The sun teaches to all things that grow their longing for the light. 

But it is night that raises them to the stars.

 

Our world is so complex that we take for granted engineering processes that would dwarf any of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World; 

we ride railroad tracks that do not follow faithfully the curvature of the earth, for the train would jump the tracks if they were level. 

We pass skyscrapers whose stress and strain are figured to the millionth of an inch, yet take for granted that the Empire State Building actually sways constantly many feet.

 

We always have a tendency to see those things that do not exist 

and to be blind to the great lessons that are right there before our eyes

 

Faith is not Desire. 

Faith is Will. 

Desires are things that need to be satisfied, whereas Will is a force.

 Will changes the space around us,

Hannibal Lector

 

He doesn't feel sorry as he has no empathy or sympathy or any other recognisable emotion as we understand them 

He wanted Cordell to push Mason in and this is how he got him to do it, by persuasion 

"Hey", a friendly call 

"Cordell" addresses him by his first name 

"Why don't you push him in" , suggestion

 - triggers what Cordell actually wants to do 

"you can always say it was me" 

- removes all fear of consequence 

while the script ending has been changed from the book, the writers here share Mr Harris' masterful understanding of the human mind and how Hannibal is able to manipulate people this way 

Remember he talked to Miggs in the cells and persuaded Miggs to kill himself - that's how powerful he is 

As Jack warns Clarice

 "you don't want Hannibal Lector inside your head"

When we first meet him in Silence - the second book but the first film in Mr Hopkins trilogy, he had been down that dark dungeon for several years 

If someone wasn't mad before they would be totally insane after that much time, faced with the prospect of never leaving alive, never seeing the real world again 

A cross between a tarantula and a crocodile, as he is described 

When we see him as Dr Fell in the third film, we see through the mask, as does Patsi, as we know who he is 

The TV version of Hannibal is before his capture when, like Dexter, he knows how to appear human and blend in 

It it is a different way of playing the younger version, and more opportunity to explore and develop the character 

Like Clark Kent in Smallville, a depth not been used before for the character's pre Superman years 

Just as Anthony Hopkins was the best actor to play his version, Mads is the best actor to play this one 

I couldn't think of anyone better for the film trilogy or the series than the two men who played him .

The pigs smell Hannibal and pass him by 

Simplest explanation - they can smell fear, as they do on the screaming men they attack, and Hannibal has no fear 

Scary explanation - they are trained to attack humans - they smell Hannibal and they realise he is not human .

 

Rock stars rack up high numbers when they do tours 

Each town they are at the are girls from the show who want to go back to the trailer or hotel with them 

That means new women, several at a time, on each stop 

Jon Bon Jovi on the first tour talks about having all these girls back at the trailer "you first, you second, you third" 

David Lee Roth would have girls selected from the audience and taken back by his roadies

 VInce Neil at a Motley Crue concert would "fuck ten girls before the show and ten after" 

Tom Jones estimates he fucked 250 women a year during his "heyday" of touring and partying

 Keep in mind when these guys got experienced it would be orgy style - they would get hard, move from girl to girl and not cum until the end of the "event" 

when you consider planned orgies as well, these guys would be fucking maybe ten girls at each event - even one party a month you would fuck over 100 a year easily

 - a thousand in ten years 

- so when there is more than one party a month, or even a week, in different locations, you can see how 2000, 3000 in ten years, 6000 in 20 years, etc becomes achievable 

Gene Simmons famously claimed 6500 women, and that was when he was older and the band tours had stopped - which does sound possible 

The problem beyond a certain points is the repeats - end up with someone you have been with before but don't remember - which messes up the count

 If Rock stars do this on tour, it is likely wrestlers and other athletes, football, etc all do as well .

Bon Jovi

 

Richie dated a lot of celebrities 

Jon never dated any celebrities 

he fucked a lot of groupies and admitted to over 200 during the tours 

a lot for a regular guy, but compared to the rocks stars who get well into four figures, quite modest 

he fucked groupies on tour and never took it any further, never made anyone regular 

Dorothea married Jon and they had the house, had the kids, had the private life 

She accepted Jon was doing stuff on tour, just didn't want to hear about it

 Bed Of Roses references this in particular, on Keep The Faith .

