“
When pain brings you down, don't be silly, don't close your eyes and cry, you just might be in the best position to see the sun shine.
”
”
Alanis Morissette
“
Then came the healing time, hearts started to shine, soul felt so fine, oh what a freeing time it was.
”
”
Aberjhani (Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player)
“
Your life is a movie. You are the main character. You say your scripts and act to your lines. Of course you do your lines in each scene. There is a hidden camera and a director who you can ask for help anytime up above.
”
”
Diana Rose Morcilla
“
When you're moving in the positive, your destination is the brightest star.
”
”
Stevie Wonder
“
I'm deeper than the shit I'm in and I don't really give a damn.
”
”
Iggy Pop (The Complete Lyrics of Iggy Pop 1969 - 1999)
“
Forgiveness, I finally decide, is not the death of amnesia, nor is it a form of madness, as Derrida claims. For the one who forgives, it is simply a death, a dying down in the heart, the position of the already dead. It is in the end the living through, the understanding that this has happened, is happening, happens. Period. It is a feeling of nothingness that cannot be communicated to another, an absence, a bottomless vacancy held by the living, beyond all that is hatred or love.
”
”
Claudia Rankine (Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric)
“
I didn't play the cards I was dealt. I changed the cards.
”
”
Kanye West (Through the Wire: Lyrics and Illuminations)
“
Happy soul;begin and end your day with music.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita (Think Great: Be Great! (Beautiful Quotes, #1))
“
A friend argues that Americans battle between the “historical self” and the “self self.” By this she means you mostly interact as friends with mutual interest and, for the most part, compatible personalities; however, sometimes your historical selves, her white self and your black self, or your white self and her black self, arrive with the full force of your American positioning. Then you are standing face-to-face in seconds that wipe the affable smiles right from your mouths. What did you say? Instantaneously your attachment seems fragile, tenuous, subject to any transgression of your historical self. And though your joined personal histories are supposed to save you from misunderstandings, they usually cause you to understand all too well what is meant.
”
”
Claudia Rankine (Citizen: An American Lyric)
“
Or one meaning of here is “in this world, in this life, on earth. In this place or position, indicating the presence of,” or in other words, I am here. It also means to hand something to somebody—Here you are. Here, he said to her. Here both recognizes and demands recognition. I see you, or here, he said to her. In order for something to be handed over a hand must extend and a hand must receive. We must both be here in this world in this life in this place indicating the presence of.
”
”
Claudia Rankine (Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric)
“
When hip-hop was born she had no commercial home, and was an invention of beautiful creativity. Born from a beautiful struggle, today she is mostly a 'ratchet' bitch spitting nonsense from her pimp's mansion.
”
”
T.F. Hodge (From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence)
“
It's like a battery that has to have a positive and a negative. One doesn't work without the other. You've gotta have the good and the bad in order to know what's right, and in order to know what's real and what ain't.
”
”
Dolly Parton (Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics)
“
We're so happy, even when we're smiling out of fear.
”
”
Lorde (Lorde - Pure Heroine Songbook: Piano/Vocal/Guitar (Piano, Vocal, Guitar))
“
He was enthusiastic about everything, but when she came in with the pie he grew positively lyrical.
”
”
James M. Cain (Mildred Pierce)
“
if you live simply and with a lyrical heart
in the cumbered neighborhoods or even,
as Mozart sometimes managed to, in a palace,
offering tune after tune after tune,
making some hard-hearted prince
prudent and kind, just by being happy
”
”
Mary Oliver (Thirst)
“
(About "Black Debt" by Steve McCaffery)
'Impersonal' as this text is, it is by no means unemotional or uninvolved. We learn nothing-- at least nothing direct-- about McCaffery's (or his narrator's) personal life, his opinions or ruminations. Nonetheless I would posit that 'Lag' projects a highly particularized way of looking at things, of processing the most diversified information fields-- geology and genetics, archeology and advertising, classics and commercials-- that is finally recognizable in its particular ways of negotiating with language as is the more personal lyric consciousness we expect to find in poetry.
