Free Expression Quotes

The free expression of resentment against one's parents represents a great opportunity. It provides access to one's true self, reactivates numbed feelings, opens the way for mourning and - with luck - reconciliation. ~ Alice Miller

Part of living in a free society is accepting that no idea is beyond being challenged or ridiculed, and that nothing is more stifling to free expression than being afraid to upset or offend. ~ Jamie Bartlett

Utopianism's equality is intolerant of diversity, uniqueness, debate, etc., for utopianism's purpose requires a singular focus. There can be no competing voices or causes slowing or obstructing society's long and righteous march. Utopianism relies on deceit, propaganda, dependence, intimidation, and force. In its more aggressive state, as the malignancy of the enterprise becomes more painful and its impossibility more obvious, it incites violence inasmuch as avenues for free expression and civil dissent are cut off. Violence becomes the individual's primary recourse and the state's primary response. Ultimately, the only way out is the state's termination. ~ Mark R. Levin

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object. ~ Thomas Jefferson

I have to respect my life, and free expression is part of my life. I can never really silence myself. ~ Ai Weiwei

Yet in his own estimate, one theme in particular dominated all others: the growing tyranny of the majority, the ever-increasing and most formidable barriers raised by the majority around the free expression of opinion, and, as a result, the frightening oneness of American thinking, the absence of eccentricity and divergence from the norm.

A perfect liberty of the Mind exists in America, said Tocqueville, just as long as the sovereign majority has yet to decide its course. But once the majority has made up its mind, then all contrary thought must cease, and all controversy must be abandoned, not at the risk of death or physical punishment, but rather at the more subtle and more intolerable pain of ostracism, of being shunned by one's fellows, of being rejected by society.

Throughout history kings and princely rulers had sought without success to control human thought, that most elusive and invisible power of all. Yet where absolute monarchs had failed, democracy succeeds, for the strength of the majority is unlimited and all pervasive, and the doctrines of equality and majority rule have substituted for the tyranny of the few over the many the more absolute, imperious and widely accepted tyranny of the many over the few. ~ Richard D. Heffner

The value of free expression is perceived to be at odds with goals that were considered 'more important,' like inclusiveness, diversity, nondiscrimination, and tolerance. ~ Greg Lukianoff

Freedom demands that we struggle for an extension of both equality and free expression, not regard one as inimical to the other. ~ Kenan Malik

He said he "admired our courage" but didn't want to see us do anything to "damage our promising futures." He felt "proud as an American" that we had "exercised our right to peaceful free expression." But if we did it again, he didn't "know what action the state board of education might take against individual students."
Translation: You've had your fun. Now sit down, shut up, and take the freakin' test. Or else. ~ Jordan Sonnenblick

Over the past several decades, a growing number of investors have been choosing to put their money in funds that screen companies for their environmental and labor records. Some socially responsible investors are starting to add free expression and privacy to their list of criteria. ~ Rebecca MacKinnon

You can have no wise laws nor free enforcement of wise laws unless there is free expression of the wisdom of the people
and, alas, their folly with it. But if there is freedom, folly will die of its own poison, and the wisdom will survive. ~ William Allen White

Ye cannot make us now lesse capable, lesse knowing, lesse eagarly pursuing of the Truth, unlesse ye first make yourselves that made us so, lesse the lovers, lesse the founders of our true Liberty. We can grow ignorant again, brutish, formall, and slavish as ye found us, but you then must first become that which ye cannot be, oppressive, arbitrary, and tyrannous as they were from whom ye have free'd us. ~ John Milton

This new enemy seeks to destroy our freedom and impose its views. We value life; the terrorists ruthlessly destroy it. We value education; the terrorists do not believe women should be educated or should have health care, or should leave their homes. We value the right to speak our minds; for the terrorists, free expression can be grounds for execution. We respect people of all faiths and welcome the free practice of religion; our enemy wants to dictate how to think and how to worship even to their fellow Muslims. ~ George W. Bush

Several amendments should be made to the primary and general election laws to improve them, but such changes must in no way interfere with a full and free expression of the people's choice in naming the candidates to be voted on at general elections. ~ Arthur Capper

