Tears Of A Clown Quotes

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Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, "Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. Says, "But doctor...I am Pagliacci.
Alan Moore (Watchmen)
Clown in the Moon" My tears are like the quiet drift Of petals from some magic rose; And all my grief flows from the rift Of unremembered skies and snows. I think, that if I touched the earth, It would crumble; It is so sad and beautiful, So tremulously like a dream.
Dylan Thomas (The Poems of Dylan Thomas)
You tear me down just to build me up again. All I can think is: you are a psycho-clown.
Coco J. Ginger
I heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Life seems harsh, and cruel. Says he feels all alone in threatening world. Doctor says: "Treatment is simple. The great clown - Pagliacci - is in town. Go see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. "But doctor..." he says "I am Pagliacci." Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains.
Alan Moore (Watchmen)
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!     No hungry generations tread thee down;   The voice I hear this passing night was heard     In ancient days by emperor and clown:   Perhaps the self-same song that found a path      Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,       She stood in tears amid the alien corn;             The same that ofttimes hath     Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam       Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
John Keats
Happy the writer who, passing by characters that are boring, disgusting, shocking in their mournful reality, approaches characters that manifest the lofty dignity of man, who from the great pool of daily whirling images has chosen only the rare exceptions, who has never once betrayed the exalted turning of his lyre, nor descended from his height to his poor, insignificant brethren, and, without touching the ground, has given the whole of himself to his elevated images so far removed from it. Twice enviable is his beautiful lot: he is among them as in his own family; and meanwhile his fame spreads loud and far. With entrancing smoke he has clouded people's eyes; he has flattered them wondrously, concealing what is mournful in life, showing them a beautiful man. Everything rushes after him, applauding, and flies off following his triumphal chariot. Great world poet they name him, soaring high above all other geniuses in the world, as the eagle soars above the other high fliers. At the mere mention of his name, young ardent hearts are filled with trembling, responsive tears shine in all eyes...No one equals him in power--he is God! But such is not the lot, and other is the destiny of the writer who has dared to call forth all that is before our eyes every moment and which our indifferent eyes do not see--all the stupendous mire of trivia in which our life in entangled, the whole depth of cold, fragmented, everyday characters that swarm over our often bitter and boring earthly path, and with the firm strength of his implacable chisel dares to present them roundly and vividly before the eyes of all people! It is not for him to win people's applause, not for him to behold the grateful tears and unanimous rapture of the souls he has stirred; no sixteen-year-old girl will come flying to meet him with her head in a whirl and heroic enthusiasm; it is not for him to forget himself in the sweet enchantment of sounds he himself has evoked; it is not for him, finally, to escape contemporary judgment, hypocritically callous contemporary judgment, which will call insignificant and mean the creations he has fostered, will allot him a contemptible corner in the ranks of writers who insult mankind, will ascribe to him the quality of the heroes he has portrayed, will deny him heart, and soul, and the divine flame of talent. For contemporary judgment does not recognize that equally wondrous are the glasses that observe the sun and those that look at the movement of inconspicuous insect; for contemporary judgment does not recognize that much depth of soul is needed to light up the picture drawn from contemptible life and elevate it into a pearl of creation; for contemporary judgment does not recognize that lofty ecstatic laughter is worthy to stand beside the lofty lyrical impulse, and that a whole abyss separates it from the antics of the street-fair clown! This contemporary judgment does not recognize; and will turn it all into a reproach and abuse of the unrecognized writer; with no sharing, no response, no sympathy, like a familyless wayfarer, he will be left alone in the middle of the road. Grim is his path, and bitterly he will feel his solitude.
Nikolai Gogol (Dead Souls)
Most of the world's ills, it seemed to him, were caused by men who believed themselves important: on a good day it always ended in tears, on a bad day in global destruction. Oliver was not a man to start a war or provoke pestilence: his icons were the makers of music, the tellers of tales, the clowns and the balladeers, and all who celebrated life's footnotes, appendices and afterthoughts. Little Brown, London, 1994.
Alan Plater (Oliver's Travels)
I would have liked to cry: the make-up stopped me, it looked just right, with the cracks, with the places where it was beginning to flake off, tears would have ruined all that. I could cry later, if I still felt like it.
Heinrich Böll (The Clown)
The kind of happy I was that day at the Vet when "Hawk" Dawson actually doffed his red "C" cap to me, and everyone cheered and practically convulsed into tears - you can't patent that. It was one shining moment of glory that was instantly gone. Whereas life, real life, is different and can't even be appraised as simply "happy", but only in terms of "Yes, I'll take it all, thanks" or "No, I believe I won't." Happy, as my poor father used to say, is a lot of hooey. Happy is a circus clown, a sitcom, a greeting card. Life, though, life's about something sterner. But also something better. A lot better. Believe me.