”
”
Marjorie Perloff (Radical Artifice: Writing Poetry in the Age of Media)
“
In the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales for the disrobed faceless forms of no position. Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts - all down in taken-for-granted situations. Tolling for the deaf an' blind, tolling for the mute, and the mistreated mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute, for the misdemeanor outlaw, chained an' cheated by pursuit. And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
”
”
Bob Dylan (Lyrics, 1962-1985)
“
I want my life to make a positive difference to the kids.
I want to be a good husband to my wife,
I want my children to speak about what daddy did.
When my life is close to over, I hope God is proud of me.
”
”
Delano Johnson (My Lifes Lyrics Encrypted: Hate Me or Love Me (Life Series) [Kindle Edition])
“
In Paris, Julien’s position with regard to Madame de Renal would very soon have been simplified; but in Paris love is the child of the novels. The young tutor and his timid mistress would have found in three or four novels, and even in the lyrics of the Gymnase, a clear statement of their situation. The novels would have outlined for them the part to be played, shown them the model to copy; and this model, sooner or later, albeit without the slightest pleasure, and perhaps with reluctance, vanity would have compelled Julien to follow.
In a small town of the Aveyron or the Pyrenees, the slightest incident would have been made decisive by the ardour of the climate. Beneath our more sombre skies, a penniless young man, who is ambitious only because the refinement of his nature puts him in need of some of those pleasures which money provides, is in daily contact with a woman of thirty who is sincerely virtuous, occupied with her children, and never looks to novels for examples of conduct. Everything goes slowly, everything happens by degrees in the provinces: life is more natural.
”
”
Stendhal (The Red and the Black)
“
I'm not sure anyone's ever experienced enlightenment, been born again, been called to repentance or decided to sell their belongings on account of a system. The voice, the tale, the image, the parable that gets through to you -- that wins your heart -- religiously is the one that makes it past your defenses. You've been won over, and you probably didn't see it coming. You've been enlisted into a drama, whether positively or negatively, and it shouldn't be controversial to note that it happens all the time. When you really think about it, there's one waiting around every corner. It's as near as the story, song or image you can't get out of your head. Religion happens when we get pulled in, moved, called out or compelled by something outside ourselves. It could be a car commercial, a lyric, a painting, a theatrical performance or the magnetic pull of an Apple store. The calls to worship are everywhere.
”
”
David Dark
“
By the second day, the song lyrics had faded, but in their place came darker irritations. Gradually, I started to become aware of a young man sitting just behind me and to the left. I had noticed him when he first entered the mediation hall, and had felt a flash of annoyance at the time: something about him, especially his beard, had struck me as too calculatedly dishevelled, as if he were trying to make a statement. Now his audible breathing was starting to irritate me, too. It seemed studied, unnatural, somehow theatrical. My irritation slowly intensified - a reaction that struck me as entirely reasonable and proportionate at the time. It was all beginning to feel like a personal attack. How much contempt must the bearded meditator have for me, I seethed silently, deliberately to decide to ruin the serenity of my meditation by behaving so obnoxiously? Experienced retreat-goers, it turns out, have a term for this phenomenon. The call it 'vipassana vendetta'. In the stillness tiny irritations become magnified into full-blown hate campaigns; the mind is so conditioned to attaching to storylines that it seizes upon whatever's available. Being on retreat had temporarily separated me from all the real causes of distress in my life, and so, apparently, I was inventing new ones. As I shuffled to my narrow bed that evening, I was still smarting about the loud-breathing man. I did let go of the vendetta eventually - but only because I'd fallen into an exhausted and dreamless sleep
”
”
Oliver Burkeman (The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking)
“
I believe in peace.
I believe in people.
I'll believe in you,
If you believe in me too.
Give all you can,
Then nothing can be taken from you.
I believe in love.
I believe it's simple.
Listen to your heart:
Everyone is equal.
