How much harder it is to speak
when I have spent the whole day silent.
I would like to stop someone,
leave my room in the evening
and stop someone, a man without hope,
or a woman bent double, as if she were
searching the sidewalk for gems
caught in the cracks, and I would tell her
that each of us walks with the same
impossible burden, knowing
that only the stars will last --
she will listen to me, hear what I say
and go on her way, bent over as before,
never looking up at the approaching sky.

How to Be a Leaf

Hold your breath until
you are God's green thoughts.
Stop eating,

air will suffice for food.
Water is another matter:
the skin absorbs moisture,

eyes adjust,
limbs grow inward.
Conjugate patience.

Worship women and trees.

Going Home

This was written by one of my classmates. I thought it was beautiful.

Homesickness has little to do with home and everything to do with love.
When I am not happily in love I long for home where love waits hanging
on tree branches outside the house, and seeped into furniture fabric and the fuzz and fur of old blankets and missed pets. Sitting silently in memory and invisible to eyes that behold it in person, the home love is ideal.
It does not hurt or ask questions and it is forever steadfast; held eternally, and holding you back, in the mind’s eye. That’s why it’s so easy to leave it for the tangible brand of love, the kind you can touch without a twinge of sadness,
because you’re not sick for the old love
and the new love won’t make you sick, yet.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1833

The Road goes ever on and on,
Down from the door where it began,
Now far ahead the Road has gone-
And i must follow, if i can.

Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many path and errands meet-
And whither then? I cannot say.

JRR Tolkien

Lately, i have been having two recurring thoughts.

It is important to have an end to journey towards,
But it is the journey that's important, in the end.

A man travels the world in search of what he needs,
and then returns home to find it.

Nuff Said.

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
and I'm the only one and I walk alone

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone...

- Billie Joe Armstrong

Soliloquy of a Seed

"Something tells me
To surrender all I am
And hope to be;
And to descend
The dark of earth
To be transformed
Into a tree.

But to go up
Dare I go down;
And think a tree
Can fit in me?"

Thank You, Father Paulson

"There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge available to us: observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination.

Our observation of nature must be diligent, our reflection profound, and our experiments exact. We rarely see these three means combined; and for this reason, creative geniuses are not common."

And what do I wish for myself?

To love. To be loved. To never forget my own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away.

And never, never to forget.

- Arundhati Roy