Jon’s blog

I’m Canadian born and bred but a citizen of the world. I’ve had the good fortune to live in Canada, the USA, Germany, Ireland and China, and to have travelled in their neighbour countries. I write novels, short fiction, poetry and opinions. I take photos, I illustrate, design graphics and websites, give the occasional tattoo. I read and smoke cigars. I play guitar and drums not often enough. I laugh as often as possible.

I can be reached by comment here, or by email: jon [dot] copyright [at] gmail.

My prints @ Red Bubble

A portfolio of my photography @ Clean Folio

A 2010 calendar of my photos from China @ Lulu

My previously published stories and miscellany @ Deviant Art

My work in the HarperCollins slush @ Authonomy

You know that guy who’s always bandying quotes about? Yeah, I’m that guy. For better or worse. Here’s the full list of quotations that cycle in the sidebar, which I like for whatever reason. If you know any you think I’d dig, suggest away. Thoughtful, morbid, satirical, proverbial, whatever.

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A character is never the author that created him. It is quite likely, however, that an author may be all his character simultaneously. — Albert Camus

A completed novel, in my experience, can be viewed as an unbroken chain of resistances overcome or evaded. — Tim O’Brien

A creative person is a person who creates things. You either create something or you don’t. Period. — Mark McGuinness

A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it’s better than no inspiration at all. — Rita Mae Brown

A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed. — Ansel Adams

A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but a person with a certain set of attitudes. — Scottish Proverb

A hero is one who knows how to hang on one minute longer. — Norwegian Proverb

A life without cause is a life without effect. — Barbarella

A man with no enemies is a man with no character. — Paul Newman

A man’s at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know with. — Cormac McCarthy

A man’s got to know his limitations. — Dirty Harry

A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened. — Albert Camus

A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it. — Roald Dahl

A poor man is like a foreigner in his own country. — Ali

A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason. — Margaret Atwood

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. — Greek Proverb

A true friend is one who knows all about you and likes you anyway. — Christi Mari

A wounded man shall say to his assailant: if I live I will kill you, if I die you are forgiven. — Italian Proverb

A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world. — Susan Sontag

Action is the antidote to despair. — Joan Baez

After three days without reading, talk becomes flavourless. — Chinese Proverb

Ah, like Romeo and Juliet. I know all about that, Capulets and Romulans. — 30 Rock

All I know is that I know nothing. — Plato

All these books, he thought, the residue of a planet’s intellect, the scrapings of futile minds, the leftovers, the potpourri of artefacts that had no power to save men from perishing. — Richard Matheson

Almost anything is easier to get into than out of. — Agnes Allen

Always do more than what is required of you. — George S. Patton

America is one of the finest countries anyone ever stole. — Bobcat Goldthwait

Americans know as much about Canadians as straight people do about gays. — Buddy Cole

An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself. — Charles Dickens

Analysis is love’s worst enemy. It lurks in our darkest corners bearing uncanny semblance to intuition. — Rin Gristwood

And I don’t give a damn. Well, actually I do, but it’s a good damn. — Dave Howden

Any writer who knows what he’s doing isn’t doing very much. — Nelson Algren

Anything fits a naked man. — Irish Proverb

Art is magic, and not all magic is white. — Stephen King

Art is the proper task of life. — Nietzsche

Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact. — William Burroughs

As if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose. — Rilke

As president, I believe that robotics can inspire young people to pursue science and engineering. And I also want to keep an eye on those robots in case they try anything. — Barack Obama

As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys. — William Blake

At any given time a white person is doing something critically acclaimed. — Aziz Ansari

At least one way of measuring the freedom of any society is the amount of comedy that is permitted. — Eric Idle

At the end of the game the king and the pawn go back in the same box. — Italian Proverb

Athletes: Jesus doesn’t care if you win the game, so stop thanking him. I’ve never heard anyone blame Jesus when they lose the game. — Bill Maher

Back off man, I’m a scientist. — Bill Murray

Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. . .Like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature thine own. — Herman Melville

Be happy while you’re living, for you’re a long time dead. — Scottish Proverb

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. — Philo

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who has said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your common sense. — Buddha

Between two barbers in a shop, choose the one with the worst haircut. They cut each other’s hair. — George Cameron