Giving all you have
Will leave you with nothing to lose.
”
”
Brandon Jenner
“
Consider the following questions when deciding whether to discuss a disagreement with your boss: How big are the stakes involved? Do you think you can prevail in this argument? What will happen if you don’t fight at all? If the stakes are modest or your chances of prevailing are low, grit your teeth and go along with your boss’s position. Remember the lyrics from the Kenny Rogers song: “You gotta know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em.”5
”
”
Robert C. Pozen (Extreme Productivity: Boost Your Results, Reduce Your Hours)
“
There is indeed a poetical attitude to be adopted towards all things, but all things are not fit subjects for poetry. Into the secure and sacred house of Beauty the true artist will admit nothing that is harsh or disturbing, nothing that gives pain, nothing that is debatable, nothing about which men argue. He can steep himself, if he wishes, in the discussion of all the social problems of his day, poor-laws and local taxation, free trade and bimetallic currency, and the like; but when he writes on these subjects it will be, as Milton nobly expressed it, with his left hand, in prose and not in verse, in a pamphlet and not in a lyric. This exquisite spirit of artistic choice was not in Byron: Wordsworth had it not. In the work of both these men there is much that we have to reject, much that does not give us that sense of calm and perfect repose which should be the effect of all fine, imaginative work. But in Keats it seemed to have been incarnate, and in his lovely ODE ON A GRECIAN URN it found its most secure and faultless expression; in the pageant of the EARTHLY PARADISE and the knights and ladies of Burne-Jones it is the one dominant note. It is to no avail that the Muse of Poetry be called, even by such a clarion note as Whitman’s, to migrate from Greece and Ionia and to placard REMOVED and TO LET on the rocks of the snowy Parnassus. Calliope’s call is not yet closed, nor are the epics of Asia ended; the Sphinx is not yet silent, nor the fountain of Castaly dry. For art is very life itself and knows nothing of death; she is absolute truth and takes no care of fact; she sees (as I remember Mr. Swinburne insisting on at dinner) that Achilles is even now more actual and real than Wellington, not merely more noble and interesting as a type and figure but more positive and real.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The English Renaissance of Art)
“
The point is, you are most you, at your best, when you create the roles that make you feel most alive: witty, lyrical, speculative, loving, but also, and here’s the rub, cynical, sarcastic, angry, muddled, sad—for negative states can be just as vital as positive ones. Fullness is the goal, myriad-mindedness (a happy phrase Coleridge conjured to describe Shakespeare): to be as varied and capacious as the cosmos. With this bigness, containing the most sublime and the low at once, you can hope that generosity will win out over the meanness, that you will foster the democratic, merciful embrace of what is as well as what ought to be. The best actor, Hamlet asserts, uses all gently.
”
”
Eric G. Wilson (Keep It Fake: Inventing an Authentic Life)
“
Do you like Phil Collins? I've been a big Genesis fan ever since the release of their 1980 album, Duke. Before that, I really didn't understand any of their work. Too artsy, too intellectual. It was on Duke where Phil Collins' presence became more apparent. I think Invisible Touch was the group's undisputed masterpiece. It's an epic meditation on intangibility. At the same time, it deepens and enriches the meaning of the preceding three albums. Christy, take off your robe. Listen to the brilliant ensemble playing of Banks, Collins and Rutherford. You can practically hear every nuance of every instrument. Sabrina, remove your dress. In terms of lyrical craftsmanship, the sheer songwriting, this album hits a new peak of professionalism. Sabrina, why don't you, uh, dance a little. Take the lyrics to Land of Confusion. In this song, Phil Collins addresses the problems of abusive political authority. In Too Deep is the most moving pop song of the 1980s, about monogamy and commitment. The song is extremely uplifting. Their lyrics are as positive and affirmative as anything I've heard in rock. Christy, get down on your knees so Sabrina can see your asshole. Phil Collins' solo career seems to be more commercial and therefore more satisfying, in a narrower way. Especially songs like In the Air Tonight and Against All Odds. Sabrina, don't just stare at it, eat it. But I also think Phil Collins works best within the confines of the group, than as a solo artist, and I stress the word artist. This is Sussudio, a great, great song, a personal favorite.
