189 Chaos Quotes

Yes, there is a conspiracy, in fact there are a great number of conspiracies that are all tripping each other up. And all of those conspiracies are run by paranoid fantasists and ham-fisted clowns. If you are on a list targeted by the CIA, you really have nothing to worry about. If however, you have a name similar to somebody on a list targeted by the CIA, then you are dead.

There's nothing on my mind that couldn't be expressed by a long insane outburst of hysterical rage.

Let nothing be called natural In an age of bloody confusion, Ordered disorder, planned caprice, And dehumanized humanity, lest all things Be held unalterable!

Whenever I go out with other married couples, I like to bring along a single crackhead. Just to spice things up.

Typical Hollywood crowd - all the kids are on drugs, and all the adults are on roller skates.

Should a person on returning from the city discover his house to be in flames, let him examine well the change which he has received from the chair-carrier before it is too late; for evil never travels alone.

Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul When hot for certainties in this our life! - In tragic hints here see what evermore Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean's force, Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse, To throw that faint thin fine upon the shore!

In Germany I ingested the entire contents of the hotel mini-bar before a show and stuck my fingers in this guy's nostrils because I thought they would fit.

I cry out for order and find it only in art.

Imagine that leader of all the enemy, in that great plain of Babylon, sitting on a sort of throne of smoking flame, a horrible and terrifying sight. Watch him calling together countless devils, to despatch them into different cities till the whole world is covered, forgetting no province or locality, no class or single individual.

The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy, the building of a house, the writing of a novel, the demolition of a bridge, and, eminently, the finish of a voyage.

[Boxed] Multiple bouncing balls in a box are a metaphor for community. Notice how the escaping balls explode. This is what happens to people who move from Perl to Ruby.

Unable to create a meaningful life for itself, the personality takes its own revenge: from the lower depths comes a regressive form of spontaneity: raw animality forms a counterpoise to the meaningless stimuli and the vicarious life to which the ordinary man is conditioned. Getting spiritual nourishment from this chaos of events, sensations, and devious interpretations is the equivalent of trying to pick through a garbage pile for food.

I lurch from chaos to chaos. I can't find my driving licence and my clothes are everywhere - cooking is the neatest thing I do.

Before abstraction everything is one, but one like chaos; after abstraction everything is united again, but this union is a free binding of autonomous, self-determined beings. Out of a mob a society has developed, chaos has been transformed into a manifold world.

Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance, These are the seals of that most firm assurance Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength; And if, with infirm hand, Eternity, Mother of many acts and hours, should free The serpent that would clasp her with his length; These are the spells by which to reassume An empire o'er the disentangled doom.

They may the better fish in the water when it is troubled.

He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.

Something has got to hold it together. I'm saying my prayers to Elmer, the Greek god of glue.

When the ghost comes round at midnight Well you both can have some fun He can drive you mad, he can make you sad He can keep you from the sun When they take him down, he'll be both safe and sound And the hand does fit the glove And no matter what they tell you, There's good and evil in everyone.

The imagination is the power that enables us to perceive the normal in the abnormal, the opposite of chaos in chaos.

Scientific theory is a contrived foothold in the chaos of living phenomena.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

Imagining in excited reverie That the future years had come, Dancing to a frenzied drum, Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.

Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky.'

I believe in one secret and ineffable LORD; and in one Star in the Company of Stars of whose fire we are created, and to which we shall return; and in one Father of Life, Mystery of Mystery, in His name CHAOS, the sole viceregent of the Sun upon the Earth; and in one Air the nourisher of all that breathes. And I believe in one Earth, the Mother of us all, and in one Womb wherein all men are begotten, and wherein they shall rest, Mystery of Mystery, in Her name BABALON.

We have arrived at an intellectual chaos.

The world of knowledge takes a crazy turn When teachers themselves are taught to learn.

I am crying for more and more disasters, for bigger calamities, for grander failures. I want the whole world to be out of whack, I want everyone to scratch himself to death.

Progress everywhere today does seem to come so very heavily disguised as chaos.

One flew east, One flew west, One flew over the cuckoo's nest.

Billy coughed when the door was opened, and when he coughed he shit thin gruel. This was in accordance with the Third Law of Motion according to Sir Isaac Newton. This law tells us that for each reaction there is a reaction which is equal and opposite in direction. This can be useful in rocketry.

You know the man who told me about it on the bus, as it went up the hill out of Scranton, Pennsylvania, he shrugged his shoulders, he shook his head, and he said (and this is exactly what he said) 'Boy that sure must've been something. Just imagine thirty thousand pounds of bananas. Yes, there were thirty thousand pounds of mashed bananas. Of bananas. Just bananas. Thirty thousand pounds. of Bananas-not no driver now. Just bananas!'

The only difficulty with Himmler was that he was of a sneaky nature. I never knew whether I would be alive or imprisoned the next day. But I gained new strength from my firm idea that Germany - that I must save Germany from chaos.

There is nothing so unusual, they tell me, about coming back to your car and finding the radio aerial torn off, the windshield wipers bent up in the air like spaghetti, and all the windows smashed... for no particular reason except to make sure you know just exactly where it's at these days. Where indeed?

It's a stupid, dangerous, HELLISH world . . . But don't let it FRIGHTEN you!!

I've done it! I've defiled a timeless piece of art! For my next bit, I'll paint a clown face on the Mona Lisa while using the Shroud of Turin as a drop cloth! (Heard during a cover version of The Beatles' song I Am the Walrus)

Killer on the road His brain is squirming like a toad.

Civilisation knows how to use such powers as it has, while the immense potentiality of the unlicensed is dissipated in vapour. Civilisation wins because it is a world-wide league; its enemies fail because they are parochial. But supposing ... supposing anarchy learned from civilisation and became international. Oh, I don't mean the bands of advertising donkeys who call themselves International Unions of Workers and suchlike rubbish. I mean if the real brain-stuff of the world were internationalised. Suppose that the links in the cordon of civilisation were neutralised by other links in a far more potent chain. The earth is seething with incoherent power and unorganised intelligence.

History does not repeat itself except with variations, and it is idle to look for exact parallels, but we can trace a resemblance between the conditions of his time and those of to-day. Once again the crust of civilization has worn thin, and beneath can be heard the muttering of primeval fires. Once again many accepted principles of government have been overthrown, and the world has become a laboratory where immature and feverish minds experiment with unknown forces. Once again problems cannot be comfortably limited, for science has brought the nations into an uneasy bondage to each other. In the actual business of administration there is no question of today which Augustus had not to face and answer.

Disparting towers Trembling all precipitate down dash'd, Rattling around, loud thundering to the moon.

This planet is haunted by us; the other occupants just evade boredom by filling our skies and seas with monsters.

There are too many ironies in the fire!

I was there at the birth, Out of the cloudburst, The head of the tempest. Murderer! Murder of calm...

Could you see the aisles of women? Could you see them screaming and weeping? Could you see the storm rising? Could you see the guy who was driving? Could you climb higher and higher? Could you climb right over the top?

Sally In The Garden: Sally in the garden, Siftin' through the cinders, Lifted up her arse, And farted like a man, The busting of her britches broke fifteen windows, The cheeks of her ass went (bam, bam, bam)

Y'know, there are other possibilities if we assume that filenames are UTF-8...yikes...wait, put down that meat cleaver! Aieeee!!!

Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes: A thing, as the Bellman remarked, That frequently happens in tropical climes, When a vessel is, so to speak, 'snarked.'

East is west, up is down, and being falsely arrested for getting your C.O.'s throat cut is a simplification. I must be on Barrayar.

We must understand well that we do not proceed from a unity of God to the same unity of God again. We do not proceed from one chaos to another chaos, neither from one light to another light, nor from one darkness to another darkness. What would be the value of our life then? What would be the value of all life? But we set out from an almighty chaos, from a thick abyss of light and darkness tangled. And we struggle - plants, animals, men, ideas - in this momentary passage of individual life, to put in order the Chaos within us, to cleanse the abyss, to work upon as much darkness as we can within our bodies and to transmute it into light.

'Tomorrow, go forth and stand before the Lord. A great and strong wind will blow over you and rend the mountains and break in pieces the rocks, but the Lord will not be in the wind. And after the wind and earthquake, but the Lord will not be in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord will not be in the fire. And after the fire a gentle, cooling breeze. That is where the Lord will be.' This is how the spirit comes. After the gale, the earthquake, and fire: a gentle, cooling breeze. This is how it will come in our own day as well. We are passing through the period of earthquake, the fire is approaching, and eventually (when? after how many generations?) the gentle, cool breeze will blow.

Nature too remains, so far as we have yet come, ever a frightful Machine of Death: everywhere monstrous revolution, inexplicable vortices of movement; a kingdom of Devouring, of the maddest tyranny; a baleful Immense: the few light-points disclose but a so much the more appalling Night, and terrors of all sorts must palsy every observer.

