"... [A]nd then on other days it just rains." -- Lord Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst, K.S.C., "The book of Predications," The Book of Honest Truth; as quoted in R. Shea & R.A. Wilson, The Illuminatus! Trilogy.
Right now I'm reading the collected edition of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, so there's a bunch of really good lines in here that made me burst out laughing when I read them. Of course, it's all better in context, but this will have to do.
"Life," he said, "is like a grapefruit." "Er, how so?" "Well, it's sort of orangy-yellow and dimpled on the outside, wet and squidgy in the middle. It's got pips inside, too. Oh, and some people have half a one for breakfast." -- "If you took a couple of David Bowies and stuck one of the David Bowies on top of the other David Bowie, then attached another David Bowie to the end of each of the arms of the first two David Bowies and then wrapped the whole business up in a dirty beach robe you would then have something which didn't exactly look like John Watson, but which those who knew him would find hauntingly familiar." --- "The dew," he observed, "has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning." --- "A forest was discovered recently in which most of the trees grew ratchet screwdrivers as fruit. The life cycle of a ratchet screwdriver fruit is quite interesting. Once picked it needs a dark dusty drawer in which it can lie undisturbed for years. Then one night it suddenly hatches, discards its outer skin that crumbles into dust, and emerges as a totally unidentifiable little metal object with flanges at both ends and a sort of ridge and a sort of hole for a screw. This, when found, will get thrown away. No one knows what it is supposed to gain from this. Nature, in her infinite wisdom, is presumably working on it." --- And now one from Stephen King; 'Time slowed and reality bent, on and on the eggman went.'
Of course none of these have any significance whatsoever and have improved my life by a factor of about two percent, but they amuse me.
I managed (in style?) to screw up that citation above even, btw:
Lord Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst, K.S.C., "The book of Predications," The Book of Honest Truth; as quoted in R. Shea & R.A. Wilson, The Illuminatus! Trilogy.
It's actually given as Lord Omar Khayaam etc., in The Honest Book of Truth, and so forth.
One wonders how many of these book citations in the book (Illuminatus) are real even; although over the years I've found a surprising number actually do refer to existing (underground) publications, in some form or other.
"It's not true unless it makes you laugh."
(... And then, some time later: "But you don't understand until it makes you weep."
'That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which it may be said, âSee, this is newâ? It has already been in ancient times before us. There is no remembrance of former things, Nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come By those who will come after.'
-- Ecclesiastes 1:9-11
(This site interestingly adds that the classic "vanity" of which the author speaks may also be interpreted as "Absurdity, Frustration, Futility, Nonsense," to which Wikipedia adds the meanings of "empty", "meaningless", "temporary", "transitory", "fleeting" or "mere breath."
"... Ontological Anarchism tends to disagree only with the Taoists' total quietism. In our world Chaos has been overthrown by younger gods, moralists, phallocrats, banker-priests, fit lords for serfs. If rebellion proves impossible then at least a kind of clandestine spiritual jihad might be launched. Let it follow the war-banners of the anarchist black dragon, Tiamat, Hun Tun.
"... Enlightenment is all we have, & even that weâve had to rip from the grasp of corrupt gurus & bumbling suicidal intellectuals. As for our artâ"what have we accomplished, other than to spill our blood for the ghostworld of fashionable ideas & images?
Writing has taken us to the very edge beyond which writing may be impossible. Any texts which could survive the plunge over this edgeâ"into whatever abyss or Abyssinia lies beyondâ" would have to be virtually self-created, like the miraculous hidden-treasure Dakini-scrolls of Tibet or the tadpole-script spirit-texts of Taoismâ" & absolutely incandescent, like the last screamed messages of a witch or heretic burning at the stake (to paraphrase Artaud).
I can sense these texts trembling just beyond the veil. ..."
-- Ditto (with The Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade Collective), Radio Sermonettes (aka Immediatism), "Critique of the Listener."
