text:
David Bowie

David Robert Jones (8 January 1947 - 10 January 2016), known under his stage name David Bowie, was an English singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, arranger, painter, and actor. Bowie was a figure in popular music for over four decades, and was known as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s.

Quotes

 * I always had a repulsive sort of need to be something more than human. I felt very very puny as a human. I thought, "Fuck that. I want to be a superman."
 * Quoted in this interview in Rolling Stone #206 (12 February 1976); a slightly altered version of the quote has appeared in various sources such as Fas Ferox - A Modern Day Mythology - World Walkthrough (2006), edited by Anna Young and James Curcio: "I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human. I felt very puny as a human. I thought, 'Fuck that. I want to be a superhuman.'"

 * I'm an instant star. Just add water and stir.
 * Quoted in the chapter on Bowie in Valentines & Vitriol (1978) by Rex Reed

 * I suppose I’ve been knocking on heaven’s door for about 11 years now, with one sort of high or another. The only kinds of drugs I use, though, are ones that keep me working for longer periods of time. I haven’t gotten involved in anything heavy since ’68. I had a silly flirtation with smack then, but it was only for the mystery and enigma of trying it. I never really enjoyed it at all. I like fast drugs. I’ve said that many times. I hate falling out, where I can’t stand up and stuff. It seems like such a waste of time. I hate downs and slow drugs like grass. I hate sleep. I would much prefer staying up, just working, all the time. It makes me so mad that we can’t do anything about sleep or the common cold.
 * As quoted in this interview in Playboy magazine (September 1976)

 * I get offered so many bad movies. And they're all raging queens or transvestites or Martians.
 * 1983 Comment, quoted in Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies 15th Edition (2003) by Leslie Halliwell, p. 60

 * I'm terribly intuitive—I always thought I was intellectual about what I do, but I've come to the realisation that I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing half the time, that the majority of the stuff that I do is totally intuitive, totally about where I am physically and mentally at any moment in time and I have a far harder time than anybody else explaining it and analysing it. That's the territory of the artist anyway: to be quite at sea with what he does, and working towards not being intuive about it and being far more methodical and academic about it.
 * "Sermon From the Savoy", New Musical Express (29 September 1984)

 * I think fame itself is not a rewarding thing. The most you can say is that it gets you a seat in restaurants.
 * Interviewed in Q magazine (April 1990)

I only hope that it embraces you with the same lusty life force that it graciously offered me.
 * Music has given me over 40 years of extraordinary experiences. I can't say that life's pains or more tragic episodes have been diminished because of it. But it's allowed me so many moments of companionship when I've been lonely and a sublime means of communication when I wanted to touch people. It's been both my doorway of perception and the house that I live in.
 * Commencement Address for the Berklee College of Music, at Hynes Convention Center, Boston, Massachusetts (8 May 1999)

 * [While filming 'Ashes to Ashes'] So we're on the beach shooting this scene with a giant bulldozer. The camera was on a very long lens. [The camera is along way away, but the artist fills the frame] In this video I'm dressed from head to toe in a clown suit. Why not. I hear playback and the music starts. So off I go, I start singing and walking, but as soon as I do this old geezer with an old dog walk right between me and the camera... Well, knowing this is gonna take a while I walked past the old guy and sat next to camera in my full costume waiting for him to pass. As he is walking by camera the director said, excuse me Mr do you know who this is? The old guy looks at me from bottom to top and looks back to the director and said... "Of course I do!!!! its some cunt in a clown suit." That was a huge moment for me, It put me back in my place and made me realize, yes I'm just a cunt in a clown suit. I think about that old guy all the time.
 * http://tonythegigguy.com/queen-bitch-beat-city-bowie-special-sleeve-notes

 * Never play to the gallery... Never work for other people in what you do. Always remember that the reason that you initially started working was that there was something inside yourself that you felt that if you could manifest in some way, you would understand more about yourself and how you co-exist with the rest of society... I think it's terribly dangerous for an artist to fulfil other people's expectations.
 * Inspirations (1997), quoted in "Looking back at David Bowie's invaluable advice for young artists"

 * Ageing is an extraordinary process... If you are pining for youth I think it produces a stereotypical old man because you only live in memory, you live in a place that doesn’t exist … I think ageing is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person that you always should have been.
 * quoted by Aaron Hicklin in "David Bowie: An Obituary"

Livewire interview (2002)

 * Livewire interview (16 June 2002)

 * It's odd but even when I was a kid, I would write about "old and other times" as though I had a lot of years behind me. Now I do, so there is a difference in the weight of memory. When you're young, you're still "becoming", now at my age I am more concerned with "being". And not too long from now I'll be driven by "surviving", I'm sure. I kind of miss that "becoming" stage, as most times you really don't know what's around the corner. Now, of course, I've kind of knocked on the door and heard a muffled answer. Nevertheless, I still don't know what the voice is saying, or even what language it's in.

 * Strangely, some songs you really don't want to write. I didn't like writing "Heathen". There was something so ominous and final about it. It was early in the morning, the sun was rising and through the windows I could see two deer grazing down below in the field. In the distance a car was driving slowly past the reservoir and these words were just streaming out and there were tears running down my face. But I couldn't stop, they just flew out. It's an odd feeling, like something else is guiding you, although forcing your hand is more like it.

 * Heathenism is a state of mind. You can take it that I'm referring to one who does not see his world. He has no mental light. He destroys almost unwittingly. He cannot feel any Gods' presence in his life. He is the 21st century man. However, there's no theme or concept behind Heathen, just a number of songs but somehow there is a thread that runs through it that is quite as strong as any of my thematic type albums.

 * I had to resign myself, many years ago, that I'm not too articulate when it comes to explaining how I feel about things. But my music does it for me, it really does. There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It's always been my way of expressing what for me is inexpressible by any other means. What is very enlightening for me right now is that I sense that I'm arriving at a place of peace with my writing that I've never experienced before. I think I'm going to be writing some of the most worthwhile things that I've ever written in the coming years. I'm very confident and trusting in my abilities right now. But I've got to think of myself as the luckiest guy. Robert Johnson only had one album's worth of work as his legacy. That's all that life allowed him.

Song lyrics

 * All the young dudes Carry the news Boogaloo dudes Carry the news.
 * All The Young Dudes, performed by Mott the Hoople''

 * If our love song Could fly over mountains, Could laugh at the ocean, Just like the films, There's no reason To feel all the hard times, To lay down the hard lines. It's absolutely true. Nothing much could happen Nothing we can't shake Oh we're absolute beginners With nothing much at stake As long as you're still smiling There's nothing more I need I absolutely love you But we're absolute beginners. But if my love is your love We're certain to succeed.
 * Absolute Beginners (1986)

Space Oddity (1969)

 * Ground Control to Major Tom. Ground Control to Major Tom. Take your protein pills and put your helmet on.
 * Space Oddity

 * This is Major Tom to Ground Control. I'm stepping through the door, And I'm floating in a most peculiar way. And the stars look very different today. For here Am I sitting in a tin can, Far above the world. Planet Earth is blue, And there's nothing I can do.
 * Space Oddity

 * I'm the cream Of the great utopia dream. And you're in the gleam In the depths of your banker's spleen.
 * Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed

The Man Who Sold the World (1970)