Planet Of The Apes

 

The relics in the dig show the earlier society when humans were dominant and more advanced

 Why would an ape make a human doll that talks 

Dr Zeus had been as far out as the statue 

He could see it was a human face 

Which gave some hint at what New York was and how far advanced they really were 

He warned Taylor about what he would find 

Zeus thinks Taylor is from a tribe of mutants, probably similar to the ones the do find below the city on film two 

He doesn't believe the space travel story 

He knows when Taylor finds the statue he will know that the great human society destroyed itself

 As the scroll warns He will make a desert of his world and yours

 And he did

---------------------------

For those who never read the book, which is pretty much anyone who has ever been on here, this is closer to the book ending Notwithstanding the frame story with the two "people" who turned out to be apes reading the manuscript of course The book is in French and this is set in France not America The astronaut, who actually is a lot like Taylor, flies his ship, with his wife and child back from ape planet to what he thinks is his own world Think start of the third Roddy McDowell film Escape From The Planet Of The Apes when they arrive in the ship in 1970s A jeep drives up he sees the officer driving is an ape So yes they finally made a monkey out of him

-------------------------

The original book by Pierre Boule is La Planète des singes, published in English as Planet of the Apes in the U.S. Monkey Planet in the UK Ulysse is the name of the astronaut, who Taylor is based on Nova is the human female he mates and has a son with, and they fly back to Earth in his ship They land by the Eiffel Tower look the same a jeep pulls up and the officer driving is a gorilla Ulysse and Nova take off in their ship, leaving Earth behind

-----------------------------

For those claiming to have read the book By Pierre Boule It is in French Set in France and they end up in Paris On the ape world they do not speak French He has to learn the ape language to talk to them You need to either claim to speak French or claim to have an English translation Otherwise you are embarrassing yourself talking about the book When all you are doing is prove you haven't read it

---------------------------

Most people have never read the book A percentage of those people say they have Like the people who have never read Dracula and do the "Alucard" bit to make it seems like they have Which proves they haven't

There is a "thing" where idiots would say "in the book he calls himself Alucard, which is Dracula spelt backwards" this is not in the book it was invented as a way to catch out people who claim to have read the book but haven't

---------------------------

-------------------------

James Bond

 

Bond really needs to be rugged, have a strong body to do the things he does 

A Naval Officer, he is a proper sailor and as a 00, basically also a commando 

Connery and Craig made that work 

Dalton did to a certain point 

Moore and Brosnan seemed too slight, almost wimpy

 Lazenby did OK

Highlander

 

Duncan cut the hand off Xavier so we know from that a limb can't be regrown 

Whether you could hold it in place and have it magically reattach is another matter 

If you look at the limits of a healing power, it is different between Highlander, Deadpool, Wolverine, and Clare in Heroes 

Clare can regrow a severed part 

 Wolverine had his legs ripped off and reattached

 Deadpool was ripped in half by Juggernaut and slowly regrew the bottom half

the higher limits of the healing power are not regularly explored in any of the shows or stories, so the writers would have to decide how it works when they get the chance to go there 

With Xavier, we see him come back with the human mercs who gun down the immortal and drive off so he can take their head 

He can no longer sword fight so invents this "cheat" method 

It's a good storyline and relies on the concept being a severed hand can't be regrown 

 

Anyone who lives in their own world is crazy. 

Like schizophrenics, psychopaths, maniacs. 

people who are different from others.

On the other hand,

you have Einstein, saying that there was no time or space, just a combination of the two. 

Or Columbus, insisting that on the other side of the world lay not an abyss but a continent. 

Or Edmund Hillary, convinced that a man could reach the top of Everest. 

Or the Beatles, who created an entirely different sort of music and dressed like people from another time.

 Those people--

and thousands of others--

all lived in their own world.

 

God knew what he was doing when he drew their attention to the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. 

If he hadn’t wanted them to eat it, he would never have mentioned it.

 

In life, a person can take one of two attitudes: to build or to plant. The builders might take years over their tasks, but one day, they finish what they're doing. Then they find that they're hemmed in by their own walls. Life loses its meaning when the building stops.

Then there are those who plant. They endure storms and all the vicissitudes of the seasons, and they rarely rest. But unlike a building, a garden never stops growing. And while it requires the gardener's constant attention, it also allows life for the gardener to be a great adventure.

