On Dumpster Diving

The things I find in Dumpsters, the love letters and the ragdolls of so many lives, remind me of this lesson. Now I hardly pick up a thing without envisioning the time I will cast it away. This I think is a healthy state of mind. Almost everything I have now has already been cast out at least once, proving that what I own is valueless to someone. 

~Lars Eighner

Yes Please

I believe great people do things before they are ready. 

~Amy Poehler

History of the Peloponnesian War

My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the taste of an immediate public, but was done to last for ever. 

~Thucydides

Days We Have Seen

'Quo Vadis?' I asked myself, "Where are you going?" The answer was that I was following my heart; that I felt there was a 'rightness' about what I was doing that was unshakeable. 

~Peter Moore

The Count of Monte Cristo

It was a lovely starlight night--they had just reached the top of the hill Villejuif, the platform from whence Paris, like some dark sea, is seen to agitate its millions of lights, resembling phosphoric waves,--waves indeed, more noisy, more passionate, more changeable, more furious, more greedy, than those of the tempestuous ocean,--waves which never lie calm, like those of the vast sea,--waves ever destructive, ever foaming, and ever restless. 

~Alexandre Dumas

The Colossus of New York

Disappear into a crowd. It's right there in the city charter: we have the right to disappear. The city rushes to hide all traces. It's the law. 

~Colson Whitehead

The Colossus of New York

Do not tire. Do not falter. Listen up because I'm only going to say this once: We need all our monuments, no matter what size, carved stone or mortal clay. Do not doubt you inspire with every breath, that every breath is a marvel of engineering. Deserve everything. 

~Colson Whitehead