A Kooky Compendium or "She's called "Henry," and it's a lot of explanation, but don't worry about it, kids, okay? Just tune in, turn off, drop out, drop in, switch off, switch on, and explode."

     Sometimes, I can't help being pessimistic and resign myself to the idea that everything I wish to express has already been said far more eloquently by someone else. Maybe it's one of the perils of being an English Literature student, or maybe it's the perpetual condition of the Postmodern era (another hazard of being a Lit. student is saying seemingly pretentious things like "Postmodern era"). Whatever the reason, the fact remains that I occasionally feel like baby-Jim Carrey in the The Truman Show - he tells his teacher that he wants to be an explorer, and she pulls down a map of the world, and says, "Oh, you're too late! There's nothing left to explore!" Yes, I know, that's far too bleak a circumstance, and I do believe that every sentiment or thought can be expressed in several different ways by several different people. But it's just restful to succumb to the closeted and concealed cynic in us once in a while, isn't it?

     Having provided a relatively lengthy explanation, I shall proceed to list the several quotes that have mesmerised me lately:

Marlon: Where the hell's Fiji? Near Florida?
Truman: [pointing to golf ball] See here?
Marlon: Yeah.
Truman: This is us... [guides finger halfway around ball] and all the way around here... FIJI. You can't get any further away before you start coming back. 

- The Truman Show

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... That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse... What will your verse be? 

- Dead Poets Society

Clementine: [whispers] Meet me... In Montauk.

- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Alvy Singer: Love is too weak a word for what I feel - I luuurve you, you know, I loave you, I luff you, two F's, yes I have to invent, of course I - I do, don't you think I do?

- Annie Hall

‎"Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget... The weariness, the fever, and the fret. Here, where men sit and hear each other groan... Where but to think is to be full of sorrow." 

- John Keats, 'Ode to a Nightingale'

"Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?"

- Gerard Manley Hopkins, 'Spring and Fall'

"Why, then, O, brawling love! O, loving hate!

O, anything of nothing first create."

- William Shakespeare, 'Romeo and Juliet'

"Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow."

- Bob Dylan, 'Mr. Tambourine Man'

And to conclude: 
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passion a quotation."