Owen

“Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.”
― Billy Collins, The Apple that Astonished Paris

“I do not fight fascists because I will win. I fight fascists because they are fascists.”
― Chris Hedges, Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt

“His progress through life was hampered by his tremendous sense of his own ignorance, a disability which affects all too few.”
― Terry Pratchett, Maskerade

“because life slips away, and because I need for the rest of my journey a star that will not play false to me, a compass that will not lie.”
― Alan Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country