Awesome quotes and the state of women

"He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come down alive."
- Joseph Heller, Catch-22

***

"I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me. I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us."
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet

***

16 And Jesus said, Are ye also yet without understanding?
17 Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught?
18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.
19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:
20 These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.
- The Gospel of Matthew

***


"All right, then, I'll go to hell!"
- Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn


***

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go, —
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.
- Shakespeare, sonnet 130


***

Holy shit, where are the quotes by women? It kind of disturbs me--In preparation for a speech regarding people who smoke, I researched cool famous people who smoked. And while I could easily find intellectual, go-getting dudes who chomped down cigars, I had trouble finding women who happened to smoke and weren't movie stars. Where were the physicists? The writers? The politicians? They are in such short supply in the world, compared to bad-ass men. To find them, one must dig hard to find a woman with influence who isn't an actor. (I'll save this for another entry, but, honestly, actors [and a lot of writers, for that matter] contribute little to the world.)

Now, I myself haven't had much experience and exposure to women who have contributed to culture. Yes, I'm a big fan of Joyce Carol Oates (aka Ms. AWESOME). But I don't read that many female novelists. (For some reason, I just haven't had the urge to pick up a novel by Toni Morrison, and I dislike Emily Dickenson.) However, when I do look at women who have contributed to certain fields, the list is pretty small. Now, we can get into a big big big discussion here about why that is (culture, the patriarchal society, etc). But that isn't the point of this particular blog.

The point is immortality. The point is badassery (which is a word because I say so). My point is that I write this essay in the computer lab of Butler Library at Columbia University, and several stories above me, there is an papyrus fragment of the Odyssey, centuries old. Think: a poem created by a men (or men) 28 centuries ago is still read by thousands of people each year. Amazing.

- James Blundell (the first person to do a successful blood transfusion)
- Lester Wire (inventor of the modern traffic light)
- Abbas Ibn Firnas (inventor of revolutionary glass-manufactoring techniques, and one of the first people ever, if not the first, to attempt to fly.)

These men have gained immortality through their works. They have caused change, and influenced the others of those who lived after them. Their lives carried weight. Even if all human acts are futile, their acts approached the level of having true meaning.

So, women: do you want that kind of immortality? Or, if not, do you at least have a burning, obsessive ambition in you? (If you don't, you're probably a worthless leech.) I hope you live your life for more than just looking good. I hope you live your life for more than picking up old, rich men. A phat ass is a phat ass and big tits are big tits. One hot woman is another hot woman, if one doesn't take their personalities into consideration. Besides that, looks matter little. You get old, your tits sag, and guys stop checking you out. And during middle-age you will wonder, "What was done? What was done?" During middle-age, you will wonder if you lived for more than fucking and having children--because what's the point of having kids if the only point of having kids is just to have kids?