I don't understand French, but if I could,
I would write beautiful songs about horrible things...
because it is said to be the language of love and romance...
and if love didn't exist, there wouldn't be any horrible things.
You must care to cry, love something in order to hate something...
You must have a heart in order for it to be broken.
Many people walk in a dream.
They feel entitled to happiness and feel anger when it is not waiting for them.
I know that the world owes me nothing, yet has given me a great deal.
It is our own perception we get to bend and mold to our liking-
once that is accomplished, the reality we once knew begins to change.
My neighbor may be dark and gloomy, but I find it a perfect day to go outside.
I can knock on his door, but that doesn't mean he will answer.
And I will have to walk away, sad, from his little house
where he sleeps and smokes and drinks all day,
just to escape what he does not yet know.
We find ourselves in little boxes watching little boxes.
We see an edited version of human life, targeted on alienating us as individuals,
to distract us from the seedy underbelly of politics and business.
We are products of a Machiavellian society.
Look at the pretty girl dancing- her hair is so shiny.
I want my hair to be shiny. Look at the man with chizzled features-
use the razor he is using. It will give you the kind of charm that woman crave.
Women will want you. Men will adore you. You will be happy. You will be empty.
Because it is not about the product, but the feeling they try to convey.
And it is not for your benefit, it is for the benefit of the holders of the company.
We must burn our little boxes. We must create dialogue.
We must realize the importance of every moment.
We must turn our boredom to gratitude.
Use your hands, your thoughts, your hunger.
These things are yours and yours alone.

In Africa people don't believe in the Tooth Fairy. Instead, they have the Tooth Mouse. In Spain: Ratoncito Perez. In France: La Bonne Petite Souris. A tiny, magical rodent that steals teeth and replaces them with spare change. In some cultures, the lost tooth must be hidden in a snake or rat burrow to prevent a witch from finding and using the tooth. In other cultures, children throw the tooth into a roaring fire, then, later, dig for coins in the cold ashes.

By first believing in Santa Claus, then the Easter Bunny, then the Tooth Fairy, Rant Casey was recognizing that those myths are more than pretty stories and traditions to delight children. Or to modify behavior. Each of those three traditions asks a child to believe in the impossible in exchange for a reward. These are stepped-up test to build a child's faith and imagination. The first test is to believe in a magical person, with toys as a reward. The second test is to trust a magical animal, with candy as the reward. The last test is the most difficult, with the most abstract reward: To believe, trust in a flying fairy that will leave money.

From a man to an animal to a fairy.
From toys to candy to money. Thus, interestingly enough, transferring the magic of faith and trust from sparkling fairydom to clumsy, tarnished coins. From gossamer wings to nickels...dimes...and quarters.

In this way, a child is stepped up to greater feats of imagination and faith as he or she matures. Beginning with Santa in infancy, and ending with the Tooth Fairy as the child acquires adult teeth. Or, plainly put, beginning with all the possibility of childhood, and ending with an absolute trust in the national currency.


-Chuck Palahniuk

"We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are. Sane or insane. Saints or sex addicts. Heros or victims. Letting history tell us how good or bad we are.
Letting our past decide our future.
Or we can decide for ourselves.
And maybe it's our job to invent something better.

...

It's creepy, but here we are, the Pilgrims, the crackpots of our time, trying to establish our own alternate reality. To build a world out of rocks and chaos.
What it's going to be I don't know.
Even after all that rushing around, where we've ended up is the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night.
And maybe knowing isn't the point.
Where we're standing right now, in the ruins in the dark, what we build could be anything."