 * In the corner of the morning in the past I would sit and blame the master first and last. All the roads were straight and narrow And the prayers were small and yellow. And the rumour spread that I was aging fast. Then I ran across a monster who was sleeping By a tree. And I looked and frowned and the monster was me.
 * The Width of a Circle

 * Day after day They send my friends away To mansions cold and grey. To the far side of town Where the thin men stalk the streets While the sane stay underground. Day after day, They tell me I can go. They tell me I can blow To the far side of town Where it's pointless to be high, 'Cause it's such a long way down.
 * All the Madmen

 * Man is an obstacle, sad as the clown (Oh by jingo) So hold on to nothing, and he won't let you down.
 * After All

 * Live to your rebirth and do what you will (Oh by jingo) Forget all I've said, please bear me no ill.
 * After All

 * We passed upon the stair, we spoke of was and when Although I wasn't there, he said I was his friend Which came as some surprise I spoke into his eyes I thought you died alone, a long long time ago.
 * The Man Who Sold the World

 * When all the world was very young And mountain magic heavy hung The supermen would walk in file Guardians of a loveless isle.
 * The Supermen

Hunky Dory (1971)

 * Still don't know what I was waiting for And my time was running wild. A million dead-end streets and Every time I thought I'd got it made It seemed the taste was not so sweet. So I turned myself to face me But I've never caught a glimpse Of how the others must see the faker I'm much too fast to take that test.
 * Changes

 * I watch the ripples change their size But never leave the stream Of warm impermanence. So the days float through my eyes But still the days seem the same. And these children that you spit on As they try to change their worlds Are immune to your consultations. They're quite aware of what they're going through.
 * Changes

 * Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes  Turn and face the strange.
 * Changes

 * It's a god-awful small affair To the girl with the mousy hair But her mummy is yelling "No" And her daddy has told her to go But her friend is nowhere to be seen Now she walks through her sunken dream To the seat with the clearest view And she's hooked to the silver screen. But the film is a saddening bore 'Cause she's lived it ten times or more.
 * Life on Mars?

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)

 * Pushing through the market square, so many mothers sighing News had just come over, we had five years left to cry in. News guy wept and told us, earth was really dying Cried so much his face was wet, then I knew he was not lying.
 * Five Years

 * There's a starman waiting in the sky He'd like to come and meet us, But he thinks he'd blow our minds.
 * Starman

 * Making love with his ego Ziggy sucked up into his mind Like a leper messiah. When the kids had killed the man I had to break up the band.
 * Ziggy Stardust

 * Ziggy played guitar.
 * Ziggy Stardust

 * (Hey man) oh leave me alone you know (Hey man) oh Henry, get off the phone, I gotta (Hey man) I gotta straighten my face This mellow thighed chick just put my spine out of place.
 * Suffragette City

 * Oh don't lean on me man, cause you can't afford the ticket Back from Suffragette City Oh don't lean on me man 'Cause you ain't got time to check it You know my Suffragette City Is outta sight...she's all right ...Ah wham, bam, thank you ma'am!
 * Suffragette City

Aladdin Sane (1973)

 * Who'll love Aladdin Sane? Battle cries and champagne just in time for sunrise.
 * Aladdin Sane

Diamond Dogs (1974)

 * This ain't rock'n'roll. This is genocide!
 * Diamond Dogs

 * You've got your mother in a whirl She's not sure if you're a boy or a girl. Hey babe, your hair's alright. Hey babe, let's go out tonight. You like me, and I like it all. We like dancing and we look divine. You love bands when they're playing hard. You want more and you want it fast.
 * Rebel Rebel

 * Rebel Rebel, you've torn your dress. Rebel Rebel, your face is a mess. Rebel Rebel, how could they know? Hot tramp, I love you so!
 * Rebel Rebel

Young Americans (1975)

 * Do you remember, your President Nixon? Do you remember, the bills you have to pay? Or even yesterday?
 * Young Americans

 * Fame, (fame) makes a man take things over Fame, (fame) lets him loose, hard to swallow Fame, (fame) puts you there where things are hollow Fame (fame) Fame, it's not your brain, it's just the flame That burns your change to keep you insane (sane).
 * Fame, written with Carlos Alomar and John Lennon

Station to Station (1976)

 * Don't let me hear you say life's taking you nowhere, angel Come get up my baby. Look at that sky, life's begun Nights are warm and the days are young Come get up my baby.
 * Golden Years

Low (1977)

 * You're such a wonderful person But you got problems oh-oh-oh-oh I'll never touch you.
 * Breaking Glass, written with Dennis Davis and George Murray

"Heroes" (1977)

 * I, I wish you could swim Like the dolphins Like dolphins can swim Though nothing, nothing will keep us together We can beat them, forever and ever Oh, we can be heroes just for one day.
 * "Heroes", written with Brian Eno

 * I, I will be king. And you, you will be queen. Though nothing will drive them away. We can beat them, just for one day. We can be heroes, just for one day.
 * "Heroes", written with Brian Eno

Scary Monsters (1980)

 * It's got nothing to do with you, if one can grasp it More idols than realities, ooh-ooh... Yeah, yeah, yeah, up the hill backwards It'll be alright, ooh-ooh
 * Up the Hill Backwards

 * I've never done good things I've never done bad things I never did anything out of the blue, whoa whoa Want an axe to break the ice Wanna come down right now Ashes to ashes, funk to funky We know Major Tom's a junkie Strung out in heaven's high Hitting an all-time low. My mama said to get things done You'd better not mess with Major Tom
 * Ashes To Ashes

 * Well, I've been breaking these rocks And cutting this hay Yes, I've been breaking these rocks What's my price to pay? Well, the river's so muddy, but it may come clear And I know too well what's keeping me here I'm just a slave of a burning ray Oh, give me the night, I can't take another sight
 * Kingdom Come

 * Because you're young You'll meet a stranger some night Because you're young What could be nicer for you And it makes me sad So I'll dance my life away A million dreams, a million scars ...Left him nearly out of his mind They're people I know - people I love They seem so unhappy - dead or alive
 * Because You’re Young

 * Silhouettes and shadows Watch the revolution No more free steps to heaven Just walkie-talkie Heaven or hearth Just big heads and drums Full speed and pagan And it's no game
 * It's No Game

Cat People (Putting Out Fire) (1982)

 * Theme song for the film Cat People (1982)

 * See these eyes so green… I can stare for a thousand years Colder than the moon It's been so long… And I've been putting out fire… With gasoline!

 * See these eyes so red Red like jungle burning bright Those who feel me near Pull the blinds and change their minds.

 * Still this pulsing night A plague I call a heartbeat Just be still with me  Ya wouldn't believe what I've been thru.