All power lies in free expression. ~ Krishna Sagar

Free people write books," it said. "Free people publish books. Free people sell books. Free people buy books. Free people read books. In the spirit of America's commitment to free expression we inform the public that this book will be available to readers at bookshops and libraries throughout the country. ~ Salman Rushdie

Science needs the light of free expression to flourish. It depends on the fearless questioning of authority, and the open exchange of ideas. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

The fact is, the public make use of the classics of a country as a means of checking the progress of Art. They degrade the classics into authorities. They use them as bludgeons for preventing the free expression of Beauty in new forms. ~ Oscar Wilde

Nowadays the big Hollywood studios only make about three movies a year, and they cost about $200 million each. There's no room for error in that, and not a lot of room, I would think, for free expression. ~ Robbie Coltraine

If instituted, the TPP's IP regime would trample over individual rights and free expression, as well as ride roughshod over the intellectual and creative commons. If you read, write, publish, think, listen, dance, sing or invent; if you farm or consume food; if you're ill now or might one day be ill, the TPP has you in its crosshairs. ~ Julian Assange

I'm all in favour of free expression provided it's kept rigidly under control. ~ Alan Bennett

The right to free expression is something one seizes, not something one is given ... if it does exist, it exists to be used against the established order ... There is absolute opposition between the artist and the state. ~ Pablo Picasso

To curtail free expression strikes twice at intellectual freedom, for whoever deprives another of the right to state unpopular views necessarily deprives others of the right to listen to those views. ~ C. Vann Woodward

It is our attitude toward free thought and free expression that will determine our fate. There must be no limit on the range of temperate discussion, no limits on thought. No subject must be taboo. No censor must preside at our assemblies. ~ William O. Douglas

I know the constitution in Oregon was passed in 1859. Free expression of opinion. ~ Bill O'Reilly

Blasphemy is just the fanatic's name for criticism. Charb writes wisely:

'A believer can blaspheme only to the extent that the idea of blasphemy holds any meaning to him. A non-believer, no matter how hard he tries, 'cannot' blaspheme. God is sacred only to those who believe in him. If you wish to insult or offend God, you have to be sure that he exists. The strategy used by minority group activists masquerading as anti-racists is to pass off blasphemy as Islamophobia and Islamophobia as racism.'

The crucial distinction we must defend is between acts of imagination and acts of violence....Faith is not the enemy. Fanaticism is the enemy. It always is. But only a fool would deny that faith has been the seedbed of fanaticism in mankind's long and sorry struggle for the light. As much as at times we need to seek "solidarity" among unlike groups, we also need to "desolidarize," to "unsolidarize" - to put the people we know before the abstract categories we imagine. Come to think of it, making people, with all their flaws, fully visible while leaving generalized types alone is exactly what the caricaturist has always done for us. It's his special form of bravery. ~ Charb

The free expression of the hopes and aspirations of a people is the greatest and only safety in a sane society. ~ Emma Goldman

Long-established totalitarian governments fear any kind of free expression. A sculpture can be a manifesto, a manuscripted adventure can double as a cry for rebellion. ~ Alan Dean Foster

A society that could heal the dismembered world would recognize the inherent value of each person and of the plant, animal and elemental life that makes up the earth's living body; it would offer real protection, encourage free expression, and reestablish an ecological balance to be biologically and economically sustainable. Its underlying metaphor would be mystery, the sense of wonder at all that is beyond us and around us, at the forces that sustain our lives and the intricate complexity and beauty of their dance. ~ Starhawk

Theatre is probably the only form of free expression, just as theatre is likely to be the only way to escape from the grip of the ego and separate reality.

In theatre you can say and do anything, because you are clearly playing a part and whatever you say and do is not identified with yourself.

