Thursday, December 08, 2005

Oscar Wilde and others

"Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff"
~ Mariah Carey

"Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life."
~ Brooke Shields

"That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I'm just the one to do it."
~ A congressional candidate in Texas

"Half this game is ninety percent mental."
~ Philadelphia Phillies manager, Danny Ozark

"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."
~ Al Gore, US Vice President

"The word 'genius' isn't applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein."
~ Joe Theisman, NFL football quarterback & sports analyst


"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
~ Bill Clinton, former US President

"If we let the loggers go in and cut down all the trees we wouldn't have a problem with forest fires."
~ George Bush

A few by Oscar Wilde:

Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success.

Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects. (:-p)

*When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs.

To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.

There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. *It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.*

There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. *Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.*

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.

Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.

Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years. ( =)) )

The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.

But what is the difference between literature and journalism?
...Journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. That is all.

Only the shallow know themselves.

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.

My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's. ( ;-) )

One's real life is often the life that one does not lead.

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.

Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays. ( :-p )

Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.

Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace.

It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.

*I am not young enough to know everything.

**Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

Biography lends to death a new terror. (:-p)

At twilight, nature is not without loveliness, though perhaps its chief use is to illustrate quotations from the poets.

Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.

A man who moralizes is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralizes is invariably plain. (hmmm...)

Crying is the refuge of plain women but the ruin of pretty ones.

Men know life too early. Women know life too late. That is the difference between men and women. ( /:) )

Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood. (...guys!!)

My dear young lady, there was a great deal of truth, I dare say, in what you said, and you looked very pretty while you said it, which is much more important. ( :)) )

Women give to men the very gold of their lives. But they invariably want it back in such very small change.

I am sick of women who love one. Women who hate one are much more interesting.

I prefer women with a past. They're always so damned amusing to talk to.

People who count their chickens before they are hatched, act very wisely, because chickens run about so absurdly that it is impossible to count them accurately. =))

It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about, nowadays, saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true.

*We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.

The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.

Nothing spoils a romance so much as a sense of humor in the woman - or the want of it in the man. ;-)

One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.

Young men want to be faithful and are not; old men want to be faithless and cannot.

Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect - simply a confession of failures.

Nowadays to be intelligent is to be found out.

Sunday, December 04, 2005

My day today

...was not exactly what I'd planned it to be (as usual, I had planned to study A LOT :-p).
___________
Anyway, I woke up at sth like 1 pm, which is late even by my standards.
___________
Another thing worth mentioning - I had missed my fairwell while I had been home to attend my sister's marriage (plan to write a blog abt tht too, if I get time). So like the good juniors that they are, my juniors came to meet (?) me, and I got my 'fairwell title' which went -
'Ek ada aapki dil churaane ki
Ek ada aapki dil mein bas jaane ki
Ek chehra aapka chaand sa
Aur ek zid humaari chaand paane kii'
I wish I studied in co-ed! :-p
Also got a beeeautiful photo-frame. Haven't yet put up a pic in it!
__________
Well, I'm not particularly financially sound these days, and to add to my 'gareebi', I came to know abt this book fair in Banasthali. I'd promised myself I won't buy anything. But as they say, promises are meant to be broken. So I ended up buying seven books (I had selected some 15 or so).
  • A collection of stories by Edgar Allan Poe. I had always liked his style of writing, plus his feel-good stories.
  • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I already had Tom Sawyer's, but Huckle's my fav and I absolutely had to buy this!
  • Another collection of stories by Ismat Chugtai 'Chidi ki Dukki'. Seems interesting. Lesse.
  • Yet another collection, by Bhishma Sahni, titled - Vangchu.
  • Collection of Russian folk tales - 'Ilya ki Bahaduri'. I've always had this thing for russian tales, they're short, sweet and well written (almost always).
  • Collection of Indian folk tales - reminded me of my Nandan days. I wish they're good. (both these folk tales' books are for Nanu)
  • And, lastly - Midnight's Children. I had no particular reason for buying this, except tht I had nothing by Sulman Rushdie in my collection till now. Though I've often tried reading Booker winning books, I always end up promising myself never to pick another one up again. Still, I got this one. Lesse if I cud finish it :-p
__________
After a couple of hours of studying, as always my mind drifted away. And I realised there are songs which I like for no reason (I always find reasons for liking a song first, be it anything - lyrics, voice, music). But these are the songs which shud have come in my un-likeable category-
  • Kyun Chhupaate Ho Mann Ki Baat (Mann) - A typical Nadeem-Shravan song, with typical Sameer lyrics, and typical Udit Narayan voice (I like UN thou'). There's no reason why I shud like this one.
  • Diye Jalte Hain, Phool Khilte Hain (Namak Haraam) - I don't usually like songs abt friendship. Not this much. Maybe it's the RD-Kishore combo!
  • Woh Chaand Jaisi Ladki (Devdas) - Why?! I don't know!!
  • Haaye Rama Yeh Kya Hua - I want to hate this song, but I can't.
========
~Yet again Pseudo-Random
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