Wednesday 7 October 2009

Great minds, and all..

The best overheard conversation EVER :

Man : ... you know. That one I was telling you about.
Woman : You keep quoting things at me! Be specific.
Man : The T.E. Lawrence one.. "All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible."
Woman : Oh yes..
*They walk away*

I didn't actually catch the whole quote, but I manages to remember T.E. Lawrence and the 'All men dream, but not equally.' bit - And from then, google is my friend. Lovely quote isn't it? And while I was googling the T.E. Lawrence quote (which took all of 5 seconds..) I also found;

"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.".. Which is from Edgar Allan Poe.

Not sure if other people interpret the quotes as I do, but I found them similar and found both beautiful in their own right. Lovely stuff. It's been a while since I've fallen in love with words, so this was a nice surprise.

I also finally have a copy of Kerouac's On The Road, so I look forward to recognizing the Dingledodies bit. Yay!

3 comments:

colson said...

An agreeable surprise. This post proves that they do factually occur: conversations on literature by random passers by. There is still hope for mankind...

By the way: you seem to enjoy Lawrence, Kerouac - once "naughty" authors with a rep. So what about Bukowski, Henry Miller, Hunter S Thomson?

mousharilla said...

It is lovely when you unexpectedly overhear something like that ^^

Mmm, I don't really read much stuff by people outside the genre of fantasy and sci fi and horror. xD I just occasionally veer off course. I'll look into the authors you mention ^^

When I read other stuff I love stuff like Paul Auster's books, wonderfully bleak and yet uplifting at the same time. Any recommendations?

Anonymous said...

I have to back up colson on the Bukowski and Thompson recs. I haven't read any Henry Miller, but I hear he's just as objectionable as DH Lawrence (read: not at all, by today's standards).

Anyway, SF rec: Revelation Space. You must. You must. You must.

Or Neuromancer. They're two very different styles and subjects, but srsly: you must ** 3.