Gardeners always recognize each other, because they know that in the history of each plant lies the growth of the whole World.

Psyche

 

Psyche

 

Psyche is the Greek goddess of the soul, known for her arduous journey from a mortal princess to an immortal wife of Eros (Cupid). Her story, famously told in Apuleius’s The Golden Ass, symbolizes the soul's purification and triumph through love and perseverance after surviving tasks set by Aphrodite. She is often depicted with butterfly wings. 

Key Aspects of the Myth:

• The Mortal Beauty: Psyche was so beautiful that she rivaled Aphrodite (Venus), prompting the goddess to send her son, Eros, to make her fall in love with a monster.
• Marriage to Eros: Instead of a monster, Eros fell in love with her, bringing her to a magical palace where he visited her only at night, telling her she must never see his face
  .
The Betrayal: Persuaded by her jealous sisters, Psyche lit a lamp to look at her husband. A drop of oil fell, waking Eros, who fled, stating that love cannot exist without trust.
The Trials: Searching for her husband, Psyche fell into the hands of Aphrodite, who forced her to complete four impossible tasks, including sorting a massive pile of seeds and retrieving beauty from the underworld.
Immortality: With help from unexpected sources, she completed the tasks. Eros, still loving her, persuaded Zeus to make Psyche immortal, allowing them to marry permanently

Astarte

 

Astarte

 

Astarte is a prominent ancient Near Eastern goddess of war, sexual love, and fertility, worshipped across Phoenicia, Canaan, Egypt, and Syria from the Bronze Age through the Iron Age. As the chief deity of Tyre and Sidon, she was frequently associated with lions, horses, and the planet Venus, often considered the Western counterpart to the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar. 

• Roles & Attributes: She governed sexuality, fertility, war, and hunting. While often associated with fertility, some scholarship focuses more on her roles as a combatant on horseback, a "lady of love," and a divine power.
• Symbolism & Representation: Often depicted nude or as a warrior, her symbols included the lion, the dove, and the star within a circle (Venus).
• Cultural Significance: She was widely worshipped by Phoenicians, Canaanites, and adopted into Egyptian and Hittite pantheons. She was sometimes viewed as a consort of the storm god Baal.
• Biblical Context: In the Hebrew Bible, she is often referenced as "Ashtoreth" (a combination of her name with boshet, meaning "shame") and her cult was heavily condemned.
• Legacy: She was equated with the Greek Aphrodite and the Egyptian Isis, influencing the later development of deities like Atargatis
• 
  

 

if you bake with indifference, you bake a bitter bread

 

The brooks flow to their lover, the sea, 

and the flowers smile at the object of their passion, the light. 

The mist rolls down to its beloved, the valley. 

 

The secret is here in the present. 

If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it.

 And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better. 

Forget about the future, and live each day 

Each day, in itself, brings with it an eternity

 

I want to feel what it's like, 

cause death is only going to happen to you once.

 

Life can seem short or life can seem long, 

depending on how you live it

 

Listen to your heart. 

It knows all things, 

because it came from the Soul of the World

 and it will one day return there

 

All we have to do is understand that we're all here for a reason and to commit ourselves to that. 

Then we can laugh at our sufferings, 

large and small and walk fearlessly, 

aware that each step has meaning

 

I must try to enjoy all the graces that God has given me today. Grace cannot be hoarded. There are no banks where it can be deposited to be used when I feel more at peace with myself. If I do not make full use of these blessings, I will lose them forever.

God knows that we are all artists of life. One day, he gives us a hammer with which to make sculptures, another day he gives us brushes and paints with which to make a picture, or paper and a pencil to write with. But you cannot make a painting with a hammer, or a sculpture with a paintbrush. Therefore, however difficult it may be, I must accept today's small blessings, even if they seem like curses because I am suffering and it's a beautiful day, the sun is shining

 

Man struggles to find life outside himself, 

unaware that the life he is seeking is within him

 

A flower is not better when it blooms than when it is merely a bud; 

at each stage it is the same thing — a flower in the process of expressing its potential

 

love and despair stood between us like two ghosts,

one weeping and the other laughing hideously

 

People are never satisfied. 

If they have a little, they want more.

 If they have a lot, they want still more. 

