To Sail Beyond the Sunset
Old age hath yet his honor
and his toil;
Death closes all: but someday
ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may
yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove
with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle
from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow
moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices.
Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a
newer world.
Push off, and sitting well
in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my
purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset,
and the baths
Of all the western stars, until
I die.
-source of the title: from "Ulyssess" by Tenyson
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I need not have worried about being naked; no one seemed to notice...which
irked me.
Gentlemen should at least leer. And a wolf whistle or other applause
would not be out of place. Anything less makes a woman feel
unsure of herself.
-Maureen Johnson
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"Maureen...you'll be a preacher's wife yet"
"Oh, God, father, I'd rather be a whore."
"The two are not incompatible"
The young Maureen Johnson
talking with her father, Ira
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The Ten
Commandments are for lame brains.
The first five are solely for the benefit of the priests and the
powers that be;
the second five are half truths, neither complete nor adequate.
-Ira Johnson
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Men are more timid than we are;
sometimes the only way you can get one to move
is by placing him in sharpest competition with another male.
-Maureen Johnson
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While the rest of the human race are descended from monkeys,
redheads derive from cats.
Samuel
Clemens
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In a society
in which it is a mortal offense to be different from your neighbors
your only escape is never to let them find out.
-Maureen Johnson
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I am so totally every minute a set of female glands and organs,
that I can cope with it only by carefully simulating the sort of
"lady" approved by Mrs.
Grundy and Queen Victoria.
Maureen Johnson
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No intelligent man has any respect for an
unjust law.
He simply follows the
eleventh commandment.
Brian
Smith
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"Gratitude": An imaginary emotion that rewards an imaginary
behavior, "altruism."
Both imaginaries are false faces for selfishness, which is a real
and honest emotion.
-Maureen Johnson
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Widows are far better than brides.
They don't tell, they won't yell, they don't swell,
they rarely smell, and they're grateful as hell.
-Ira Johnson
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What this world needs more of is loving: sweaty, friendly and unashamed.
- Maureen Johnson-Smith
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When I was still quite young my father said to me, "My beloved
daughter,
you are an amoral little wretch. I know this, because you
take after me;
your mind works just the way mine does. If you are not to be destroyed
by your lack,
you must work out a practical code of your own and live by
it."
I thought about his words and felt warm and good inside.
"Amoral little wretch-" Father knew me so well.
"What code should I follow, Father?"
"You
have to pick your own."
Maureen Long quoting her father Ira Johnson
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