the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

Dead Poets Society (1989)
John Keating: No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.

John Keating: They're not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they're destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? - - Carpe - - hear it? - - Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.

John Keating: O Captain, my Captain. Who knows where that comes from? Anybody? Not a clue? It's from a poem by Walt Whitman about Mr. Abraham Lincoln. Now in this class you can either call me Mr. Keating, or if you're slightly more daring, O Captain my Captain.

John Keating: We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

John Keating: Sucking the marrow out of life doesn't mean choking on the bone.

John Keating: There's a time for daring and there's a time for caution, and a wise man understands which is called for.

Neil: For the first time in my whole life, I know what I wanna do! And for the first time, I'm gonna do it! Whether my father wants me to or not! Carpe diem!

Dalton: [answering phone] Welton Academy, hello. Yes he is, just a moment. Mr. Nolan, it's for you. It's God. He says we should have girls at Welton.

John Keating: Language was developed for one endeavor, and that is - Mr. Anderson? Come on, are you a man or an amoeba?
[pause]
John Keating: Mr. Perry?
Neil: To communicate.
John Keating: No! To woo women!

Neil: [quoting Henry David Thoreau] "I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life."
Dalton: I'll second that.
Neil: "To put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived."

McAllister: "Show me the heart unfettered by foolish dreams and I'll show you a happy man."
John Keating: "But only in their dreams can men be truly free. 'Twas always thus, and always thus will be."
McAllister: Tennyson?
John Keating: No, Keating.

John Keating: Close your eyes, close your eyes! Close 'em! Now, describe what you see.
Todd Anderson: Uh, I-I close my eyes.
John Keating: Yes.
Todd Anderson: Uh, and this image floats beside me.
John Keating: A sweaty-toothed madman.
Todd Anderson: A sweaty-toothed madman with a stare that pounds my brain.
John Keating: Oh, that's *excellent*! Now, give him action - make him do something!
Todd Anderson: H-His hands reach out and choke me.
John Keating: That's it! Wonderful, wonderful!
Todd Anderson: And all the time he's mumbling.
John Keating: What's he mumbling?
Todd Anderson: Mumbling truth.
John Keating: Yeah, yes.
Todd Anderson: Truth like-like a blanket that always leaves your feet cold.
John Keating: [some of the class start to laugh] Forget them, forget them! Stay with the blanket. Tell me about that blanket!
Todd Anderson: Y-Y-You push it, stretch it, it'll never be enough. You kick at it, beat it, it'll never cover any of us. From the moment we enter crying t-to the moment we leave dying, it'll just cover your face as you wail and cry and scream.
[long pause then class applauds]
John Keating: Don't you forget this

[Keating stands on his desk]
John Keating: Why do I stand up here? Anybody?
Dalton: To feel taller!
John Keating: No!
[Dings a bell with his foot]
John Keating: Thank you for playing Mr. Dalton. I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way.

John Keating: Boys, you must strive to find your own voice. Because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all. Thoreau said, "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation." Don't be resigned to that. Break out!

With Honors (1994)
Monty: Why did you say that I was a loser?
Simon Wilder: Winners forget they're in a race, they just love to run. You try too hard.

Simon Wilder: Women. Ain't they perfect?
Monty: Not always.
Simon Wilder: Yes, they are, they're perfect. Don't matter if they're skinny, fat, blond or blue. If a woman is willing to give you her love, Harvard, it's the greatest gift in the world. Makes you taller, makes you smarter, makes your teeth shine. Boy, oh, boy, women are perfect.

Simon Wilder: Know why you hate me so much Jeffrey? Because I look the way you feel.

Simon Wilder: Yes I'm a bum. But I'm a Harvard bum.