Beware of a man of one book. — English Proverb

Beware of people who dislike cats. — Irish Proverb

Blackmail is such an ugly word. I prefer extortion, the “x” makes it sound cool. — Bender

But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the sinner who needed it most? — Twain

Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell. Which is Judaism, actually. — John Stewart

Carpe dizzum, na’mean. — J-Rock

Clearly they did not take into account the special love between a man and his camera. — Jacob Lickers

Cocaine is God’s way of telling you you’re making too much money. — Robin Williams

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. — Churchill

Culture consists of the gratuitous stylish extras we add to the things we have to do. You have to eat, but you don’t have to decorate elaborately prepared curries with silver leaf. You have to move around, but you don’t have to dance. — Brian Eno

Culture is everything we don’t have to do. — Brian Eno

Dad never even told me there was a cabin in the woods he wasn’t taking me to. — GOB

Decisions are your friends. — Malcolm Burn

Did you sleep well? No, I made a couple of mistakes. — Stephen Wright

Do not condemn the judgement of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong. — Dandemis

Do not dip under anything that’s lower than you can dip. — Gary Busey

Do not hold grain waiting for higher prices when people are hungry. — Zoroaster

Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause. — Sir Richard Francis Burton

Don’t confuse the map with the territory. — Japanese Proverb

Don’t limit yourself. How you start is how you finish. — Bernie Mac

Don’t worry that someone’s gonna copy you, it won’t happen. If you’re doing it right nobody can copy you. — Chase Jarvis

Don’t write merely to be understood. Write so that you cannot possibly be misunderstood. — Robert Louis Stevenson

Dying is a waste of money. — Elissa

Either once only, or every day. If you do something once it’s exciting, and if you do it every day it’s exciting. But if you do it, say, twice or just almost every day, it’s not good any more. — Andy Warhol

Empowering women is the best climate change technology. — Kim Stanley Robinson

Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old. — Jonathan Swift

Every writer ends as his own and least intelligent disciple. — Jorge Luis Borges

Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart. — Rumi

Excuse me while I have a strange interlude. — Groucho Marx

Food is like electricity for people. — Krach der Roboter

Fools look to tomorrow. Wise men use tonight. — Scottish Proverb

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. — Douglas Casey

Forget love, I’d rather fall in chocolate. — Crystal Lee Fletcher

Girls don’t like beards because they’re jealous that they can’t grow them. Note that bearded ladies like beards. I rest my case. — Jacob Lickers

Given that you’ve got to die, it obviously doesn’t matter exactly how or when. — Albert Camus

Go out from your village: don’t let your village go out from you. — Afghan Proverb

God gave you a penis and a brain and only enough blood to run one at a time. — Robin Williams

God grant me a good sword and no use for it. — Polish Proverb

Good guys don’t lurk. — Burt Ward

Hands are the doorknobs to the soul. — Gabe & Max

Happiness is a byproduct of function, purpose, and conflict; those who seek happiness for itself seek victory without war. — William Burroughs

He had learned that having someone to care for was the same as being cared for by someone else. — J. G. Ballard

He hadnt known how stupid pain could make you and he thought it should be the other way around or what was the good of it. — Cormac McCarthy

He who seeks vengeance must dig two graves: one for his enemy and one for himself. — Chinese Proverb

How young can you die of old age? — Stephen Wright

Hundreds of miles of bleak, monotonous, scorched steppe can never be so utterly depressing as someone who just sits and chatters away. — Anton Chekhov

I am a part of all that I have met. — Tennyson

I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach for, perfection is God’s business. — Michael J. Fox

I asked a guy once, what is it about cocaine that makes it so wonderful. The guy said, well, it intensifies your personality, and I said yes but what if you’re an asshole? — Bill Cosby

I believe you have a responsibility to comport yourself in a manner that gives an example to others. As a young man, I prayed for success. Now I pray just to be worthy of it. — Brendan Fraser

I didn’t know people could have muscles in their upper bodies, that’s news to me. — Conan O’Brien

I didn’t really think about audience. — Joni Mitchell

I died a mineral, and became a plant. I died a plant and rose an animal. I died an animal and I was a man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying? — Rumi

I don’t know about doing a sequel. I think you can retroactively damage a product by adding to it. — Simon Pegg

I don’t believe in miracles. I believe in character. — Pat Dye

I don’t think there’s anything exceptional or noble in being philanthropic. It’s the other attitude that confuses me. — Paul Newman