Let's Dance (1983)

 * Never gonna fall for Modern love — walks beside me. Modern love — walks on by. Modern love — gets me to the church on time. Church on time — terrifies me. Church on time — makes me party. Church on time — puts my trust in God and man. God and man — no confessions. God and man — no religion. God and man — don't believe in modern love.
 * Modern Love — YouTube video

 * My little China Girl You shouldn't mess with me. I'll ruin everything you are. I'll give you television. I'll give you eyes of blue. I'll give you a man who wants to rule the world.
 * China Girl, written with Iggy Pop —Video at YouTube

 * Let's dance — put on your red shoes and dance the blues. Let's dance — to the song they're playin' on the radio. Let's sway — while colour lights up your face. Let's swa —, sway through the crowd to an empty space.
 * Let's Dance — Video at YouTube

 * And if you say run, I'll run with you And if you say hide, we'll hide. Because my love for you Would break my heart in two. If you should fall Into my arms And tremble like a flower.
 * Let's Dance

 * Let's dance for fear your grace should fall Let's dance for fear tonight is all
 * Let's Dance

Earthling (1997)

 * God is an American. I'm afraid of Americans. I'm afraid of the world. I'm afraid I can't help it. I'm afraid I can't
 * I'm Afraid of Americans

Heathen (2002)

 * Steel on the skyline Sky made of glass Made for a real world All things must pass Ooo Waiting for something Looking for someone Is there no reason?
 * "Heathen (The Rays)"

Reality (2003)

 * And there's never gonna be enough money And there's never gonna be enough drugs And I'm never ever gonna get old There's never gonna be enough bullets There's never gonna be enough sex And I'm never ever gonna get old So I'm never ever gonna get high And I'm never ever gonna get low And I'm never ever gonna get old
 * "Never Get Old"

 * The tragic youth was going down on me (...) I've been right and I've been wrong Now I'm back where I started from Never looked over reality's shoulder
 * "Reality"

 * Soon there'll be nothing left of me Nothing left to release
 * "Bring Me the Disco King"

The Next Day (2013)

 * Where are we now? Where are we now? The moment you know You know, you know As long as there's sun As long as there's sun As long as there's rain As long as there's rain As long as there's fire As long as there's fire As long as there's me As long as there's you
 * "Where Are We Now?" (2013)

 * First they give you everything that you want Then they take back everything that you have They live upon their feet and they die upon their knees They can work with satan while they dress like the saints They know god exists for the devil told them so They scream my name aloud down into the well below
 * The Next Day (2013)

Blackstar (2016)

Stands a solitary candle, ah-ah, ah-ah In the centre of it all, in the centre of it all Your eyes
 * In the villa of Ormen, in the villa of Ormen
 * "Blackstar" · Video at YouTube

Spirit rose a metre and stepped aside Somebody else took his place, and bravely cried (I’m a blackstar, I’m a blackstar) How many times does an angel fall? How many people lie instead of talking tall?''' He trod on sacred ground, he cried loud into the crowd (I’m a blackstar, I’m a blackstar, I’m not a gangster)
 * '''Something happened on the day he died
 * "Blackstar"

I’ve got scars that can’t be seen I’ve got drama, can’t be stolen Everybody knows me now''' Look up here, man, I’m in danger I’ve got nothing left to lose I’m so high it makes my brain whirl Dropped my cell phone down below Ain’t that just like me
 * '''Look up here, I’m in heaven
 * "Lazarus" · Video at YouTube

You know, I’ll be free Just like that bluebird Now ain’t that just like me
 * This way or no way
 * "Lazarus"

Saying no but meaning yes This is all I ever meant That's the message that I sent
 * Saying more and feeling less
 * "I Can't Give Everything Away"

Quotes about Bowie

 * I met him only once, it was 1973 or 1974. I was the producer of a record of a folk-rock band Steeleye Span. They wanted David Bowie to play a sax solo on one of the songs. I managed to get his phone number, I called him and said 'You don't know me, but some people which album I'm producing ask you if you'd like to play sax for them'. And Bowie asked - 'Okay, where and when?'. I replied - 'Whenever you can'. And he said - '3 o'clock this afternoon?'. I was frightened and thought he'd want 2000£ for that. He came at 3, smiling. He played just like we wanted, never asking about money, then shook everyone's hand and left. It was the only time we met. David taught me one beautiful thing. If you can and want to help somebody, do it for free. That's why I never asked anyone for money. By lending a hand in that way you give just a bit of what you do in your life.
 * Ian Anderson, interviewed by Piotr Kaczkowski in 1997 (Przy mikrofonie, Prószyński i S-ka, Warsaw, ISBN 83-7052-806-6)

 * There is a glimmer of hope in the choice to quote an old song about new beginnings, and it isn't the only moment on the album that suggests a cycle of death and rebirth. Buried in the bleakness of "Blackstar" is an airy, suspiciously earnest passage that imagines the transmigration of souls: "Something happened on the day he died / Spirit rose a meter and stepped aside / Somebody else took his place and bravely cried / 'I'm a black star.'" Bowie nearly became a Buddhist monk  when he was 19, and he specified in his will that his ashes should be scattered "in accordance with the Buddhist rituals." It's quite possible that he believed in reincarnation
 * Judy Berman, in The 2016 Canon: David Bowie's Blackstar Was Not Just a Final Album—It Was an Omen, Esquire magazine  Dec 12, 2016

 * David Bowie had everything. He was intelligent, imaginative, brave, charismatic, cool, sexy and truly inspirational both visually and musically. He created such staggeringly brilliant work, yes, but so much of it and it was so good. There are great people who make great work but who else has left a mark like his? No one like him.
 * Kate Bush, as quoted in "David Bowie, as remembered by…" in The Guardian (17 January 2016)

 * While a majority of posthumous music is released by an artist's estate, David Bowie organized new music to be released after his death himself. Bowie believed in reincarnation, and through the evolution of his many different personas and music styles, he became the king of reinvention. First he was a folk singer, then a glam rocker, next he was a new romantic; He was constantly changing and evolving in both his sound and his look.
 * Julia Kai, David Bowie: The King of Reinvention and Reincarnation, Intersect magazine, 9 Feb 2021

title: David Bowie


text:
The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby (1925) by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a short novel which takes place on Long Island during the Jazz Age and is commonly cited as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century.
 * Page-numbers refer to the 2004 Scribner edition.

Chapter 1

 * In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. "Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had."
 * p. 1

 * No—Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.
 * p. 2

 * I was rather literary in college […] and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the "well-rounded man." This isn’t just an epigram — life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.
 * p. 4

 * "In two weeks it'll be the longest day in the year." She looked at us all radiantly. "Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it."
 * p. 11

 * All right.[…] I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool — that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.
 * p. 17

Chapter 2

 * This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens, where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight. But above the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high.
 * p. 23

 * "I married him because I thought he was a gentleman," she said finally.
 * p. 34

 * I wanted to get out and walk eastward toward the park through the soft twilight, but each time I tried to go I became entangled in some wild, strident argument which pulled me back, as if with ropes, into my chair. Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.
 * p. 35

 * People disappeared, reappeared, made plans to go somewhere, and then lost each other, searched for each other, found each other a few feet away.
 * p. 37

Chapter 4

 * On Sunday morning while church bells rang in the villages alongshore, the world and its mistress returned to Gatsby's house and twinkled hilariously on his lawn.
 * p. 61

 * [Gatsby] was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that resourcefulness of movement that is so peculiarly American — that comes, I suppose, with the absence of lifting work or rigid sitting in youth and, even more, with the formless grace of our nervous, sporadic games. This quality was continually breaking through his punctilious manner in the shape of restlessness. He was never quite still; there was always a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a hand.
 * p. 64

 * Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.
 * p. 68

 * It was dark now, and as we dipped under a little bridge I put my arm around Jordan’s golden shoulder and drew her toward me and asked her to dinner. Suddenly I wasn’t thinking of Daisy and Gatsby any more, but of this clean, hard, limited person, who dealt in universal skepticism, and who leaned back jauntily just within the circle of my arm. A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: "There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired."
 * p. 79, on the love affairs of Gatsby, Daisy, Jordan, and Nick