Simon Wilder: You asked the question, sir, now let me answer it. The beauty of the Constitution is that it can always be changed. The beauty of the Constitution is that it makes no set law other than faith in the wisdom of ordinary people to govern themselves.
Proffesor Pitkannan: Faith in the wisdom of the people is exactly what makes the Constitution incomplete and crude.
Simon Wilder: Crude? No, sir. Our "founding parents" were pompous, white, middle-aged farmers, but they were also great men. Because they knew one thing that all great men should know: that they didn't know everything. Sure, they'd make mistakes, but they made sure to leave a way to correct them. The president is not an "elected king," no matter how many bombs he can drop. Because the "crude" Constitution doesn't trust him. He's just a bum, okay Mr. Pitkannan? He's just a bum.

Simon Wilder: Which door do I leave from?
Proffesor Pitkannan: At Harvard we don't end our sentences with prepositions.
Simon Wilder: Okay. Which door do I leave from, asshole?

Simon Wilder: Hey, you know what the greatest nation in the world is?
Donation Student: Well I hope it's the USA.
Simon Wilder: Wrong. It's donation.

Everett: Oh sure, you're a mechanic?
Simon Wilder: No, I'm a Zen Buddhist, but that's close enough.

Simon Wilder: Is this a lover's quarrel? Maybe I should leave.
Courtney: We're not lovers, we're roommates and we respect each others' space.
Simon Wilder: You respect each others' empty air? That's very profound for a couple of Harvard students.

Simon Wilder: When it comes to relationships, everyone's a used car salesman. Love People, just don't trust the warrenty.

Simon Wilder: [quoting Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"] "You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, not look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books. You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, you shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself."

Monty: "He saw the world out of the porthole of a leaky freighter, was a collector of memories, and interrupted a lecture at Harvard. In 50 years on earth he did only one thing he regretted. He is survived by his family: Jeff Hawks, who always remembers to flush; Everett Calloway, who knows how to use words; Courtney Blumenthal, who is strong, and also knows how to love; and by Montgomery Kessler, who will graduate life with honor, and without regret."

I thought maybe just one more then I'll call it a night. Haven't been writing to many of these lately and being brought back to the nineties really got me thinking about movies of the nineties that really inspired me. There are so many great inspirational quotes from "With Honor" and "Dead Poets Society". I recommend if your lacking in the inspirational live your life department that you go and rent yourself "Dead Poets Society" it'll raise your spirits and maybe just might drive you to pick up an old ass book of poems. One of my old bosses used to say that when your young it's like your options are your arms extended and as you get older the expansion closes closer and closer. To quote a movie that will never get on her but had a good solid line, "Friday Night Lights" 17 goes fast, pretty soon it'll be just babies and memories.

Lots of babies and memories going around these days. Lots of people getting married, makes me feel and think the next girl I'm in love with and god willing she's in love with me, we don't waste any time we just up and get married and can god willingly dodge all the bad shit of our past until we're locked down in the institution. I pray that will be enough to inspire us to stay and sit with whatever baggage has made us who we are. Well that's wishful thinking I suppose. Even though there's a constant societal push to be married and have children and have shiny pretty stuff I wouldn't say that that is necasarilly how it will whind up for me. I'm still very much intent on crafting my "verse for the powerful play".

Carpe Diem, cease the carpe :P I'd like to take a moment just to talk about hope, and not my personal hope but my hope for mankind. I saw this music video for Barack Obama on Youtube a couple of weeks ago called yes we can and i almost cried watching it. The United States of America has been a place that other countries have always looked to for freedom, originality, protection, and entertainment. The amount of losses in the last decade of this place has been staggering, from Katrina, to the war, to our economy. The Yes we can video reminded me of a variety of hardships that this country has fought to be constantly evolving to become better, fair, and tolerant of changing times. I really hope Obama wins and democracy is back to being democratic.

That's just something that's been on my mind lately. The other is that our future as far as science feels terribly behind. Like we're not advancing fast enough. When I return to school in the winter I was toying with going for pre-law but I'm teedering on physics, engineering, and applied sciences. I've been pretty creative most my life but as I get older, more mature, and wiser the thought that entertainment is not a medium that will effectively fix or work towards something better. And I want that. Figuring out what I want has been such an up hill battle for the last year or so. Figuring out the best ways to approach these things have been met with failure. Now I believe I should do what others have done before me and build off what has been done to better myself and ideally the world around me and the people I care about.