"Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life... you give them a piece of you.
"They don't ask for it. The do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own any more. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like 'maybe we should just be friends' or 'how very perceptive' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love."
--Rose Walker, Sandman: The Kindly Ones (Neil Gaiman)

"Through me the road to the city of desolation
Through me the road to sorrows diuturnal
Through me the road among the lost creation.

"Justice moved my great maker; God eternal
wrought me: the power and the unsearchably
high wisdom, and the primal love supernal.

"Nothing ere I was made twas made to be
Save things eterne, and leterne abide;
lay down all hope, you that go in by me."
-- Dante, The Divine Comedy
Cantica 1: Hell
(the inscription on the gateway to Hell>

"I hide nothing from you, not my ignorance, nor my fear, not the simple terror that if I try I might fail. I do not even know if it is mine to give more than once, or what is the price of giving it, but I will risk this for you, and we will discover it together, whatever the mystery and the terror, just as I've discovered alone all else."
--Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat

"Death is there to keep us honest and constantly remind us we are free."
-- Dan Fogelberg, "Ghosts"

"Maybe this world is another planet's hell."
-- Aldous Huxley

"Every man is as God made him, aye, and often worse."

-- Miguel de Cervantes

"When we hold each other, in the darkness, it doesn't make the darkness go away. The bad things are still out there. The nightmares still walking. When we hold each other we feel not safe, but better.'It's all right' we whisper, 'I'm here, I love you.' and we lie: 'I'll never leave you.' For just a moment or two the darkness doesn't seem so bad."
-- Neil Gaiman, "Hold Me"

"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."
-- C.S. Lewis

"There is no knight in shining armor, there is no white stallion. There is only heartbreak and pain, and, amidst it all, somewhere, a rainbow."
-- UNK

"Many people lead unhappy, unachieved lives. And that's sad. Goth is about making depression and angst a lifestyle choice, and that's art."
-- from 'The Goth Primer' (http://lexicon.psy.tufts.edu/gothic/primer.html)

"Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it."
-- Andre Gide

"A night full of passion can bring a lifetime of pain."
-- Thin Line Between Love & Hate

"Anything happens to my daughter... I've got a .45 and a shovel. I doubt anybody would miss you."
-- Mel, Clueless

Healthy is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

"You're trying to keep the world out by being aggressively funny, or by mocking it, because somewhere along the line, you let it in, you hurt."
-- Robin Williams

Advice from my mother:
"Men shouldn't have balls. They don't deserve them."
"Men don't know what to do unless you tell them"
"You know how your father is... he doesn't deserve them either."

Angel: "This isn't some fairy tale. When I kiss you, you don't wake up from a deep sleep and live happily ever after."
Buffy: "No, when you kiss me, I wanna die."
--"Reptile Boy"

"Oh, yeah, you're just friends. You're not friends, you'll never be friends. You'll be in love 'til it kills you both. You'll fight and you'll shag and you'll hate each other 'til it makes you quiver. But you'll never be friends.
"Love isn't brains, children, it's blood... blood screaming inside you to work its will.
"I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."
-- Spike, 'Lovers Walk'

"I'm gonna do what I should've done in the first place. I'll find her, wherever she is, tie her up, torture her... until she likes me again."
-- Spike, 'Lovers Walk'

Drusilla:"I'm naming all the stars."
Spike:"You can't see the stars, love. That's the ceiling. Also, it's day."
Drusilla:"I can see them. But I've named them all the same name, and there's terrible confusion."
--"Innocence"

Giles:"What do you want?"
Angelus:"I want to torture you. I used to love it, and it's been a long time. I mean, the last time I tortured somebody, they didn't even have chainsaws."
--"The Becoming, Part II"

"We like to talk big, vampires do, 'I'm going to destroy the world.' It's just tough-guy talk. Strut around with your friends over a pint of blood. The truth is, I like this world. They've got dog racing, Manchester United, and you've got people. Billions of people walking around like Happy Meals with legs. It's alright here."
--Spike, "The Becoming, Part II"

"You have your way with him, you'll never get to destroy the world, and I don't fancy spending the next month trying to get librarian out of the carpet."
--Spike, "The Becoming, Part II"

Willow: "This is creepy. I don't like the thought that there is a vampire out there that looks like me."
Xander: "Not looks like, is"
Buffy: "It was exactly you, Wil. Every detail. Except for you not being a dominatrix...as far as we know."
Willow: "Oh, right, me and Oz play mistress of pain every night."
Xander: "Did anyone else just go to a scary visual place?"
Buffy: "Oh, yeah."
--"Dopplegangland"

Willow: "It's horrible. That's me as a vampire? I'm so evil, and skanky, and I think I'm kind of gay."
Buffy: "Willow, just remember, a vampire's personality has nothing to do with the person it was."
Angel: "Well, actually...that's a good point."
--"Dopplegangland"