Chapter 5

 * The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain. I had to follow the sound of it for a moment, up and down, with my ear alone, before any words came through. A damp streak of hair lay like a dash of blue paint across her cheek, and her hand was wet with glistening drops as I took it to help her from the car.
 * p. 85, about Daisy Buchanan

 * Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry.
 * p. 88

 * He had passed visibly through two states and was entering upon a third. After his embarrassment and his unreasoning joy he was consumed with wonder at her presence. He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity. Now, in the reaction, he was running down like an overwound clock.
 * p. 91

 * No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.
 * p. 96

Chapter 6

 * The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God — a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that — and he must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.
 * p. 98

 * He knew women early, and since they spoiled him he became contemptuous of them, of young virgins because they were ignorant, of the others because they were hysterical about things which in his overwhelming self-absorption he took for granted.
 * p. 98

 * But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot. The most grotesque and fantastic conceits haunted him in his bed at night. A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain while the clock ticked on the washstand and the moon soaked with wet light his tangled clothes upon the floor. Each night he added to the pattern of his fancies until drowsiness closed down upon some vivid scene with an oblivious embrace. For a while these reveries provided an outlet for his imagination; they were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy’s wing.
 * p. 99

 * It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment.
 * p. 104

 * She was appalled by West Egg.[…]—appalled by its raw vigor that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a short-cut from nothing to nothing. She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand.
 * p. 107

 * He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: “I never loved you.” After she had obliterated four years with that sentence they could decide upon the more practical measures to be taken.
 * p. 109

 * "I wouldn’t ask too much of her," I ventured. "You can’t repeat the past." "Can’t repeat the past?" he cried incredulously. "Why of course you can!" He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand. "I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before," he said, nodding determinedly. "She’ll see."
 * p. 110, Nick and Gatsby, on Gatsby's relationship with Daisy

 * His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.
 * p. 110

Chapter 7

 * That any one should care in this heat whose flushed lips he kissed, whose head made damp the pajama pocket over his heart!
 * p. 115

 * "Her voice is full of money," he said suddenly. That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money — that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it ... high in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl...
 * p. 120

 * It occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well.
 * p. 124

 * There is no confusion like the confusion of a simple mind, and as we drove away Tom was feeling the hot whips of panic. His wife and his mistress, until an hour ago secure and inviolate, were slipping precipitately from his control.
 * p. 125

 * So we drove on toward death in the cooling twilight.
 * p. 136

 * He put his hands in his coat pockets and turned back eagerly to his scrutiny of the house, as though my presence marred the sacredness of the vigil. So I walked away and left him standing there in the moonlight — watching over nothing.
 * p. 145

Chapter 8

 * "They're a rotten crowd," I shouted across the lawn. "You're worth the whole damn bunch put together." I’ve always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end. First he nodded politely, and then his face broke into that radiant and understanding smile, as if we’d been in ecstatic cahoots on that fact all the time.
 * p. 154, Nick speaking to Gatsby

 * No telephone message arrived, but the butler went without his sleep and waited for it until four o'clock—until long after there was anyone to give it to if it came. I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn’t believe it would come, and perhaps he no longer cared. If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about… like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees.
 * p. 161

 * Standing behind him, Michaelis saw with a shock that he was looking at the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, which had just emerged, pale and enormous, from the dissolving night. “God sees everything,” repeated Wilson.
 * p. 159, Wilson talking about the billboard outside his window

Chapter 9

 * Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead,” he suggested. “After that my own rule is to let everything alone."
 * p. 172

 * That’s my Middle West—not the wheat or the prairies or the lost Swede towns, but the thrilling returning trains of my youth, and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow. [...] I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all — Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, we're all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life. Even when the East excited me most, even when I was most keenly aware of its superiority to the bored, sprawling, swollen towns beyond the Ohio, with their interminable inquisitions which spared only the children and the very old—even then it had always for me a quality of distortion.[...] After Gatsby’s death the East was haunted for me like that, distorted beyond my eyes’ power of correction. So when the blue smoke of brittle leaves was in the air and the wind blew the wet laundry stiff on the line I decided to come back home.
 * p. 176

 * They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made....
 * p. 179

 * Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound. And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes — a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder. And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning — So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
 * p. 180, final lines

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: The Great Gatsby


text:
Queer as Folk (British TV series)

 * This article is about the UK version (1999–2000). For the USA remake (2000–2005) by Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman see Queer as Folk (US TV series)

Queer as Folk was a United Kingdom television series written by Russell T. Davies, shown on Channel 4 in 1999. A followup two episode second series followed in 2000. The series focused on the lives of three gay men in Manchester: Stuart, a supremely confident and wealthy advertising executive; his best friend Vince, the manager of a supermarket who is perennially unlucky in love; and Nathan, a 15-year-old just coming to terms with his sexuality.

Unfinished Business [1.02]

 * Can you believe it? They've got toilets in which no one's ever had sex!
 * Vince, talking about straight bars.

 * It's the exact opposite of childbirth. First you have the baby, then you get fucked.
 * Stuart, who has donated sperm to help a lesbian couple have a baby, on discovering their financial demands.

Constant Craving [1.05]

 * Nathan: Donna, you don't know her! You don't know anything! Cos you're straight! Right? You're part of the system! Right? You're part of the fascist heterosexual orthodoxy! Donna: I'm black. And I'm a girl. Try that for a week.
 * Nathan talking to his classmate and friend Donna (played by Carla Henry).

 * Stuart: Give him six months and he'll be able to name all the Doctor Whos, in order – William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy. Vince: What about Paul McGann? Both Together: Paul McGann doesn't count!
 * Stuart comments on Vince's obsession with Doctor Who and its effect on his new boyfriend.