In theatre you free yourself from the idea of yourself and you can give space to everything you are, being serious about it, but without the dangers and consequences that derive from being serious about it. ~ Franco Santoro

Art is the free expression of the artist and they tried to stop us from expressing ourselves, our art. ~ Marilyn Manson

The process of simplifying man's environment and rendering it increasingly elemental and crude has a cultural as well as a physical dimension. The need to manipulate immense urban populations - to transport, feed, employ, educate and somehow entertain millions of densely concentrated people - leads to a crucial decline in civic and social standards. A mass concept of human relations - totalitarian, centralistic and regimented in orientation - tends to dominate the more individuated concepts of the past. Bureaucratic techniques of social management tend to replace humanistic approaches. All that is spontaneous, creative and individuated is circumscribed by the standardized, the regulated and the massified. The space of the individual is steadily narrowed by restrictions imposed upon him by a faceless, impersonal social apparatus. Any recognition of unique personal qualities is increasingly surrendered to the manipulation of the lowest common denominator of the mass. A quantitative, statistical approach, a beehive manner of dealing with man, tends to triumph over the precious individualized and qualitative approach which places the strongest emphasis on personal uniqueness, free expression and cultural complexity. ~ Murray Bookchin

In whatever number of years I have on Earth, I think that promoting the values of free expression, the openness of the Internet, that's the best use of my time. ~ Eric Schmidt

There is no free expression when you have to pay extra to stand on the soap box. ~ Thor Benson

Freedom is always, and exclusively, freedom for the one who thinks differently. ~ Rosa Luxemburg

There is no country on Earth where Internet and telecommunications companies do not face at least some pressure from governments to do things that would potentially infringe on users' rights to free expression and privacy. ~ Rebecca MacKinnon

[Christian rebellion] arises from the doctrine of mankind made in the image of God, and therefore protests against all forms of dehumanization. It sets itself against the social injustices which insult God the Creator, seeks to protect human beings from oppression and longs to liberate them ... it protests against every authoritarian regime, whether of the left or of the right, which discriminates against minorities, denies people their civil rights, forbids the free expression of opinions or imprisons people for their views alone. ~ John R.W. Stott

But please know, whether you believe campaign contributions are speech or property, that I learned to love very dearly the right of free expression when I lived without that freedom for a while a long time ago. ~ John McCain

What exactly is the new verse movement? The New Verse Movement of the 1910's was to make poetry relevant again by immersing it into the spaces, technologies, and social dynamics of the modern city.
And Now In The Present And Future ?
The New Verse Movement of the 21st Century follows these same beliefs. To somehow ignite the spark and to help make poetry relevant again in a new age of technologies (The Internet) and to support new & experimental as well as older poetic forms. The New Verse Movement of the 21st Century is all about change and free expression of the creative mind. ~ R.M. Engelhardt

Michael Moore and I actually have a lot in common. We both appreciate living in a country where there's free expression. But Michael, if you ever show up at my front door with a camera, I'll kill you. I mean it. ~ Clint Eastwood

If we think to regulat Printing, thereby to rectifie manners, we must regulat all recreations and pastimes, all that is delightfull to Man. ~ John Milton

It is frequently said that speech that is intentionally provocative and therefore invites physical retaliation can be punished or suppressed. Yet, plainly no such general proposition can be sustained. Quite the contrary ... The provocative nature of the communication does not make it any the less expression. Indeed, the whole theory of free expression contemplates that expression will in many circumstances be provocative and arouse hostility. The audience, just as the speaker, has an obligation to maintain physical restraint. ~ Thomas I. Emerson

Above all, every member of the university has an obligation to permit free expression in the university. No member has a right to prevent such expression. Every official of the university, moreover, has a special obligation to foster free expression and to ensure that it is not obstructed. ~ C. Vann Woodward

Those who would rule with an iron fist always fear the free expression of opinions by those they would suppress. ~ Neal Boortz

In theater and dance, I was trying to win someone's approval, trying to get in, trying to be good. It felt out of my control, whereas music suddenly felt like this free expression. It was fun. ~ Susanna Hoffs

If you accept – and I do – that freedom of speech is important, then you are going to have to defend the indefensible. That means you are going to be defending the right of people to read, or to write, or to say, what you don't say or like or want said. The Law is a huge blunt weapon that does not and will not make distinctions between what you find acceptable and what you don't. This is how the Law is made. People making art find out where the limits of free expression are by going beyond them and getting into trouble. [...] The Law is a blunt instrument. It's not a scalpel. It's a club. If there is something you consider indefensible, and there is something you consider defensible, and the same laws can take them both out, you are going to find yourself defending the indefensible. ~ Neil Gaiman

Character gains through its expression, and loses through its repression. Love grows through its expression. Sympathy grows through its expression. Knowledge grows through its expression. The artistic sense grows through its expression. The religious sentiment grows through its expression. The capacity for instruction, for administration, for command, grows through its expression. The more a man does in any line of wise endeavor, the more he can do in that line, and the more of a man he is in that line. And the refraining from the free expression of love, or of sympathy, or of knowledge, or of the artistic sense, or of the religious sentiment, or of the power of instruction, of administration, or of command, both limits and lessens that which is thus repressed.