I fear not the man who has practiced ten thousand kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick ten thousand times. — Bruce Lee

I figure without the story there’s really no use being out there. — Clint Eastwood

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. — Groucho Marx

I firmly believe that a story is only as good as the villain. — Clive Barker

I have never in my life seen this nation more divided than it is today. “Divided” really understates the position that our country is in. It’s just plain broke. — John Mellencamp

I have the world’s largest collection of seashells. I keep it on all the beaches of the world—perhaps you’ve seen it. — Stephen Wright

I intend to live forever. So far, so good. — Stephen Wright

I learned a long time ago not to disagree on things I don’t have a solid opinion about. — Paul Newman

I passionately hate the idea of being with it, I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time. — Orson Welles

I used to think it was possible for a novelist to alter the inner life of the culture. Now bomb-makers and gunman have taken that territory. They make raids on human consciousness. What writers used to do before we were all incorporated. — Don DeLillo

I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything. — Stephen Wright

I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. — Groucho Marx

If A equals success, then the formula is A equals X plus Y plus Z, with X being work, Y play, and Z keeping your mouth shut. — Albert Einstein

If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it. — Isadora Duncan

If I were a writer, how I would enjoy being told the novel is dead. How liberating to work in the margins, outside a central perception. You are the ghoul of literature. Lovely. — Don DeLillo

If it can be taken from you it was never you to begin with. After they take away all they can, what remains is you. — David Mack

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster. — Isaac Asimov

If punk rock and Einstein don’t get you excited, you have no soul! — Dave Howden

If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow. — Chinese Proverb

If you do it someone else’s way you take your life into your own hands. — Dirty Harry

If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one. — Dolly Parton

If you don’t stand for something you fall for anything. — Chuck D

If you want to be happy, be. — Tolstoy

If you’re going through hell, keep going. — Churchill

If you’re playing a poker game and you look around the table and can’t tell who the sucker is, it’s you. — Paul Newman

In 1972, nobody lost. . .Now we could see that the best players in Russia could play with the NHL. It opened the door for the European players in the NHL today. . .Who won? Hockey won. — Vladislav Tretiak

In Los Angeles, it’s like they jog for two hours a day and then they think they’re morally right. That’s when you want to choke people, you know? — Liam Neeson

In love there is always one who kisses, and one who offers the cheek. — French Proverb

In the end, writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals. — Don DeLillo

In this world, there are things you can only do alone, and things you can only do with somebody else. It’s important to combine the two in just the right amount. — Haruki Murakami

Intellectuals go to class to study things that people do naturally. — Bill Cosby

Is you worried now, like, that terrorists might hijack a train and crash it into da Whitehouse? — Ali G, to the director of the CIA

It is better to live one day as a lion than a thousand days as a lamb. — Roman Proverb

It is just as cowardly to judge an absent person as it is to strike a defenceless one. — Lawrence G. Lovasik

It isn’t so much trouble to get rich as it is to tell when we have got rich. — Josh Billings

It occurred to me that eating is the only form of professionalism most people ever attain. — Don DeLillo

It takes two to get one in trouble. — Mae West

It was always himself that the coward abandoned first. After this all other betrayals came easily. — Cormac McCarthy

It’s the oldest and the first mass medium. . .The book is very well worked out, somewhat in the way that the wheel is very well worked out. — William Gibson

It’s easy to describe things when you hate them immensely. — Aditi Machado

It’s good for Americans to leave their country at least once a year. Otherwise they start to think they have a culture. — Lewis Black

It’s hell writing and it’s hell not writing. The only tolerable state is having just written. — Robert Hass

It’s important to indicate. People don’t try to show their feelings, they try to hide them. — Robert De Niro

It’s not a failure if you try, it’s just a loss. — Mike Wessel

It’s when you treat people like freaks that you become one yourself. — Dolly Parton

I’m old. Or maybe I’m tired, they feel the same. — John Cleese

I’m pretty sure the term “bros before hos” was coined by The Beatles. — Sondra Piea

I’ve come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version. — Don DeLillo

I’ve never met a priest who honestly expected miracles in his own lifetime. For them miracles are like good wine, best when aged. — Glen Cook

Just another breathtaking example of how American know-how can help alleviate the suffering it creates. — John Cusack

Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water, and when you’re tired, go and lie down. The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand. — Bruce Lee

Just remember, there’s a wrong way and a right way to do everything and the wrong way is to keep trying to make everybody else do it the right way. — M*A*S*H

Knowledge without the mileage means nothing to me. — Henry Rollins

Life can be tough, but it’s tougher if you’re stupid. You think you got problems? Get in my private jet and we’ll go to Somalia or Rwanda. I’ll drop you off in the middle of Baghdad. — David Pelzer

Life is too important to be taken seriously. — Oscar Wilde

Long goodbyes suck. Short goodbyes suck. I don’t think there are many good goodbyes. — Jason Gumbley

Look and think before opening the shutter. The heart and mind are the true lens of the camera. — Yousuf Karsh

Look back, and smile on perils past. — Sir Walter Scott

Love is the most important thing in the world, but hockey is pretty good too. — Some Kid

Machines making machines, how perverse. — C-3P0

Man gets accustomed to everything, the scoundrel! — Dostoevsky

Mediocre artists borrow. Great artists steal—and make better. — Lawrence Olivier

Most really creative people contradict themselves somewhere, because they see so many different points of view. — Robert Downey, Jr.

Most things in life are moments of pleasure and a lifetime of embarrassment; photography is a moment of embarrassment and a lifetime of pleasure. — Tony Benn

My allegiance is to art, to the work, I have no allegiance to magazines, producers, studios, networks or anything. The work is what counts. — Harlan Ellison

My aunt died in my uncle’s pizza delivery truck. I couldn’t help thinking it’s been over thirty minutes, I guess she’s free. — Bruce McCulloch

My dad’s message was that we should respect others for how they’re different from us, not how they’re similar. He appreciated eccentrics and dreamers. That’s what his characters are. — Brian Henson

My old French teacher used to say Danny if you’re looking for sympathy it’s in the dictionary between shit and syphilis. — Danny Bhoy

My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there. — Rumi

Never ask God to give you anything; ask him to put you where things are. — Mexican Proverb

Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence. — Anonymous

Never don’t be confidant. — Gabe & Max

Never eat more than you can lift. — Miss Piggy

Never take advice from anyone with no investment in the outcome. — David Hare

No matter how deeply I go down into myself, my god is dark and like a webbing made of a hundred roots that drink in silence. — Rilke

No one can say where a book comes from, least of all the person who writes it. — Paul Auster

No one cares about what you think, unless you do what you think. No one cares what you do, unless you think about what you do. No one ever really cares what you say. — Jack Schulze

Nobody wants to follow somebody who doesn’t know where he’s going. — Joe Namath

Notions of chance and fate are preoccupations of men engaged in rash undertakings. — Cormac McCarthy

Observe the wonders as they occur around you. Don’t claim them. Feel the artistry moving through and be silent. — Rumi

Of course I told them to fuck off. Then, out loud, I said I’d consider it. — Mark McKinney

Oh, I usually flush, but I’m getting more conscious environmentally. So last night I peed in a blue box. — Kevin McDonald

Once you retire, there’s only one big event left. — Bobby Bowden

One cannot count on riches. — African Proverb

One must be pitiless about this matter of “mood.” In a sense, the writing will create the mood. — Joyce Carol Oates

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important. — Bertrand Russell

One recognizes one’s course by discovering the paths that stray from it. — Albert Camus

Open up your heart and let the rap shine in. — Mr. Show

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars. — Khalil Gibran

People confuse poverty with misery. — Billy Wilder

People have not yet learned that every work of art is a game played out at the worktable. . .That means to construct, like an architect plans a building. Yet we prefer to believe that a novelist invents because he has a genius whispering into his ear. — Umberto Eco

Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures. — Don McCullin

Play so that you may be serious. — Anacharsis

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. — Leonard Cohen

Poetry is mostly hunches. — John Ashberry

Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. — Carl Sandburg

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies. — Groucho Marx

Popular art is the dream of society; it does not examine itself. — Margaret Atwood

Power is not revealed by striking hard, or striking often, but by striking true. — Balzac

Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as if everything depended on you. — Saint Augustine

Procrastination is a zombie with fangs. — Anissa Collishaw

Prose is prose because of what it includes; poetry is poetry because of what it leaves out. — Marvin Bell