[Vince is at a restaurant on a date with Cameron, and calls Stuart while Cameron is in the loo. Stuart is at a pub with a married (and closeted) business relation named Martin Brooks, despite having promised his sister that he’d babysit her children that night.] [Cameron returns from the loo and Vince quickly hangs up] [Vince calls Stuart back] [Cut back to Vince and Cameron at the restaurant] [Vince’s phone starts ringing again] [Cameron walks out of the restaurant and tosses Vince’s phone into off a bridge into the water below] [Cameron walks off, Vince is left alone on the bridge]
 * Vince: Says he’s 36, the liar. I’m sitting here with an old man. It’s like the auditions for Cocoon 3.
 * Stuart: Tell him that story about the broken leg, that always works.
 * Nathan: [barges in] Is that Vince? Say hello for me.
 * Stuart: Uh, some twat says hello.
 * Vince: is that Nathan? Stuart, listen, his mother had a rag on me. Do us a favor and keep an eye on him?
 * Stuart: Never mind him, just think about yourself for once.
 * Cameron: We could go somewhere afterwards, I dunno. There’s pubs open, you’re the expert.
 * Vince: Yeah. Listen, I’ve gotta make this call, there’s this boy and no one’s looking after him. Bit of a crisis, you don’t mind?
 * Vince: Stuart, seriously, it’s your fault he’s left home. He could wander off at anywhere.
 * Stuart: Hold on, call waiting. [Answers it] Yeah?
 * Marie: [sarcastically] Thank you Stuart, thank you so much. I’ve had Ben crying his eyes out, that’s all he needs, another man to abandon him.
 * Stuart: I did phone Marie, I left a message. It’s just, it’s an emergency, I’ve gotta work.
 * Marie: You’re in a bar, I can hear it! How many dates do you think I get anyway, a mother with two kids?
 * Stuart: Hold on, call waiting. [Answers]
 * Sandra (Stuart’s PA): Are you with Martin Brooks? Cause his mobile’s switched off. His wife’s on the phone, the roof falling or something.
 * Stuart: Martin, it’s your wife.
 * Martin: I’m not here.
 * Stuart: He’s not here.
 * Vince: Call waiting. He’s a busy man.
 * Cameron: Look, I really don’t mind, but can you put the phone down? Just for a minute.
 * Vince: Yeah... Sure. Sorry.
 * Cameron: Right. Cause if you wanna go clubbing, I could uh...
 * Vince: I’m sorry. It’s this boy, I promised his mother. [Answers] Hello?
 * Marie: You’ve kept me waiting long enough, now put him on the phone!
 * Vince: I’m not with Stuart.
 * Marie: You’re always with him! I was supposed to be on a date and he’s ruined it!
 * Vince: I’m not. Honestly, I’m not. Hold on, call waiting again. [Answers] Yeah?
 * Sandra: Vince, put him on. I know full well he’s taken Martin Brooks to some godforsaken dive.
 * Vince: I’m not with Stuart!
 * Sandra: His wife’s going mental.
 * Vince: Whose wife?
 * Sandra: Martin Brooks’!
 * Vince: Who the hell is Martin Brooks? Hold on, call waiting. [Answers] What?!
 * Stuart: You hung up on me.
 * Vince: Are you with Martin Brooks?
 * Stuart: How do you know Martin Brooks?
 * Vince: I’ve got Sandra chasing Martin Brooks.
 * Stuart: I’ve never heard of Martin Brooks.
 * Vince: [Switches calls, accidentally answers Marie’s instead of Sandra’s] He’s not with Martin Brooks.
 * Marie: Who the hell is Martin Brooks?
 * Vince: Sorry, wrong woman, hold on. [Switches calls again to Sandra] Sandra, no Martin Brooks.
 * Sandra: He is with Martin Brooks! And his roof has fallen in!
 * Vince: Whose roof’s fallen in?!
 * Sandra: Martin Brooks’!
 * Vince: Hold on. [Switches calls] Marie. Is your date with Martin Brooks?
 * Marie: Who the fuck is Martin Brooks?!
 * Vince: I don’t know. But he’s got a wife and a dodgy roof.
 * Cameron: [exasperated] Wait a minute, I know Martin Brooks, give me the phone.
 * Vince: Oi, that’s my phone!
 * Cameron: [Grabs Vince and kisses him] Call me.
 * Vince: What with?!

Married .. with children [1.06]

 * Nathan's dad: He's fifteen years old. He's fifteen. That boy is fifteen! Stuart: So? That Jeep's only six months, and you've still gone and buggered it!
 * Nathan's dad deliberately rams Stuart's jeep and confronts him over his relationship with Nathan.

That's what friends are for [1.07]

 * Stuart: Here she is! Rosalie, have you met Cameron? Let's go say hello. Cameron! This is Cameron, he's Vince's boyfriend. They've been going out for ages! Cameron says Vince shags like a rabbit! He's bought him a car! He's the perfect boyfriend – they're practically married!
 * Stuart has invited Rosalie, one of Vince's co-workers who does not know he is gay and has a crush on him, to his birthday party.

1.08
Nathan's dad: Not on school nights you're not. Nathan: And I'm not gonna change. You know that, don't you? Cos it isn't a phase. I'm not gonna grow out of it. I'm gonna be gay forever. Nathan's dad: You've made your mind up. It's obvious there's no stopping you. It's Helen I'm worried about. She's ten years old. She's a child. I don't want her head filled with notions. Nathan: Like what? Nathan's dad: As far as Helen's concerned, the anus is for shit. Got that?
 * Nathan: I'm still gonna go out, to the Village.
 * The next night, Nathan and Donna run away to London.

Out of the Closet, Into the Fire [2.01]
Nathan: Dunno. About... seven? Vince: Shit. Stuart: Seven. I must've had about 2,007. Nathan: Yeah? That means I've got 2,000 to go. How many have you got left?
 * Stuart: We don't do hammers, or nails, or saw. We do joints and screws, but that's different. Stuart's mother: Who does? Stuart: Queers. Because I'm queer. I'm gay. I'm homosexual. I'm a poof, I'm a poofter, I'm a ponce. I'm a bumboy, batty-boy, backside artist, bugger. I'm bent. I am that arsebandit. I lift those shirts. I'm a faggot-ass, fudge-packing, shit-stabbing uphill gardener. I dine at the downstairs restaurant, I dance at the other end of the ballroom. I'm Moses and the parting of the red cheeks. I fuck and I am fucked. I suck and I am sucked. I rim them and wank them, and every single man's had the fucking time of his life. And I am not a pervert. If there's one twisted bastard in this family, it's this little blackmailer here. So congratulations, Thomas. I've just officially outed you.
 * Stuart comes out to his parents, after his nephew Thomas attempts to blackmail him.
 * Stuart: So, er, how many men have you had now?
 * Nathan grimaces. The looming senility is an obsession for Stuart.

Out of the Closet, Into the Fire (Part 2) [2.02]

 * Stuart: What, come back to this? The ghetto: alleyways stinking of piss, beggars in every doorway, straights and students coming to look at the freak show, and all the idiots saving all week, saving their stupid money from their stupid idiot jobs so they can come and shoot their load with some stranger. And just you look after it, this stupid little street. It's the middle of the world. Cos on a street like this, every single night, anyone can meet anyone. And every single night, someone meets someone.
 * Vince: It's all yours now, all of them, all the poofs and all the dykes and all the people inbetween. And this lot, they'll shag ya, they'll rob ya, some of them might even love ya. They'll all forget you in the end. Just stick with your friends, you'll be fine.
 * Stuart and Vince to Nathan on Canal Street.

Cast

 * Stuart Alan Jones — Aidan Gillen
 * Vince Tyler — Craig Kelly
 * Nathan Maloney — Charlie Hunnam

title: Queer as Folk (British TV series)


text:
User:Coralys~enwikiquote

Hi! Hi Yiningning!

title: User:Coralys~enwikiquote


text:
Jimmy Wales

Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales (born August 7, 1966) is a British-American Internet entrepreneur and wiki pioneer who is most famous as one of the founders of Wikipedia, an international collaborative free content encyclopedia on the Internet, and the Wikimedia Foundation.

2000

 * What if we could get everyone in the world together to record what they know in one place?
 * Quoted by Larry Sanger in "The early history of Wikipedia (part 1) ~(1:49)" (January 2000), YouTube (7 May 2020)

2003

 * Dude, you rock.
 * I hereby decree, in my usual authoritarian and bossy manner, that today (Oct. 31) shall forever be known as Tim Starling Day. Wikipedians of the distant future will marvel at the day when the new parsing algorithm dawned upon us. Tonight at dinner, every Wikipedian should say a toast to Tim and his many inventions.
 * In countries that celebrate Halloween, children will first say "Trick or Treat" and then, when they get the candy, they will say "Secure and Split" and run away, in honor of Tim's work in this area.
 * w:Wikipedia:Tim Starling Day (31 October 2003)

2004

 * Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing.
 * As quoted in "Wikimedia Founder Jimmy Wales Responds," by Robin "Roblimo" Miller, Slashdot (28 July 2004)

 * I frequently counsel people who are getting frustrated about an edit war to think about someone who lives without clean drinking water, without any proper means of education, and how our work might someday help that person. It puts flamewars into some perspective, I think.
 * As quoted in "Wikimedia Founder Jimmy Wales Responds," by Robin "Roblimo" Miller, Slashdot (28 July 2004)

 * [Wikipedia is] like a sausage: you might like the taste of it, but you don't necessarily want to see how it's made.
 * (Alluding to a famous quote "Laws are like sausages — it is better not to see them being made.", generally attributed to Otto von Bismarck.)

 * When someone just writes 'f**k, f**k, f**k', we just fix it, laugh and move on. But the difficult social issues are the borderline cases — people who do some good work, but who are also a pain in the neck.
 * As quoted in "Who knows?", The Guardian (26 October 2004)

2005

 * Wikipedia is first and foremost an effort to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language. Asking whether the community comes before or after this goal is really asking the wrong question: the entire purpose of the community is precisely this goal.
 * Wikipedia-l mailing list (8 March 2005)

 * Ideally, our rules should be formed in such a fashion that an ordinary helpful kind thoughtful person doesn't really even need to know the rules. You just get to work, do something fun, and nobody hassles you as long as you are being thoughtful and kind.
 * User talk statement (7 April 2005)

 * Most people understand the need for neutrality. The real struggle is not between the right and the left — that's where most people assume — but it's between the party of the thoughtful and the party of the jerks. And no side of the political spectrum has a monopoly on either of those qualities.
 * "How a ragtag band created Wikipedia" - TED Talk (July 2005); this has sometimes appeared paraphrased as "The real struggle is not between the right and the left but between the party of the thoughtful and the party of the jerks."

 * Freely licensed textbooks are the next big thing in education.
 * While talking about Wikibooks project; TED - Jimmy Wales: How a ragtag band created Wikipedia, July 2005

 * We are growing from a cheerful small town where everyone waves off their front porch to the subway of New York City where everyone rushes by. How do you preserve the culture that has worked so well?
 * As quoted in ExpressIndia (7 September 2005)

 * The primary issue is how seriously we take our chosen obligations to people in the developing world who do not have Internet connections. … Frankly, and let me be blunt, Wikipedia as a readable product is not for us. It's for them. It's for that girl in Africa who can save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around her, but only if she's empowered with the knowledge to do so..
 * Foundation-l mailing list (23 October 2005)

 * Wiki editing thrives on local knowledge, but 'local' in an epistemological sense, not necessarily in a geographical sense. For example, I personally know a lot more about world news on topics that interest me and could synthesize much better in those areas, than I know about local politicians where I live
 * Interview with Jimbo Wales (December 10, 2005)

 * It is pretty weird. A few years ago, I was just some guy sitting in front of the internet. Now I send an e-mail or edit an article and it makes headlines around the world … I used to be just a guy — now I'm Jimmy Wales.
 * "Identity question for world's encyclopaedia", The Times (30 December 2005)

 * We come from geek  culture, we come from the free software movement, we have a lot of technologists involved. If we had done the same sort of comparison on poets or artists, I think that we would not have fared nearly as well.
 * Wales to the Miami Herald, "Will Wikipedia change history?"

2006

 * It turns out a lot of people don’t get it. Wikipedia is like rock’n’roll; it’s a cultural shift.
 * Wales to Computerworld, "Wikipedia founder gazes into site's future" (18 August 2006), based on an earlier interview at Wikimania

 * We've always had a love/hate relationship with numbers.
 * Wales to Computerworld, "Wikipedia founder gazes into site's future" (18 August 2006), based on an earlier interview at Wikimania
 * IAR is policy, always has been.
 * Edit comment, removing attempts to minimize the significance of the Wikipedia:Ignore all rules policy statement (19 August 2006)

 * Quite frankly, several of the people who contributed to the article should be banned from coming near a keyboard until they have learned to engage in proper encyclopedia writing.
 * In a discussion about Wikipedia article (07 September 2006)

2007

 * I think that argument is completely morally bankrupt, and I think people know that when they make it. There's a very big difference between having a sincere, passionate interest in a topic and being a paid shill … Particularly for PR firms, it's something they should really very strongly avoid: ever touching an article.
 * PRWeek (30 Jan 2007) In response to suggestions Wikipedia might change policies to allow PR firms to edit the site without breaking a rule called "WP:AUTO".

 * I regard it as a pseudonym and I don’t really have a problem with it.
 * On controversy regarding fraudulent claims of credentials by the Wikipedian Essjay, in an e-mail to editors of The New Yorker, as quoted in The New York Times (5 March 2007)

 * I don't see any particular problem with that.
 * Responding to the deletion of a Wikipedia article from non-administrator view, while the article's deletion was being reviewed by the community. (27 March 2007)

 * Myspace hurts my eyes.
 * Interview with news24.com (April 2007)

 * Wikipedia is a non-profit. It was either the dumbest thing I ever did or the smartest thing I ever did.
 * Keynote Speech, SXSW 2006, published in "The wisdom of one" (25 April 2007)

 * pedophilic sexualization of a community mascot? No. - email me if you have questions
 * deleted page File:LoliWikipetan.jpg (8 June 2007 )

 * Hayek's work on price theory is central to my own thinking about how to manage the Wikipedia project. …  [O]ne can't understand my ideas about Wikipedia without understanding Hayek.
 * Jimmy Wales, cited by Katherine Mangu-Ward, "Wikipedia and Beyond: Jimmy Wales' sprawling vision," Reason (June 2007).
 * Also cited by Morton Winston  and  Ralph Edelbach, Society, Ethics, and Technology 4th ed. (Boston, MA: Wadsworth, 2012), p. 200.

 * Simply having rules does not change the things that people want to do. You have to change incentives.
 * Interview with Reason magazine (June 2007)
 * EssJay was appointed at the request of and unanimous support of the ArbCom.
 * Wikipedia-l mailing list (17 October 2007)

 * I think MySpace is doomed, I give them about two more years.... I think Facebook is the next Microsoft in both the bad and the good senses. That's an amazing company that is going to do a lot of good and bad things.
 * Jimmy Wales on tech's future, Orlando Sentinel (03 November 2007)

 * Greatest misconception about Wikipedia: We aren’t democratic. Our readers edit the entries, but we’re actually quite snobby. The core community appreciates when someone is knowledgeable, and thinks some people are idiots and shouldn’t be writing.

 * There’s plenty of rude stuff online. People say things online that they would be ashamed to say face to face. If people could treat others as though they were speaking face to face, that would be huge.
 * As quoted in "The Encyclopedist’s Lair" in The New York Times (19 November 2007)

 * I have said this many times in the past and will say it many times in the future I am sure: some people need to find a different hobby, because whatever they are here for, it is not to help build an encyclopedia.
 * Comment about "drama mongers" on the Wikipedia Administrator's noticeboard, (23 November 2007)

 * We are going to change the [GNU] Free Documentation License in such a way that Wikipedia will be able to become licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License. And so this is not, as some people speculated on Facebook my 50th birthday party. This is a party to celebrate the liberation of Wikipedia.
 * Announcing that the Wikimedia Foundation Board has voted to enable Wikipedia to be licensed under a Creative Commons license. "Wikipedia to be Licensed Under Creative Commons" (30 November 2007)

2008

 * Given enough time humans will screw up Wikipedia just as they have screwed up everything else, but so far it's not too bad.
 * Berkman Center (May 15, 2008)

 * I don't really agree that most academics frown when they hear Wikipedia. Most academics I find quite passionate about the concept of Wikipedia and like it quite a bit. [...] The number of academics who really really don't like Wikipedia is really quite small and we find that they get reported on in the media far out of proportion to the amount they actually exist.
 * Wikimania 2008 Alexandria, press conference, 0'14 (August 2008)

 * We are a passionate community of volunteers who are trying to create a free encyclopedia for every single person on the planet. So we don't often think in terms of competition. We are going to do what we do and we hope Google does wonderful things as well. … If we were approaching this as a business we would think always: Oh, how can we position ourselves on the market... We just don't do any of that stuff.
 * Wikimania 2008 Alexandria, press conference, 0'20 (August 2008), asked about Google Knol

2009

 * I have my team focused on the front end, working on the user experience, and making sure we have all the wiki-like tools people need to work on the site. We're just cranking away.
 * About Wikia Search, in an interview with Susan Kuchinskas in iMediaConnection, March 26, 2009 (only days before Wales would shut down Wikia Search and lay off two developers)

 * To me the key thing is getting it right. And if a person's really smart and they're doing fantastic work, I don't care if they're a high school kid or a Harvard professor; it's the work that matters.
 * Long displayed quote on his User page at Wikipedia, and many other Wikimedia projects

2011

 * I think this article was misleading in saying that I "recognized" Wikipe-tan. My removal of the sexualized version from Commons was in no way an endorsement of the standard versions. I don't like Wikipe-tan and never have. I recognize that some people do, and I'm not particularly agitated about it, but my name should not be invoked in a way that might lead some to believe that I approve. Thanks!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:33, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not a fan (February 7, 2011; emphasis not in original)

 * I'm on it pretty much all the time. I edit Wikipedia every day, I'm on Facebook, I'm on Twitter, I'm reading the news. During one of the US elections, I actually went through my computer and I blocked myself from looking at the major newspaper sites and Google News because I wasn't getting any work done.
 * The Independent, October 23rd 2011

 * What we won't do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of "true scientific discourse." It isn't.
 * Boingboing.net, Jimmy Wales tells "energy workers" that Wikipedia won't publish woo, "the work of lunatic charlatans isn't the equivalent of 'true scientific discourse'"

 * Real people are involved, and they can be hurt by your words. We are not tabloid journalism, we are an encyclopedia.
 * Jimmy Wales on Biographies of living persons article

 * I think that reality exists and that it's knowable
 * Quoted in an artwork, also depicting Wales, in the 2018 exhibition 'Internet Giants : Masters of the Universe' by Langlands & Bell.

2012
I hereby proclaim, in my usual authoritarian and bossy manner, that today (April 20) shall forever be known as Justin Knapp Day. Wikipedians of the distant future shall marvel at the first person to ever make 1,000,000 edits. Tonight at dinner, every Wikipedian should say a toast to Justin and his many edits. In countries which celebrate Easter, which is sometimes at a similar time of year, and indeed will fall on Justin Knapp Day in 2014 for both the Eastern and Western traditions, children will be allowed to eat up to 1 million candies each
 * Greetings everyone!
 * Wikipedia:Justin Knapp Day ( April 20, 2012)

 * I hope someone will create lots of articles about famous dresses. Our systemic bias caused by being a predominantly male geek community is worth some reflection in this contest. We have nearly 90 articles about Linux distributions… I think we can have an article about this dress. We should have articles
 * What has Wikipedia’s army of volunteer editors got against Kate Middleton’s wedding gown? (16 August 2012)

2014

 * Now, the UK is home to a very diverse newspaper community, a vibrant newspaper culture. We've got papers like The Sun, The Mirror, The Mail. [laughter]...we're trusted slightly more than the BBC. Now, that's a little scary -- [laughter]
 * This is my annual traditional talk(Jimmy Wales Speaks at Closing Ceremony of Wikimania 2014) +video

 * One of the classic problems we have is -- and we have this a lot in English Wikipedia -- is the annoying user, who at least allegedly produces good content. There are users in the community who have a reputation for creating good content, and for being incredibly toxic personalities. This is a tough issue because [fixes slide problem] but my idea is very simple. Actually, on this issue, I have a very simple view is that most of these editors actually cost us more than they're actually worth, and we're making a big mistake by tolerating people who are causing us enormous...
 * A lot of them, they really cost more than they're worth, and they should be encouraged to leave, and not in a bad way. I mean one of the things that I've always believed is letting people walk away with dignity. We don't have to shame them and scream at them and make them leave and then they're sad and annoyed and then they make sock puppets and then they come back and harass us for years.
 * Jimmy Wales Speaks at Closing Ceremony of Wikimania 2014 August 10, 2014

2020

 * Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park. It is like a temple for the mind. It is a place we can all go to think, to learn, to share our knowledge with others. When I founded Wikipedia, I could have made it into a for-profit company with advertising banners, but I decided to do something different. We’ve worked hard over the years to keep it lean and tight. We fulfill our mission efficiently.
 * Wikimedia donation page.

 * In case anyone is wondering I strongly support the development and widespread adoption of a covid-19 vaccine and will take it as soon as it is widely available... I don't think I should be in the first wave to take it as that should be people more vulnerable or more likely to be spreaders...
 * Twitter (19 May 2020)

 * I think that's right. [replying to comment: "it should go to health care workers first"]. I'm not an expert.  I just know that I'm healthy and safe at home, so it will be more helpful for others to go first.  But I'm eager to take it!
 * Twitter (20 May 2020)

 * President's power does not extend to threatening or shutting down social media platforms. But we should fear this in every country. Worst case scenario is that platforms don't have courage to tell Trump to go away, that they begin to adapt policies to his whims because he is a lunatic,
 * Donald Trump is a lunatic: Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales interview with India Times on May 28, 2020

 * You cannot write a good Wikipedia article about a small town if there is no longer news about this small town. This [trend] will impact the quality of Wikipedia long-term.
 * The next billion people who'll get online access will enter the Internet with mobile devices. It's difficult to write Wikipedia articles on smart phones. So we're investing more and more resources to improve access for these people.
 * Wikipedia founder Wales laments die-offs in local press worldwide, Deutsche Welle (DW),   (11 June 2019)

 * Education and innovation are two things that we can fall back on in the most uncertain times! Join me July 1, 4 PM IST on @unacademy, I will speak about education and my early life that propelled me to create Wikipedia.... unacademy.onelink...
 * https://twitter.com/jimmy_wales/status/1277629711611543552  Twitter] (29 June 2020)

 * I predict that https://gov.uk/home-education is going to be dramatically more popular this coming year.
 * Twitter (30 June 2020)

 * When is the last time you saw a politician talking about Aristotle's Virtues? This is what I love seeing -@RoryStewartUKpost on WT: https://wt.social/post/vg6w2a75311699787861
 * Twitter (1 July 2020)

 * Take a look at this: http://vaccinecommongood.org
 * Twitter (3 July 2020)

 * On Sunday July 5th at 5pm we’re all saying #ThankYouTogether! Whether you’re thanking the NHS, key workers, delivery drivers or a friend, neighbour or colleague who has helped you during this time - join us on your doorstep and help spread the word.  together.org.uk
 * (3 July 2020)
 * I support freedom of expression. A lot of people I disagree with also support freedom of expression.  If that's controversial, then someone will have to explain to me why.
 * (8 July 2020)

 * I've reason to believe
 * We all will be received
 * In Graceland...
 * (16 July 2020)

 * ...Please consider joining http://wt.social - healthy dialogue rather than soundbite vitriol
 * (17 July 2020)

2021

 * Should there be competing articles, so that you would have the Catholic article on abortion, the evangelical Christian version, and the Planned Parenthood version?
 * In Jimmy Wales: “Wikipedia is from a different era”" (January 14, 2021)

About falseness

 * Random speculative pseudo information should be removed, unless it can be sourced.
 * Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information - Email to WikiEN-l, Tue May 16 20:30:15 UTC 2006

 * Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information.
 * Keynote speech, Wikimania, August 2006. May 19, 2006

 * It is tough problem for platforms like Twitter and Facebook. They exist to allow people to share their thoughts and ideas … One of the things that I would like to see more of is, not to stop people from sharing things … but to warn them… So, when I am about to share something, and a reputable fact checking organization has shown it is a hoax, I would like Facebook to warn me “Hey … you might want to check, if this is true or not, before you share it”. I think that would be very helpful.
 * When talking about how to stop the spread of fake news.

C-SPAN interview (2005)

 * Interview with Brian Lamb (25 September 2005) Transcript and Realplayer video

 * Wales: We help the Internet not suck. So it's that the Wikipedia for a lot of people hearkens back to what we all thought the Internet was for in the first place which is, you know, when most people first started the Internet they thought oh, this is fantastic, people can communicate from all over the world and build knowledge and share information. And then we went through the whole dot-com boom and bust and the Internet seemed to be about pop-up ads, and spam, and porn and selling dog food over the Internet. And now Wikipedia kind of hearkens back to the original vision of the Internet. And so it's important for the whole business of the entire Internet that there be quality resources that people can turn to and want to turn to.

 * Wales: Our goal has always been Britannica or better quality. We don't always achieve that.
 * Lamb: Would you put them out of business?
 * Wales: You know, I don't know. I used to think so but I just was in Germany where Wikipedia is really big in Germany[..]. And Brockhaus is the publisher of the Britannica style traditional encyclopedia. And their sales are up 30 percent in the last year even though Wikipedia is going through the roof. And I think there's a certain maybe there ends up being some complementarity to it that people[..]. So Wikipedia helps people to remember that hey, there is actually something to having a group of people edit, monitor, and put a level of trust to information. And so that makes Brockhaus more appealing, makes Wikipedia more appealing. So it's hard to say.

 * Lamb: Another thing I read about you is that you are a follower or have been at some point a follower of Ayn Rand?
 * Wales: That's right, yes.
 * Lamb: Who was she and do you still follow her and what is it about it that you like?
 * Wales: Yes. So Ayn Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, as is viewed by many as, you know, something of the founder of the libertarian strain of thought in the U.S. She would have rejected quite rightly, I think, the libertarian label. But I think for me one of the core things that is very applicable to my life today is the virtue of independence — is the vision, you know, if you know the idea of Howard Roark who is the architect in The Fountainhead who has a vision for what he wants to accomplish and, you know, there's some time in the book when he is frustrated in his career because people don't want to build the type of buildings he wants to build. And he's given a choice, a difficult choice, to compromise his integrity or to essentially go out of business. And he has to go and take a job working in a quarry. And for me that model has a lot of resonance for me. You know when I think about what I'm doing and the way I'm doing it is more important to me than any amount of money or anything like that because it's my artistic work.
 * Lamb: What year did you read Atlas Shrugged or Fountainhead?
 * Wales: I guess I was around 20 when I read The Fountainhead.

Growing up

 * I joke that I started as a kid revising the encyclopedia by stickering the one my mother bought.
 * education was always a passion in my household ... you know, the very traditional approach to knowledge and learning and establishing that as a base for a good life.
 * Jimmy Wales

Quotes about Wales

 * The more time I spent on the site the more I came to think of Wales as some kind of Queen Ant, letting the vast colony go about its work, at the centre of a system where the knowledge of the community is infinitely larger than the sum of experience of all its individuals.

 * Local press die-offs worldwide are robbing Wikipedia of sources to cite, warns co-founder Jimmy Wales. He told the German outlet Spiegel his team's next aim is to reach 'billions' of potential users in poor countries...  Jimmy Wales, who co-founded Wikipedia in 2001, told a German news magazine on Wednesday that declines in centuries-old local press sectors around the world worried him more than even fake news in the "Trump" era...  Asked by Spiegel magazine if giants such as Google, Amazon and Facebook should do more to support Wikipedia, Wales replied: "yes perhaps, but we lay great value on our independence." ...Wales was also asked about the greatest problem he would like solved. He said Wikipedia's "greatest challenge" was a growth in the languages of poorer developing countries.
 * Wikipedia founder Wales laments die-offs in local press worldwide, Deutsche Welle (DW),   (11 June 2019)

 * At 18:54 EST on December 12 John Seigenthaler's wife, who was infuriated at Wikipedia regarding the recent scandal regarding his role in the Kennedy Assassination, came into the house, where Jim was having dinner. Wearing a mask, he [sic] shot him three times in the head and ran,"
 * Wikipedia according to .Wikipedia founder 'shot by friend of Siegenthaler'" (December 17, 2005)

 * Why do Wikipedians perform these millions of hours of labor, some expended on a giant straw goat, without pay? Because they don't experience them as labor. “It's a misconception people work for free,” Wales told the site Hacker Noon in 2018. “They have fun for free.” A 2011 survey of more than 5,000 Wikipedia contributors listed “It's fun” as one of the primary reasons they edited the site.
 * Wikipedia Is the Last Best Place on the Internet, By Richard Cooke, Wired, (17 Feb 2020)

 * In 2000, 10 months before Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger cofounded Wikipedia, the pair started a site called Nupedia, planning to source articles from noted scholars and put them through seven rounds of editorial oversight. But the site never got off the ground; after a year, there were fewer than two dozen entries. (Wales, who wrote one of them himself, told The New Yorker “it felt like homework.”) When Sanger got wind of a collaborative software tool called a wiki—from the Hawaiian wikiwiki, or “quickly”—he and Wales decided to set one up as a means of generating raw material for Nupedia. They assumed nothing good would come of it, but within a year Wikipedia had 20,000 articles. By the time Nupedia's servers went down a year later, the original site had become a husk, and the seed it carried had grown beyond any expectation... Sanger left Wikipedia in early 2003...
 * Wikipedia Is the Last Best Place on the Internet, By Richard Cooke, Wired, (17 Feb 2020)

 * At Jimmy Wales' wedding, one of the maids of honor toasted him as the sole internet mogul who wasn't a billionaire.
 * Wikipedia Is the Last Best Place on the Internet, By Richard Cooke, Wired, (17 Feb 2020)

title: Jimmy Wales