Once they have more, they wish they could be happy with little, 

but are incapable of making the slightest effort in that direction.

 

...and there you have it,

another body on the floor

surrounded by things that don't mean much to anyone

except to the one who can't take any of them along.

 

We are always trying to convert people to a belief in our own explanation of the universe. 

We think that the more people there are who believe as we do, the more certain it will be that what we believe is the truth. 

But it doesn't work that way at all.

 

Each human being is unique, each with their own qualities, instincts, forms of pleasure, and desire for adventure. 

However, society always imposes on us a collective way of behaving, and people never stop to wonder why they should behave like that. 

They just accept it, the way typists accepted the fact that the QWERTY keyboard was the best possible one.

 Have you ever met anyone in your entire life who asked why the hands of a clock should go in one particular direction and not in the other

 

confronted by temptation, we will always fall. 

Given the right circumstances, 

every human being on this earth would be willing to commit evil

 

I still get nightmares.

In fact, I get them so often I should be used to them by now.

I'm not.

No one ever really gets used to nightmares.

 

 there is only the present moment, the now. 

You can't measure time the way you measure the distance between two points. 

'Time' doesn't pass. 

 human beings have enormous difficulty in focusing on the present; 

 always thinking about what we did, about how we could have done it better, 

about the consequences of our actions, and about why we didn't act as we should have. 

Or else we think about the future, about what we're going to do tomorrow, 

what precautions we should take, what dangers await us around the next corner, 

how to avoid what we don't want

 and how to get what we have always dreamed of.

 

If you're only killing time then it will kill you right back 

 

Do something instead of killing time. 

Because time is killing you.

Pencil

 

First quality: 

you are capable of great things, but you must never forget that there is a hand guiding your steps. 

We call that hand God, and He always guides us according to His will.’

‘Second quality: 

now and then, I have to stop writing and use a sharpener. 

That makes the pencil suffer a little, but afterwards, he’s much sharper. 

So you, too, must learn to bear certain pains and sorrows, because they will make you a better person.

‘Third quality: 

the pencil always allows us to use an eraser to rub out any mistakes.

 This means that correcting something we did is not necessarily a bad thing; it helps to keep us on the road to justice.’

‘Fourth quality: 

what really matters in a pencil is not its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside. 

So always pay attention to what is happening inside you.’

‘Finally, the pencil’s fifth quality: 

it always leaves a mark. 

in just the same way, you should know that everything you do in life will leave a mark, so try to be conscious of that in your every action

 

Is not the beautiful moon, that inspires poets,

 the same moon which angers the silence of the sea with a terrible roar?

 

A rose dreams of enjoying the company of bees, but none appears. The sun asks:

“Aren’t you tired of waiting?”

“Yes,” answers the rose, “but if I close my petals, I will wither and die.

 

The secret is here in the present. 

If you pay attention to the present, 

you can improve upon it. 

And, if you improve on the present

, what comes later will also be better

 

The Marquis De Sade said that the most important experiences a man can have are those that take him to the very limit

 

The feelings we live through
in love and in loneliness
are simply, for us,
what high tide
and low tide are to the sea.

 

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?

And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.

And when you have reached the mountaintop,then you shall begin to climb.

And when the earth shall claim your limbs,then shall you truly dance

 

The mirror reflects perfectly;

 it makes no mistakes because it doesn't think. 

To think is to make mistakes.

 

Scars speak more loudly than the sword that caused them

 

Intense, unexpected suffering passes more quickly 

than suffering that is apparently bearable; 

the latter goes on for years and, without our noticing, eats away at our souls, 

until, one day, we are no longer able to free ourselves from the bitterness 

and it stays with us for the rest of our lives

 

The book is a film that takes place in the mind of the reader. 

That's why we go to movies and say, "Oh, the book is better.

 

Darkness is impossible to remember.

Consequently cavers desire to return to those unseen depths where they have just been.

It is an addiction. No one is ever satisfied. Darkness never satisfies.

Especially if it takes something away which it almost always invariably does.

 

Under the cover of darkness people do things they'd never do under the harsh glare of day.

 Decisions feel wiser. People feel bolder. 

But when the sun rises, you have to take responsibility for what you did in the dark.

 And face yourself under the cold, harsh light of day.