”
”
Bret Easton Ellis
“
The gods had given me almost everything. I had genius, a distinguished name, high social position, brilliancy, intellectual daring: I made art a philosophy, and philosophy an art: I altered the minds of men and the colours of things: there was nothing I said or did that did not make people wonder: I took the drama, the most objective form known to art, and made it as personal a mode of expression as the lyric or the sonnet, at the same time that I widened its range and enriched its characterisation: drama, novel, poem in rhyme, poem in prose, subtle or fantastic dialogue, whatever I touched I made beautiful in a new mode of beauty: to truth itself I gave what is false no less than what is true as its rightful province, and showed that the false and the true are merely forms of intellectual existence. I treated Art as the supreme reality, and life as a mere mode of fiction: I awoke the imagination of my century so that it created myth and legend around me: I summed up all systems in a phrase, and all existence in an epigram.
Along with these things, I had things that were different. I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease. I amused myself with being a flâneur, a dandy, a man of fashion. I surrounded myself with the smaller natures and the meaner minds. I became the spendthrift of my own genius, and to waste an eternal youth gave me a curious joy. Tired of being on the heights I deliberately went to the depths in the search for new sensations. What the paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity became to me in the sphere of passion. Desire, at the end, was a malady, or a madness, or both. I grew careless of the lives of others. I took pleasure where it pleased me and passed on. I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day to cry aloud on the housetops. I ceased to be Lord over myself. I was no longer the Captain of my Soul, and did not know it. I allowed you to dominate me, and your father to frighten me. I ended in horrible disgrace. There is only one thing for me now, absolute Humility: just as there is only one thing for you, absolute Humility also. You had better come down into the dust and learn it beside me.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (De Profundis)
“
This fetishistic transmutation separates Warhol from Duchamp and all his predecessors. For Duchamp, Dada, the Surrealists and all who worked to deconstruct representation and smash the work of art are still part of an avant-garde, and belong, in one way or another, to the critical utopia. For us moderns, at any rate, art has ceased to be an illusion; it has become an idea. It is no longer idolatric now, but critical and utopian, even when -- particularly when -- it demystifies its object or when, with Duchamp, it aestheticizes at a stroke, with its bottle-rack, the whole field of daily reality.
This is still true of a whole segment of Pop Art, with its lyrical vision of popcorn or comic strips. Banality here becomes the criterion of aesthetic salvation, the means of exalting the creative subjectivity of the artist. Obliterating the object the better to mark out the ideal space of art and the ideal position of the subject. But Warhol belongs to no avant-garde and to no utopia. And if he settles utopia's hash, he does so because, instead of projecting it elsewhere, he takes up residence directly at its heart, that is, at the heart of nowhere. He is himself this no place: this is how he traverses the space of the avant-garde and, at a stroke, completes the cycle of the aesthetic. This is how he at last liberates us from art and its critical utopia.
”
”
Jean Baudrillard (The Perfect Crime)
“
After Marcus had wiped her perspiring body with a cool, damp cloth, he dressed her in his discarded shirt, which held the scent of his skin. He brought her a plate containing a poached pear, and a glass of sweet wine, and even allowed her to feed him a few bites of the silky-soft fruit. When her appetite was sated, Lillian set aside the empty plate and spoon, and turned to snuggle against him. He rose on one elbow and looked down at her, his fingers playing idly in her hair.
“Are you sorry that I wouldn’t let St. Vincent have you?”
She gave him a puzzled smile. “Why would you ask such a thing? Surely you’re not having pangs of conscience.”
Marcus shook his head. “I am merely wondering if you had any regrets.”
