Melchor Duque > Melchor's Quotes

“Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what the Greeks called entheos, or the slight buzz of inspiration when reading or writing. The only worthwhile miracle in the New Testament—the transmutation of water into wine during the wedding at Cana—is a tribute to the persistence of Hellenism in an otherwise austere Judaea. The same applies to the seder at Passover, which is obviously modeled on the Platonic symposium: questions are asked (especially of the young) while wine is circulated. No better form of sodality has ever been devised: at Oxford one was positively expected to take wine during tutorials. The tongue must be untied. It's not a coincidence that Omar Khayyam, rebuking and ridiculing the stone-faced Iranian mullahs of his time, pointed to the value of the grape as a mockery of their joyless and sterile regime. Visiting today's Iran, I was delighted to find that citizens made a point of defying the clerical ban on booze, keeping it in their homes for visitors even if they didn't particularly take to it themselves, and bootlegging it with great brio and ingenuity. These small revolutions affirm the human.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”
― Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

“If you try anything, if you try to lose weight, or to improve yourself, or to love, or to make the world a better place, you have already achieved something wonderful, before you even begin. Forget failure. If things don't work out the way you want, hold your head up high and be proud. And try again. And again. And again!”
― Sarah Dessen, Keeping the Moon

“Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.”
― Mother Teresa

“You're not lost in the storm, Marilyn. You are the storm.”
― Colin Clark, My Week with Marilyn

“So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, 'Thou must,'
The youth whispers, 'I can.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson: Poems

“Don’t simply exist in this world, but grasp life’s potential by the jacket. Dare it to be all it can. Make life historical—a gripping account of accomplishment. Make life a mystery—a challenging, bold adventure. Make life heartfelt—an enduring, poetic romance. Whatever it is you make of your world, live the fairy tale.”
― Richelle Goodrich, Eena, The Return of a Queen

“Grace is the celebration of life, relentlessly hounding all the non-celebrants in the world. It is a floating, cosmic bash shouting its way through the streets of the universe, flinging the sweetness of its cassations to every window, pounding at every door in a hilarity beyond all liking and happening, until the prodigals come out at last and dance, and the elder brothers finally take their fingers out of their ears.”
― Robert Farrar Capon, Between Noon & Three: Romance, Law & the Outrage of Grace

“sex is the consolation you have when you can't have love”
― Gabriel García Márquez

“Instead of politicians, let the monkeys govern the countries; at least they will steal only the bananas!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan