Pajiba

You don't need love like an aspirin for toothache. You need love like a brick through a blue window."

Elvis Costello, explaining "My Little Blue Window" from "When I Was Cruel"

"Live long and prosper."

"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness."

And I actually DID put that one on the wedding invitation.

"To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring." - George Santayana

I have always loved this quote, I think it reflects a very healthy view of the world.

"Being in love is totally punk rock."

"The heart has its' reasons; whereas reason knows nothing..."

"You're so damn hot"

for the more sentimentally inclined:

"Have you landed yet and if so would you let me know/ I'm tired of looking up into those starry eyes"

OK Go

"I love you more than my luggage."

Because there is nothing that can't be cured by a hug from Olympia Dukakis.

Our human race can only achieve happiness once love has reached it's conclusion - Plato

probably not the best for a wedding invitation, but it's the best one I could think of off the top of my head pertaining to love.

Off topic, this is one of my fav quotes of all time....

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination - Oscar Wilde

"My life could be the poem I would have writ,
but I could not both live and utter it."
(Walden, I think)

That didn't help a damn bit, did it?

"Someday we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car."

I used this as my high school yearbook quote, and I've never regretted it.

Because I totally had to add this one to the mix:

I kept asking Clarence why our world seemed to be collapsing and things seemed to be getting so shitty. And he'd say, "that's the way it goes, but don't forget, it goes the other way too." That's the way romance is... Usually, that's the way it goes, but every once in awhile, it goes the other way too.

or something Mr. Pink says to me on a regular basis:

You are my rock. Except way cuter.

"If it's yellow, let it mellow;
if it's brown, flush it down."

-Anon.

Words to live by, my friends.

"You need me like the wind needs the trees to blow in.
Like the moon needs poetry, you need me"
-From "Come Back From San Francisco" The Magnetic Fields

or

"and the little box is out on the sidewalk
next to the delicatessen
so the old man can sit on it and drink beer
and get knocked off it by his wife later in the day
while the sun is still shining

oh god it's wonderful
to get out of bed
and drink too much coffee
and smoke too many cigarettes
and love you so much"

-From "Steps" by Frank O'Hara

or

"I promise to make you more alive than you've ever been/...
For the first time, you'll note gravity's prick/
like a thorn in your heel,/
and your shoulder blades will hurt from the imperative of wings."

-From "Ordeal" by Nina Cassian

I could do this all day.

"You know about the best I'll ever be, see it in your eyes." Freedy Johnston, Bad Reputation
Damn I love that song.

1) "Who in their right mind could possibly deny that the 20th century was mine....ALL OF IT!"

2) "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

3) "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."

4) "You can give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day, set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."

"When people show you who they are, BELIEVE them."
Maya Angelou

There is nothing more romantic on earth than Yeats:

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Edgy but still romantic, courtesy of Johnny Marrs and Billy Bragg:

"The boy done good, the girl done better,
The seasons turn and we're still together,
The sky is still blue and tomorrow is another day"

Forgive me if I get this a little bit wrong:

"Love is the only thing in the world that exists in spite of and not because." - William Faulkner

And for a more all-occasion kind of quote:

"No matter where you go...there you are." - Buckaroo Bonzai

-"Why do people have to die?"
-"To make life important. None of us know how long we've got. Which is why we have to make each day matter."
-This quote courtesy of Six Feet Under

"Turn a blind eye to your lover's faults. If he had none, he'd be with someone better."

I do have a few favourites, but I think this one is the best. From Ayn Rand:

"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours."

See if you can find some Jacques Prévert translated into English. He wrote this beautiful short poem about watching all these gorgeous women getting off the bus, then he notices this one that captures his attention above all the others, not for being the most beautiful, but for being his wife, le awwww.

I'm also a fan of "Life is life, kind is kind" from Jack Kerouac. Life seems to get a little easier when you accept this reality.

"Your heart is my piñata."

- Chuck Palahniuk

"She's the puzzle piece behind the couch that made my sky complete." Alison's Starting to Happen The Lemonheads

"Eastman! He came from the east to do battle with The Amazing Rando!" Romantic, yes?

I have two from Tom Robbins (author of one of my favorite books, Still Life with WoodPecker):

"The highest function of love is that it makes the loved one a unique and irreplaceable being."

"We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love."

Not sure if they're appropriate though. :)

Other favorite quotes of mine not wedding related:

""I used to think that humor was the only way to appreciate how wonderful and terrible the world is, to celebrate how big life is .... But now I think it's the opposite. Humor is a way of shrinking from the wonderful and terrible world." -Jonathan Safron Foer

"Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly." -Neil Gaiman

"If you do not let me gut out this house, and make it my own, I will go insane, and I will TAKE YOU WITH ME!" -Delia, from Beetlejuice, one of my favorite line readings EVER

And I could copy all of Cummings' "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock," but my favorite part was always:

There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.
There will be time to murder and create,
and time for all the works and days of hands
that lift and drop a question on your plate.
Time for you and time for me,
and time yet for a hundred indecisions,
and for a hundred visions and revisions,
before the taking of a toast and tea.

The Avett Brothers have a song outside their typical style that I have always found on the romantic side, even if the lyrics seem cheesy out of context, in that you kind of have to hear the song. Anywho, here's the end, not quite a quote I guess, though:
"If it's the beaches
If it's the beaches' sands you want
Then you will have them
If it's the mountains' bending rivers
Then you will have them
If it's the wish to run away
Then I will grant it
Take whatever what you think of
While I go gas up the truck
Pack the old love letters up
We will read them when we forget why we left here"

I'm excited about this one! I have a collection of quotes. I have problems...
Anyway, as far as the wedding quote, this is one I am thinking about using myself; feel free to use it too:
"Talk not of wasted affection; affection never was wasted."
Longfellow

And becuase I have problems, here are some of my other favorites:

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross."
Sinclair Lewis

"People are stupid. They will believe anything they want to be true or fear to be true."
Terry Goodkind

"Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age."
James Joyce, Ulysses

"Inherited ideas are a curious thing, and interesting to observe and examine."
Mark Twain

"If love be rough with you, be rough with love. Prick love for pricking you and beat love down."
Shakespeare

"Mind what people do, not only what they say, for deeds will betray a lie."
Terry Goodkind

"To understand is to perceive patterns."
Isaiah Berlin

"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love."
Neil Gaiman

"I've lived too long with pain. I won't know who I am without it."
Ender, Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card

"This I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual."
Unknown

"Be able to defend your arguments in a rational way. Otherwise, all you have is an opinion."
Marilyn vos Savant

Ok, I think that's enough.

I love quotes.

Because there is nothing that can't be cured by a hug from Olympia Dukakis.

WORD. Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion :)

And I wish I could remember my college yearbook quote, it was from Calvin and Hobbes and oh how I loved it.

"And I could copy all of Cummings' "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock," but my favorite part was always:"

(Pssssst. Eliot)

Captain Murphy of Sealab 2021 has two gems:

"But the secret ingredient is love. Damn it."

"Pudding can't fill the emptiness inside me! But it'll help."

(I miss you Harry Goz.)

Ooh! My bad Covered, I always get them mixed up :p

"Always remember there is nothing worth sharing, like the love that lets us share our name" by the Avett Brothers. Also, not wedding related, but I've always loved this quote:
"Conventionality is not morality"
Charlotte Bronte

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.

My favourite:
"I wanna make you smile whenever you're sad
Carry you around when your arthritis is bad
All I wanna do is grow old with you"
Mr. Pea said Adam Sandler isn't romantic enough for a first-dance song, but I disagree.

"If you think anyone is sane, you just don't know enough about them." - The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore.

I don't know if it counts since it's a quotation from a book, but meh. It pretty much sums up my view of people in general. Obviously not wedding invitation-worthy, unless your spouse-to-be has an incredible sense of humour and doesn't mind if everyone on your guest list thinks you're warped.

Litany, by Billy Collins. Great poem. This is the last bit.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.

Julie, I love Prufrock so much.

I have liked this one for so long that I no longer remember who to attribute it to, but I kinda think it may have been Thomas Jefferson:

I have not gone where I intended to go, but I think that I have ended up where I intended to be.

Also, I think from Heathers but don't remember:

You can't be happy every day of your life. If you were you wouldn't be human. You'd be a game show host.

Julie:

"Verbing weirds language" has always been one of my favorites.

"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his. "

Oscar Wilde

Not sure how "edgy" you want them (I'd need the tone and feel of the wedding and the wedding party) but here goes nothing:

"We'll crucify the insincere tonight
We'll make things right
We'll feel it all tonight
We'll find a way to offer up the night tonight
The indescribable moments of your life tonight
The impossible is possible tonight
Believe in me as I believe in you...tonight"

-Smashing Pumpkins "Tonight, Tonight"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
-The Velveteen Rabbit

"I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible!"

-When Harry Met Sally

"Diane Court: Nobody thinks it will work, do they?
Lloyd Dobler: No. You just described every great success story. "

-Say Anything

"Lloyd Dobler: What I really want to do with my life - what I want to do for a living - is I want to be with your daughter. I'm good at it."

-Say Anything

And this you could pick apart the lines you like best.....

You and me
Meant to be
Immutable
Impossible
It's destiny
Pure lunacy
Incalculable
Insufferable
But for the last time
You're everything that I want and ask for
You're all that I'd dreamed
Who wouldn't be the one you love
Who wouldn't stand inside your love
Protected and the lover of
A pure soul and beautiful you
Don't understand
Don't feel me now
I will breathe
For the both of us
Travel the world
Traverse the skies
Your home is here
Within my heart
And for the first time
I feel as though I am reborn
In my mind
Recast as child and mystic sage
Who wouldn't be the one you love
Who wouldn't stand inside your love
And for the first time
I'm telling you how much I need and bleed for
Your every move and waking sound
In my time
I'll wrap my wire around your heart and your mind
You're mine forevaaaa.. now
Who wouldn't be the one you love and live for
Who wouldn't stand inside your love and die for
Who wouldn't be the one you love

-Smashing Pumpkins "Stand Inside Your Love"

Don't make fun too much :-)
Congratulations and hope it helps!

Shakespeare #116 is a classic, you know,
"Let not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments" yada, yada.

I love Dorothy Parker for quotes.
"Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words"

"I couldn't love you any more than if I'd left you lying in a pool of your own blood... Oh wait, I did that, didn't I??"

I'm not much into details, but shouldn't the quote come from The Princess Bride?

People complain about the bad things that happen to em that they dont deserve but they seldom mention the good. About what they done to deserve them things. I dont recall that I ever give the good Lord all that much cause to smile on me. But he did. - Ed Tom Bell in Cormac McCarthy, No Country For Old Men

"Ah, lover and perfect equal!
I meant that you should discover me so, by my faint indirections;
And I, when I meet you, mean to discover you by the like in you."- Walt Whitman...I guess you've already met. But it still brings the romance.

It's one of those two, love or revenge, I'm not really sure which one. But it's one of those two that made me throw a cello through somebody's window, so you figure it out.
- Rocket Science

Bistro, that line is definitely from Heathers. It's one of my faves.

"Love is speaking in code. It's an inside joke. Love is coming home." - The Format

"If you didn't exist I would have to make you up."

"There is no remedy for love but to love more."

"Whoso loves, believes the impossible."

And the best love poem I've ever read: Resignation by Nikki Giovanni

Dangle McGee: "Eastman! He came from the east to do battle with The Amazing Rando!" Romantic, yes?

There is nothing more romantic than MST3K. Can we have that on our wedding invitations?

gunter Marry me?

p.s. It's SPIRIT CRUSHING, I said.

"You see, it's just that kind of sarcasm that's given our marriage real spice." - Misery

"Before I met you, I had so many problems. But now, I only have one. Marriage, man; it gave my life such focus."

Forget a cute saying, just make sure you get the names right. My mother and her friend (who had an invitation business):

1. Ordered a different invitation than the one I picked, because they felt everyone would know that I picked the cheapest one.

2. Reworded everything I wrote, because they thought they could do better.

3. GOT MY NAME WRONG. They had my fiance' marrying my SISTER.

And they wondered why I had a sour face when they presented me with the box of invitations. My only joy was that my mom's friend had to eat the cost of those invitations and do them all over.

show me a good loser and i'll show you a loser.

coveredinbees
That's god doing your dry cleaning.

let's see...romantic quotes...I am too hungry to thnk right now...
"love is an evil word" - Leroi Jones
(man, some very naughty poems by ee cummings are flitting into my head but I will refrain.)
my favorite all-time quote (today anyway) is from Fiddler Jones - "The earth keeps some vibration going/there in your heart/and that is you"

"What cloying meat is love, when marriage is the sauce to it!" - Vanbrugh

"Sure, marriage is a fine institution, but who wants to be in an institution?" - Groucho Marx

"BE KIND, DAMMIT!" - Kurt Vonnegut

"Being married for three years is like waking up next to the horse's head in 'The Godfather.'" - Sam Kinison

"Love is blind - but the Neighbors aren't." - Anonymous

"Love is deaf as well as blind, that's it!" - Nicol Williamson (as Merlin), Excalibur

"Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four?"

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

"It's not the side-effects of the cocaine, I'm thinking that it must be love"
-From the title track of Station to Station by (naturally) David Bowie

I didn't go all in for the big wedding hoo-haa, but, if I had, the song would have been Dancing Lessons by Sinead O'Connor with this line on all the party favors: "And on this journey may the good lord guide us, and may the goddess dance beside us."

One more for good measure:

"If the sea were of ink and the sky of parchment, I could not begin to write my love for you."

The source is better than the actual quote.

/don't use it unless you are familiar with the source- you'll regret it.

"I love you."

"I know."

I have a chair for you in the smallest parlor in the world, to wit, my heart.
"Emily Dickinson"

gunter I can and will do this all day.

"It's a blessing to be squarely and dearly out of the goddamn suburbs."

'What do you do if every time you see this one incredible woman, you think you're gonna hurl?'

'I say hurl. If you blow chunks and she comes back, she's yours. But if you spew and she bolts, then it was never meant to be.'

There you go, Julie. Ask and ye shall receive.

"Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam... And wuv, tru wuv, will fowow you foweva... So tweasure your wuv. "

Princess Bride is my second favorite movie of all time.

Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

"Hope for the best, prepare for the worst."

Sorry, recently divorced and incurably jaded...

And this!
The bottom line is that (a) people are never perfect, but love can be, (b) that is the one and only way that the mediocre and vile can be transformed, and (c) doing that makes it that. We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.
-From my favorite author, Tom Robbins

"If you love somebody, set them on fire."
~Dead Milkmen

Love is like oxygen,
You get too much you get too high,
Not enough and you're gonna die,
Love gets you high

-Sweet

For me, the two best lines ever:




"Dude, pick up some beer...and some cleaning products." Brad Pitt's finest performance EVER.




"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women." Great stuff - I think I'll try using that one on my next job interview.

oh my god you guys, i collect quotes and the day i'm not using my normal computer....i have a 90page word document full of amazing gems.
at least you're beefing-up my collection. so, thanks!

but, here's a "romantic" one as only margaret atwood could do:

they talked of love, naturally, but that couldn't keep them busy forever.

Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be.
~ Robert Browning

I clearly have a thing about growing old together.

Julie:

Eliot was the fascist who put his sick wife in an institution because he couldn't be bothered.

cummings was the one who didn't believe in capital letters.

Damnit, it's for a wedding! I was so set to post, "I won't close the Arby's...I'll board it up, open the windows, and let nature have at it.", but we're going for wedding invitation and not general quotes. (I still love that one though.) However, if it's a wedding quote you want, how about:

"Do you love me?
Will you love me forever?
Do you need me?
Will you never leave me?
Will you make me so happy for the rest of my life?
Will you take me away and will you make me your
Wife?
I gotta know right now
Before we go any further
Do you love me !!!?
Will you love me forever !!!?"

- Meat Loaf, Paradise By The Dashboard Light

It's perfectly symbolic of that last moment at the altar, but then again that could just be me. Plus, it depends on your tolerance for Meat Loaf outside of Fight Club.

Okay, so this is probably too long for your invitation, but this is a favorite Emily Dickinson poem. Especially perfect if you're doing the relationship from any kind of distance.

Wild nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile the winds
To a heart in port,
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart.

Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in thee!

I get all sappy just rereading it.

As for a general favorite quote, and this has nothing to do with love:

"It's hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head." Sally Kempton

Definitely do not put that on your invitation.

"The entire sum of existence is the magic of being needed by just one other person."
-Vi Putnam

for the more mathimatically-minded...

"I cheese sandwich you."

p.s. wanderer:

i have that vonnegut quote tattooed on my foot ;)

Love is not a game
Love Is not a toy
Love's no romance
Love will do you in
And love will wash you out
And needless to say
You won't stand a chance, you won't stand a chance
I'm hungry for learning

--"Congratulations" Paul Simon

Murray: Jemaine, you should think about that. I've told you -- when you're in a band, you don't get with your bandmate's girlfriend, past or present.

Jemaine: Yes, well thanks for that.

Murray: You get a love triangle. You know? Fleetwood Mac situation. Well, there was four of them, so more of a love square, but you know, no one gets on.

Jemaine: Okay, I see.

Murray: Mind you, they did make some of their best music back then.

Bret: "Rumours"

Murray: No, that's all true.

-Flight of the Conchords

Eliot was the fascist who put his sick wife in an institution because he couldn't be bothered.

cummings was the one who didn't believe in capital letters.

Ha ha ha! I love you Paddy.

"Do, or do not. There is no 'try'."

"We must become the change we want to see"
-M. K. Gandhi

"If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let 'em go, because, man, they're gone."
-Jack Handey

"Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."
-Leonard Cohen

This is an entire sonnet and therefore may be too long for an invitation, but it expresses for me EXACTLY the love I feel for my husband. If I had found it before my wedding I would have used it, but since I didn't, I'm gonna pass it along and maybe someone else will.
Congratulations!

"Give me a place to stand," Archimedes said,

"and I can move the world." Paradoxical, clever,

his remark which first explained the use of the lever

was an academic joke. But if that dead

sage could return to life, he would find a clear

demonstration of his idea, which is not

pure theory after all. That putative spot

exists in the love I feel for you, my dear.

What could be more immovable or stronger?

What becomes more and more secure, the longer

it is battered by inconstancy and the stress

we find in our lives? Here is that fine fixed point

from which to move a world that is out of joint,

as he could have done, had he known a love like this.

I tend to look to Jack Handey for wisdom:

Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that, I'll be over here, looking through your stuff.

or:

If God dwells inside us, like some people say, I sure hope he likes enchiladas, because that's what he's getting.

Jack Handey didn't have much to say about love. Come to think of it, that makes a lot of sense.

Wow, it seems I mostly listen to music that's down on love....

"You're all I notice
In a crowded room"
Smashing Pumpkins--Medellia of the Gray Skies

"A dreamer of pictures
I run in the night
You see us together,
chasing the moonlight"
--Neil Young--Cinnamon Girl

"But my home is where my heart is
And my heart is not at home
Whenever we are parted"
Thin Lizzie--Sweet Marie

And of course:
"Life used to be so hard
Now everything is easy
'Cause of you"
CSN&Y--Our House

Fave non-love quote:

"Reality is for those who lack imagination"--don't know who wrote it, but I saw it in a fortune cookie

i recently shadow-boxed my friends' wedding invitation with this quote from eternal sunshine of the spotless mind (it's their favorite movie):

"i loved you on this day. i love this memory."

one of my favorites comes from an r.e.m. song, "e-bow the letter":

look up and what do you see?
all of you and all of me
flourescent and starry,
some of them, they surprise

haha! Mike R, I love that exchange

damnit Johnny, you know how I love my beef brisket with cheddar!"

but no, it is not exactly wedding invitation material...

Non romantic quote of all time:
"I don't fuck much with the past but I fuck plenty with the future"
-Patti Smith

I am so glad to see the Velveteen Rabbit quote. That is still one of my favorite stories.

Being a huge Zepplin fan, I plan to play this song at my own wedding:

Thank You (from Led Zepplin II)

If the sun refused to shine I would still be loving you.
When the mountains crumble to the sea there will still be you and me.
Kind woman I give you my all. Kind woman nothing more.
Little drops of rain whisper of the pain, tears of loves lost in the days gone by.
My love is strong, with you there is no wrong.
Together we shall go until we die. (My my my)
An inspiration is what you are to me, inspiration, look...see.
And so today my world it smiles. Your hand in mine we walk the miles.
Thanks to you it will be done for you to me are the only one.
Happiness, no more be sad. Happiness I'm glad.
If the sun refused to shine I would still be loving you.
When the mountains crumble to the sea there will still be you and me.

(source: http://lyrics.led-zeppelin.us/Albums/LZ02.html)

Long as we're quoting Jack Handey, here's my fave:

"If you ever catch on fire, try to avoid seeing yourself in the mirror, because I bet that's what REALLY throws you into a panic."

None of mine are appropriate for a wedding invitation, but still favorites. The first two are gems from my mother:
"This too shall pass." and "You can't judge others based on your own merits."

Lastly, and I don't know where it came from: "I wanted only to live in accordance with the promptings that came from my true self. Why was this so very difficult?"

Great quotes from everyone!

Bethy - My brothers and I are notorious for randomly throwing the Arby's quote out there. (That's the joy of being an older brother, I can corrupt my brothers with the proper popular culture influences.) On a side note, it's funny to watch 30 Rock and then hop over to Alias and see two different sides of Isabella Rosselini. She either wants to kill someone, or eat a Big Beef and Cheddar, and frankly I can't argue with her on either. Ok, maybe the killing...depends on who it is.

on marriage, i think:

Long after the congratulants have presented their best wishes
and the indulgence of strangers is gone, after the delight of dare
for joining sides and thirst has tempered, unspoken words
of a private language press against each other
like hares keeping out of the cold - the sheltering syntax of pleasure
burning, brightening the nightscented frost.
but in the distance, in the shivers of a wind beaten flame
lives a sigh where you should laugh, as reason bolts like the moon
chasing a stray cloud, jealous of its sedition.
then with body and blood outrung the heartcloth may seem twisted dry,
but like an hourglass the funnel opens out again
and love, like percussive snow, streams down to the openhearted.

"Anyone that speaks ill of revenge ain't ever lost anything important."

Maybe better for a funeral than a wedding but...

Do You Realize - that everyone you know someday will die

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

"I'm a Spalding Gray in Rick Dees world"-Homer Simpson

"Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son"-Dean Wormer

"Elaine, you are the bearclaw in the garbage can of my life"- from Seinfeld

"sometimes i get the feeling, that I won't be on this planet for very long
I really like it here, i'm quite attached to it, i hope I'm wrong"
-ben folds

Too many others to count

No promises.
No expectations.
No obligations.
You don't even have to respond.
I simply love you.

And one from Leonard:

And I'll dance with you in vienna
I'll be wearing a rivers disguise
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder,
My mouth on the dew of your thighs
And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
With the photographs there, and the moss
And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty
My cheap violin and my cross
And you'll carry me down on your dancing
To the pools that you lift on your wrist
Oh my love, oh my love
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Its your's now. it's all that there is.

