WIST Quotations

Milligan, Spike -- The Goon Show, 9×12 “The Call of the West” (20 Jan 1959)

Dave — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 19:19:49 +0000

Are you going to come along quietly, or am I going to have to use ear plugs?

Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan (1918–2002) Anglo-Irish comedian, writer, actor
The Goon Show, 9×12 “The Call of the West” (20 Jan 1959)

Variant: "Are you going to come along quietly, or do you want musical accompaniment?"

Butcher, Jim -- “Something Borrowed,” My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding (2006)

Dave — Tue, 11 Nov 2014 14:37:44 +0000

I let out a battle cry. Sure, a lot of people might have mistaken it for a sudden yelp of unmanly fear, but trust me. It was a battle cry.

Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
“Something Borrowed,” My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding (2006)

Stevenson, Robert Louis -- Essay (1878-03), “Crabbed Age and Youth,” Cornhill Magazine, Vol. 37

Dave — Wed, 30 Oct 2013 13:46:53 +0000

When the torrent sweeps the man against a boulder, you must expect him to scream, and you need not be surprised if the scream is sometimes a theory. Shelley, chafing at the Church of England, discovered the cure of all evils in universal atheism. Generous lads irritated at the injustices of society, see nothing for it but the abolishment of everything and Kingdom Come of anarchy. Shelley was a young fool; so are these cocksparrow revolutionaries. But it is better to be a fool than to be dead. It is better to emit a scream in the shape of a theory than to be entirely insensible to the jars and incongruities of life and take everything as it comes in a forlorn stupidity.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Essay (1878-03), “Crabbed Age and Youth,” Cornhill Magazine, Vol. 37

Collected in Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers, ch. 2 (1881)

Emerson, Ralph Waldo -- Journal (1838)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 18:00:00 +0000

I stir in it for the sad reason that no other mortal will move, and if I do not, why, it is left undone. The amount of it, be sure, is merely a Scream; but sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1838)

Referring to his attempts to stop the US Government's forced expulsion of the Cherokee from their land.