The Little Grey Notebook

"Critics who treat ‘adult’ as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive..."

Fri, 24 May 2013 09:44:00 +0100

““Critics who treat ‘adult’ as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.””

- CS Lewis

"If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can..."

Sun, 05 May 2013 07:50:18 +0100

“

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

”

- If by Rudyard Kipling (1885) in Keating, P, Rudyard Kipling Selected Poems (London: Penguin Books,1993) p134

"Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly. Hold fast to..."

Sun, 05 May 2013 07:49:58 +0100

“

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

”

- Dreams by Langston Hughes (1926) in Rampersad, A, ed. The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (New York: Vintage,1995) p32

"Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim..."

Sun, 05 May 2013 07:48:52 +0100

“

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

”

- He Wishes For the Cloths of Heaven by W.B. Yeats (1899) in Yeats, W.B., The Collected Poems of W.B.Yeats (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth,2000) p59

"Thomson: Just our luck! The one time we manage to catch the culprits they turn out to be innocent!..."

Sun, 05 May 2013 07:47:36 +0100

“

Thomson: Just our luck! The one time we manage to catch the culprits they turn out to be innocent! It’s really too bad of them!

Thompson: You’d think they’d done it on purpose!

”

- Remi, Georges Prosper aka Hergé. Writer & Comic Strip Artist; May 22, 1907 - March 3, 1983

Find out more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hergé

"Society doesn’t want thinking men who arrive at their own convictions. It wants servants who do as..."

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 10:29:53 +0100

““Society doesn’t want thinking men who arrive at their own convictions. It wants servants who do as they are told. People prefer society to do their thinking for them … it’s easier. It takes away the need to make moral choices. It leaves nothing but the simple obligation to obey. Just imagine this world if no person could rely on a country to justify his actions. Just imagine if every man had to give a personal account for all he did. Hope for a human future lies not in nations or governments or religions. Not even in the stars themselves. It lies only in the human heart.””

- Albert Schweitzer (character)

Taken from:
Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
Chapter 11 - Oganga, The Giver and Taker of Life

"You see, the great secret, Eliza, is not a question of good manners or bad manners, or any..."

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 11:03:00 +0000

“You see, the great secret, Eliza, is not a question of good manners or bad manners, or any particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls. The question is not whether I treat you rudely, but whether you’ve ever heard me treat anyone else better.””

- Taken from: Professor Henry Higgins, My Fair Lady

Sir Rex Harrison, (March 5, 1908 - 1990), English Actor. Find Out More: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_Harrison

"When I grow up, I will be tall enough to reach the branches That I need to reach to climb the..."

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 12:13:11 +0000

“

When I grow up,
I will be tall enough to reach the branches
That I need to reach to climb the trees
You get to climb when you’re grown up.

And when I grow up,
I will be smart enough to answer all
The questions that you need to know
The answers to before you’re grown up.

And when I grow up,
I will eat sweets every day,
On the way to work, and I will
Go to bed late every night.
And I will wake up
When the sun comes up, and I
Will watch cartoons until my eyes go square,
And I won’t care ‘cause I’ll be all grown up.

When I grow up…
I will be strong enough to carry all
The heavy things you have to haul
Around with you when you’re a grown up.

And when I grow up…
I will be brave enough to fight the creatures
That you have to fight beneath the bed
Each night to be a grown up.

And when I grow up,
I will have treats every day,
And I’ll play with things that mum pretends
That mums don’t think are fun.

And I will wake up
When the sun comes up and I
Will spend all day just lying in the sun.
And I won’t burn ‘cause I’ll be all grown up.
When I grow up…

(Miss Honey:)
When I grow up,
I will be brave enough to fight the creatures
That you have to fight beneath the bed
Each night to be a grown up.

When I grow up…

(Matilda:)
Just because you find that life’s not fair, it
Doesn’t mean that you just have to grin and bear it.
If you always take it on the chin and wear it, nothing will change.
Just because I find myself in this story,
It doesn’t mean that everything is written for me.
If I think the ending is fixed already,
I might as well be saying I think that it’s OK,
And that’s not right!

”

- Tim Minchin (October 7, 1975 - ?), Australian comedian, musician, composer & actor.

Find Out More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Minchin

"I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When..."

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 12:56:00 +0000

“

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine till five,
For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
For they are hungry men.
But different folk have different views;
I know a person small—
She keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!

She sends’em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes—
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys!

”

- Rudyard Kipling - “I keep six honest serving men” from The Elephant’s Child.

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