111 Escape Quotes

The frustrated follow a leader less because of their faith that he is leading them to a promised land than because of their immediate feeling that he is leading them away from their unwanted selves. Surrender to a leader is not a means to an end but a fulfillment. Whither they are led is of secondary importance.

When the last days were upon me, and the ugly trifles of existence began to drive me to madness like the small drops of water torturers let fall ceaselessly upon one spot of their victim's body, I loved the irradiate refuge of sleep. In my dreams I found a little of the beauty I had vainly sought in life, and wandered through old gardens and enchanted woods.

Both Einstein and Freud were clever in leaving Germany, because both of them would doubtlessly have been caught by Himmler and murdered.

They say a woman's place Is to wait and serve Under the veil Submissive and dear But I think my place Is in a ship from space To carry me The hell out of here.

Some on commission, some for the love of learning, Some because they have nothing better to do Or because they hope these walls of books will deaden The drumming of the demon in their ears.

Thus night with all her snares passed through the upper world and baited all heads sweetly, fed all foolish hopes, for night can bring to men all shrewish day denies, wrapped as a gift in the green leaves of opiate dream.

Well I've got to get out of the rat-race now I'm tired of the ways of mice and men And the empires all turning into rust again. Out of everything nothing remains the same That's why I'm cloud hidden Cloud hidden Whereabouts unknown.

Oh there is blessing in this gentle breeze, A visitant that while it fans my cheek Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings From the green fields, and from yon azure sky. Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come To none more grateful than to me; escaped From the vast city, where I long had pined A discontented sojourner: now free, Free as a bird to settle where I will.

Fortunately, there is more to life than death. There is for one thing, fiction. A thousand thousand characters to be sent marching out into the world to divert time from its forward gallop to the terrible horizon.

The last thing I wanted to do was put politics into my music . . . because music was my escape.

I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which 'Escape' is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?

No man leaves where he is and seeks a distant place unless he is in some respect a failure.

The world's in a bad way, my man, And bound to be worse before it mends; Better lie up in the mountain here Four or five centuries, While the stars go over the lonely ocean...

Thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh just, subtle, and mighty opium!

Last dance with Mary Jane, one more time to kill the pain. I feel summer creepin' in and I'm tired of this town again.

All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality - the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape.

What the hell are they all looking for? A way out. A way to the right way out. A way to leave. A way to go. A way to have had it, to have had enough of it, to be done with it. A decent way to give it all over to the giver of it all.

When you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your past where the screaming is unbearable, remember there's always madness. Madness is the emergency exit.

And in the lonely cool before dawn, you hear their engines roaring on. But when you get to the porch they're gone On the wind, so Mary climb in. It's a town full of losers and I'm pulling out of here to win.

But I was in search of love in those days, and I went full of curiousity and the faint, unrecognized apprehension that here, at last, I should find that low door in the wall, which others, I knew, had found before me, which opened on an enclosed and enchaned garden, which was somewhere, not overlooked by any window, in the heart of that grey city.

Hiding places there are innumerable, escape is only one, but possibilities for escape, again, are as many as hiding places.

The great advantage of a hotel is that it's a refuge from home life.

My father rarely spoke of life before [he left Cuba]. About prison, he jsut said, 'That man is a genius at PR.' Castro would come to the jail in the middle of the night and ask the prisoners, 'What are you doing here? Don't you see we're trying to do the right thing?' The reason I'm not more political is because I have music. And from a young age, I needed it. After prison, my father came to America, joined the Army, fought in Vietnam -- and was exposed to Agent Orange. He died a slow, horrible death. Music was my escape.

If I seem free, it's because I'm always running.

The fascination of what's difficult Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent Spontaneous joy and natural content Out of my heart. There's something ails our colt That must, as if it had not holy blood Nor on Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud, Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt As though it dragged road-metal. My curse on plays That have to be set up in fifty ways, On the day's war with every knave and dolt, Theatre business, management of men. I swear before the dawn comes round again I'll find the stable and pull out the bolt.

Roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair. Well the night's busting open, these two lanes will take us anywhere. We've got one last chance to make it real, to trade in these wings on some wheels. Climb in back, heaven's waiting down on the tracks.

'What's more delightful than an evening beside the fire with a nice bright lamp and a book, listening to the wind beating against the windows?' 'How true!' she said, her great dark eyes fixed widely on him. 'I'm absolutely removed from the world at such times,' he said. 'The hours go by without my knowing it. Sitting there I'm wandering in countries I can see every detail of -- I'm playing a role in the story I'm reading. I actually feel I'm the characters -- I live and breathe with them.'

'I wish I had been born a bird instead,' he said. 'I wish we had all been born birds instead.'

Yet now despair itself is mild, Even as the winds and waters are; I could lie down like a tired child, And weep away the life of care Which I have borne and yet must bear, Till death like sleep might steal on me, And I might feel in the warm air My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.

Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.

We have assembled inside this ancient & insane theatre To propagate our lust for life & flee the swarming wisdom of the streets

I want to wake up with the rain Falling on a tin roof While I'm safe there in your arms So all I ask is for you To come away with me in the night Come away with me

Strangely, even when I was miserable in my own life, I usually loved being on a film set and I truly revelled in the atmosphere of working with the director and the actors in creating something. Making films was always a refuge for me because I was totally focused on the work and not thinking about my own problems. (2004)

If there's anything I really want, it's privacy. Maybe I should do what Brando did 30 years ago - buy an island. Maybe take my girl and some friends and just go there and sleep. And read, and swim and think clear thoughts. Because you really can't do that here. You can't be normal: you can't just hang out and have a cup of coffee and pick your nose. (1999)

He was within a few hours of giving his enemies the slip forever.

Judas had given them the slip.

The only victory over love is flight.

It is through art, and through art only, that we can realize our perfection; through art and art only that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence.

I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose.

The only creative thought one can have in an institution is how to get out.

He then gave a hideous laugh and added that, if anybody was interested in his plans, he was going to join the Foreign Legion, that cohort of the damned in which broken men may toil and die and dying, forget. 'Beau Widgeon?' said the Egg, impressed. 'What ho!'

Were I a cloud I'd gather My skirts up in the air, And fly I well know whither, And rest I well know where.

I'd like to get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over. May no fate willfully misunderstand me And half grant what I wish and snatch me away Not to return. Earth's the right place for love: I don't know where it's likely to go better.

Them that die will be the lucky ones!

Yet there are moments when the walls of the mind grow thin; when nothing is unabsorbed, and I could fancy that we might blow so vast a bubble that the sun might set and rise in it and we might take the blue of midday and the black of midnight and be cast off and escape from here and now.

The 'secret' of their being up in the tree had continued for almost two years now. Where the thick trunk branched out near the top, the two could sit comfortably. Michiko, straddling one branch, leaned back against another. There were days when little birds came and days when the wind sang through the pine needles. Although they weren't that high off the ground, these two little lovers felt as if they were in a completely different world, far away from the earth.

God, beam me up!