Richard Ford (The Lay of the Land)
... WHEN ONE LOOKS INTO THE DARKNESS THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING THERE... Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose, Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre, Or in the wine-vat, dwell beyond the stir And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep Among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep Men have named beauty. Thy great leaves enfold The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold Of the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyes Saw the pierced Hands and Rood of elder rise In Druid vapour and make the torches dim; Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him Who met Fand walking among flaming dew By a grey shore where the wind never blew, And lost the world and Emer for a kiss; And him who drove the gods out of their liss, And till a hundred morns had flowered red Feasted, and wept the barrows of his dead; And the proud dreaming king who flung the crown And sorrow away, and calling bard and clown Dwelt among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods: And him who sold tillage, and house, and goods, And sought through lands and islands numberless years, Until he found, with laughter and with tears, A woman of so shining loveliness That men threshed corn at midnight by a tress, A little stolen tress. I, too, await The hour of thy great wind of love and hate. When shall the stars be blown about the sky, Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die? Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows, Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose? Out of sight is out of mind: Long have man and woman-kind, Heavy of will and light of mood, Taken away our wheaten food, Taken away our Altar stone; Hail and rain and thunder alone, And red hearts we turn to grey, Are true till time gutter away. ... the common people are always ready to blame the beautiful.
W.B. Yeats (The Secret Rose and Rosa Alchemica)
I stood and looked at the large framed painting of the Pierrot clown that hung on her wall and sympathised with the tears that rolled down its cheek. Like the clown, I felt contained within a frame, the only difference being my tears were not for public show.
Eileen Munroe
King Kranlin became dizzily aware that day was now indiscernible from night, that selfness was essentially the same as otherness, that all things had become nothing, and that nothing had become everything. “What’s happening to me?” he croaked. “I shot you with my deconstruction pistol,” King Derridap said. “An invisible différance-bullet has pierced that well-fed belly of yours. You’re deconstructing.
Douglas Hackle (Clown Tear Junkies)
He saw the true face of the 20th century and chose to become a reflection, a parody of it. No one else saw the joke, that's why he was lonely. Heard a joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says "Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. Says "But, doctor...I am Pagliacci." Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains.
Alan Moore (Watchmen)
In the jumbled, fragmented memories I carry from my childhood there are probably nearly as many dreams as images from waking life. I thought of one which might have been my earliest remembered nightmare. I was probably about four years old - I don't think I'd started school yet - when I woke up screaming. The image I retained of the dream, the thing which had frightened me so, was an ugly, clown-like doll made of soft red and cream-coloured rubber. When you squeezed it, bulbous eyes popped out on stalks and the mouth opened in a gaping scream. As I recall it now, it was disturbingly ugly, not really an appropriate toy for a very young child, but it had been mine when I was younger, at least until I'd bitten its nose off, at which point it had been taken away from me. At the time when I had the dream I hadn't seen it for a year or more - I don't think I consciously remembered it until its sudden looming appearance in a dream had frightened me awake. When I told my mother about the dream, she was puzzled. 'But what's scary about that? You were never scared of that doll.' I shook my head, meaning that the doll I'd owned - and barely remembered - had never scared me. 'But it was very scary,' I said, meaning that the reappearance of it in my dream had been terrifying. My mother looked at me, baffled. 'But it's not scary,' she said gently. I'm sure she was trying to make me feel better, and thought this reasonable statement would help. She was absolutely amazed when it had the opposite result, and I burst into tears. Of course she had no idea why, and of course I couldn't explain. Now I think - and of course I could be wrong - that what upset me was that I'd just realized that my mother and I were separate people. We didn't share the same dreams or nightmares. I was alone in the universe, like everybody else. In some confused way, that was what the doll had been telling me. Once it had loved me enough to let me eat its nose; now it would make me wake up screaming. ("My Death")
Lisa Tuttle (Best New Horror 16 (The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, #16))
...My voice is stained with bloody light, and I see irises dry up at its touch; in my song I wear the finery of a white-faced clown. Love, sweet Love, hides under a spider. The sun, another spider, hides me under legs of gold. I will not find my fortune, for I am like Love himself, whose arrows are tears, and whose quiver is the heart...
Federico García Lorca
But I'll take you, Don Clown stuffed with garlic," said Don Quixote, "and tie you to a tree as naked as when your mother brought you forth, and give you, not to say three thousand three hundred, but six thousand six hundred lashes, and so well laid on that they won't be got rid of if you try three thousand three hundred times; don't answer me a word or I'll tear your soul out.
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Don Quixote)
Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, by use all gently, for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant. It out-herods Herod. Pray you avoid it. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature. For anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve, the censure of the which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly (not to speak profanely), that neither having th' accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. Reform it altogether! And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them, for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too, though in the mean time some necessary question of the play be then to be considered. That's villainous and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go make you ready.
