now you know why there are quitters
This is where most people make a mistake…I have tried to explain that we are different. We are a city. We are not a country.
used my experience to convince her of my love
Ahmed Muhamed Dore, 112 years old on marrying a 17 year old:
I didn’t force her, but used my experience to convince her of my love; and then we agreed to marry.
this is as good a list as any
Six Basic Principles of Maturity:
1. Accept yourself
2. Accept others
3. Keep your sense of humor
4. Accept simple pleasures
5. Enjoy the present
6. Welcome work
the greatest lesson our ancestors have to teach us
The greatest lesson our ancestors have to teach us is to remain both vigilant and unafraid. We must endeavor to emulate the ancient Romans; calm, efficient, treating zombies as just one more item on a rather mundane checklist. Panic is the undead’s greatest ally, doing far more damage, in some cases, than the creatures themselves. The goal is to be prepared, not scared, to use our heads, and cut off theirs.
Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun
30 – Of all the good things here in the solitude, nothing could match a wall clock that went all through the dark winter, striking the hours prettily.
103 – … he was appalled at the expenses that being in love could lead to.
230 – Women cannot tell one man from another, not always, not often.
318 – You have no need of a sword in your hand, you walk through life barehanded and bareheaded in the midst of a great kindliness.
319 – Not everybody is, but you are: vital to the earth. You sustain life. You go on from generation to generation, fulfilling yourselves through sheer breeding; when you die, the new brood takes over. This is what is meant by eternal life.
a department of surprises
Anita Roddick on The Body Shop:
But that real sense of change, that anarchy– I tell Gordon we need a department of surprises. Whatever we do we have to preserve that sense of being different… We just have to make sure we don’t wind up like an ordinary company.
drinking late at the bar
wala wala played trance last night in the upper room and it was, as mr. tan put it:
just wrong.
i asked them to change the music.
they played Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car.
it’s astonishing how a song about abject poverty can cheer me up so quickly.
what i said under the influence
the best part about masturbation is that it does not involve public transport.
russian butter and asian values
back in the USSR, Russians know that when reports about the dangers of butter appear in the press, it was a sure sign that people would soon face a butter shortage.
here in Asia, when you read about politicians talking about “Asian values” in the press, it’s a sure sign that people would soon be confused with Confucianism, neutralised with sweet Namastes and sodomised as we Sawatdee-ka and bend.
don’t bend.
sympathetic pregnancy
FT:
In Yunnan, for example, near today’s Burmese border, (Marco) Polo encounters men who take to their bed for 40 days after their wives give birth, a practice known as “sympathetic pregnancy”.
A Vindication of Love by Cristina Nehring
2 – (Simone de Beauvoir) “There are few crimes which exacts a worst punishment than this generous fault: to put oneself entirely in another’s hands and thus be at his mercy.”
4 – If a man, as William Butler Yeats once claimed, “is forced to choose / Perfection of the life or of the work,” a woman is too often forced to choose perfection of the heart or of the head.
4 – How lucky for us: The literature of amorous surrender has inspired many of the resplendent poems of the English language.
6 – Love is “a frenzied passion which compels women to submit to a diminishing life in chains.” adds Andrea Dworkin in 1976.
7 – We inhabit a world in which every aspect of romance from meeting to mating has been streamlined, safety-checked, and emptied of spiritual consequence. We imagine that we live in an erotic culture of unprecedented opportunity when, in fact, we live in an erotic culture that is almost unendurably bland.
from ebony to ebony
When I was young, I went to a church where the lighter-skinned you were, the closer you sat to the altar.
once upon a time
…”Thou shalt not” might reach the head, but it takes “Once upon a time” to reach the heart.
Commentary: To The Devotees of Western Democracy and Human Rights
For a very poor Editorial, Ho Cheow Seng’s To The Devotees of Western Democracy and Human Rights has one of the most devastating opening paragraphs I have read in recent times:
one of the greatest threats we face
One of the greatest threats we face is from people who believe they are absolutely, certainly right about everything.
friday’s breakfast
i cannot recommend the salmon and scrambled eggs on croissant at the sandwich shop – it was too cold, too soft, too yellow.
so breakfast was poor but at least i saw 2 non-Asian women locking lips in front of the hitachi tower office lift lobby.
that was hot and it made me think yellow thoughts.
it wasn’t hard.
what to do when a panda attacks you
CR:
The book also offers advice in the event of a panda attack. As the images above show, the following procedure should be followed: 1. Wrap the animal’s torso in a towel or blanket so its front legs are bound to its body. 2. Slap it hard across the face. 3. Deliver the animal to the authorities.
three questions life planners ask
NYT:
The first question assumes you have all of the money you need — how would you live your life today? In the second, you are told that you have five years to live: what would you do with that time? And the final question aims right at the heart. You have 24 hours left on earth — what did you miss? Whom did you not get to be?
more than meets the eye
what my colleague said yesterday:
when the MRT came to Woodlands, I converted from bus to train.
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