To possess and to exhibit an admirable personal character is a duty incumbent on every one. In order to possess such a character, its exhibit by its expression is a necessity. He who does not endeavor to express those traits and qualities which are the exhibit of an admirable personal character, cannot hope to retain such a character, even if it were his by nature; and he who does endeavor to express them, can hope to gain the character which they represent, even though he lacked it before. ~ Henry Clay Trumbull

At some point free expression absolutism becomes childish and unserious. ~ Garry Trudeau

Trouble looms when monogamy is no longer a free expression of loyalty but a form of enforced compliance. ~ Esther Perel

The civil liberties types who are fighting this issue have to fight it, owing to the nature of the laws, as a matter of freedom of speech and stifling of free expression and so on. But we know what's really involved, dirty books are fun. That's all there is to it. But you can't get up in a court and say that. ~ Tom Lehrer

Because of 'The Birds' and 'Marnie' I was, as the expression goes, hot in Hollywood and producers and directors wanted to hire me. ~ Tippi Hedren

. . . this sapling would bloom into a killer whom others rightly feared, right now she was a maid fresh-plucked, and memories of the hangman's expression as she cut his throat left her . . . conflicted. ~ Jay Kristoff

HAM radio is very inexpensive, it is nearly unlimited and free to use. The only limitation is that you can only talk for five minutes to any given person because the station gets out of range within that time. ~ Charles Simonyi

I don't want a Europe that is just a free-trade area attached to NATO. Even less do I want a Europe where it's everyone against everyone, and social and fiscal dumping replaces solidarity. ~ Segolene Royal

The system that enables the most people to earn the most success is free enterprise, by matching up people's skills, interests, and abilities. In contrast, redistribution simply spreads money around. Even worse, it attenuates the ability to earn success by perverting economic incentives. ~ Arthur C. Brooks

The IRS spends God knows how much of your tax money on these toll-free information hotlines staffed by IRS employees, whose idea of a dynamite tax tip is that you should print neatly. ~ Dave Barry

Ironically, now that my children are older and gone quite a bit, I find it harder to work when they're not around. Too much free time! ~ Alice Hoffman

Central tenets of the Hacker Ethic: the free flow of information, particularly information that helped fellow hackers understand, explore, and build systems. ~ Steven Levy

It's just economics 101: When it's free to pollute, you get more pollution. But when there's a price to pay, industry will have an incentive to find low-cost carbon solutions. ~ Fred Krupp

I want you to read 'God Sees the Truth, but Waits,' " said Mother. "Tolstoy writes about a man, wrongly accused of a murder, who spends the rest of his life in a prison camp. Twenty-six years later, as a convict in Siberia, he meets the true murderer and has an opportunity to free himself, but chooses not to. His longing for home leaves him and he dies." I ask Mother why this story matters to her. "Each of us must face our own Siberia," she says. "We must come to peace within our own isolation. No one can rescue us. My cancer is my Siberia." Suddenly, two white birds about the size of finches, dart in front of us and land on the snow. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

No zek had the right to stay one second in his workroom without the supervision of a free employee because prudence dictated that the prisoner would be bound to use that unsupervised second to break into the steel safe with a lead pencil, photograph its secret documents with a trouser button, explode an atom bomb, and fly to the moon. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I can't curse those who don't believe as I do. I can't express hate or disdain for those who criticize what I hold dear. I can't outshout, bully, or taunt them. I can't exercise the liberty of free speech because I answer to a higher law.
I answer to the Word of God. ~ Lori Hatcher

One of the most important ways for you to train, stay healthy and injury free is to listen closely to what your body tells you. ~ Gina Greenlee

Sensuality is what happens when you break free from the real world. ~ Lebo Grand

Some might complain that nuclear disarmament is little more than a dream. But that ignores the very tangible benefits disarmament would bring for all humankind. Its success would strengthen international peace and security. It would free up vast and much-needed resources for social and economic development. It would advance the rule of law. ~ Ban Ki-moon