From Take this Waltz, one of the most romantic songs I know..

raindog
Alas, I am already married. Mr Dangle would surely frown upon my going all polygamist on his ass. But MST3K is totally romantic!

"I'm gonna curl up in his sock drawer and sleep for days."

Ha! I love the Jack Handey quotes. My brother sent me this as a text message last weekend while I was at a wedding, and it made me laugh hysterically.

"The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw."

My favorite was always "To me clowns aren't funny. In face, they're kind of scary. I've wondered where this started, and I thikn this goes back to the time I went to the circus and a clown killed my dad."

"I blue myself."
Dr. Tobias Funke, licensed Analrapist
Not at all romantic, but still my favorite quote!

"I don't need another kind of green to know I'm on the right side with you."

- John Mayer, "Another Kind of Green"

Viola De Lesseps: I will have poetry in my life. And adventure. And love. Love above all. No... not the artful postures of love, not playful and poetical games of love for the amusement of an evening, but love that... over-throws life. Unbiddable, ungovernable - like a riot in the heart, and nothing to be done, come ruin or rapture. Love - like there has never been in a play.

- Shakespeare in Love

...

And now for my non-related favorite quote:

"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

- Thomas Jefferson

"I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation."

From my dead gay soulmate Somerset Maugham. Oh how I LOVESSSSS him.

Nice Jack Handey quotes. My favorite is the one about Disneyland -

"One thing kids like is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take my little nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to an old burned-out warehouse. "Oh, no," I said. "Disneyland burned down." He cried and cried, but I think that deep down, he thought it was a pretty good joke. I started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but it was getting pretty late."

More of a block quote. BUT STILL HILARIOUS.

"Hey, don't knock masturbation - it's sex with someone I love."

Woody Allen

hee hee, I also want to use the marriage ceremony from Princess Bride--verbatim! "Mawiage, that bwessed awangement, that dweam within a dweam. Mawiage is what bwings togetha today." Do you Pwincess Buttacup..." "Skip to the end." "Have you the wings?" "Say man and wife!" "Man and wife" I probably didn't get it all but I have time to watch PB again before September. I doubt my officiant will go for it though.

I collect quotes too! Hooray for nerds!

Romantic quote?

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

e.e cummings

Realistic quotes?

"Marriage is a great institution. Fortunately, I'm not ready for an institution."-Mae West

Funny quotes?

"How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewrite?"-Woody Allen

"I take my lion to church every Sunday. After all, he has to eat"-Anon

"Sex is only the business of the three people involved"-Anon

Should I pull out my little index cards full of quotes? People have a tendency to run for the hills when I reach for them.

Sigh.....

Gudrun--Handey gave an interview not long ago where he confessed that was basically a true story :)

NPR's Fair Game with Faith Salie, from 4/11/08

"Girls are like slugs. They serve some purpose but it's hard to imagine what."

- Calvin and Hobbes

And I don't know how I survived those days
Before I held your hand
Well I never thought that I would be the one
To admit that the moon and the sun
Shine so much more brighter when
Seen through two pairs of eyes than
When seen through just one

Have you ever seen a sight as beautiful
As a face in a crowd of people
That lights up just for you?

Have you ever felt more fresh or wonderful
As when you wake
By the side of that boy or girl
Who has pledged their love to you?

Well I have known all these things
And the joys that they can bring
And now every morning there's a cup of coffee
And I wear your ring

Cowboy Junkies, Anniversary Song

"Hey, don't knock masturbation - it's sex with someone I love."

HEE! TMax, that reminds me of a quote my friends used to use on me in college, since I was Captain Procrastinator.

"Procrastination is like masturbation...in the end you're just fucking yourself."

"I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not." - Kurt Cobain

"I'm glad I was raised Catholic. That way the sex will always be dirty."

"I'll bring home the turkey if you bring home the bacon."

-Weezer, 'El Scorcho'

Here's another good one:

"There must be more to life than having everything."
--Maurice Sendak

Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
-Bullet-tooth Tony, from Snatch

Favourite quote on film (at least for today):

"Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects don't have politics. They're very brutal. No compassion, no compromise. We can't trust the insect. I'd like to become the first insect politician. Y'see, I'd like to, but I'm afraid, I'm saying I'm an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it. But now the dream is over... and the insect is awake."

Ryan Adams has some pretty good ones, but one of the best is at the very end of "English Girls Approximately":

"Just three words, my love . . . you meant everything."

"Talking to you girl is like long division yeah
I been trying to find you
May I remind you I'm under oath now
I been trying to see you
'Cause I can see you want the truth now
I been trying to tell you
That I can tell you are
A singular girl"

-- Rhett Miller, "Singular Girl"

Lil' Wayne talking about no longer doing cocaine because he got bad acne is not wedding appropriate I imagine.

Not for the Weddings:
Hobo: Do you have the time?
Guy: Quarter past seven.
Hobo: Do you think we'll make it?
Guy: To where?
Hobo: To wherever we're going.
Guy: Yes.

Maybe for the weddings:
Oh, I'm not saying love doesn't exist...just that I'm not going to ever have any, so why shouldn't I just settle for money and sex?

Woo frumpiefox! Another Fair Game fan!

Arthur: I have often thought that in the hereafter of our lives, when I owe no more to the future and can be just a man, that we may meet, and you will come to me and claim me as yours, and know that I am your husband. It is a dream I have...

Cyndi Lauper: if you're lost you can look--and you will find me
time after time
if you fall I will catch you--I'll be waiting
time after time

Love means never having to say you're sorry....

That's the stupidest thing I have ever heard.
What's Up Doc

Dr. Wilson: Beauty often seduces us on the road to truth.
Dr. Gregory House: And triteness kicks us in the nads.

I know True Romance quotes have been noted already (more than once), but this is my personal favorite.

"Amid the chaos of that day, when all I could hear was the thunder of gunshots, and all I could smell was the violence in the air, I look back and am amazed that my thoughts were so clear and true, that three words went through my mind endlessly, repeating themselves like a broken record: you're so cool, you're so cool, you're so cool."

Thecox: Reminds me of this one: "Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups."

From Matt Groening (creator of the Simpsons):
"Love is like racing across the frozen tundra on a snowmobile which flips over, trapping you underneath. At night, the ice-weasels come."

Love this from Four Weddings and a Funeral (movie blows after this moment)----
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

And, Shaun of the Dead,

Well, fuck a doodle do!

Love. You can know all the math in the 'Verse, but take a boat in the air you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turning of worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells ya she's hurtin' 'fore she keens. Makes her home.

Captain Malcolm Reynolds from Serenity

"...so I've got that going for me, which is nice."

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." - Shakespeare

"America is the only country to go from barbarism to decadence with no civilization in between." - Oscar Wilde

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx

"It takes a lot of money to look this cheap." - Dolly Parton

"Hello
I've waited here for you
Everlong"
--Foo Fighters

Bistro--Some days, old NPR podcasts are all that keep me from slitting my own throat at work.... :)

"Love is not to be taken lightly.
If anything, it should be quickly and forcefully dumped into the nearest receptacle you can find."

People, people! I'm trying to copy some of these as fast as I can, but you're not telling me who said them! Leave song titles and writer names people! Jeez!

"The most important things are the hardest to say... because words diminish them."

~ Stephen King

I actually had that printed on my checks for a while.

Because I lost my dog of 13 1/2 years last night...

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you wake in the morning hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there, I did not die.

Mary Frye (1932)

"I still jerk off manually"
(by Jeff Lebowski)

"We could write our names here in the mud
No one's around to see them
We could hang our shoes here in a tree
No one's around to steal them
I could give you a star
You could give me one too
That way we'd be even
And I could sing a song way out of tune
And not care a bit about it

We could both wear cowboy hats
And pretend that we could speak Italian
I could eat some gum
And make my breath so minty fresh
To kiss you
Your breath will smell like wine
I like that a lot
Especially when I kiss you
And I could hit my funny bone really hard
And you could call me sweetheart

And who ever said there's nothing new under the sun
Never thought much about individuals
But he's dead anyway

So lets go down together
Down together
Well lets go down together
Down together
Down together

We could all wear ripped up clothes
And pretend that we were Dead Hot Workshop
I could drive a long long way
And not even have the gas to make it back
We could chase our shadows around the lawn
Until we're both exhausted
I could forget the words here one more time
And hope that no one notices

And whoever said there's nothing new under the sun
Never thought much about me

What's good for you is good for me
And what's bad for you is bad for me
What's good for you is good for me
And what's bad for you is bad for me

Cars break and people break down and other things break down too
So lets go down together
Down together
Down together
Lets go down together
Down together
Down together"

-- The Refreshments, "Down Together"

Jayco, I'm sorry about your dog!

Jayco, condolances!

From my favorite scream-at-the-top-of-my-lungs, feel-good drug anthems of empowerment:

"And I will go on shining
shining like brand new
I'll never look behind me
my troubles will be few"
Supertramp--Goodbye Stranger

"Did you have any bad dreams, did you break any glass?
Would you be my companion, is there even a chance?"
Head East--Never Been any Reason

How to narrow it down! Here are four good ones:

"Love is never merely an amiable tolerance of whatever form human frailty and folly may take."
~ Josiah Royce, American philosopher

"To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead."
~ Bertrand Russell, British philosopher

"What mattered was that everyone was connected in a web, that pain was part of the web, and yet despite it, people loved one another. That's what you found out when you got older, he said." ~Frank Conroy, "Gossip"

"August is the month when undone summer things must be finished or regretted all through the winter."
~ James Alan McPherson, "Gold Coast"

"I love you as certain dark things are to be loved;
In secret, between the shadow and the soul."
-Pablo Neruda

Jayco- yeah, what Julie said. I'm so sorry. And I loved that poem you shared.

Three:

One from Heathers: "Well, f*ck me gently with a chainsaw. Do I look like Mother Theresa?"

Two from my friend, a new parents, when asked if she had any advice for expectant mothers: "It's not abuse if it's neglect."

Three from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs: "Wait, they don't love you like I love you."

I am not even going to start on Simpsons quotes but I do have a Kipling line that MIGHT be wedding appropriate (even though it comes from one of the saddest love stories I have ever read). It is from Without Benefit of Clergy, a short story appearing in Life's Handicap:

"I bear witness'--the lips were forming the words on his ear--'that there is no God but--thee, beloved!'"
source: http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/prose/LifesHandicap/withoutclergy.html)

Like the Simpsons and Princess Bride, Kipling is infinitely quotable.

He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise.
--William Blake

this was actually on our wedding programs, which I'm sure confused a lot of people

Another good one from Blake:

If a thing loves, it is infinite.

This contest makes me think of the line "Say something perfect, something I can steal" in the song Baby, We'll Be Fine by The National.

"Love you whenever we're together, love you with all of my heart"
"For the things you do endear me to you, oh, you know, I will"
Both of those are from I Will, by The Beatles.

"Nothing else will do, I've gotta have you."
--Gotta Have You, The Weepies

"Yours is the first face that I saw. I swear I was blind before I met you."
-- First Day of my Life, Bright Eyes

"I have built a tree house. Nobody can see us; it's a you and me house"
-- Treehouse, I'm From Barcelona

"Oh, it is love, from the first time I set my eyes upon yours, thinking, 'Oh, is it love?'"
--Oh, It Is Love, Hellogoodbye (yeah, they're a relatively lame band but this song is freakin adorable)

"Seems that all I really was doing, was waiting for you"
-- Real Love, John Lennon

"I hate old people! They're slow, they're annoying and they have nothing to do all day!" -my mom (she got stuck behind a very old woman in traffic)

And by the by, I HATE quotes that are basically backwards. The classic is the JFK: As not what you can do for your country, but what your country can do for you." (maybe I have that backwards...whatever.

My ex has a billion of them on his facebook, this one being the one that pisses me off the most: "I would never like to be considered a product of my environment, rather I would like my environment to be considered a product of me" What the fuck does that even really mean?

Brigitte--I love Kipling!

I think a lot of the quotes I find romance-y are really un-romance-y wehn taken in context, for example:

"There were times where we were stupid kids
and it was all a game
but as for now, this is the best night of my life"

(goes on to say "and these are things I often think about
but it's a waste of time
'cause you're not here
I'm not sober
it's not 1999")
The Ergs--Every Romance Language

I'm not a very romance-y person.

Oh, I wholeheartedly agree about the infinite amount of amazing Simpsons quotes. It truly merits its own diversion.

My favorite:

Marge: Hey, come over here and feel our baby kicking.

Homer: Wow! Kid, I won't let you down. I swear to you, when you come out of there, the first thing you're going to see is a man with a good job!

Patty: Yeah...the doctor.

The following is long, but it's my favorite:

"We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep - it's as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out of windows or drown themselves or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us, the vast majority, are slowly devoured by some disease or, if we're very fortunate, by time itself. There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything for more. Heaven only knows why we love it so." --Michael Cunningham, The Hours

And being gay, I like the following, too: "I hope the fact that I'm gay isn't the most interesting part of me." --T.R. Knight

As for weddings, I don't know how much I can help with that. However, as a wedding videographer, there is one common reading that I beg you not to use: first Corinthians. "Love is patient, love is kind, it does not boast, etc. etc..." Sweet Jesus am I tired of hearing that at weddings.

"She's no lady, she's my wife"
-- Lyle Lovett

we soooooooo wanted to play that as our wedding song, but didn't because we thought the relatives would freak.

14 years later, I'd have no qualms about it.

Why don't you go back to your home on Whore Island?

The whole song is awesome, but my favorite verses...

I believe in the love that you gave me
I believe in the hope that can save me
I believe in the faith
And I pray that some day it may raise me
Above these badlands

Badlands, you gotta live it every day
Let the broken hearts stand
As the price you've gotta pay
We'll keep pushin' till it's understood
And these badlands start treating us good

For the ones who had a notion
A notion deep inside
That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive
I wanna find one face that ain't looking through me
I wanna find one place
I wanna spit in the face of these badlands

-Mr. Springsteen

Frumpiefox, you are my new best friend! I sometimes wish Pajiba would offer an Afternoon Diversion devoted to Kipling but I doubt there are many Kipling fans (besides us) that visit here.

I love quotes, too! Okay, here are a few...

There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I'll get married again. (Clint Eastwood) maybe not the most optimistic for a wedding! :)

Rain and storm and dark skies
well now they don't mean a thing
If you got a girl that loves you
and who wants to wear your ring
So c'mon mister trouble
we'll make it through you somehow
We'll fill this house with all the love
all that heaven will allow
(Bruce Springsteen, All That Heaven Will Allow)

Now there's a beautiful river in the valley ahead
There 'neath the oak's bough soon we will be wed
Should we lose each other in the shadow of the evening trees
I'll wait for you
And should I fall behind
Wait for me
(Bruce Springsteen, If I Should Fall Behind)
---there are several verses from this song which would be very appropriate actually. Bruce really has a gift for creating vivid imagery in general, in my opinion.

And just a couple of my favorite, non-love, quotes:

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. (Krishnamurti)

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me. (Hunter S. Thompson)

I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it. (Garrison Keillor)

"Stay crunchy. Even in milk."
- Joss Whedon

This probably does Jessika no favors at all, but I love it...
"Tis well known, a big nose is indicative/Of a soul affable, and kind, and courteous/Liberal, brave, just like myself, and such/As you can never dare to dream yourself"-Cyrano de Bergerac

"The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is." - Winston Churchill.