"I walk. I talk. I shop, I sneeze. I'm gonna be a fireman when the floods roll back. There's trees in the desert since you moved out, and I don't sleep on a bed of bones."
--Buffy, "Dreams"

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

"So quake with fear, you tiny fools!"
Frank N. Furter, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show"

"It's something you'll get used to... a mental mind fuck can be nice..."
Frank N. Furter, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show"

"Courage is knowing what not to fear."
-- Socrates

"You cannon possess me for I belong to myself
But while we both wish it, I give you that which is mine to give
You cannon command me, for I am a free person
But I shall serve you in those ways you require
and the honeycomb will taste sweeter coming from my hand

"I pledge to you that yours will be the name I cry aloud in the night and the eyes into which I smile in the morning
I pledge to you the first bite of my meat and the first drink from my cup
I pledge to you my living and my dying, each equally in your care
I shall be a shield for your back and you for mine
I shall not slander you, nor you me
I shall honor you above all others, and when we quarrel we shall do so in private and tell no strangers our grievances

"This is my wedding vow to you
This is the marriage of equals."
-- Morgan Llywelyn, Celtic Wedding Vow

"This is not a good town for psychedelic drugs. Reality itself is too twisted."
--Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

"I have seen the darkness creep along the wall,
I have heard my madness chatter before day
I have seen the world roll up in a ball
Then suddenly dissolve and fall away."
-- T.S. Eliot

"All that is gold does not glitter
Not all those who wander are lost
The old that is strong does not wither
deep roots are not reached by the frost
From the ashes a fire shall be woken
A light from the shadows shall spring
Renewed shall be blade that was broken
The crownless again shall be king."
-- The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien

"I do not love you as if you were salt-rose or topaz
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved
in secret, between shadow and soul

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where
I love you straightforwardly, without complexity or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exists, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep."
-- Pablo Neruda

"There is no need for any individual to have a computer in their home."
-- Ken Olsen, 1977
President, Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC)

"Who's the more foolish -- the fool or the fool who follows him?"

-- Obi-Wan Kenobi

"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning."
-- Rich Cook

"OK, but I'm in charge and I'll get used to being in charge, and it'll be hard to deal with me from now on unless I'm in charge."
-- Bill Gates (in 11th grade)

"Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning."
-- Bill Gates

"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger."
-- Gandalf, Lord of the Rings

"A knife between the ribs will cramp even the subtlest wizard's style."
-- Vlad Taltos, Athyra

Scully: "Look... there... tracks in the sand..."
Mulder: "Looks like a snake."
Scully: "It would take a large python HOURS to consume and WEEKS to digest a human being."
Mulder: "You really do watch the Learning Channel, don't you?"
-- The X-Files (duh!)

"remember the first time i told you 'i love you'
it was raining hard and you never heard
you sneezed and i had to say it over
i said 'i love you' i said
you didn't say a word
just held your hands to my shining eyes
and i watched as the rain ran through your fingers
held your hands to my shining eyes
and smiled as you kissed me

'if you die' you said 'so do i' you said
and it starts the day you make this sign
tell me i'm forever yours and you're forever mine
forever mine

'if you die' you said, 'so do i' you said
and it starts the day you cross that line
i swear i will always be yours and you'll always be mine
you'll always be mine always be mine

remember the last time i told you 'i love you'
it was warm and safe in our perfect world
you yawned and i had to say it over
i said 'i love you' i said
you didn't say a word
just held your hands to your shining eyes
and i watched as the tears ran through your fingers
held your hands to your shining eyes
and cried

'if you die' you said 'so do i' you said
but it ends the day you see how it is
but there is no 'always forever'
just this
just this

'if you die', you said, 'so do i' you said
but it ends the day you inderstand
there is no 'if', just 'and'
there is no 'if', just 'and'
there is no 'if'
-- The Cure, 'There is no if...'

"can you not hear me anymore
i know it's not your thing to care
i know it's cool to be so bored
it sucks me in when you're aloof
it sucks me in, it sucks the worst
i guess it's cool to be alone
and you, you never rest
fight the battle of who could care less
every day you wake up late
sometimes i wish i was that way

you think rockford files was cool
but babe there are some things you would change if it were up to you
so think about your masterpiece
watching rockford files you call to see if paul can score some weed
still you never rest
fight the battle of who could care less
honored unhappiness
that's all right i guess

i've got this great idea
why don't we pitch it to the franklin gosh-darned mint
signed pewter portraits of general apathy
and major boredom singing whatever and ever
oh well maybe not
i'll try again
this should cheer you up for sure
see i've got your old ID
and you're all dressed up like the cure
still you never rest
fight the battle of who could care less
honored unhappiness
you're my hero, i confess..."
-- Ben Folds Five, "Battle of Who Could Care Less"

