to speak a few reasonable words

"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words."

[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]

the overflow of joy

"Love is the overflow of joy in God that meets the needs of others."  

[John Piper, Desiring God]

making mud pies in a slum

"If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and to earnestly hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I suggest that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

 [C.S. Lewis in a 1941 sermon]

when i think i might fall apart

But Frank put it best when he said,

"You can't plan on the heart"

Those words keep me on my feet

when I think I might just fall apart

Oh, there's nothing more to it
I just get through it

[First Aid Kit, "To a Poet"]

gifted or insane

"Hence, the poetic art belongs either to a naturally gifted person or an insane one..."

[Aristotle, Poetics, Chapter 17, Section 1455a]

some infinitely gentle infinitely suffering thing

"I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing."

[T.S. Eliot, "Preludes IV"]

it's a question of making your fortune in this world, or in the next

"If you dream of paying court to men of power, your eternal damnation is guaranteed. You could make a fortune, but you'd have to tread on the poor, flatter the deputy governor of the district, and the mayor, and all other men of substance, and assist them in their passions. For a layman, such conduct, which the world calls knowing how to live, is not incompatible with salvation. But with the likes of us, a choice has to be made: it's a question of making your fortune in this world, or in the next. There's no middle ground."

[Father Chélan in The Red and the Black]

you yourself

"It is a painful thing
to look at your own trouble and known
that you yourself and no one else has made it."

[Tecmessa in Sophocles' Ajax]

love endures all things

you can never please a false god

"You can never please a false god."

[Timothy Keller from "The Church Before the Watching World" sermon]

and that's a bad thing?

"'Really,' [Father Pirard] thought, 'here is exactly that fatal tendency to Protestantism, for which I've always scolded Chélan: deep, deep knowledge --almost too deep -- of the Scriptures.'"

[from Stendhal's The Red and the Black]

boredom grows and grows

"Boredom grows and grows. The only pleasures left are reading and farming."

[Stendhal, The Red and the Black]

prone to wander, Lord, I feel it

"Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.
Prone to leave the God I love."

[Robert Robinson, "Come Thou Fount"]