William Shakespeare
Nay, 'twill be this hour ere I have done weeping. All the kind of the Launces have this very fault. I have received my proportion, like the prodigious son, and am going with Sir Proteus to the Imperial's court. I think Crab, my dog, be the sourest-natured dog that lives. My mother weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing her hands, and all our house in a great perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear. He is a stone, a very pebble stone, and has no more pity in him than a dog. A Jew would have wept to have seen our parting. Why, my grandam, having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, I'll show you the manner of it. This shoe is my father. No, this left shoe is my father. No, no, this left shoe is my mother. Nay, that cannot be so neither. Yes, it is so, it is so -- it hath the worser sole. This shoe with the hole in it is my mother, and this my father. A vengeance on't! There 'tis. Now, sir, this staff is my sister, for, look you, she is as white as a lily and as small as a wand. This hat is Nan, our maid. I am the dog. No, the dog is himself, and I am the dog -- O, the dog is me, and I am myself. Ay, so, so. Now come I to my father: 'Father, your blessing.' Now should not the shoe speak a word for weeping. Now should I kiss my father -- well, he weeps on. Now come I to my mother. O, that she could speak now like a wood woman! Well, I kiss her -- why, there 'tis: here's my mother's breath up and down. Now come I to my sister; mark the moan she makes. Now the dog all this while sheds not a tear nor speaks a word!
William Shakespeare (The Two Gentlemen of Verona)
In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 70
John Keats (Complete Works of John Keats)
Our little party Got under way as best it could. The twigs Unclenched, the greedy rosebuds caked with smut. The ill-knit creatures, now in hues Of sunstroke, mulberry, white of clown, Yellow of bile, bruise-blacks-and-blues, Stumped outward, waving matchstick arms, Colliding, poking, hurt, in tears
James Merrill (Collected Poems)
During the Mardi Gras carnival in New Orleans, drunk and drugged and sleepless for sex-driven nights and days, I saw leering clowns on gaudy floats tossing cheap necklaces to grasping hands that clutched and grabbed and tore them, spilling beads; and revelers crawled on littered streets, wrestling for them, bleeding for them on sidewalks; and beads fell on spattered blood like dirty tears—and I saw costumed revelers turn into angels, angels into demons, demons into clowning angels; and in a flashing moment the night split open into a deeper, darker chasm out of which soared demonic clowning angels laughing.
John Rechy (After the Blue Hour)
But I'll take you, Don Clown stuffed with garlic," said Don Quixote, "and tie you to a tree as naked as when your mother brought you forth, and give you, not to say three thousand three hundred, but six thousand six hundred lashes, and so well laid on that they won't be got rid of if you try three thousand three hundred times; don't answer me a word or I'll tear your soul out." On
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Don Quixote)
The history of the clown’s underpants is a secret history and I will never tell it. But if you think people are stupid and mazloom, and all you ever do is take from them then they eventually learn how to survive you. They learn to hide away everything they love where you can’t touch and they won’t just hide it some place easy to find like a clown’s pockets or any place in this world. They’ll create a new world with its own language and they’ll hide everything there. All the favorite jokes they won’t say around you. All the best books. The spot on the wall that looks like a keyhole. Being safe and free and comfortable. All those things, and you won’t even know they exist. And when you've gotten your hands on the one orange and you’ve laughed at the badly hidden tears. You won’t even know there was a secret zipper in a bus pillow where the rest of the bars were really hidden. Not some obvious clown. You won’t know because you believe the weak can’t do anything. But hiding is something you do when you wait to get stronger.
