"From the very beginning when I used to hear those solos on those old records I used to say: now here is an instrument that is capable of spewing forth true obscenity, you know? If ever there's an obscene noise to be made on an instrument, it's going to come out of a guitar. On a saxophone you can play sleaze. On a bass you can play balls. But on a guitar you can be truly obscene ... Let's be realistic about this, the guitar can be the single most blasphemous device on the face of the earth. That's why I like it .... The disgusting stink of a too-loud electric guitar: now that's my idea of a good time."
Frank Zappa
On double dating with Iggy Pop: "I visited Iggy in the studio. Somebody showed us a clipping with a personal ad, a young woman looking for 'a man with the mind of Leonard Cohen and the body of Iggy Pop'. We wrote a polite letter suggesting we meet sometime, both signed it and placed my telephone number under it. The girl answered. Unfortunately, her only interest was in leading profound conversations."
Leonard Cohen
"Voice mail? Isn't that where you go and shout through someone's letterbox?"
Anon
"When our vices leave us, we flatter ourselves with the notion that it is we who have left them"
Francois, Duc de la Rochefoucauld
"There are few moments in a man's existence when he experiences so much ludicrous distress, or meets with so little charitable commiseration, as when he is in pursuit of his own hat. A vast deal of coolness, and a peculiar degree of judgement, are requisite in catching a hat. A man must not be precipitate, or he runs over it; he must not rush into the opposite extreme, or he loses it altogether. The best way is, to keep gently up with the object of pursuit, to be wary and cautious, to watch your opportunity well, get gradually before it, then make a rapid dive, seize it by the crown, and stick it firmly on your head; smiling pleasantly all the time, as if you thought it as good a joke as anybody else.
There was a fine gentle wind, and Mr Pickwick's hat rolled sportively before it. The wind puffed, and Mr Pickwick puffed, and the hat rolled over and over as merrily as a lively porpoise in a strong tide".
Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers
Last updated Sept. 2nd 2008
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