And this requires his cadence, but:

"Because we are not a collection of red states and blue states. We are the United States of America. And in this moment, in this election, we are ready to believe again." - Barack Obama, January 3, 2008.

Jayco:

I am so sorry. I know exactly how you feel today. Someone gave me that same poem when the love of my life, my beautiful labrador of 12.5 years died (3 years ago this July).
My lasting sentiment of him (and the one I murmured to myself as we scattered his ashes):

"If I had a flower for every moment of happiness you gave me, I could send bouquets to the world."

HEAVEN!

At my wedding, we actually had non-romantic quotes about love/marriage with our favours because I collect quotations and have done for about 23 years.

For the wedding -

Anyone can be passionate, but it takes true lovers to be silly.

Any marriage where the female is allowed to speak and wear clothing is doomed to failure. Deep Space Nine

Nothing is too wonderful to be true. (Okay, that one is sort of romantic)

I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury. Groucho Marx
- I actually wrote that in silver ink on a picture frame and gave to my husband for Valentine's Day with our wedding photo .

My favourite quotes -

Merely corroborative detail intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald unconvincing narrative. WS Gilbert

He made a minor vocabulary error and she inwardly, magnanimously, forgave him. Carrie Fisher

I am not going to stop talking to him merely because he pays no attention. I like hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying. Oscar Wilde

It was beginning to test the limits of my cool. Haruki Murakami

The lyrics to Natalie Merchant's Life Is Sweet.

So many more, but so little time.

"Remember I'll always love you as I claw your fucking throat away."

-Tool

"Love isn't brains, children, it's blood. Blood screamin' inside you to work its will. I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it." -Spike, from Buffy season 3

and

"Love is like an onion; you just keep peeling away layer after stinking layer until you're weeping over the sink." -from 30 Rock

I love this whole song:

It's Only Time
-The Magnetic Fields

Why would I stop loving you
a hundred years from now?
It's only time.
It's only time.

What could stop this beating heart
once it's made a vow?
It's only time.
It's only time.

If rain won't change your mind,
let it fall.
The rain won't change my heart
at all.

Lock this chain
around my hand,
throw away the key.
It's only time.
It's only time.

Years falling
like grains of sand
mean nothing to me.
It's only time.
It's only time.

If snow won't change your mind
let it fall.
The snow won't change my heart,
not at all.

(I'll walk your lands)
I'll walk your lands
(And swim your sea)
And swim your sea

Marry me.
Marry me.

(Then in your hands)
Then in your hands
(I will be free)
I will be free

Marry me.
Marry me.

Why would I stop loving you
a hundred years from now?

Brigette: I would gladly participate in that diversion! Just between the "Just So Stories" and "Riki-Tiki-Tavi" there must be oodles of great quotes.

"Truth, work, ambition, love itself may be only counters in the lamentable or despicable game of life, but when one takes a hand one must play the game."
Joseph Conrad--Victory

"Love is a direction which excludes all other directions."
D. H. Lawrence--Women in Love

We have upcoming nuptuials, and I'm trying to find some way to throw old ee in there:

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

I have 3

(1) "The male ego, with few exceptions, is elephantine to start with." (Bette Davis)

(2) "I think i'm going to have a heartattack...but more out of boredom than stress" (Lauren Kehoe-- A friend musing on our Family Law class review.)

(3)"If you want the girl next door, go next door" (Joan Crawford)

Oh, I forgot this one! It's PERFECT for wedding invites! Get a pen folks.

"I want bones like iron
Blood like mercury
So I can tell you when I'm rising
And when I'm sinking in
I'm sinking in"
Two Coins, by Dispatch

"Beware the penguins" - Bud Ice Commercial

one of my favourite Simpsons quotations:

"From now on I'll never leave the room without saying how much I love you and... this takes a long time. Maybe a pat on your butt will do... that's it."

but if we're getting all serious then I suggest:

"A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person."
or
"A good marriage is that in which each appoints the other guardian of his solitude."

Also, one of my favorite simple little poems by Yeats:

Wine comes in at the mouth
and love comes in at the eye;
that's all we shall know for truth
before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

I also really love the poem "How Do I Love Thee" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

one more

"gentlemen, you cannot fight in here, this is the WAR room" (Peter Sellers as President in Dr. Strangelove.)

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Eleanor Roosevelt

I also like one by Helen Keller to the effect of the best things in life cannot be seen or held, they must be experienced with the heart. Of course, she says it better than my paraphrase.

Sorry, no wedding appropriate quotes.

'These are hard times for dreamers.'
-from Amelie

"Oh Lord please make me pure but not yet"
-Robbie Williams

"As frothing wounds of roses
Harry summer over a wintry sea,
So does thy very strangeness
Bring me ever nearer thee"
Kenneth Patchen--As Frothing Wounds of Roses

if everything happens that can't be done

if everything happens that can't be done
(and anything's righter
than books
could plan)
the stupidest teacher will almost guess
(with a run
skip
around we go yes)
there's nothing as something as one

one hasn't a why or because or although
(and buds know better
than books
don't grow)
one's anything old being everything new
(with a what
which
around we go who)
one's everyanything so

so world is a leaf is a tree is a bough
(and birds sing sweeter
than books
tell how)
so here is away and so your is a my
(with a down
up
around again fly)
forever was never till now

now i love you and you love me
(and books are shutter
than books
can be)
and deep in the high that does nothing but fall
(with a shout
each
around we go all)
there's somebody calling who's we

we're everything brighter than even the sun
(we're everything greater
than books
might mean)
we're everyanything more than believe
(with a spin
leap
alive we're alive)
we're wonderful one times one

-- E. E. Cummings

"Everyone wants stuff. We wake up everyday with a list of wishes a mile long and maybe we spend our lives trying to make those wishes come true. But just because we want them doesn't mean we need them to be happy."

Ned, The Piemaker - Pushing Daisies, "Bitches"

favorite non-love quotes:

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." ~ Oscar Wilde

"When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear." ~ Mark Twain

"My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music."
-Vladimir Nabokov

I love you - those three words have my life in them.
~ by Alexandrea to Nicholas III ~

Film lovers are sick people.-Francois Truffaut

"You're tearing me apart!"

"I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me."

"Years from now, when you talk about this and you will -- be kind."

"Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son."

"I gave her my heart, and she gave me a pen."

"It's a hell of a thing killin' a man. You take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have."

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die."

"Empire had the better ending. I mean, Luke gets his hand cut off, finds out Vader's his father, Han gets frozen and taken away by Boba Fett. It ends on such a down note. I mean, that's what life is, a series of down endings. All Jedi had was a bunch of Muppets."

"You hear me talkin', hillbilly boy? I ain't through with you by a damn sight. I'ma get medieval on your ass."

Some amazing love quotes by Fred Rogers, yes "Mr. Rogers". The last one is my favorite and was on my engagement announcement.



"When we love a person, we accept him or her exactly as is: the lovely with the unlovely, the strong along with the fearful, the true mixed in with the facade, and of course, the only way we can do it is by accepting ourselves that way." -- Fred Rogers




"Love is generally confused with dependence. Those of us who have grown in true love know that we can love only in proportion to our capacity for independence." -- Fred Rogers

"Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now." -- Fred Rogers

this one (of the non-romantic variety) always makes me smile:

those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.
- kurt vonnegut

I don't know whether this would do for weedings but here it is:

'When it comes, will it come
without warning
Just as I'm picking my nose?
Will it knock on my door in the
morning,
Or tread in the bus on my toes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.' - W.H. Auden

I always had a soft spot for the Three Musketeers. This is my favourite quote from Athos as he speaks to D'Artagnan about love and advice about love:

"As a general rule people ask for advice in order not to take it; or, if they do take it, to have someone to blame for giving it."- Alexandre Dumas

"I love you for what you are, but I love you more for what you are going to be. I love you not so much for your realities as for your ideals.

I pray for your desires that they may be great, rather than for your satisfactions, which may be so hazardously little.

The most beautiful rose is one hardly more than a bug wherein the pangs and ecstasies of desire are working for a larger and finer growth.

You are going towards something great. I am on the way with you, and therefore I love you."
Carl Sandburg

" I know you like the back of my hand with a stamp that says I paid to get in" ~Joan Osbourne

This is an excerpt from an amazingly awesome/sad craigslist post.

"How you make my heart meter skip a beat. If you were being held captive in a mountain fortress by a ruthless mutant mafia gangboss and I had to fight my way through 16 levels of fire-breathing undead ninjas with swords the size of small ponies, I would find a way, even if, after every level, a small man continued to taunt me by saying that you were in another castle. EVEN IF."

And another one: "I want to kill robotic zombie terrorists with you. You can even have the deluxe shotgun with explosive scattershot. I'll just use this knife over here."

It makes me laugh everytime.

Four Eyes, it is so funny you made that typo "weedings". That is the term my friend and I now use for MY weeding--see, it is ingrained--because one of us made that typo in an email--about my weeding dress. (I am not ragging you about making typos--I do it all the time and I make my living typing.)

i think these would be lovely:

"will i never be the same? but i'm yours today"
-"parasol," the sea and cake

"forget modern nature, this is how it's meant to be"
-"modern nature," sondre lerche

"i love you. don't ever fucking question that."
-"don't ever fucking question that," atmosphere

hey, you said edgy.

Ok, so I like lyrics to Carpenters songs. Here are a couple:

"I'm on top of the world looking down on creation and the only explanation I can find is the love that I've found ever since you've been around, your love's put me on the top of the world."
-Carpenters

"We've only just begun to live. White lace and promises, a kiss for luck and were on our way, we've only just begun"
-Carpenters

And some others...

"Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love."
-Billy Collins

"It's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently or if your favorite films wouldn't even speak to each other if they met at a party."
-Nick Hornby

"LIVE! Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room."
-Harold and Maude

Omnia vincit Amor - Love conquers all.

- Virgil

"...but I STILL haven't found what I'm looking for!"
-U2

Sorry, out of my system.

"I'll make every last moment last, as long as your mine."
-Stephen Schwartz

my favorite sappy-ish quote:

And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and the sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed. --Kahlil Gibran

and a stupid-ish one which is probably funnier in context from my favorite show:

The zero hour, Michael. It's the end of the line. I'm the firstborn. Sick of playing second fiddle. Always third in line for everything. Tired of finishing fourth. Being the fifth wheel. [thinks for a moment] There are six things I'm mad about, and I'm taking over. --Gob Bluth, Arrested Development

I've always loved the lines from "Sweet Thing" by Van Morrison:

We shall walk and talk
In gardens all misty and wet with rain
And I will never, never, never
Grow so old again.
Oh sweet thing

kind of cheesy, but I love that song.

The hammer shatters glass but forges steel.
-Russian Proverb

Do Unto Others...then run.
- My dad

"I want to kill robotic zombie terrorists with you. You can even have the deluxe shotgun with explosive scattershot. I'll just use this knife over here."

Aw! TK has been posting love notes to Mrs. TK on Craig's List again. So sweet!

Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc.

-We will gladly feast on those who would subdue us.

It's the Addams family credo, which I have adopted as mine own.

favourite love quote:
"i could drink a case of you and still be on my feet" - joni mitchell

and general quotes....
"life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans"
- john lennon

"and did you get what you wanted from this life, even so?
i did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved. To feel myself beloved on this earth."
- Raymond Carver

Found that Helen Keller quote:"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen nor touched...but are felt in the heart." I dunno, on a second reading, I think this may be appropriate for a wedding.

OK, now I'm on a roll. "Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome." Booker T. Washington

"I hear you call my name; And it feels like home"




i am contemplating "just like a prayer" for a first dance song....it's kind of awesome in the context

I always liked this one from Family Ties:

"The meaning of life? That's simple. Try to be happy, try not to hurt other people, and hope to fall in love." -- Mallory Keaton

Thomas Jefferson : " A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt...If the game runs sometime against us at home, we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake. "

No words to say
no words to convey
this feeling inside, I have for you
Deep in my heart
safe from the guards...of intellect and reason

Tracy Chapman

"I've never been with a 10, but one night I had 5 2's and I consider that a positive achievement"

George Carlin

"I wear my wedding ring on the wrong finger cause I married the wrong God dammed woman"

Robin Harris

From the movie MOONSTRUCK:

I love you. Not like they told you love is and I didn't know this either. But love don't make things nice, it ruins everything, it breaks your heart, it makes things a mess. We're not here to make things perfect. Snowflakes are perfect. The
stars are perfect. Not us. We are here to ruin ourselves and break our hearts and love the wrong people and die! The storybooks are bullshit.

frumpiefox, the knowledge that that actually, truly happened has made my week. I only hope one day one of my siblings will reproduce because I now feel pulling the same prank on my own niece or nephew is perfectly reasonable.

"A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved."
- Kurt Vonnegut

"Our love is god. Let's go get a slushie." -- Heathers

"Here is the church and here is the steeple
We sure are cute for two ugly people
I don't see what anyone can see, in anyone else
But you"
Moldy Peaches

"Forget the virgins. We're out of virgins."
-Adventures of Baron Munchausen

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

"To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground." Stephen Covey

"Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions." Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

P.S., Jayco - so sorry about your loss. And Godtopus bless every Pajiban who can't bear to watch the Futurama episode about Fry's dog...

jayco, such sad news.

i read your post, looked at my 8 year old dog and cried.

our thoughts are with you.

The poem that begins "Stop all clocks.. is by W. H. Auden.

I don't know if this is my FAVORITE quote, but it's from my favorite movie, Adaptation. It's become somewhat of a mantra for me.

"You are what you love, not what loves you. That's what I decided a long time ago."

On a less serious tone, I always rely on the wisdom of George Carlin:

"Honesty may be the best policy, but it's important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy."

"We laugh and laugh, and nothing can ever be sad, no one can be lost, or dead, or far away: right now we are here, and nothing can mar our perfection, or steal the joy of this perfect moment."

The Time Traveler's Wife

I can't BELIEVE that no one has gone for:

I want somebody to share,
share the rest of my life.
Share my innermost thoughts.
Know my intimate details...

Depeche Mode, "Somebody." I thought everyone knew it's the most romantic song ever.

Judging by the posts, I sense a Pajiba spin-off site in the works. It appears the readership desires it - forget build it, they will come...try state it, they will quote.

Excellent afternoon diversion, bar the fact its 1 am in my parts... (deep breath) here we go:

"I used to jog... but the ice cubes kept falling out of my glass" David Lee Roth.

"Even a broken clock is right twice a day" Tony Soprano.

"Maybe I finally found it, way down here in the mud. Maybe from down here I can start up again, be something I can be proud of, without having to fake it, be a fake human being" Chris Taylor (Platoon)

"Cause you, you're part eggplant" Clifford Worley aka Dennis Hopper, (True Romance), the ultimate scene....
closely followed by "Hey! Get some beer and some cleaning products!" Floyd.