Surprised and touched by his need for reassurance, Lillian toyed with the dark curls on his chest. “No,” she said frankly. “He is attractive, and I do like him… but I didn’t want him.”
“You did consider marrying him, however.”
“Well,” she admitted, “it did cross my mind that I would like to be a duchess— but only to spite you.”
A smile flashed across his face. He retaliated with a punishing nip at her breast, causing her to yelp. “I couldn’t have borne it,” he admitted, “seeing you married to anyone but me.”
“I don’t think Lord St. Vincent will have any difficulty finding another heiress to suit his purposes.”
“Perhaps. But there aren’t many women with fortunes comparable to yours… and none with your beauty.”
Smiling at the compliment, Lillian crawled halfway over him and hitched one leg over his. “Tell me more. I want to hear you wax lyrical about my charms.”
Levering himself to a sitting position, Marcus lifted her with an ease that made her gasp, and settled her until she straddled his hips. He stroked a fingertip along the pale skin that was exposed at the open vee of the shirt. “I never wax lyrical,” he said. “Marsdens are not a poetic sort. However…” He paused to admire the sight of the long-limbed young woman who sat astride him while her hair trailed to her waist in tangled streamers. “I could at least tell you that you look like a pagan princess, with your tangled black hair and your bright, dark eyes.”
“And?” Lillian encouraged, linking her arms loosely around his neck.
He set his hands at her slender waist and moved them down to grasp her strong, sleek thighs. “And that every erotic dream I’ve ever had about your magnificent legs pales in comparison to the reality.”
“You’ve dreamed about my legs?” Lillian wriggled as she felt his palms slide up her inner thighs in a lazy, teasing path.
“Oh yes.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (It Happened One Autumn (Wallflowers, #2))
“
Sky's The Limit"
[Intro]
Good evening ladies and gentlemen
How's everybody doing tonight
I'd like to welcome to the stage, the lyrically acclaimed
I like this young man because when he came out
He came out with the phrase, he went from ashy to classy
I like that
So everybody in the house, give a warm round of applause
For the Notorious B.I.G
The Notorious B.I.G., ladies and gentlemen give it up for him y'all
[Verse 1]
A nigga never been as broke as me - I like that
When I was young I had two pair of Lees, besides that
The pin stripes and the gray
The one I wore on Mondays and Wednesdays
While niggas flirt I'm sewing tigers on my shirts, and alligators
You want to see the inside, I see you later
Here comes the drama, oh, that's that nigga with the fake, blaow
Why you punch me in my face, stay in your place
Play your position, here come my intuition
Go in this nigga pocket, rob him while his friends watching
And hoes clocking, here comes respect
His crew's your crew or they might be next
Look at they man eye, big man, they never try
So we rolled with them, stole with them
I mean loyalty, niggas bought me milks at lunch
The milks was chocolate, the cookies, butter crunch
88 Oshkosh and blue and white dunks, pass the blunts
[Hook: 112]
Sky is the limit and you know that you keep on
Just keep on pressing on
Sky is the limit and you know that you can have
What you want, be what you want
Sky is the limit and you know that you keep on
Just keep on pressing on
Sky is the limit and you know that you can have
What you want, be what you want, have what you want, be what you want
[Verse 2]
I was a shame, my crew was lame
I had enough heart for most of them
Long as I got stuff from most of them
It's on, even when I was wrong I got my point across
They depicted me the boss, of course
My orange box-cutter make the world go round
Plus I'm fucking bitches ain't my homegirls now
Start stacking, dabbled in crack, gun packing
Nickname Medina make the seniors tote my Niñas
From gym class, to English pass off a global
The only nigga with a mobile can't you see like Total
Getting larger in waists and tastes
Ain't no telling where this felon is heading, just in case
Keep a shell at the tip of your melon, clear the space
Your brain was a terrible thing to waste
88 on gates, snatch initial name plates
Smoking spliffs with niggas, real-life beginner killers
Praying God forgive us for being sinners, help us out
[Hook]
[Verse 3]
After realizing, to master enterprising
I ain't have to be in school by ten, I then
Began to encounter with my counterparts
On how to burn the block apart, break it down into sections