Prose is the new black. — Alfred Mayhew III

Raising your voice: the next best thing to being right. — Demetri Martin

Reality is a crutch for people who can’t handle drugs. — Lily Tomlin

Remember the old adage about how an infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters will eventually type something beautiful? Well, the Internet disproves that. — Kurt Vonnegut

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, it’s at the end of your arm, as you get older, remember you have another hand: the first is to help yourself, the second is to help others. — Audrey Hepburn

Resistance knows that the more psychic energy we expend dredging and re-dredging the tired, boring injustices of our personal lives, the less juice we have to do our work. — Steven Pressfield

Respond to a lie with the truth, not against the lie. — Gord Naylor

So I haven’t performed a tracheotomy I’ve just stabbed a man in the neck with a pen? — Rick Mercer

So the king sent out his four sons to the ends of the earth, to build kingdoms, ‘cause that’s what you did in those days. — Dr. David Smith

So we’ve made a mistake in war, so we stay there and kill as many Americans as we possibly can? Yeah that’s the way you get out of a mistake. — David Letterman

Sometimes I pity myself. And all the while I am being carried on great winds across the sky. — Sioux Proverb

Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you’re exactly the same. — Audrey Hepburn

Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand. — Chinese Proverb

Ten thousand changes, no surprises. — Japanese Proverb

The best answer to anger is silence. — German Proverb

The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one. — Oscar Wilde

The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death. — Steven Pressfield

The critic hates most that which he would have done himself if he had had the guts. — Steven Pressfield

The end of all our exploring will be to arrive when we started and know the place for the first time. — T. S. Eliot

The enemy is a very good teacher. — The Dalai Lama

The first duty of a man is to think for himself. — Jose Marti

The first time you quit, it’s hard. The second time, it gets easier. The third time, you don’t even have to think about it. — Bear Bryant

The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain. — Byron

The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. — Aristotle

The heroes of all times have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find God. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we will be with all the world. — Joseph Campbell

The ideas dictate everything, you have to be true to that or you’re dead. — David Lynch

The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder. — Alfred Hitchcock

The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him. — Thomas Hardy

The mask possesses equal parts sorcery and functionality. — Haruki Murakami

The most gentle people in the world are macho males, people who are confident in their masculinity and have a feeling of well-being in themselves. They don’t have to kick in doors, mistreat women, or make fun of gays. — Clint Eastwood

The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. — Donald Kendall

The penis doesn’t fall far from the tree. I may be mixing metaphors. — Jim Carrey

The probability of the actual is absolute. That we have no power to guess it beforehand makes it no less certain. That we may imagine alternate histories means nothing at all. — Cormac McCarthy

The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work. — Robert Frost

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing—if you can fake that, you’ve got it made. — Groucho Marx

The secrets of evolution are time and death. — Carl Sagan

The thousand mysteries around us would not trouble but interest us, if only we had cheerful, healthy hearts. — Nietzsche

The truth is that as a man’s real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do. — Ursula LeGuin

The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. — Harlan Ellison

The unhappy have but hours, and these they lose. — John Dryden

The urge to excel and the urge to lead aren’t the same. Sometimes I think they may be opposites. — Kim Stanley Robinson

The world owes you nothing; it was here first. — Twain

The wrath of God lies sleeping. It was hid a million years before men were and only men have power to wake it. Hell aint half full. — Cormac McCarthy

The writer is an infantryman. He knows that progress is measured in yards of dirt extracted from the enemy one day, one hour, one minute at a time and paid for in blood. The artist wears combat boots. — Steven Pressfield

There are two kinds of light: the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures. — James Thurber

There is more government in Canada than any other place in the world. Almost half the population works for the government and the other half is worked on. — Annie Proulx

There is no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out. — Russian Proverb

There is no such thing as winning, there’s only doing better than you did before. Because once you give up you’re just waiting to die. — Gene Simmons

These are the two sides of my life, which is really one side, and that’s the side of making things right. — Master Legend

This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. — Shakespeare (Polonius)

This had to be great. It couldn’t be good, because there’s a big fucking difference. It had to be great, because good just doesn’t cut it. — Hugh Dillon

This is a nation that has lost the ability to be self-critical, and that makes a lie out of the freedoms. — Joni Mitchell

