"Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today." --Malcolm X

"For the Lord your God is living among you,

He is a mighty Savior.

He will delight in you with gladness.

With His love, He will calm all your fears.

He will rejoice over you with joyful songs."

--Zephaniah 3:17

"Never trust a man who hasn't brought a book." -Lemony Snicket

 I always appreciate the Lemony Snicket quotes I steal from Leah...usually they are about books, and it makes me happy that someone else holds books in the same high esteem I do.

"marty.lamain: I was reading away, just amazed, and then the sand fairy came
marty.lamain: I told her it wasn't open hours, but she stayed anyways
marty.lamain: and made me fall asleep." --Marty, via Skype

"Technology is wonderful...when it works." --Mom

This is a very, very true statement. I was reminded of this when I had to take my computer into tech support AGAIN last night to have it wiped and re-imaged. That is the third time this school year that my computer has ceased working correctly and I've had to do this. Sometimes I wonder if all this technology is really worth the trouble. And then it scares me a little when I'm without my computer for a night and feel naked and exposed--my dependence on technology is a bit unnerving. Our dependence as a culture is heightening more and more...hopefully it won't increase too much more, otherwise we'll become like the people in the Disney-Pixar movie Wall-E. We'll see. =]

"The name of the talk she was giving at the conference was 'Music and Sexuality'. I'd go to that--if only because 'sexuality' is in the title." --PVD

"The Christian lives by grace as Abba's child, utterly rejecting the God who catches people by surprise in  a sign of weakness--the God incapable of smiling at our awkward mistakes, the God who does not accept a seat at our human festivities, the God who says 'You will pay for that', the God incapable of understanding that children will always get dirty and be forgetful." --Brennan Manning, Abba's Child

"Being vague is almost as much fun as that other thing." --Matthew Westerholm

"Friendship isn't a big thing - it's a million little things."  --Author Unknown

"We can often endure an extra pound of pain far more easily than we can suffer the withdrawal of an ounce of accustomed pleasure."  --Sydney J. Harris

"It's neither of them...let's kill Stephanie." --Lauren, while playing 'Mafia'

"A guy calls the musicians' guild to get a quote on a 6 piece band for a wedding. The rep says 'Off the top of my head, about $2000.' He says 'WHAT? FOR MUSIC?' The rep responds 'I'll tell you what. Call the plumbers' union & ask for six plumbers to work from 6 to midnight on a Saturday night. Whatever they charge you, we'll work for half.'"

It's so true. Musicians seem to be constantly short-changed...pun intended. And yet, I wouldn't have another profession for all the money that's found in other professions.

"You don't really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around - and why his parents will always wave back."  --William D. Tammeus

"Why did Professor Snape stand in the middle of the road? So no one could tell what side he was on."

"The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellarful of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two hundred proof grace--of bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the Gospel--after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps--suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started...Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, nor the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case."--Robert Capon

"Love is like playing the piano. First you must learn to play by the rules, then you must forget the rules and play from your heart."

"It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold:  when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade."  --Charles Dickens

"Interesting--you're afraid of women and insects. Ladybugs must render you catatonic." --Sheldon, The Big Bang Theory

"Fast from judging others; feast on Christ dwelling in them.

Fast from fear of illness; feast on the healing power of God.

Fast from words that pollute; feast on speech that purifies.

Fast from discontent; feast on gratitude.

Fast from anger; feast on patience.

Fast from pessimism; feast on optimism.

Fast from negatives; feast on alternatives.

Fast from bitterness; feast on forgiveness.

Fast from self-concern; feast on compassion.

Fast from suspicion; feast on truth, God’s truth.

Fast from gossip; feast on purposeful silence.

Fast from problems that overwhelm; feast on prayer that sustains.

Fast from worry; feast on faith."

–Rev. Arthur Lichtenberger

"There's a difference between being unmotivated and being so brain dead that you literally can't even figure out what it is you have to do, let alone make yourself do it." --Me

"Mandie, I go through that point at least once a semester, where for a few days I just drink Diet Coke and watch the OC." --Caley

"Let's drive off, take the night off, seek what they sought, maybe they'll find it; let's do what they all dreamed of, what no one would speak of, it might be outrageous, but this might just save us." --Cities and Saints

"Yes yes yes I can still spell after coffee yes yes yes." --Kalie-O (*stares at me without blinking*)

"Just a hint though, don't listen to any sappy dashboard confessional love songs at this point in your life. They just make me want to get married. Right now. Masochist." --Aubry

“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.” --Elizabeth Kubler Ross

"A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song."