Drugs by the selections
Some use pipes, others use injections
Syringe sold separately Frank the Deputy
Quick to grab my Smith & Wesson like my dick was missing
To protect my position, my corner, my lair
While we out here, say the Hustlers Prayer
If the game shakes me or breaks me
I hope it makes me a better man
Take a better stand
Put money in my mom's hand
Get my daughter this college grant so she don't need no man
Stay far from timid
Only make moves when your heart's in it
And live the phrase sky's the limit
Motherfuckers
See you chumps on top
[Hook]
”
”
The Notorious B.I.G
“
Momoko’s idea of the life of Mrs. Browning was singular. She had somehow gotten the idea that the poetess had been forced into a position much beneath her, had, in fact, been obliged to give herself to numbers of men, none of whom deserved her, and had consoled herself by penning those immortal lyrics of hers. I mentioned that the only men I know of in Elizabeth’s life were her father and her husband, both of whose intentions, so far as I had heard, had been impeccable. Yes, she nodded, pensive. She had heard of them. Robert—he was her first, her true love. And she remained true to him. While in the very throes of unfortunate transport in anonymous arms she had thought only of Robert. But certainly, I ventured, he had outlived her. He had gone on and become one of England’s greatest poets. “Did he write poetry too?” she asked, struck at the thought. “Yes, a very great deal.” She pondered, finger on cheek, then decided how sweet it was—he, the dear man, had loved her so much he had copied her. And she, forced into this promiscuous life, remained true to him, no matter what. And who forced her into it? Her father of course, crude man, who thought of nothing but money. I tried to discover where she could have uncovered such a fund of misinformation. Japanese schools teach some wild things but nothing, I think, so far from any reality as this. Upon this point, however, Momoko was not to be drawn out. She knew what she knew.
”
”
Donald Richie (The Inland Sea)
“
They thought they’d completed their assignment when the studio asked for one more, something punchy for a big production number. So they returned to the piano in their office on the Paramount lot. Several unproductive hours later, they gave up and took a drive in the Los Angeles hills, each of them in an irritable mood. Mercer, trying to think of something cheerful, remembered an “offbeat little rhythm tune”8 he’d heard Arlen humming a few days earlier, one that brought to mind a three-word phrase that had long intrigued him, “Accentuate the Positive.” Later, he gave differing accounts of where he’d first heard that phrase. One was that he’d been in an African American church in Savannah when the preacher, Bishop Grace—called Daddy Grace by his congregation—used it in a sermon. The other was that he’d been told that Father Divine—a Harlem preacher who claimed to be God—had used it. Either way, it was perfect for a song, which he and Arlen created by singing to each other as they continued their drive. Given the source of its lyric and the music’s gospel feel, it’s ironic that it was used in a racially offensive way. In the movie, Bing Crosby and Sonny Tufts performed it in blackface. But “Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive” became a jukebox hit and an enduring pop classic.
”
”
Walter Rimler (The Man That Got Away: The Life and Songs of Harold Arlen (Music in American Life))
“
There are moments in one's life which are like frontier posts marking the completion of a period but at the same time clearly indicating a new direction. At such a moment of transition we feel compelled to view the past and the present with the eagle eye of thought in order to become conscious of our real position. […] At such moments, however, a person becomes lyrical, for every metamorphosis is partly a swan song, partly the overture to a great new poem, which endeavors to achieve a stable form in brilliant colors that still merge into one another. Nevertheless, we should like to erect a memorial to what we have once lived through in order that this experience may regain in our emotions the place it has lost in our actions.
”
”
Karl Marx
“
y also represents a vowel in the middle of a bunch of words that have etymological origins in Greek (syllable, system, cycle, type, hyper, lyrics, gym). That’s a position where in the rest of the language we’d usually find an a, e, i, o, or u. They are spelled that way because they had the Greek letter ypsilon in that position.
