Little Richard's second Specialty release 'Long Tall Sally' stands as one of the most frantic hit records of all time. It was cut in New Orleans but it could just as easily have been cut on Venus.

Big Al Pavlow

"First there is a mountain, then there's Tara mountain, then there is."

Quotation from the I-Bill. Chapter 34 The sound of one nose sniffing

Observer

"The sound of one nose sniffing"

On U Sound

"For two or three days, Herbert Verrnon-Smith had hardly alluded to the man on the island, and seemed, in fact, almost to have forgotten him. But Redwing well knew the Bounder's stubborn obstinancy and unforgiving temper, and he could not feel easy in his mind. Ceratinly, a fellow who had had to bend over under the headmaster's birch might be expected to take it as a warning to mind his step. Few fellows would have thought of risking it a second time. But Smithy was a fellow to take the most reckless risks, when his back was up."

Frank Richards from Backing Up Billy Bunter (Cassell 1955)

According to the Ragusan annalists, Orlando, or
Rolando, the sister's son of Carl the Great, and a brave
Paladin, had heard in Bretagne, where he was governor,
that Saracen corsairs were ravaging the Roman towns
of the Adriatic. Orlando at once set out for Ragusa,
embarked on board a Ragusan galley, won a sea-victory
over the Saracen pirates off the island of Lacroma
opposite, took their Emir Spucento captive, and cut off
his head in Ragusa. Thereupon the grateful Ragusans
set up then and there a marble statue of Orlando, which
remains unto this day. 1

1 Alas ! that I should have to record that the statue dates at least five
centuries later than Orlando's time.

Arthur Evans from Through Bosnia and the Herzegdvina on foot, during the insurrection, August and September 1875, with an historical review of Bosnia, and a glimpse at the Croats, Slavonians, and the ancient republic of Ragusa

"Of all the strange things that Alice saw in her journey Through The Looking-Glass, this was the one that she always remembered most clearly. Years afterwards she could bring the whole scene back again, as if it had been only yesterday -- the mild blue eyes and kindly smile of the Knight -- the setting sun gleaming through his hair, and shining on his armour in a blaze of light that quite dazzled her -- the horse quietly moving about, with the reins hanging loose on his neck, cropping the grass at her feet -- and the black shadows of the forest behind -- all this she took in like a picture, as, with one hand shading her eyes, she leant against a tree, watching the strange pair, and listening, in a half-dream, to the melancholy music of the song."

Lewis Carroll: Through The Looking Glass And What Alice Found There

The unwritten books? They aren't a cause for resentment. There are too many books already. Besides, I remember the end of L'Education sentimentale. Frédéric and his companion Deslauriers are looking back over their lives. Their final, favourite memory is of a visit to a brothel years before, when they were still schoolboys. They had planned the trip in detail, had their hair specially curled for the occasion, and had even stolen flowers for the girls. But when they got to the brothel, Frédéric lost his nerve, and they both ran away. Such was the best day of their lives. Isn't the most reliable form of pleasure, Flaubert implies, the pleasure of anticipation? Who needs to burst into fulfilment's desolate attic?

Julian Barnes Flaubert's Parrot

"All dancing is a replacement for sex"

Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger

Possibilities

I prefer movies.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking people
to myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintain
that reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.
I prefer, where love's concerned, nonspecific anniversaries
that can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists
who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.
I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms' fairy tales to the newspapers' front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven't mentioned here
to many things I've also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose
to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.



By Wislawa Szymborska
From "Nothing Twice", 1997
Translated by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh

"To say that class doesn't matter in Britain is like saying that wine doesn't matter in France; or whether you're a man or a woman doesn't matter in Saudi Arabia."

Nick Cohen

Origin of "Such is life"

The early uses of this phrase date from the mid 18th century. For example, Joseph Baretti's A Grammar of the Italian Language, 1762, translates "Cosi va'l mondo!" as "Such is life" and continues:

"Such is life, that whatever is proposed, it is much easier to find reasons for rejecting than embracing."

'Such is life', of course, mirrors the French 'C'est la vie', which equates to the English 'that's life', or 'life's like that'. Modern variants are 'that's the way it goes', 'that's the way the ball bounces', 'that's the way the cookie crumbles' etc.