My favorite quote is:

"When I was driving once I saw this painted on a bridge:/ 'I don't want the world, I just want your half." - They Might be Giants (Ana Ng)

Some quotes for a wedding invite:

"Your love is better than ice cream..." - Sarah McLachlan (Ice Cream)

"I'm happy at home/ You're my best friend." - Queen (You're My Best Friend)

"...[W]hen you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible." - When Harry Met Sally

"Tell me I'll never have to be out there again./ You'll never have to be out there again." - When Harry Met Sally

"Pure blood runs through our veins.... thats where our similarity ends"

addictive i tells ya

"The man who jokes in the executioners face can be destroyed but never defeated." - Tom Robbins

"Language is courage. The ability to conceive a thought, and by speaking it, making it so." - Salman Rushdie

"My personal motto has always been joy inspite of everything, not just (mindless) joy, but joy in spite of everything." - Tom Robbins

"Well my dad, he told me, 'Looking back...the best friend you'll have is a railroad track.'" -Tom Waits

"Mr. Little, how does a man rob drug dealers for eight or nine years and live to tell about it?"

"Day at a time I suppose" Omar. nuff said

This isnt really appropriate for 'marriage' as such, but its still my favorite love themed poem.

I translated it, so I may have taken liberties with the original text.

I loved you, and perhaps still do,
The flame may not be extinguished; yet
It burns so quietly within my soul,
No longer should you feel distressed by it.
Silently and hopelessly I loved you,
At times too jealous and at times too shy.
God grant you find another who will love you
As tenderly and truthfully as I.
-Pushkin

"This hole in my heart is in the shape of you. No one else can fit it. Why would I want them to?"
-Jeanette Winterson

and as for e. e. ummings, nothing beats this one, my favorite:

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like,, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big Love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you quite so new

These are all from The Lady's Not For Burning by Christopher Fry:

"Love still pitches his tent of light among the suns and moons. You may be decay and a platitude of flesh, but I have no other such memory of life. You may be corrupt as ancient apples, well then Corruption is what I most willingly harvest. You are Evil, Hell, the Father of Lies; if so Hell is my home and my days of good were a holiday: Hell is my hill and the world slopes away from it Into insignificance. I have come suddenly upon my heart and where it is I see no help for it."

"But whenever my thoughts are cold and I lay them Against Richard's name, they seem to rest On the warm ground where summer sits as golden as a humblebee."

"I have become a woman, Richard, because I love you. I know I was a child three hours ago. And yet I love you as deeply as many years could make me, But less deeply than many years will make me."

"Everything I loved Before has come to one meeting place in you And you have gone out into everything I love."

"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness."
Friedrich Nietzsche

i thought of a few more, but these really have nothing to do with weddings!

from my favorite poem by pablo neruda, "tonight i can write": ...the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

i also love the "ana ng" quote La Femme Nikita posted above: i don't want the world, i just want your half.

from american beauty: it's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world.

from the beatles' blackbird: take these broken wings and learn to fly

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

- St. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians

I am not afraid. . . I was born to do this. -Joan of Arc

Here begins the new life. -C.S. Lewis

Mornings now, when I wake up, I have this springy, hopeful feeling, and I see that everything was worth it, after all. -Anne Tyler

When you love somebody and you bite your tongue, all you get is a mouthful of blood. -Fruit Bats

I forgot one of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes strips. It even pertains to marriage:

Calvin-I'm never gonna get married. Are you?
Hobbes-Hmm...I suppose if the right person came along, I might. Someone with green eyes and a nice laugh, who I could call 'Pooty Pie'.

Strtwise, that's a beautiful translation. I think part of translating a poem or prose is making it work in the new language, because a direct, literal translation might not really sing. So nice job.

Ok, I'm also a geek that collects quotes. Here are a few:

"new lovers are nervous and tender, but smash everything. For the heart is an organ of fire."
- The English Patient

"Is love a fancy or a feeling? No
It is immortal as immacualte Truth
"Tis not a blossom shed as soon as youth
Drops from the stem of life - for it will grow
In barren regions, where no waters flow
Nor rays of promise cheats the pensive gloom
A darkling fire, faint hovering o'er a tomb
That but itself and darkness naught doth show
It is my love's being yet it cannot die
Nor will it change, though all be changed beside;
Though fairest beauty be no longer fair
Though vows be false, and faith itself deny
Though sharp enjoyment be a suicide
And hope a spectre in a ruin bare.
- Sonnet VII Hartley Coleridge

and just because:

"I'm a faminist - ok, a humanist. I think everyone should be free to be what they be - and I don't want to steal your nuts and take your place. I want to fondle your nuts and take you to my place." - Anon

"faminist"... really, sarah? lame.

This may be too edgy?

"And if a double-decker bus
Crashes into us
To die by your side
Is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten-ton truck
Kills the both of us
To die by your side
Well, the pleasure - the privilege is mine" The Smiths

"So, tell me how long
Before the last one?
And tell me how long
Before the right one?" The Smiths

"It was a fine idea at the time / Now It's a Brilliant Mistake." One of my favorite songs.

Quote from the greatest Valentines Day Card

"I Choo-Choo Choose You"

and because it was on recently

"Beer You, Beer Me" (needs to be sung)

Love comes in spurts.

-- Richard Hell

"Damn Pookie, you got a big dick"

As said to Pookie one night by a crack addict.

you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
e e cummings (gotta love the lack of punctuation)

When a mystery is too overpowering, one dare not disobey.
The Little Prince

Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.
Maugham

Of the three, I think the last one is my favorite. It's a little dark, and I like that in just about everything.

Inspired by TK and socalled

Freedom an whisky gang thegither

I usually don't post this many times, but ooooh Cindy, how I love the Smiths. Morrissey is so infinitely quotable, especially when it comes to love!

"How can you stay / with a fat girl who'll say/ Oh, if you like you can marry me / And if you like you can buy the ring / I don't dream about anyone / Except myself."

"Most people keep their brains between their legs."

"I love the smell of napalm in the morning."

"Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss"

Another favorite.

I wish I was a fisherman
tumblin' on the seas
far away from dry land
and it's bitter memories
castin' out my sweet line
with abandonment and love
no ceiling bearin' down on me
save the starry sky above
with light in my head
with you in my arms...
i wish i was the brakeman
on a hurtlin fevered train
crashin head long into the heartland
like a cannon in the rain
with the feelin of the sleepers
and the burnin of the coal
countin the towns flashin by
and a night that's full of soul
with light in my head
with you in my arms...

And I know I will be loosened
from the bonds that hold me fast
and the chains all around me
will fall away at last
and on that grand and fateful day
I will take thee in my hand
I will ride on a train
I will be the fisherman
With light in my head
You in my arms... The Waterboys

"Sometimes you've just got to say 'What the fuck?'"

Unconditional love. That's what this is. I love him, as is, fully. I've had to stop arm wrestling with the facts. Why me? Didn't I already have a big love once? And lost it? So why should I get it again? I've had stop trying to look for cracks and flaws to prove that it's not as good a it seems. Because it's as good as it seems. Even when we fight we fight inside a container of good.
Somehow, through a flip of the coin, I ended up here. Feeling like somebody at the top of the heart-lung transplant recipient list. Damaged but invigorated and fucking lucky.

"Magical Thinking"
Augusten Burroughs

Unconditional love. That's what this is. I love him, as is, fully. I've had to stop arm wrestling with the facts. Why me? Didn't I already have a big love once? And lost it? So why should I get it again? I've had stop trying to look for cracks and flaws to prove that it's not as good a it seems. Because it's as good as it seems. Even when we fight we fight inside a container of good.
Somehow, through a flip of the coin, I ended up here. Feeling like somebody at the top of the heart-lung transplant recipient list. Damaged but invigorated and fucking lucky.

"Magical Thinking"
Augusten Burroughs

I spent all afternoon reading these quotes, thinking how it kind of sucked that I had nothing to contribute... and then by fate, came across this one just now for the first time:

"It is not every day that you walk toward a place you have never been before and feel that you are coming home."

I think that sums up love and marriage pretty nicely, at least what my perception of it is, without being overly sappy. At the very least, it causes me to let you a tiny, smiley sigh. (Maybe even with an asterisk attached to it, like: *sigh. Just one though!)

I want to be your wife.
I want to bear your child.
I want to die