Whatever Quotes

"You must be the change that you wish to see in the world." -Gandhi

• Definitely agree with this one. We can sit here and complain about how bad things are and how much we wish something would be done, but it won't just happen. We have to make the effort to change what we don't like. Set the example. Others will follow eventually.

"Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."-Albert Einstein

• I know that when I donate that change I have in the bottom of my purse to the charity standing outside of Albertsons I feel so much better. Or when I went down to the Rescue Mission and I got to experience it first hand seeing all these people who came there and the people running the mission are there with open arms telling them to come on in. It puts a perspective on things.

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."- Helen Keller

• Spoken by a true adventurer. I couldn't agree more with this quote because if we stay inside all day and we're scared to face the challenges in life, where are we going? Nowhere. We are cowards. We must try different and scary things in order to really live.

"Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out." -Oliver Wendell Holmes

• With a lot of things I do, I always tell myself okay I'll do that later or I still have time I'll make it. This quote is very self explanatory. You must live in the moment. Don't fear it, don't prepare for it, embrace it. There's too much to lose if you don't.

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." -Robert Frost

• Don't sweat the small stuff is what he's saying. Things are going to go wrong in life, they're supposed to. That's how we learn. If we makes mistakes then we know how to avoid doing the same thing over again when we face the consequences. We're not going to die if we get a bad hair cut. The world will not come to an end if I get a B. It's understandable. Just get over it.

Poem Quotes

"Here on the edge of hell stands Harlem- Remembering the old lies, the old kicks in the back, the old "be patient" They told us before."- Harlem by Langston Hughes

• This poem was talking about the life of African American people back in the old days. How they were charged more for their groceries and weren't allowed in some places. It's tough reading some of these because today, none of that matters. At least not to me. If your a good person, then your a good person. It doesn't matter what color your skin is. You could be all the colors of the rainbow for all I care. It doesn't matter. And it shouldn't.

"And many an eye has danced to see that banner in the sky." -Old Ironsides by Oliver Wendell Holmes

• Trying to depict people being happy to see that old boat coming into the harbour. It is supposed to represent how joyful people were by seeing that boat because it meant that their loved ones were coming home. Their heroes were coming home to see them.

"What brought that kindred spider to that height, then steered the white moth thither in the night?" -Design by Robert Frost

• In this poem, Frost is trying to figure out why the spider openly walked into his own death? When you read the whole poem, you can tell he was thinking about what fate was. Why did things happen to people? Were they meant to or did they come upon situations by mistake?

"So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens." -The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams

• Even though that's the whole poem and not a quote it's okay because if you think about it, it makes sense more with it all there. The author is talking about how much depends on that red wheelbarrow. He is probably a farmer or something of that sort and he needs that wheelbarrow to plant things so that he can sell them and make money so he can feed himself and possibly a family. A lot depends on that wheelbarrow.

"And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again."

• Thank you right to plea insanity. The author seems to be talking about the government and how corrupt it is. I can for sure agree with that. There are a lot of horrible people out there and when they get caught doing things, they'll pay big bucks for a good lawyer who can defend them. Even if they are a murderer, they get the right to do it. The system is corrupted, there is no mistaking that.

Non-Fiction Quotes

"I'm fascinated by rap and hip-hop. I think there's a lot of poetry in it. There's a lot of anger, a lot of social energy in it. And I think you'd better listen to it pretty carefully, 'cause it's important. I'm still listening because I know that it's a reflection of the street and it's a reflection of life." -Twenty Years Ago by Mark Steyn

• This is actually a quote from President Bill Clinton that he used in the story. Steyn goes on to say that he doubts he could find a single rap album in the President's music collection. It's funny because Steyn was dead on with this when he said that. I think a lot of people do the same thing and try to relate to people that they have absolutely no clue about. The music of different cultures defines them. But does it define them in the right way? I do not consider myself defined if someone from the same culture as me sings songs about strippers and getting drunk. No. That's not me at all.

"The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned one million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about two hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders; from which number I subtract thirty thousand couples who are able to maintain their own children, although I apprehend there cannot be so many, under the present distresses of the kingdom; but this being granted, there will remain an hundred and seventy thousand breeders. I again subtract fifty thousand for those women who miscarry, or whose children die by accident or disease within the year. There only remains one hundred and twenty thousand children of poor parents annually born." -A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift

• These numbers may be old, but they amaze me. I have never realized how many people are homeless especially with the economy being at it's worst. And this was back then! Imagine how many there are now. It's sad though. Because you do see those kids following around their parents and it's awful. It's not something that's fake. I couldn't even imagine going through what some of these people go through everyday. It's not until you see something with numbers that high or you actually see people like that, that you realize how fortunate you are.

"...to be ruined by the expense if they bring over evidences to prove their innocence, or be found guilty and hanged if they can't afford it." - Rules by Which a Great Empire May be Reduced to a Small One.

• Basically saying that if a person is convicted of a crime they cannot be defended in any way but if they try to receive it, they will be hanged if they cannot afford it, or if they are found guilty. Boy am I glad that I live somewhere that I am given a lawyer if I get caught. That just sucks for those people back then. I think everyone could agree that the US has one of the better policies on being provided services when your in trouble. (cough illegal immigrants cough cough)

"There is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can't get away from the fact that Europe still is the centre of the literary world...not the United States, the US is too isolated, too insular. they don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature...that ignorance is restraining."- Essay on Horace Oscar Axel Engdahl

• Obviously he hasn't been reading some of the things that we all have been because if we are as "backwards" as he claims we are, he's the dumb one. Some of the greatest writers have come out of the US and they have even won the Nobel Prize. So he needs to stop turning a blind eye to us.