This world is a comedy to those that think, and a tragedy to those that feel. — Horace Walpole

Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead. — Benjamin Franklin

To know the road ahead, ask those coming back. — Chinese Proverb

Tokyo turns you into a bank account balance with a carcass in tow. — David Mitchell

Tornado Violence: Are Tornadic Images In The Media To Blame? — The Onion

Try to write poems at least one person in the room will hate. — Marvin Bell

Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism the reverse is true. — Polish Proverb

Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it. — Bruce Lee

We are looking to brands for poetry and spirituality, because we’re not getting those things from our communities or from each other. — Naomi Klein

We are our own devil. — Georgina Spelvin

We can only control the end by making a choice at each step. — Philip Dick

We have a secret longing for apocalypse, I think. — Harold Ramis

We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action. — Frank Tibolt

We triumph without glory when we conquer without danger. — Pierre Corneille

Weekends don’t count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless. — Bill Watterson

We’re actors: we’re the opposite of people. — Richard Dreyfuss

We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance. — Japanese Proverb

We’ve got to support those young men and women who are out there protecting our big, fat, bloated lifestyle. — Dan Aykroyd

What they want to hear is here’s how you get an agent, here’s how you write a script, here’s how you do this—but I always say, “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” — Steve Martin

What you can’t get out of, get into wholeheartedly. — Mignon McLaughlin

What, you think you’re the first guy to have his cock bit by a snake? — Trailer Park Boys

Whatever prevents you from doing your work has become your work. — Albert Camus

Whatever we do to the environment we do directly to ourselves. — David Suzuki

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it. Begin it now. — Goethe

When a writer is born into a family, the family is doomed. — Czeslaw Milosz

When did smelling like a human being go out of fashion? — Aditi Machado

When love goes wrong, nothing goes right. — Marilyn Monroe

When will mankind learn that all races are equally inferior to robots. — Bender

When you fall into a pit, you either die or get out. — Chinese Proverb

When you make tea your heart should be at peace. — Chinese Proverb

When you throw dirt you lose ground. — Texan Proverb

When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art. — Leonardo da Vinci

Where you find quality you will find a craftsman, not a quality control expert. — Robert Brault

Why do we remember the past but not the future? — Steven Hawking

Without music, life would be a mistake. . .I would only believe in a God who knew how to dance. — Nietzsche

Without obsession, life is nothing. — John Waters

Without sounding like a pseudo-intellectual dipshit, it’s my responsibility to be true to myself. If it works for me, it’s right. — Clint Eastwood

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom. — Greek Proverb

Write, damn you! What else are you good for? — James Joyce

Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. — Churchill

Writing is the fine art of placing the seat of one’s pants in the seat of one’s chair. — Sinclair Lewis

Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money. — Jules Renard

Writing is very much a playground; an artistic playground. It’s the most fun thing to do. — Shania Twain

You are not either a pirate or a good person. — Stephen Fry

You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. — Cormac McCarthy

You can’t blame the president for everything that’s wrong in this country. That’s like blaming Ronald McDonald if you get a bad cheeseburger. — Bobcat Goldthwait

You can’t eat eight hours a day nor drink for eight hours a day nor make love for eight hours—all you can do for eight hours is work. Which is the reason why man makes himself and everybody else so miserable and unhappy. — William Faulkner

You can’t have everything. Where would you put it? — Stephen Wright

You can’t trust anything with a thorax or mandibles. — Jacob Lickers

You didn’t put me on the list. I had to dress up like fuckin’ Puff Shady to get in here. — Bubbles

You find out who people really are very quickly when you all have to face a common enemy. — Sigourney Weaver

You have to be a little crazy to be a writer. — Steven Pressfield

You is sharks, sartin; but if you gobern de shark in you, why den you be angel; for all angel is not’ing more dan de shark well goberned. — Herman Melville

You know, seeing that strange robot force those twelve children do his bidding made me think of having children of my own. — Futurama

You must be drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. — Ray Bradbury

You never know how a horse will pull until you hook him to a heavy load. — Bear Bryant

You see, the interesting thing about books, as opposed, say, to films, is that it’s always just one person encountering the book, it’s not an audience, it’s one to one. — Paul Auster

You will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange cats. — American Proverb

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. — William Burroughs

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. — Rumi

You’ll never plough a field by turning it over in your mind. — Irish Proverb