O Captain, My Captain

Apparently I've got to be careful what I write on here. Friends who don't usually win arguments (or debates if you're the picky type, because we aren't mad at each other during said discussions) with me have been able to use my words against me and finally break my winning streak. *shifty eyes* You know who you are. Beware. I'll be ready to redeem myself next time.

So it's a wednesday night. What do you do on a wednesday when your friends are all busy with mid-week homework, class, work, and collapsing exhausted on the couch? You blog! Woot! But what about? *shrug* I think I warned everyone in my first post that this blog was likely to go downhill very quickly. And by downhill I don't mean that it gets bad, gross, angry, or any of that stuff. I just mean that the intellectual value will dip into the negatives. You may actually lose IQ points if you follow for too long.

"Congratulations, Mr. Hopkins. You have the first poem to ever have a negative score on the Pritchard scale."

Now that is one amazing movie.

And if you have no idea what movie I'm talking about, either from the quote or the picture, then you are a deprived being. You NEED to watch it. Not should. NEED. There's a few silly parts, and most of it is really funny, but it sneaks in this amazing moral of the story on you, and BAM! Next thing you know, you're bawling your eyes out and vowing to be a better person and never take life for granted again. Oh, yeah. I realized, if you are to watch this movie because you have no idea what I'm talking about, you might need to know what it is. And that would be The Dead Poets Society.

Some especially good quotes from it, both funny and awesome.

"There's a time for daring and there's a time for caution, and a wise man understands which is called for."

"We're not laughing at you - we're laughing near you."

"[quoting Henry David Thoreau] I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.To put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived."

"Boys, you must strive to find your own voice. Because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all. Thoreau said, "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation." Don't be resigned to that. Break out!"

"I SOUND MY BARBARIC YAWP OVER THE ROOFTOPS OF THE WORLD."

"Sucking the marrow out of life doesn't mean choking on the bone."

"John Keating: Language was developed for one endeavor, and that is - Mr. Anderson? Come on, are you a man or an amoeba?

[pause]
John Keating: Mr. Perry?
Neil: To communicate.
John Keating: No! To woo women!"

"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?"

I can't really think of anything else to say besides that. The powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

Be so that when it's time to die, you won't look back and realized that you never lived.