What’s your favorite line from a song/poem?

My favorite lines from John Mayer’s song “Belief” ...because I believe them to be both lovely and true.

Is there anyone who
Ever remembers changing their mind from
The paint on a sign?
Is there anyone who really recalls
Ever breaking rank at all
For something someone yelled real loud one time

Everyone believes
In how they think it ought to be
Everyone believes
And they’re not going easily

I am partial to ”...Learning we’re only immortal for a limited time….” from Rush.

I also like this from Meatloaf:

“It’s all or nothing
And nothing’s all I ever get
Ev’ry time I turn it on, I burn it up and burn it out

It’s always something
There’s always something going wrong
That’s the only guarantee, that’s what this is all about

It’s a never ending attack
Ev’rything’s a lie and that’s a fact
Life is a lemon and I want my money back

And all the morons
And all the stooges with their coins
They’re the ones who make the rules, it’s not a game it’s just a rout

There’s desperation
There’s desperation in the air
It leaves a stain on all your clothes and no detergent gets it out

And we’re always slipping through the cracks
Then the movie’s over, fade to black
Life is a lemon and I want my money back”

Too many to name, but this morning this is the one that comes to me.
It isn’t often that Bob Dylan has a funny line in a song.

“Standing on the gallows with my head in the noose.
Any minute now I expect all hell to break loose.”

from Things Have Change.

“And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming”

from Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven.

I like to recite the poem aloud, and this line has always felt good in the mouth. So full of fear and intimidation. Perfect for the emotion of the poem.

“And I walked abroad in a shower of all my days” from Dylan Thomas’s “Poem in October.”

From S.T. Coleridge’s ”The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”:

‘God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
Why look’st thou so?’—With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.

Another fav., this time from W. Wordsworth’s ”We Are Seven” – actually I can’t butcher this poem for a fragment, I’d have to quote it in full. For some reason nothing I read later on seemed to speak to me like the early romantics did. Sublime stuff ;)

stretching the op giudelines a bit, the first paragraph, in the first chapter, of Moby Dick is a masterpiece I keep coming back to; (Quote):

“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

Two highlights taken from Kipling’s If…

“If you can dream and not make dreams your master
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same”

“If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds worth of distance run
Yours is the earth and everything that’s in it
And which is more, you’ll be a man my son.”

I love this part from Seether’s song Plastic Man:
“Why don’t you let me be?
And I’ll pretend I’m well
Cos’ you’re too blind to see
And I’m too tired to tell”

It just really describes what it is like to suffer in silence.

I’m going to answer my own question here but two different lines come to mind here. One is from Stephen Dobyns because I think it describes my life (and so many others) so perfectly):

“Each thing I do, I rush through so I can do something else.”

And this next one is from Marilyn Manson and I like it because it just so anti-social and politically incorrect (imagine that coming from Marilyn Manson) and somewhat true.

“I wasn’t born with enough middle fingers.”

Okay, one more and I’m done, this one kind of rings true as well for me, from Kurt Cobain:

“I miss the comfort in being sad.”

I quite like this verse from Babybird’s song Unloveable

Love’s so sweet it suffocates us
Like a sickly kindly gag
And we’re floating down the sewer pipe
Like kittens in a bag
And the mirror screams to both of us
That we are not alone
Then the metaphors explode
And suddenly we’re home

These words come from Sea Song by Robert Wyatt

You’ll be different in the spring, I know
You’re a seasonal beast
Like the starfish that drifted with the tide, with the tide
So until your blood runs to meet the next full moon
Your madness fits in nicely with my own, with my own
Your lunacy fits neatly with my own – my very own.

I like this song because it reminds us that we’re all a little bit fragile sometimes, so we should be nice to each other. Fave line is: ‘Your words can crush things that are unseen’

Jewel “Sensitive”

I was thinking that I might fly today
Just to disprove all the things you say
It doesn’t take a talent to be mean
Your words can crush things that are unseen

So please be careful with me, I’m sensitive
And I’d like to stay that way.

You always tell me that is impossible
To be respected and be a girl
Why’s it gotta be so complicated?
Why you gotta tell me if I’m hated?

So please be careful with me, I’m sensitive
And I’d like to stay that way.

I was thinking that it might do some good
If we robbed the cynics and took all their food
That way what they believe will have taken place
And we can give it to people who have some faith

So please be careful with me, I’m sensitive
And I’d like to stay that way.

I have this theory that if we’re told we’re bad
Then that’s the only idea we’ll ever have
But maybe if we are surrounded in beauty
Someday we will become what we see

‘Cause anyone can start a conflict
it’s harder yet to disregard it
I’d rather see the world from another angle
We are everyday angels

Be careful with me ‘cause I’d like to stay that way

“What do you mean I ain’t kind??? Just not your kind.” – Dave Mustaine of Megadeth.

“The end is just a little harder when brought about by friends” from Jesus Christ, Superstar.

“No, heaven’s not a place that you go when you die. It’s that moment in life when you touch her and you feel alive.
So live for the moment, and take this advice, live by every word. Love’s completely real, so forget anything that you’ve heard, and live for the moment now.” The Tide by the Spill Canvas. <3

All around, on starless nights,
Myriad hosts of livid lights
Flicker fretfully, revealing
At its foot a phantom, kneeling
Whilst it jabbers dismal plaints,
Cursing God and all the saints.

It’s from a poem I really love, called The Vampyre.

“Keep your feet on the ground,
When your head’s in the clouds.”

Paramore’s song Brick by Boring Brick

I actually got these lyrics tattooed on my shoulder. It reminds me that even though I can do fun and/or crazy things that I must stay on the right track. I have to keep my head straight and come to the realization that what I do now will effect me in the future. Also it reminds me that when I was going through a rough time that I stayed in school and pushed forth and I never quit. In a sense my head was in the “clouds”, but with the help of close family and friends I kept my feet on the ground. Sounds cheesy, but that song means so much to me.

When all the world is fallin’ down
upon my weary head.
And all my fantasies and dreams lay dying
or lay dead.
My horoscope says “Too bad Rob”
your out of luck today.
I don’t get upset no more,
this is what I say:
Fuck it!
It don’t bother me.
Fuck it!
Let’s watch some more TV,
and order up some pizza
or some chicken in a bucket.
And when the guy says
I’m sorry sir, we’re out of original
would you like extra crispy?
I just hang up the phone
Fuck it!

by Robert Earl Keen.