Fate is a woman, I said to them. In fact, she is three women. Young, like us, so that they will have the courage to be cruel, having no weight of memory to teach temperance. Young, but so old, older than any stone. Their hair is silver, but full and long. Their eyes are black. But when they are at their work they become dogs, wolves, for they are hounds of death, and also hounds of joy. They take the strands of life in their jaws, and sometimes they are careful with their jagged teeth, and sometimes they are not. They gallop around a great monolith, the stone that pierces our Sphere where the meridians meet, that turns the Earth and pins it in place in the world. It is called the Spindle of Necessity, and all round it the wolves of fate run, and run, and run, and the patterns of their winding are the patterns of the world. Nothing can occur without them, but they take no sides.
I could also say that there is such a stone, such a place, but the dogs who are women died long ago, and left the strands to fall, and we have been helpless ever since. That in a wolfless world we must find our own way. That is more comforting to me. I want my own way, I want to falter; I want to fail, and I want to be redeemed. All these things I want to spool out from the spindle that is me, not the spindle of the world. But I have heard both tales. ~ Catherynne M. Valente

Most of the supposed expressions of our feelings merely relieve us of them by drawing them out of us in an indistinct form that does not teach us to know them. ~ Marcel Proust

Terrorism thrives on a free society. The terrorist uses the feelings in a free society to sap the will of civilization to resist. If the terrorist succeeds, he has won and the whole of free society has lost. ~ Margaret Thatcher

If the self-discipline of the free cannot match the iron discipline of the mailed fist, in economic, political, scientific, and all the other kinds of struggles, as well as the military, then the peril to freedom will continue to rise. ~ John F. Kennedy

Forgiveness means that you will not allow a temporary event to have "forever" repercussions. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Without suffering, we never wishes to be free. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Gard tossed his braids over his shoulder with a sniff. 'Somebody's feeling masterful. Do I not get a choice in the matter?'
'Certainly,' Tarn agreed. 'You may choose to come with us, or you may choose to stay here, alone and naked, and wait for the dead to claw themselves out of the sand to feast on your flesh. I would advise the former, but you are a free man.' ~ Amy Rae Durreson

But when will Filipinas ever be free from its leaders who are wealthy and crooked, in whom we have put so much trust?
-The Cripple ~ F. Sionil Jose

The universe defies you to answer the following questions: What good is a high paying career if it leaves you continually stressed out and miserable? What good is owning a large stately house if the only time you spend in it is when you sleep in it? What good is having a lot of interesting possessions if you never have the free time to enjoy them? Above all, what good is having a family if you seldom see any of its members? ~ Ernie J Zelinski

If he hadn't become a Buddhist monk, Sawaki Roshi would have been successful in a worldly sense in business, politics, or the military. Instead, he devoted his life to wholeheartedly practicing Dogen Zenji's just sitting, or shikantaza, which according to him was good for nothing. For him, social climbing in pursuit of fame and profit was meaningless. The Japanese expression for "waste" is bonifuru, which means "sacrifice," "lose all," or "ruin." So when we say he wasted his life, we use the expression in a paradoxical way - like saying that zazen is good for nothing. ~ Kosho Uchiyama

What is literature an expression of, if not an otherwise inaccessible and in reality non-existent closeness? ~ Karl Ove Knausgaard

Pretty soon ... do you realize there'll be so many additional childhoods and pasts with everybody writing about them everybody'll give up reading in despair-There'll be an Explosion of childhoods and pasts, they'll have to have a giant Brain print them out microscopically on film to be stored in a warehouse on Mars to give Heaven Seventy Kotis to catch up on all that reading- Seventy Million Million Kotis! - Whoopee! - Everything is free! ~ Jack Kerouac

When you draw or paint a tree, you do not imitate the tree; you do not copy it exactly as it is, which would be mere photography. To be free to paint a tree or a flower or a sunset, you have to feel what it conveys to you: the significance, the meaning of it. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

I thought it very likely I might have this sort of untestable power myself. It was kind of logical--no good at sport, alrightish at my studies, there must have been some field in which I excelled. Magic had to be it.