Daniel Nayeri (Everything Sad Is Untrue)
She climbs a tree And scrapes her knee Her dress has got a tear. She waltzes on her way to mass And whistles on the stair. And underneath her wimple She has curlers in her hair! Maria's not an asset to the abbey. She's always late for chapel, But her penitence is real. She's always late for everything! Except for every meal. I hate to have to say it But I very firmly feel Maria's not an asset to the abbey! I'd like to say a word on her behalf. Maria makes me laugh. How do you solve a problem like Maria? How do you catch a cloud and pin it down? How do you find a word that means Maria? A flibbertigibbet! A will o' the wisp! A clown! Many a thing you know you'd like to tell her, Many a thing she ought to understand. But how do you make her stay And listen to all you say, How do you keep a wave upon the sand? Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria? How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand? When I'm with her I'm confused Out of focus and bemused, And I never know exactly where I am. Unpredictable as weather, She's as flighty as a feather, She's a darling, She's a demon, She's a lamb. She'd out-pester any pest, Drive a hornet from his nest, She can throw a whirling dervish out of whirl. She is gentle, She is wild, She's a riddle. She's a child. She's a headache! She's an angel! She's a girl. How do you solve a problem like Maria? How do you catch a cloud and pin it down? How do you find a word that means Maria? A flibbertigibbet! A will o' the wisp! A clown! Many a thing you know you'd like to tell her, Many a thing she ought to understand. But how do you make her stay? And listen to all you say? How do you keep a wave upon the sand? Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria? How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand? "Maria" from The Sound of Music
Rodgers & Hammerstein
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,— That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim: Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs, Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays; But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep? - Ode to a Nightingale
John Keats (The Complete Poems)
Every select man strives instinctively for a citadel and a privacy, where he is FREE from the crowd, the many, the majority—where he may forget "men who are the rule," as their exception;—exclusive only of the case in which he is pushed straight to such men by a still stronger instinct, as a discerner in the great and exceptional sense. Whoever, in intercourse with men, does not occasionally glisten in all the green and grey colours of distress, owing to disgust, satiety, sympathy, gloominess, and solitariness, is assuredly not a man of elevated tastes; supposing, however, that he does not voluntarily take all this burden and disgust upon himself, that he persistently avoids it, and remains, as I said, quietly and proudly hidden in his citadel, one thing is then certain: he was not made, he was not predestined for knowledge. For as such, he would one day have to say to himself: "The devil take my good taste! but 'the rule' is more interesting than the exception—than myself, the exception!" And he would go DOWN, and above all, he would go "inside." The long and serious study of the AVERAGE man—and consequently much disguise, self-overcoming, familiarity, and bad intercourse (all intercourse is bad intercourse except with one's equals):—that constitutes a necessary part of the life-history of every philosopher; perhaps the most disagreeable, odious, and disappointing part. If he is fortunate, however, as a favourite child of knowledge should be, he will meet with suitable auxiliaries who will shorten and lighten his task; I mean so-called cynics, those who simply recognize the animal, the commonplace and "the rule" in themselves, and at the same time have so much spirituality and ticklishness as to make them talk of themselves and their like BEFORE WITNESSES—sometimes they wallow, even in books, as on their own dung-hill. Cynicism is the only form in which base souls approach what is called honesty; and the higher man must open his ears to all the coarser or finer cynicism, and congratulate himself when the clown becomes shameless right before him, or the scientific satyr speaks out. There are even cases where enchantment mixes with the disgust—namely, where by a freak of nature, genius is bound to some such indiscreet billy-goat and ape, as in the case of the Abbé Galiani, the profoundest, acutest, and perhaps also filthiest man of his century—he was far profounder than Voltaire, and consequently also, a good deal more silent. It happens more frequently, as has been hinted, that a scientific head is placed on an ape's body, a fine exceptional understanding in a base soul, an occurrence by no means rare, especially among doctors and moral physiologists. And whenever anyone speaks without bitterness, or rather quite innocently, of man as a belly with two requirements, and a head with one; whenever any one sees, seeks, and WANTS to see only hunger, sexual instinct, and vanity as the real and only motives of human actions; in short, when any one speaks "badly"—and not even "ill"—of man, then ought the lover of knowledge to hearken attentively and diligently; he ought, in general, to have an open ear wherever there is talk without indignation. For the indignant man, and he who perpetually tears and lacerates himself with his own teeth (or, in place of himself, the world, God, or society), may indeed, morally speaking, stand higher than the laughing and self-satisfied satyr, but in every other sense he is the more ordinary, more indifferent, and less instructive case. And no one is such a LIAR as the indignant man.
Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil)
Every special human being strives instinctively for his own castle and secrecy, where he is saved from the crowd, the many, the majority—where he can forget the rule-bound "people," for he is an exception to them;—but for the single case where he is pushed by an even stronger instinct straight against these rules, as a person who seeks knowledge in a great and exceptional sense. Anyone who, in his intercourse with human beings, does not, at one time or another, shimmer with all the colours of distress—green and gray with disgust, surfeit, sympathy, gloom, and loneliness—is certainly not a man of higher taste. But provided he does not take all this weight and lack of enthusiasm freely upon himself, always keeps away from it, and stays, as mentioned, hidden, quiet, and proud in his castle, well, one thing is certain: he is not made for, not destined for, knowledge. For if he were, he would one day have to say to himself, "The devil take my good taste! The rule-bound man is more interesting than the exception—than I am, the exception!"— and he would make his way down , above all, "inside." The study of the average man—long, serious, and requiring much disguise, self-control, familiarity, bad company - (all company is bad company except with one’s peers):—that constitutes a necessary part of the life story of every philosopher, perhaps the most unpleasant, foul-smelling part, the richest in disappointments. But if he’s lucky, as is appropriate for a fortunate child of knowledge, he encounters real shortcuts and ways of making his task easier; I’m referring to the so-called cynics, those who, as cynics, simply recognize the animal, the meanness, the "rule-bound man" in themselves and, in the process, still possess that degree of intellectual quality and urge to have to talk about themselves and people like them before witnesses;—now and then they even wallow in books, as if in their very own dung. Cynicism is the single form in which common souls touch upon what honesty is, and the higher man should open his ears to every cruder and more refined cynicism and think himself lucky every time a shameless clown or a scientific satyr announces himself directly in front of him. There are even cases where enchantment gets mixed into the disgust—for example, in those places where, by some vagary of nature, genius is bound up with such an indiscreet billy-goat and ape; as in the Abbé Galiani, the most profound, sharp-sighted, and perhaps also the foulest man of his century—he was much deeper than Voltaire and consequently a good deal quieter. More frequently it happens that, as I’ve intimated, the scientific head is set on an ape’s body, a refined and exceptional understanding in a common soul; among doctors and moral physiologists, for example, that’s not an uncommon occurrence. And where anyone speaks without bitterness and quite harmlessly of men as a belly with two different needs and a head with one, everywhere someone constantly sees, looks for, and wants to see only hunger, sexual desires, and vanity, as if these were the real and only motivating forces in human actions, in short, wherever people speak "badly" of human beings—not even in a nasty way—there the lover of knowledge should pay fine and diligent attention; he should, in general, direct his ears to wherever people talk without indignation. For the indignant man and whoever is always using his own teeth to tear himself apart or lacerate himself (or, as a substitute for that, the world, or God, or society) may indeed, speaking morally, stand higher than the laughing and self-satisfied satyr, but in every other sense he is the more ordinary, the more trivial, the more uninstructive case. And no one lies as much as the indignant man.
Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil)
I wonder about the gorillas, too. I bet they hate it — feel acute terror and rage — when they wake up covered in something constraining which they cannot possibly understand. Do the game wardens mercifully knock them out again with another tranquilizer dart, and gently remove the disgraceful circus costumes? Or do the gorillas themselves tear the damned weird stuff off their bodies just as soon as they wake? Or do some of them simply wander off, not quite able to cope, like you or me after a bad drunk? In that case, how many tragic gorillas in clown suits might wander the Ugandan jungle this very day?
Robert Anton Wilson (Cosmic Trigger III: My Life After Death)
Happiness is a guest in life Pain is part of life The rainbow comes with rain. The gray shade is part of life It gives breath to a dead body. Sometimes it kills your soul Sweet or bitter, it doesn't matter what taste it has. But love is a part of life Some give you joy Some break you badly in all pleasant moments in the heart or deep wounds in the soul visible in your eyes, like a dark tear's trace or decorate a pretty smile on your face thousands of times scroll in your mind even if unpleasant. but it has grace Your biggest emotion's strife Maybe it hurts you, like a sharp knife. doesn't matter what color and shape it has But memories are part of life. You cry, you laugh, and you breathe looks like a clown or a freak wearing a mask to hide the truth. not only life Sometimes death is also part of life Sometimes death is also part of life.
Mohammed Zaki Ansari ("Zaki's Gift Of Love")
HAPPINESS GUEST IN LIFE written by: Zaki Ansari @zakiashkim Happiness is guest in life Pain is part of life the rainbow comes with rain only the gray shade is part of life it gives breaths to a dead body sometimes it kills your soul sweet or bitter doesn’t matter what taste it has but love is the part of life some give you joy some break you badly in all pleasant moments in the heart or deep wounds in the soul visible in your eyes, like a dark tear’s trace or decorate a pretty smile on your face thousand of times scroll in your mind even if unpleasant, but it has a grace your biggest emotion’s strife maybe hurts you, like a sharp knife doesn’t matter what color and shape it has But memories are part of life you cry, you laugh, and you breathe looks like a clown or a freak wearing a mask to hide the truth not only life sometimes death is also part of life sometimes death is also part of life
Mohammed Zaki Ansari ("Zaki's Gift Of Love")
