Deep Thought: You’re really not going to like it.
Two Old Men: Tell us.
Deep Thought: The answer to the Great Question of Life, the Universe and Everything ... is ... forty-two. ibid.
‘Sorry, did I say something wrong?’ said Marvin, dragging himself on regardless. ‘Pardon me for breathing, which I never do anyway so I don’t know why I bother to say it. Oh God I’m so depressed. Here’s another one of those self-satisfied doors. Life! Don’t talk to me about life. Life,’ said Marvin dolefully, ‘loath it or ignore it, you can’t like it.’ ibid. Marvin the Paranoid Android
The chances of finding out what’s really going on in the universe are so remote, the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied. Douglas Adams
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania. Dorothy Parker, Comment
Four be the things I’d been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt. Dorothy Parker, Inventory, 1937
Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses. Dorothy Parker, New Item, 1937
Résumé:
Razors pain you,
Rivers are damp,
Acids stain you,
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful,
Nooses give,
Gas smells awful.
You might as well live. Dorothy Parker, Resumé, 1937
When I consider how my light is spent,
E’re half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless. John Milton, Sonnet 16
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father to the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety. John Milton, My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold, 1807
And how am I to face the odds,
Of man’s bedevilment and God’s?
I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made. A E Housman, Last Poems, 1922
Here dead lie we because we did not choose
To live and shame the land from which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;
But young men think it is, and we were young. A E Housman
Here’s what we can do to change the world right now to a better ride: take all of that money we spend on weapons and defence each year and instead spend it feeding, clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, and not one human being excluded, and we can explore space together, both inner and outer, in peace. I believe that God left certain drugs growing naturally upon our planet to help speed up and facilitate our evolution. Bill Hicks, Revelations, Dominion Theatre London
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning. Stevie Smith, Not Waving But Drowning, 1957
If there wasn’t death, I think you couldn’t go on. Stevie Smith, Observer 9th November 1969
The details of my life are quite inconsequential. Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving lingerierer from Belgium with low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen-year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanise, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he had invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical: summers in Rangoon, luge lessons, in the spring we would make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds – pretty standard really. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery 1997 starring Mike Myers & Elizabeth Hurley & Robert Wagner & Seth Green & Mindy Sterling & Michael York & Fabiana Udenio & Will Ferrell & Mimi Rogers & Joe Son, director Jay Roach, Dr Evil & Scott at counselling
Live all you can – it’s a mistake not to. Henry James, The Ambassadors
Which of us has not remained forever prison-pent? Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone? Thomas Wolfe, foreword to ‘Look Homeward, Angel’, 1929
The unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates
On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night
There she stood in the doorway;
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself,
‘This could be Heaven or this could be Hell’
Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say ...
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (such a lovely place)
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year (any time of year)
You can find it here. The Eagles, Hotel California
Mirrors on the ceiling,
The pink champagne on ice
And she said, ‘We are all just prisoners here, of our own device’
And in the master’s chambers,
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can’t kill the beast.
Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
‘Relax,’ said the night man,
‘We are programmed to receive.
You can check out any time you like,
But you can never leave.’ ibid.
Life is a horizontal fall. Jean Cocteau, Opium
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan, 1892
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all. Oscar Wilde
We should treat all the trivial things of life seriously and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality. Oscar Wilde
The aim of life is self-development. To realise one’s nature perfectly – that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one’s self. Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Ah! realise your youth while you have it. Don’t squander the gold of your days, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless, or giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar. These are the sickly aims, the false ideals, of our age. Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing ... Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to ... Youth! Youth! There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth. ibid.
Man is born to live, not to prepare for life. Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago
I don’t like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn’t of much value. Life hasn’t revealed its beauty to them. ibid.