It's difficult for adults to picture just what a grip these fantasies can take on a child. There's occasionally a reminder as a kid throws himself off a roof pretending to be Batman, but mostly the interior life of children goes unnoticed.

When I say I thought I could be a wizard, that's exactly true. I really did believe I had latent magical powers, and, with enough concentration and fiddling my fingers into strange patterns, I might suddenly find how to unlock the magic inside me.

I wouldn't call this a delusion, more a very strong suspicion. I'd weighed all the evidence, and that was the likely conclusion--so much so that I had to stop myself trying to turn Matt Bradon into a fly when he was jumping up and down on the desk in French saying, "Miss, what are mammary glands?" to the big-breasted Miss Mundsley. I feared that, if I succeeded, I might not be able to turn him back. It was important, I knew, to use my powers wisely.

There's nothing that you'd have to call a psychoanalyst in for here. At the bottom line my growing interest in fantasy was just an expression of a very common feeling--"there's got to be something better than this," an easy one to have in the drab Midlands of the 1970s. I couldn't see it, though. ~ Mark Barrowcliffe

Anheuser-Busch gives two free cases of beer to its employees at all of its parks, like Busch Gardens. That's a comforting thought the next time you're getting ready to get on the roller coaster! ~ Jay Leno

I mean, it's real hard to be free when you're bought and sold in the marketplace. ~ Jack Nicholson

You'd think that it would make them all the more credible to be free of any obvious agenda or emotional bias, motivated only by objective logic. But there's something off-putting about these hyperrational types; they're immune to any appeals to common sense or humor, the for fuck's sake defense. [...] As Kim Stanley Robinson writes, "An excess of reason is in itself a form of madness". ~ Tim Kreider

Here is the paradox of the thing we call freedom: the farther we wander from God and the more we try to break free from him, the more enchained we become. Every step we take away from Him leads us farther from the freedom of Jesus and closer to the cruelty of Cain. ~ Steven James

Love is free, but priceless.
Wisdom is precious, but costless.
Faith is gentle, but fearless.
Joy is scarce, but limitless.
Truth is simple, but matchless. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

I saw an angel in the block of marble and I just chiseled until I set him free. ~ Michelangelo

A way to make new music is to imagine looking back at the past from a future and imagine music that could have existed but didn't. Like East African free jazz, which as far as I know does not exist. ~ Brian Eno

There is tonic in the things that men do not love to hear. Free speech is to a great people what the winds are to oceans ... and where free speech is stopped miasma is bred, and death comes fast. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

The quintessential feminine Self stands at the center of the psyche and it is wild, meaning natural and free, and utterly wise. It is not 'something' we must strive to create. This Self is already fully present, burning strong and waiting for us to come into its presence. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

No one is truly free, they are a slave to wealth, fortune, the law, or other people restraining them from acting according to their will. ~ Euripides

Ultimately, we need to take control over the money supply out of the hands of our governments and make the production of money again subject to the principle of free association. The first step to endorsing and promoting this strategy is to realize that governments do not - indeed cannot - fulfill any positive role whatever through the control of our money. ~ Jorg Guido Hulsmann

I can think of no wiser financial investment than in self-knowledge. It is the path to freedom, at many levels. By sorting through painful past experiences, irrational beliefs, and unacknowledged fears, people can become free of these chains and find healthier ways of coping than making money and consuming things. ~ Tim Kasser

And yet here he was, looking at Jem Carstairs, a boy so fragile-looking that he appeared to be made out of glass, with the hardness of his expression slowly dissolving into tentative uncertainty. "You are not really dying," he said, the oddest tone to his voice, "are you?"
Jem nodded. "So they tell me."
"I am sorry," Will said.
"No", Jem said softly. He drew his jacket aside and took a knife from the belt at his waist. "Don't be ordinary like that. Don't say you're sorry. Say you'll train with me."
He held the knife to Will, hilt first. Charlotte held her breath, afraid to move. She felt as if she were watching something very important happen, though she could not have said what.
Will reached out and took the knife, his eyes never leaving Jem's face. His fingers brushed the other boy's as he took the weapon from him. It was the first time, Charlotte thought that she had ever seen him touch any other person willingly.
"I'll train with you," he said. ~ Cassandra Clare

I could never free myself from the thought that Nature is that which is slowly killing me. ~ Charles Simic