"This coffee falls into your stomach, and straightway there is a general commotion.  Ideas begin to move like the battalions of the Grand Army of the battlefield, and the battle takes place.  Things remembered arrive at full gallop, ensuing to the wind.  The light cavalry of comparisons deliver a magnificent deploying charge, the artillery of logic hurry up with their train and ammunition, the shafts of with start up like sharpshooters.  Similes arise, the paper is covered with ink; for the struggle commences and is concluded with torrents of black water, just as a battle with powder."  --Honore de Balzac, "The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee"

"Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk."  --Doug Larson

"Before I was humiliated I was like a stone that lies in deep mud, and he who is mighty came and in his compassion raised me up and exalted me very high and placed me on the top of the wall."

"Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me." 

--St. Patrick

Happy St. Patrick's day, everyone. I hope you read these and realize what a wonderful man of God Saint Patrick was, rather than just think green and shamrocks. =]

  

"Bach is the Pentateuch, Beethoven is the Psalms, and Chopin is our New Testament." --PVD

"Love is a very expensive commitment. That's why Jesus had to come." --Tibebe

"You're the boy with a real nice smile,
But a broken heart inside.
Give it to a girl, gave it to a girl,
And I think she lost her mind.
Are you giving up and done?
Are you through with all this?
Are you tired of the pain?
Torn to pieces.
Can you let me try?
Tell me it's all right,
Just for one night.
Show you how to feel like,
What it feels like.
To be hugged, to be kissed.
Yes I can be that part of you.
I'll try my best.
I'm the girl, I can make you smile,
And I promise to be true.
Give it all,
Give until there's nothing left to lose.
Don't say you're giving up and done,
That you're through with all this.
Yeah you're tired of the pain,
Torn to pieces.
I see that you're breaking,
Your heart is breaking.
Here's my hand if you'll take it,
We can make it out,
Of all this mess.
No more stress.
I can be that part of you
I'll try my best.
Give me your heart,
I don't want a piece or a part,
I want it all.
I want you to fall,
Just a little bit.
Take that leap of faith,
If you want to,
Don't let that broken heart haunt you."

--"Prove You Wrong" (He is We)

"Hope is grief's best music."  --Anonymous

"I was kinda bad-mouthing him in the car to my parents. 'Oh--just go bake some bread. Make some muffins.'" --Aubry

As people go farther educationally into their specialty, the mindset of their field starts taking over until absolutely everything can be said in a way that is specific to their field. This is true pretty much across the board--it's just the nature of life. One of my best friends is in a culinary program (she's a district award winning chef, by the way), and this fact of life became very clear to me last night when she said the words 'bad-mouthing' and it was followed by a fierce command to go bake bread. The she said it so vehemently you would have thought it should have belonged in an R-rated movie...but she was just talking about baked goods. Go figure. I love my best friends.

"The only requirement of having a dream is believing in it." --Molly Barker

"I'm thinking about going back and getting my PhD. I want to build a fusion reactor and not have it be a bomb." --Dad

The conversations my dad and I have when we go out to dinner together cover an astonishingly wide variety of subjects and I generally learn a LOT. I still remember the day we were at Arby's (I was, what, eleven?) and he taught me about prime numbers. Good stuff. Last night we were at Taco Bell and out of the blue he says this. This fueled (no pun intended) a long conversation about higher education, how graduate and doctoral programs differ between the sciences, etc. Another gem from that conversation: "There's a B.S.--we all know what that is. And M.S. is More of the Same, and a PhD is Piled Higher and Deeper." Awesome.

"The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about it which the cheering influence of the afternoon or evening cup of tea cannot be expected to reproduce."  --Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., "Over the Teacups"

"As the great philosopher Jagger once said, 'You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, that you get what you need.'" --c/o 'House'

"Having someone help you doesn't mean you've failed--it means you're not in it alone." --Messer, Life as We Know It

"You give but little when you give of your possessions.  It is when you give of yourself that you truly give."  --Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

*after reading several of Kalio’s messages regarding the film in class* “Kalie-O! What effing movie were you watching? It made sense when you watched the whole thing!!!” –Kayla

"I got this shirt for $3--but when you unroll the sleeves they only come halfway to your wrists. Maybe if I'd paid $4 they would have given me a whole shirt..." --Melody