Nature had no scheme. Only a series of accidents.

Last came Anarchy: he rode On a white horse, splashed with blood; He was pale even to the lips, Like Death in the Apocalypse.

I think I only needed something to hold on to. It has never been about depravity. It's always been about melody. But melody and I met in many depraved situations. Meeting melody is the victory of the empty spiralling nightmare.

Thank you. How...DY! Whoops, wrong Opera House. How do you like the play, Mr. Lincoln? Duck!

It's called Operation Chaos. The dream end, I mean, if people say what is your exit strate... strategery, the dream end of this is that if this keeps up to the convention, and we have a replay of Chicago 1968, with burning cars, protests, fires, literal riots, and all of that, that's the objective here.

I get up, go out, and everything is changed. The blood drains from my head, the noise of things bursting, merging, avoiding one another, assails me on all sides, my eyes search in vain for two things alike, each pinpoint of skin screams a different message, I drown in the spray of phenomena.

I stayed in my van for two days outside Breach Candy hospital to be near Gauri when she delivered our second child. I left Aryan at Juhi's house. In between I would get frantic telephone calls on my cell phone about how Aryan was scandalizing the servants and members of Juhi's family by stripping and running buck naked through the house shouting 'Look at me! I'm Tarzan!' It's his favourite ploy to get attention, which he needs in a constant and undivided manner. I think he's going to grow up to be an actor.

My pass had disappeared. Not that I believed for a moment that this was an accident; in fact, I had suspected for some time now that the Cosmic Command, obviously no longer able to supervise every assignment on an individual basis when there were literally trillions of matters in its charge, had switched over to a random system. The assumption would be that every document, circulating endlessly from desk to desk, must eventually hit upon the right one. A time-consuming procedure, perhaps, but one that would never fail. The Universe itself operated on the same principle. And for an institution as everlasting as the Universe - certainly our Building was such an institution - the speed at which these meanderings and perturbations took place was of no consequence.

Part of the joy of being in character is being able to get away with things others cannot. Though a lot of that is that [he] is so high on Nyquil you never know what he's going to do.

The sky split apart in malice Stars rattled like pans on a shelf Crow shat on Buckingham Palace God pissed Himself.

Little miss queen of hearts you're a strange thing. Why you wanna stay so vague? I'm wandering through this mess you've made to see what I can save.

Your veal cutlet gets up off the plate, It walks down to end of the counter and beat the shit out of my cup of coffee. I guess the coffee just wasn't strong enough to defend itself.

Insanam uatem aspicies, quae rupe sub ima fata canit foliisque notas et nomina mandat. quaecumque in foliis descripsit carmina uirgo digerit in numerum atque antro seclusa relinquit: illa manent immota locis neque ab ordine cedunt. uerum eadem, uerso tenuis cum cardine uentus impulit et teneras turbauit ianua frondes, numquam deinde cauo uolitantia prendere saxo nec reuocare situs aut iungere carmina curat: inconsulti abeunt sedemque odere Sibyllae.

Each must the other take as sign, short sign To stop the whirlwind, balk the elements.

Chicago 1968 taught one how close any civilized country is to berserkness at all times; also how terrorism, even silly terrorism, strengthens the cops more than anyone. Yet already this European-style history lesson has been watered down by consensus into something crazy we did in the sixties, just as we 'did' McCarthyism in the fifties. As if a nation changes its nature completely every ten years; as if social forces were as evanescent as hula hoops or skateboards, instead of as remorseless as glaciers.

'The Great Figure' from Sour Grapes (1921)

Ralph waved the conch. 'Shut up! Wait! Listen!' He went on in the silence, borne on in his triumph. 'There's another thing. We can help them to find us. If a ship comes near the island they may not notice us. So we must make smoke on top of the mountain. We must make a fire.' 'A fire! Make a fire!' At once half the boys were on their feet. Jack clamored among them, the conch forgotten. 'Come on! Follow me!' The space under the palm trees was full of noise and movement. Ralph was on his feet too, shouting for quiet, but no one heard him. All at once the crowd swayed toward the island and was gone- following Jack. Even the tiny children went and did their best among the leaves and broken branches. Ralph was left, holding the conch, with no one but Piggy.

Kerouac (editing Naked Lunch): Bill, what is all this stuff about young naked boys being hanged in limestone caves? Burroughs: No idea. I know I'm some kind of interplanetary agent but I don't think my signals are decoding properly.

Now the perpetrating of miracles constitutes a brazen attempt to loosen up the universe. When you set up something as MIRACLE, you deny the very concept of FACT, establish a shadowy and spurious court infested by every variety of coyote and shady fixer beyond Court of Fact.

There is order in chaos, and certainty in doubt. The wise are guided by this order and certainty.

Sometimes, chaos is a good thing. Some guitar players are afraid of making mistakes, hitting the wrong notes or their equipment failing or different factors that are going to make them look unprofessional. For me, that's what makes the show interesting. ...When I was a kid and would go see a rock show and something f--ed up would happen, there was a riot or all the gear got broken, that's more exciting than going up and having the most perfectly executed show go off without a hitch ... We put a show on that people are going to talk about and maybe change people's views on what rock 'n' roll has to be.

Order and disorder, they each have their beauty

The musical equivalent of St. Pancras Station

I can't believe this is happening I can't believe all these people are sniffing each other & backing away teeth grinning hair raised, growling, here in the slaughtered wind

If lowborn men could stand up to those born to rule, religion, government, the whole world would fall to pieces...[Merlin replies]...So it would; so it will...then the pieces will be put together again by such as destroyed it.

This stretch of the Thames from London Bridge to the Albert Docks is to other watersides of river ports what a virgin forest would be to a garden. It is a thing grown up, not made. It recalls a jungle by the confused, varied, and impenetrable aspect of the buildings that line the shore, not according to a planned purpose, but as if sprung up by accident from scattered seeds. Like the matted growth of bushes and creepers veiling the silent depths of an unexplored wilderness, they hide the depths of London's infinitely varied, vigorous, seething life. In other river ports it is not so. They lie open to their stream, with quays like broad clearings, with streets like avenues cut through thick timber for the convenience of trade... But London, the oldest and greatest of river ports, does not possess as much as a hundred yards of open quays upon its river front. Dark and impenetrable at night, like the face of a forest, is the London waterside. It is the waterside of watersides, where only one aspect of the world's life can be seen, and only one kind of men toils on the edge of the stream. The lightless walls seem to spring from the very mud upon which the stranded barges lie; and the narrow lanes coming down to the foreshore resemble the paths of smashed bushes and crumbled earth where big game comes to drink on the banks of tropical streams. Behind the growth of the London waterside the docks of London spread out unsuspected, smooth, and placid, lost amongst the buildings like dark lagoons hidden in a thick forest. They lie concealed in the intricate growth of houses with a few stalks of mastheads here and there overtopping the roof of some four-story warehouse.

I've walked these streets in the mad house asylum they can be where a wild eyed misfit prophet on a traffic island stopped and he raved of saving me

Ophelia was a cyclone, tempest a god damned hurricane your common sense your best defense lay wasted and in vain

In the morning theres a buzz of flies Between the pillows and the skies that break into your eyes Through the looking glass and inbetween your thighs It's really no small surprise How it goes straight down the rabbit hole There it goes

I see paint-cracked walls stained with shite Long long lock-up days Cold lonely nights And I think to myself ... what a wonderful world I see men touching cocks Saying 'watcha pete' Screams from below Shit parcels in me bum And I think to myself ... I see my true love He's the DADDY

'...like a clown crossed with a cherry bomb.' --Anonymous young girl, liner notes to Used Songs: 1973-1980

If it wasn't for pick-pockets I'd have no sex life at all.

For when ?at ?e Helle herde ?e houndez of heuen, He watz ferlyly fayn, vnfolded bylyue; ?e grete barrez of ?e abyme he barst vp at onez, ?at alle ?e regioun torof in riftes ful grete, & clouen alle in lyttel cloutes ?e clyffez aywhere, As lauce leuez of ?e boke ?at lepes in twynne.

It is an ancient political vehicle, held together by soft soap and hunger and with front-seat drivers and back-seat drivers contradicting each other in a bedlam of voices, shouting 'go right' and 'go left' at the same time.

The passions of a revolution are apt to hurry even good men into excesses.

The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle.

The old world is dying away, and the new world struggles to come forth: now is the time of monsters.

Any sufficiently advanced chaos is indistinguishable from Usenet.

It's exploding bags, aerosol cans Southbound buses, Peter Pan They left it up to us again I thought you knew the drill It's kill or be killed.

It's not the tragedies that kill us; it's the messes.