Every select man strives instinctively for a citadel and a privacy, where he is FREE from the crowd, the many, the majority—where he may forget "men who are the rule," as their exception;—exclusive only of the case in which he is pushed straight to such men by a still stronger instinct, as a discerner in the great and exceptional sense. Whoever, in intercourse with men, does not occasionally glisten in all the green and grey colours of distress, owing to disgust, satiety, sympathy, gloominess, and solitariness, is assuredly not a man of elevated tastes; supposing, however, that he does not voluntarily take all this burden and disgust upon himself, that he persistently avoids it, and remains, as I said, quietly and proudly hidden in his citadel, one thing is then certain: he was not made, he was not predestined for knowledge. For as such, he would one day have to say to himself: "The devil take my good taste! but 'the rule' is more interesting than the exception—than myself, the exception!" And he would go DOWN, and above all, he would go "inside." The long and serious study of the AVERAGE man—and consequently much disguise, self-overcoming, familiarity, and bad intercourse (all intercourse is bad intercourse except with one's equals):—that constitutes a necessary part of the life-history of every philosopher; perhaps the most disagreeable, odious, and disappointing part. If he is fortunate, however, as a favourite child of knowledge should be, he will meet with suitable auxiliaries who will shorten and lighten his task; I mean so-called cynics, those who simply recognize the animal, the commonplace and "the rule" in themselves, and at the same time have so much spirituality and ticklishness as to make them talk of themselves and their like BEFORE WITNESSES—sometimes they wallow, even in books, as on their own dung-hill. Cynicism is the only form in which base souls approach what is called honesty; and the higher man must open his ears to all the coarser or finer cynicism, and congratulate himself when the clown becomes shameless right before him, or the scientific satyr speaks out. There are even cases where enchantment mixes with the disgust—namely, where by a freak of nature, genius is bound to some such indiscreet billy-goat and ape, as in the case of the Abbe Galiani, the profoundest, acutest, and perhaps also filthiest man of his century—he was far profounder than Voltaire, and consequently also, a good deal more silent. It happens more frequently, as has been hinted, that a scientific head is placed on an ape's body, a fine exceptional understanding in a base soul, an occurrence by no means rare, especially among doctors and moral physiologists. And whenever anyone speaks without bitterness, or rather quite innocently, of man as a belly with two requirements, and a head with one; whenever any one sees, seeks, and WANTS to see only hunger, sexual instinct, and vanity as the real and only motives of human actions; in short, when any one speaks "badly"—and not even "ill"—of man, then ought the lover of knowledge to hearken attentively and diligently; he ought, in general, to have an open ear wherever there is talk without indignation. For the indignant man, and he who perpetually tears and lacerates himself with his own teeth (or, in place of himself, the world, God, or society), may indeed, morally speaking, stand higher than the laughing and self-satisfied satyr, but in every other sense he is the more ordinary, more indifferent, and less instructive case. And no one is such a LIAR as the indignant man.
Friedrich Nietzsche
I need you, need you Since you left me if you see me with another girl Seeming like I'm having fun Although she may be cute She's just a substitute Because you're the permanent one So take a good look at my face You'll see my smile looks out of place If you look closer, it's easy to trace The tracks of my tears I need you, need you Outside I'm masquerading Inside my hope is fading Just a clown oh yeah Since you put me down My smile is my make up i wear my since my 1st breakup. sahi
Lovelace
He’d awakened screaming himself hoarse and his mother had rushed in and pressed his face to her bosom and made the clowns go away. His father had flicked on the light switch and stood in the doorway, his fists clenched in impotent anger and unfulfilled rage. Tears had traced a path down his face.
Gregg Hurwitz (The Tower)
Faction is a dangerous thing—presenting readers, viewers, and listeners with a fictitious account and making them think that it is true.
Dana Milbank (Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America)
Skousen’s movement (it changed its name from the Freemen Institute to the National Center for Constitutional Studies after militia groups began to use the “freemen” label) persisted. Skousen, claiming to represent the beliefs of the Founding Fathers, called for the abolition of Social Security, farm subsidies, and education and welfare funding; pulling out of the United Nations; and eliminating federal income taxes and most federal regulatory agencies. Skousen’s ideas might have died with him, but all that changed when Beck turned The 5,000 Year Leap into his manifesto. Skousen,
Dana Milbank (Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America)
In the meantime, though, the race for the Republican Party presidential nomination sure seems funny. The event known around the world as hashtagGOPClownCar is improbable, colossal, spectacular and shocking; epic, monumental, heinous and disgusting. It’s like watching 17 platypuses try to mount the queen of England. You can’t tear your eyes away from it. It
Matt Taibbi (Insane Clown President: Dispatches from the 2016 Circus)
Oh, Talbot,” Tracy said, falling welcomingly into my arms. “What are we going to do with you?” she said, burying her face into my shoulder. “There’s always the rodeo,” I told her. It was the first thing that came to my mind. She wiped a tear from her eye and looked up at me. “You rarely think before you speak, don’t you?” “What? I think I’d be great, those guys that get in the barrel and everything.” “You know those are rodeo clowns, right?” she was telling me. “Clowns? I hate clowns. They are the root of all evil in this world,” I answered. “You honestly believe that, don’t you?” Tracy said. “There are zombies and vampires roaming this world, but clowns rule as the supreme evil being in your world.