"Technology is our main problem"- The School Library Journal

• I did not put a long quote on this one because those 5 words say enough. Let me start off with this, if it were not for technology, how would we be doing this assignment? How would the people who wrote that post survive without their cell phones and the internet? It's hypocritical because I'm sure that they'd go crazy without their technology. As would anyone else in this day and age. Sorry we're advancing in technology! Let's just stop using the internet so we can go read books about out dated information! YAY! Let's stop using the technology that we have for heart and brain surgery. We'll just cut out the parts we think are bad. Yeah, good idea guys!

Fiction Quotes

"So we were not surprised when Homer Barron -the streets had been finished some time since- was gone. We were a little disappointed that there was not a public blowing-off, but we believed that he had gone on to prepare for Miss Emily's coming, or to give her the chance to get rid of the cousins." - A Rose for Miss Emily by William Faulkner

• I think this quote is the PERFECT thing to describe the society that we live in today. It proves, that we've been living this way since long before the paparazzi and the tabloids. The quote says "we were a little disappointed that there was not a public blowing-off." Isn't that how we still are today? The tabloids make break-ups of these celebrity couples seem a heck of a lot more catastrophic than they really are. For that fact, your own friends make your break-up, fight, anything seem worse than it is just so they can get pleasure out of the drama. People feed off of that kind of stuff. When something so tiny is turned into the event of the century so that it can be re-told in a manner that impresses others. It's all about the image. It always has been. Society tries to play the "deep emotion" card on things like this and I agree they're deep; when being compared to a tide pool.

"If it was ever a man wanted to take her away, I would say, 'No man on earth is going to take that sweet girl of mine away from me!' but if he was to say, 'Lady, I don't want to take her away, I want her right here,' I would say, 'Mister, I don't blame you none."- The Life You Save May Be Your Own by Flannery O'Connor

• This is funny because talking to my parents they told me no way would they want me to stay with them forever. They want me gone and on my own. This isn't a bad thing and I do not take it offensively because I understand what they're saying. Growing up and having a life of your own is part of the maturity process. If a child is kept at home with their parents their entire life, what good does that do any of them? The child never learns to fend for himself and the parents never learn to let go. Then what happens when the parents fall ill or pass away? The child is left vulnerable to the outside world, which let's face it, can be extremely harsh at times. By saying that she wants her daughter to live with her forever, she is basically smothering her daughter and not doing her one ounce of good.

"Krebs acquired the nausea in regard to experience that is the result of untruth or exaggeration, and when he occasionally met another man who had really been a soldier and they talked a few minutes in the dressing room at a dance he fell into the easy pose of the old soldier among other soldiers: that he had been badly, sickeningly frightened all the time. In this way, he lost everything."- Soldiers Home by Ernest Hemingway

• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD): an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened. Traumatic events that may trigger PTSD include violent personal assaults, natural or human-caused disasters, accidents, or military combat. Obviously, this man in the story is suffering PTSD or something. They may be heroes, but no hero earned that title by doing something easy. They faced extreme difficulties, probably everyday. In his case, I'd say he saw something tragic 3-5 times a day just being in the military. Being the granddaughter of a retired air force colonel, I can tell you the effects war has on a person. It is extremely brutal and I think this quote really captures the essence of pain they go through.

"So she left that tree, and had to go through a barbed-wire fence. There she had to creep and crawl, spreading her knees and stratching her fingers like a baby trying to climb the steps. But she talked loudly to herself: She could not let her dress be torn now, so late in the day, and she would not pay for having her arm or her leg sawed off if she got caught fast where she was."- A Worn Path by Eudora Welty

• This quote shows the extreme hardships that people would endure to get the things that they needed in the old days. Now, if the walk is more than half a mile we drive our cars to get it. Today, everyone is just lazy compared to this woman. In the end we find out the reason she goes through all this is to get medicine for her sick grandson, who is actually dead. The amount of effort this woman puts forth to help him is remarkable. Just yesterday I heard about a lady who left her kids in a car while she went grocery shopping and child protective services came and took them away. It's ridiculous the laziness of people now a days. We could all use a lesson from the woman in this story.

"He wishes for perfection. He would like to destroy us, for we are, variously, too fat, too grotesque, too jocular, too affectionate, and heedless in our ways."- Son by John Updike

• In a sense, everyone wishes for perfection. The definition of perfection varies from person to person, but it is perfection none the less. We strive for our version everyday, but sometimes I have to wonder, is it really worth it? Constantly we beat ourselves up because we're too fat, too skinny, too smart or too dumb, but do others see us the way we see ourselves? Eventually it takes a toll on us. People suffer from depression, anxiety, and all kinds of nasty things because we're worried about what other people think of us. The age old expression, "It's not what's on the outside, it's what's on the inside that counts" says it all. We should live by that every day and not label people like the boy in this story did. I am who I am, and you are who you are. You can alter your nose and your lips and anything else you want to but in the long run, does it really make you that much happier?