”
”
Arika Okrent (Highly Irregular: Why Tough, Through, and Dough Don't Rhyme—And Other Oddities of the English Language)
“
Chance is not a neutral but a distinctly positive force, the surrealists believe that you can get on good terms with chance by adopting a lyrical mode of behavior and an open attitude.
”
”
Eileen Agar
“
If you want me, love,” he whispered, “tell me in Romany. Please.”
Blindly Amelia turned her head and kissed the curve of his biceps. “What should I say?”
He murmured soft lyrical words, waiting patiently as she repeated them, helping her when she faltered. All the while he positioned himself against her, lower, tighter, and just as the last syllable left her lips, he thrust strongly inside her.
Amelia flinched and cried out in pain, and Cam was torn between acute regret at having hurt her, and the devastating pleasure of being inside her. Her innocent flesh cinched around the unfamiliar invasion, her hips lifting as if to throw him off, but every movement only drew him deeper. He tried to soothe away the hurt, stroking her, kissing her throat and breasts. Taking a rosy crest into his mouth, he sucked lightly, ran his tongue over it, until she relaxed beneath him and began to moan.
Cam couldn’t stop from moving then, forgetting everything but the need to push deeper into the gently gripping flesh, the warm limbs curving around him, the sweet panting mouth beneath his. He whispered compulsively against her lips … one word, over and over, the ecstasy crowning higher every time. “Mandis … mandis…”
Mine.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Mine Till Midnight (The Hathaways, #1))
“
Outer influences and distractions Consider the power of external influences to condition your life experience. Spend a day watching how what you encounter impacts your attitude and spirit. Pay attention to what is usually mere background noise. Probe all sights, sounds, and touches as life swirls about. Listen to the radio carefully. Study the comments on talk shows. Listen to popular music lyrics and rhythms. Pay attention to words and worldview, tones and timbre. What and how do you feel as a result? Watch people at a shopping mall. How many appear trim and in vibrant health? How many look happy? What are people wearing and how are they groomed? What does their appearance suggest about your community’s values? Does the appearance of others affect how you feel? Chat with coworkers. What comes up about the economy, government, and company management? Suggest changes in attitudes and actions for more happiness or productivity. What kind of responses do they give you? Look at Internet discussions and news. What is the tone and logic of the posts? Does the commenters’ passion reflect their intellectual depth and degree of knowledge? How many stories are negative and how many are positive? Could any of the negative stories be written with a positive spin and still remain true? How do you feel about what you observe? Is it possible that even if you had not been paying close attention, those experiences out on the margin of awareness might have affected your mood or attitude?
”
”
Stephen K. Hayes (Heart of Light, Blade of Thunder)
“
Most people are familiar with the rich, resonant tones of James Earl Jones and Morgan Freeman. Their signature voices bring strength, authority, and lyrical enjoyment. Are there aspects of your voice that you can capitalize on to make a great impression and be simply unforgettable?
”
”
Susan C. Young (The Art of Communication: 8 Ways to Confirm Clarity & Understanding for Positive Impact(The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #5))
“
Sometimes you’re sad, you listen to sad music, you relate to the lyrics, you sulk, and that is alright. Just remember, everything will be fine at the end of the day. Sometimes you’re happy, you write happy positive posts, re-blog cute stuff, you laugh at everything, you feel like celebrating everything, and that’s okay. We have our moments, we’ve all had those days where we feel sad and we have no idea why. You’re entitled to feel what you want to feel at the moment. Don’t let them tell you you have no right to be sad. Don’t let them tell you not to celebrate the small things you have accomplished.
