Quotes: Pablo Vision

NEWS OF THE WORLD

Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. - Abraham Lincoln


You sold that child into slavery; you have suffered every parent's worst nightmare; you left her alone; we have never done anything like that, ever; you are victims of the cruelest crime imaginable; you killed her accidentally; you murdered her; you had the audacity to try and get on with your lives; our hearts go out to you, we will stand by you, forever; we have taken down the posters; we are still looking; you played tennis; you wore make up; we saw her; it was not her; you courted us for the publicity which we could give; ungratefully you questioned our opinions; you used us; we abused you; you phoned the police straight away; you didn't; there is an innocent explanation; you are as guilty as sin; you washed that cat; we can see the pain on your face; we can see through that charade; you are in our every thoughts; you went to church to pray; you hid her body; your loss is our loss; you cold heartless bitch; (with tears in our eyes) you poor, poor, woman; we want to forget and get on with our lives; we will never forget, we will never stop looking; we are obsessed; we are bored; why are you and your one white child worth more than a continent of starving black children; we can so identify with something so close to home, and too close for comfort; we know you so well; we know all the details of what really happened; we don't know you at all; we have no idea what really happened; but you will be judged; we will judge you; we already are; the shadow of the tree that extends over so many countries, over so many lives; lives like yours, and lives not like yours; what really happened, and who are you?

Character develops itself in the stream of life. - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

(A version of this story previously appeared in Word Slaw.)

Quotes: Matt Finney

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places. -Ernest Hemingway

AND AFTERWARD

And Afterward
I'm still not
Stronger
My asshole hasn't
Healed
13 years later
I kick
And scream
As if it's still
Happening
Cobain's a ghost
And I'll never have
The courage
Hemingway spoke of
I wasted my entire
Life trying not crumble
At the broken places.

Quotes: Howie Good

A GREAT PERHAPS

What is this?
It is walking toward me, without hurrying.

The sadness will last forever.

Write... write... pencil... paper.
I have not told half of what I saw.

Southerly gales, squalls, lee rail under water,
wet bunks.... Hurray for anarchy!

Now I can cross the Shifting Sands.
Please put out the light.

I am off in search of a great perhaps.
God will forgive me. It is his profession.


(Assembled from the last words of Leonard Bernstein, Jean Cocteau, Marco Polo, Richard Halliburton, George Engel, L. Frank Baum, Vincent van Gogh, Theodore Roosevelt, Rabelais, and Heinrich Heine.)

Quotes: David Lawrence

DISSENT

My sixteen-year-old boxing student wears
A button,
“Dissent is patriotic.”
I tell him that he is too young to vote;
His dissent is meaningless.
I tell him,
“Beating up arrogant youth
Is sublime.”
But I don’t hit him.
I am angrily amused by his confidence.
An amputee swings by on crutches.
Is he a veteran?
He has given a limb.
Sammy has given an opinion.
Since when is cutting a limb out from under
A soldier patriotic?

Quotes: Todd Moore

dillinger sd

never trust
a woman
or an auto
matic makley
flicked his
cigaret stub
at a passing
cop who
turned a
round to
give him a
stare sd
waddya do
if you
wanna get
laid dillinger
grinned sd
all bets
are off
when it's
a sweet
piece of
ass