"how each of us decided
i've never been sure
the part we play
the way we are
how each of us denies any other way in the world
why each of us must choose
i've never understood
one special friend
one true love
why each of us must lose everyone else in the world."
-- the cure, 'this is a lie'

"she said i don't know if i'ver been good enough
i'm a little bit rusty and i think my head is caving in
and i don't know if i've ever been really loved
by a hand that's touched me
and i feel like something's gonna give
and i'm a little bit angry"
-- matchbox 20, 'push'

"I broke apart my insides
Help me, I've got no soul to sell
Help me, the only thing that works for me
Help me, get away from myself."
-- NIN "closer"

"who am i to need you now
to ask you why
to tell you no
to deserve your love and sympathy
you were never meant to belong to me
who am i to you?
along the way i lost my faith
and as you were gone you'll be again
to mold like clay, to break like dirt
to tear me up in your sympathy
you were never meant to belong to me
you were never meant to belong to me
you were never meant to belong to me
who am i?
--'Crestfallen', Smashing Pumpkins, ADORE

"prick your finger
it is done
the moon has now eclipsed the sun
the angel has spread his wings
the time has come for bitter things"
-- Marilyn Manson, "cryptorchid"

"You spoonfed us morning mouthfuls of maggots and lies disguised in your sugary breakfast cereals. The plates you made us clean were filled with your fears. These things have hardened in our soft pink bellies. We are what you have made us. We have grown up watching your television. We are a symptom of your Christian America, the biggest Satan of all. This is your world in which we grow. And we will grow to hate you."
--Marilyn Manson

"Traded in my bible for a little black cat
the time of armageddon's here
some call me the son of the morning
God knows I'm the angel of light."
--The Misfits, "Speak of the Devil"

"It would have been both ironic and glamorous to be finished off by a 4-foot glitter ball."
--Boy George, after narrowly escaping injury when a 62 lb. disco ball fell from the ceiling where he was rehearsing.

How to answer irate tech calls:
"I think we should be issued tin-foil beanies and respond with quotes from Strindberg."
--Paul Gallagher

"Ain't I a Purdy Lemming?"
--Ryan Tilder

"I'm not one of those stealth homosexuals, nor do I fly low and hard, sneaking up from behind. I am wonder bread and apple pie, with the faint smell of sandlewood."
--Garth Webb

"I'm not one of those 'nature' people. If it's green, you put it on a plate and slap some ranch dressing on it."
--Steven Fairchild

"NACHOS! And my KEYS!"
--Josh Rogers

"I was at home. Trumpety felt the brunt of my sexual tension."
--Josh (again)

"Kat and Luc,
sittin' in a tree
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
First comes love,
then comes... some sort of weird Wiccan ritual..."
--Josh

"I think that every once in a while you have to stand out in the middle of a field and scream at the universe, demanding what it is that you want out of life, and tell it where it stands in your book of things. I've always felt that, if the universe doesn't respond by hitting my sorry ass with lightning right that minute, then maybe it's giving some thought to what I had to say."
--Eric Webster

"Rome, do you find yourself saying 'yes' every time you pick up a milk carton?"
--Quill (Mike Dodds), The Madrid Game ('TMG')

"I'll spend a blood point to pump up my strength, and then... I'll quaff!"
--Aner (Corwin Milby), TMG

Rome: "What clan?"
Colin: "Lycanto."
[GM: THAT rings a bell.]
Rome: I'm scribbling: L -- Y -...
No, wait. I erase. "Ravnos."
-- Rome/Josh Rogers, Colin/Eric Webster, GM/Michael Williams, TMG

Celeste: "I have the best little haunted whorehouse in Texas."
Aner: "We're not in Texas."
Celeste: "Oh, whatever."
-- Celeste/Kat Leonard, Aner/Corwin Milby, TMG

Rome: "I'm standing by the car, and it's run--..."
GM: "The car? It's 1894."
Rome: "Okay, I'm standing by the horses. The horses are running."
Mike Dodds: "The horses are in neutral."
-- Quill/Mike Dodds, Rome/Josh Rogers, GM/Michael Williams, TMG

"Yes, there is a big crowd with couches."
-- GM Michael Williams, TMG

Quill: "Burn our bridges!"
Rome: "That wasn't a bridge. That was a pothole, effectively, in our lives."
Quill: "We burned that, too."
-- Rome/Josh Rogers, Quill/Mike Dodds, TMG

"I smile at him, that soggy tottering mass."
-- Celeste/Kat Leonard, in reference to Quill/Mike Dodds, TMG

"if you have a question or comment for an individual on the team, please direct it to that person. possibilities include phone, smoke signals, or my personal favorite, telepathy."
-- Matthew Butterick

"There are two major products that came out of U Cal Berkley:
LSD and Unix.
We do not believe this to be a coincidence."
--Jeremy S. Anderson

"I wish mom had told me the same thing about guys as she had about horror movies when I was 5: 'Don't worry, honey, it's all fake.'"
-- Jill Kostelecky

God creates dinosaurs.
God destroys dinosaurs.
God creates man.
Man destroys God.
Man creates dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs eat man.
Women rule the earth.

-- Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

"And to the query: 'What is a friend?', he replies: 'A single soul living in two bodies.'"
-- Aristotle

"It is sad to think that the first few people on earth needed no books, movies, games, or music to inspire cold-blooded murder. The day that Cain bashed his brother Abel's brains in, the only motivation he needed was his own human disposition to violence. Whether you interpret the Bible as literature or as the final word of whatever God may be, Christianity has given us an image of death and sexuality that we have based our culture around. A half-naked dead man hangs in most homes and around our necks, and we have just taken that for granted all our lives. Is it a symbol of hope or hopelessness? The world's most famous murder-suicide was also the birth of the death icon -- the blueprint for celebrity. Unfortunately, for all of their morality, nowhere in the Gospels is intelligence praised as a virtue."
--Marilyn Manson, Rolling Stone magazine, June 24

See thou Character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his Act:
Be thou familiar; but by no meanes vulgar:
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy Soul, with hoops of Steel:
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each unhatch't, unfledg'd Comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrell: but being in
Bear't that th'opposed may beware of thee.
Give euery man thine ear; but few thy voice:
Take each man censure; but reserve thy judgement:
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy;
But not exprest in fancy; rich, not gawdy:
For the Apparell oft proclaimes the man.
And they in France of the best rank and station,
Are of a most select and generous cheff in that.
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be;
For lone oft loses both it self and friend:
And borrowing dulls the edge of Husbandry.
This above all; to thine owne self be true:
And it must follow, as the Night the Day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my Blessing season this in thee.

-- Polonius to Laertes, Shakespeare's Hamlet

"O.K., so you like don't remember I was here before and I was frolicking about with a bunny on my head and... and you said 'Let's dance' and I said 'O.K.' and the next thing I knew you're all FOOM with the fire and the evil and the kill'n..."
-- Lenore #7, 'The Dream Catcher'

"If I were to send you flowers, where would I... heh. Wait. Let me rephrase. If I were to let... you suck... my tongue... would you be grateful?"
-- Castor Troy (Nicholas Cage), 'Face/Off'

"Well, I'm one of those fortunate people who like my job, sir. Got my first chemistry set when I was seven, blew my eyebrows off, we never saw the cat again, been into it ever since."
-- Goodspeed (Nicholas Cage), "The Rock"

Choda Boy: "So, Joe, how was your first day in the porn industry?"
Joe: "I am a bad, bad Mormon."
-- (Orgazmo)

Greene: "But you told him not to come back?"
Hathaway: "Yeah. I was strong."
Greene: "And he listened to you?"
Hathaway: "Yeah... for the first time. Ironic, huh?"
Greene: "Huh?"
Hathaway: "I expected him to come back."
-- er

"The worm has turned for you, boy."
-- Sgt. Elias, "Platoon"

"Free your mind, your ass will follow."
-- Junior, "Platoon"

"Just keep your pecker hard and your powder dry and the world will turn."
-- King, "Platoon"

"All these years, Vivi, right from the start... all the secrets we had to keep, trying not to catch each other's eyes because we might realize we were strangers...
"And always the medicines, the doctors, the experts, the things I was never told... and the way people looked at us -- 'There go Tom and Viv. What do they say to each other? Whatever do they say?'"
--Willem Dafoe as T.S. Eliot, from 'Tom & Viv'

"Oh, and another thing -- that pentagram the police say they hung on the wall? That was just my Motley Crue t-shirt from back in the 70s."
--Carl Medzie, on his daughters arrest for conducting Satanic rites in a Baptist church.

"When I looked in the box and saw the leash... I thought I was getting a PUPPY!"
--Tess, 'Stark Reving Mad'

"Dogs may be stupid, they may stink, and they might not have a will of their own... but if a cat weighed 60 pounds, it would try to kill you."
-- some anonymous coward from slashdot.

"All cats respond to their names, they just don't deign to tell you what they are.
"The one we call Maggie is really 'sound of can opener.' The one we call Kapua is secretly 'bag of kitty food being shaken.' The one we have named most accurately, Curious-About-Bowls, is truly 'sound of human eating cereal.'"
-- Generic Joe