”
”
dandelionlady96
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because he began using the term “heavy metal” with equal vigor, perhaps derived from a lyric in Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild,” or from Beat writer William Burroughs’s character The Heavy Metal Kid from his early ’60s Nova Trilogy. A blogger named A. S. Van Dorston chronicled all the times Saunders used the term in his reviews in the early ’70s.11 In a 1970 Humble Pie review for Rolling Stone, he brandished the term as an insult, but by 1971 in Creem he was using it positively for Sir Lord Baltimore. The following year he used it in multiple reviews in Rolling Stone and Phonograph Record magazine for bands like Deep Purple and Uriah Heep (and even Fanny), dubbing Sabbath the “Dark Princes of Heavy Metal.” That year other writers like Dave Marsh in Creem started picking it up as well. By 1973 NME followed suit, as did Melody Maker in 1974.
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Andrew Grant Jackson (1973: Rock at the Crossroads)
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Magda likes her because she sings songs with very powerful, positive lyrics. Nadine likes her because her music is very cool and hip. I like her because she’s got long, wild curly hair a bit like mine but much lovelier and she’s not a bit fat but she is much curvier than your average rock chick. So she’s kind of my role model.
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Jacqueline Wilson (Girls Out Late)
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Cause at your best you are love
You're a positive motivating force within my life
And if you ever feel the need to wonder why
Let me know, let me know
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The Isley Brothers
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It doesn't matter what you do in this life, only that having a happy disposition and a 'good' attitude will ensure that your time is valued positively.
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Raymond Crane (Lyrics Selection)
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Our egos divide the world into positive and negative, good and bad. Most aspects of our shadows, these qualities that we see as “negative,” would in fact be valuable strengths if we made them conscious. Characteristics that look immoral, barbaric, or embarrassing to us are the “negative” side of a valuable energy, a capacity we could make use of. You will never find anything in the unconscious that will not be useful and good when it is made conscious and brought to the right level. What part of you will be hidden behind this symbol, the thief? Perhaps a lively trickster, with all sorts of surprising talents. Perhaps a juvenile delinquent in you who has never been allowed to grow up and put his heroic urge into something useful and mature. Perhaps it is Dionysus, who has had to hide out in the unconscious because you have no natural place for his ecstatic and lyrical spirit in the midst of your purposive life. Only you will be able to say what part of you is represented by this symbol if it appears in your dream—for it is your own unconscious that holds the clues. But you may be sure that if you give it its place, and hear what it has to say, it will be revealed as a valuable part of your inner self. Curiously, people usually resist their good qualities even more emphatically than they resist facing their negative qualities. There may be a character in your dream who behaves in a noble and courageous way. Since that inner person is part of you, its qualities are also yours. So long as you are facing your negative and immature traits squarely, you also have a duty to acknowledge the fine qualities in yourself, and to live them consciously.
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Robert A. Johnson (Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth)
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In some ways Coleridge committed a form of artistic suicide attempting to solve the complicated mystery he saw in the flocking starlings. In a harrowing self-indictment he later described himself as a 'starling self-encaged, & always in the moult, & my whole note is, tomorrow & tomorrow & tomorrow.' Slowly losing confidence in himself as a poet, he attempted to become an all-knowing philosopher-king. He ignored the simpler images central to his life as a poet and attempted to create an equally complex system of philosophy that would hold it all in place. He eventually produced the Biographia Literaria, an immense tome, impressive in learning, thought and scholarship, but in my heretical opinion as an unrepentant lyric poet, a tragedy of wasted effort and a loss to all of us compared to the vital geniums of his early poetry.
This happens in a parallel fashion to many skilled managers who convince themselves that the organization's vision is their own vision. They suddenly find themselves in positions that are seen as rewards for rather than consummations of their skill; their natural abilities may not translate into the job they have been promoted to, nor may their interest, but because of the pressure of the career path, they may convince themselves into a phantom life under an overarching system that includes everything except their own desires.
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David Whyte (The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America)
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A friend argues that Americans battle between the "historical self" and the "self self." By this she means you mostly interact as friends with mutual interest and, for the most part, compatible personalities; however, sometimes your historical selves, her white self and your black self, or your white self and her black self, arrive with the full force of your American positioning.
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Claudia Rankine (Citizen: An American Lyric)