Mark Tufo (Alive in a Dead World (Zombie Fallout, #5))
TEARS OF A CLOWN My boyfriend said, “I think clown makeup is really sexy.” Shortly thereafter, he whispered in my ear, “Seriously, babe, it’s a major turn-on.” He wasn’t joking. —Chelsea
Robert K. Elder (It Was Over When: Tales of Romantic Dead Ends)
After we discovered that we’d both graduated from high school the same year, shared a religious devotion to all major professional sports, and hated gays, Bry and I professed our brove to one another, quit our slaughterhouse jobs, and left our respective wives and kids so that we could move in together and hang out 24/7
Douglas Hackle (Clown Tear Junkies)
Every select man strives instinctively for a citadel and a privacy, where he is FREE from the crowd, the many, the majority—where he may forget "men who are the rule," as their exception;—exclusive only of the case in which he is pushed straight to such men by a still stronger instinct, as a discerner in the great and exceptional sense. Whoever, in intercourse with men, does not occasionally glisten in all the green and grey colours of distress, owing to disgust, satiety, sympathy, gloominess, and solitariness, is assuredly not a man of elevated tastes; supposing, however, that he does not voluntarily take all this burden and disgust upon himself, that he persistently avoids it, and remains, as I said, quietly and proudly hidden in his citadel, one thing is then certain: he was not made, he was not predestined for knowledge. For as such, he would one day have to say to himself: "The devil take my good taste! but 'the rule' is more interesting than the exception—than myself, the exception!" And he would go DOWN, and above all, he would go "inside." The long and serious study of the AVERAGE man—and consequently much disguise, self-overcoming, familiarity, and bad intercourse (all intercourse is bad intercourse except with one's equals):—that constitutes a necessary part of the life-history of every philosopher; perhaps the most disagreeable, odious, and disappointing part. If he is fortunate, however, as a favourite child of knowledge should be, he will meet with suitable auxiliaries who will shorten and lighten his task; I mean so-called cynics, those who simply recognize the animal, the commonplace and "the rule" in themselves, and at the same time have so much spirituality and ticklishness as to make them talk of themselves and their like BEFORE WITNESSES—sometimes they wallow, even in books, as on their own dung-hill. Cynicism is the only form in which base souls approach what is called honesty; and the higher man must open his ears to all the coarser or finer cynicism, and congratulate himself when the clown becomes shameless right before him, or the scientific satyr speaks out. There are even cases where enchantment mixes with the disgust—namely, whereby a freak of nature, genius is bound to some such indiscreet billy-goat and ape, as in the case of the Abbe Galiani, the profoundest, acutest, and perhaps also filthiest man of his century—he was far profounder than Voltaire, and consequently also, a good deal more silent. It happens more frequently, as has been hinted, that a scientific head is placed on an ape's body, a fine exceptional understanding in a base soul, an occurrence by no means rare, especially among doctors and moral physiologists. And whenever anyone speaks without bitterness, or rather quite innocently, of man as a belly with two requirements, and a head with one; whenever anyone sees, seeks, and WANTS to see only hunger, sexual instinct, and vanity as the real and only motives of human actions; in short, when any one speaks "badly"—and not even "ill"—of man, then ought the lover of knowledge to hearken attentively and diligently; he ought, in general, to have an open ear wherever there is talk without indignation. For the indignant man, and he who perpetually tears and lacerates himself with his own teeth (or, in place of himself, the world, God, or society), may indeed, morally speaking, stand higher than the laughing and self-satisfied satyr, but in every other sense he is the more ordinary, more indifferent, and less instructive case. And no one is such a LIAR as the indignant man.
Friedrich Nietzsche
This world is a circus, and we are the clowns.
Rhett Downing (Crocodile Tears)
About an hour outside of Chicago, as you drive north toward Wisconsin, there is a man sitting in the basement of an old farmhouse, wringing his pale, white hands. In fact, his entire nude body is covered in a white dust, a powder, a singular tear running down his right cheek. His overweight body hangs in folds over the edges of his frame, the tiny, brown stool straining under the weight. There is a singular light bulb overheard, and it is doing a poor job illuminating the cold concrete, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing. (Clown Face)
Richard Thomas (Spontaneous Human Combustion)
I am clamour. I am avarice. I am not part of this world in front of me. I am not compatible with it. Grass grows upon the sky. Reptiles spend the day in pursuit of the sun. Night belongs to the moon. Wind passes through the rivers. Rain turns ice-cold to fall like shooting stars. But only me…I am crude and simple, confined and trapped in this insignificant form. A great sorrow fermented inside me, but not a single tear ran down my cheek. My weaknesses were on full display. I was the petulant child stamping my feet for attention, a clown putting on a show in the hope that someone would watch. But no one did. Nature turned a deaf ear to tantrum. I’ve spoken before…lamented many times my loneliness. I’ve also spoken of the many kinds of loneliness experienced by countless numbers of people. But the more I say about this, the more embarrassed I feel. I stand alone on the earth, unable to bring the show to an end.
Li Juan
He then pointed to the right, and I turned to look. Exactly on cue, something massive came around the corner: a snaking, vehicular army that included a phalanx of police cars and motorcycles, a number of black SUVs, two armored limousines with American flags mounted on their hoods, a hazmat mitigation truck, a counterassault team riding with machine guns visible, an ambulance, a signals truck equipped to detect incoming projectiles, several passenger vans, and another group of police escorts. The presidential motorcade. It was at least twenty vehicles long, moving in orchestrated formation, car after car after car, before finally the whole fleet rolled to a quiet halt, and the limos stopped directly in front of Barack’s parked plane. I turned to Cornelius. “Is there a clown car?” I said. “Seriously, this is what he’s going to travel with now?” He smiled. “Every day for his entire presidency, yes,” he said. “It’s going to look like this all the time.” I took in the spectacle: thousands and thousands of pounds of metal, a squad of commandos, bulletproof everything. I had yet to grasp that Barack’s protection was still only half-visible. I didn’t know that he’d also, at all times, have a nearby helicopter ready to evacuate him, that sharpshooters would position themselves on rooftops along the routes he traveled, that a personal physician would always be with him in case of a medical problem, or that the vehicle he rode in contained a store of blood of the appropriate type in case he ever needed a transfusion. In a matter of weeks, just ahead of Barack’s inauguration, the presidential limo would be upgraded to a newer model—aptly named the Beast—a seven-ton tank disguised as a luxury vehicle, tricked out with hidden tear-gas cannons, rupture-proof tires, and a sealed ventilation system meant to get him through a biological or chemical attack.
Michelle Obama (Becoming)
Popo sucked in air, real fast, making a rasping sound. He turned his face away from us. Popo was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt, one of those wife beaters, I think they're called, not sure why. The one wife beater we'd come across wore a leather jacket. We broke down his door and caught him in action. Bernie made him pay. But that's another story. Right now I was watching Popo's shoulders, skinny shoulders, not at all like Bernie's, and his neck was skinny, too. Something about the back of his head was very nice, hard to explain. He was trembling just the tiniest bit. I went around and sat down in front of him, at his feet. Maybe he didn't see me right away, on account of his eyes being so damp and cloudy. But then he did, and reached out. I gave his hand a lick. It tasted of lipstick, a taste I knew from having chewed up one of Leda's lipsticks in the old days, or possibly more than one, even lots. Popo's eyes, overflowing now although he didn't make a sound, stayed on me. His face was very strange, part clown, part man, all smeared with red and tears, but I wasn't afraid. I moved closer, pressed against his leg. Popo was the kind of human I really liked, didn't know why. He put his hand on my shoulder and pulled me closer. I let myself be pulled.
Spencer Quinn (To Fetch a Thief (A Chet and Bernie Mystery, #3))
The dust on his face now turning to mild streaks of mud, where his tears fell, made him seem like an operatic clown character in Pagliacci when he looked at the inscription for the first time. To Alexander, my son, you are our brightest star. Always remember the only future you are ever guaranteed is the one you make for yourself. Willpower, Wisdom and intelligence are the keys—Love Dad Upon reading the words in the ring Alex realized that when he lost in his mental battle. He had given into fate, in all its entropic nonsense. He let it dictate his world. He had surrendered in what he thought was a victory and left himself at the whimsical and incidental forces of chance.
L.B. Ó Ceallaigh (Souls' Inverse (Red Sun #1))
Gordon decided to try something similar with a group of twelve students who frequently got into trouble. He created a technology squad, giving them responsibility for the school’s expensive computerized lighting and sound systems. He bought them black outfits emblazoned with the words “Tech Squad” and their names spelled out in glow-in-the-dark letters. The kids had no preexisting technology skills, but they learned how to use the boards and move giant mechanical curtains. “At my last graduation at the middle school, the tech teacher called in sick,” Gordon recalled. “I called the Tech Squad, and this tiny, eleven-year-old sixth grader said, ‘Don’t worry about a thing, Mr. Gordon, we’ve got your back.’” His mother later came to the school in tears and shared that after years of hating school, he now ate, slept, and dreamed about it. None of the kids were referred to the main office after they joined the squad. Gordon told me, “Their chests got bigger and they became heroes among the kids instead of the class clowns.” Find that one thing that gives your child a sense of purpose, whether it’s singing, running, volunteering, peer mentoring, or creative writing. Kids who feel competent are more resistant to peer pressure.
Phyllis L. Fagell (Middle School Matters: The 10 Key Skills Kids Need to Thrive in Middle School and Beyond--and How Parents Can Help)