Different Seasons

there's no harm in hoping for the best as long as you're prepared for the worst.

Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.

Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.

Am I weird?" "Yeah. But so what? Everybody's weird.

I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12 - Jesus, did you?

It's a little place on the Pacific Ocean. You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific? They say it has no memory. That's where I want to live the rest of my life. A warm place with no memory.

I have to remind myself that some birds aren’t meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright.

Andy Dufresne: 'That's the beauty of music. They can't get that from you...haven't you ever felt that way about music?' Red: 'I played a mean harmonica as a younger man. Lost interest in it though. Didn't make much sense in here.' Andy: 'Here's where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don't forget.' Red: 'Forget?' Andy: 'Forget that...there are places in this world that aren't made out of stone. That there's something inside...that they can't get to, that they can't touch. That's yours.' Red: 'What're you talking about?' Andy: 'Hope.

Until we see each other again, keep your head together, read some good books, be useful, be happy.

The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.

In spite of the problems he was having he was going on with his life. There are thousands who don’t or won’t or can’t and plenty of them aren’t in prison either.

And I guess you judge how well you're doing by how well you sleep at night... and what your dreams are like.

No, it’s not a very good story - its author was too busy listening to other voices to listen as closely as he should have to the one coming from inside.

Time continued to pass - the oldest trick in the world, and maybe the only one that really is magic.

no one dies happy, you can only die well

Some birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.

Terrible thing to live in fear. Brooks Hatlen knew it. Knew it all too well. All I want is to be back where things make sense. Where I won't have to be afraid all the time.

Things come in three major degrees in the human experience, I think. There's good, bad, and terrible. And as you go down into progressive darkness towards terrible, it gets harder and harder to make subdivisions.

One does not always need to hear a slam to know that the door has been closed.

some birds aren`t ment to be caged... their feathers are just to bright....

What it comes down to, Red, is some people refuse to get their hands dirty at all. That's called sainthood, and the pigeons land on your shoulders and crap all over your shirt.

Speech destroys the functions of love, I think—that’s a hell of a thing for a writer to say, I guess, but I believe it to be true. If you speak to tell a deer you mean it no harm, it glides away with a single flip of its tail. The word is the harm. Love isn’t what these asshole poets like McKuen want you to think it is. Love has teeth; they bite; the wounds never close. No word, no combination of words, can close those lovebites. It’s the other way around, that’s the joke. If those wounds dry up, the words die with them. Take it from me. I’ve made my life from the words, and I know that is so.

The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them—words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.

Music on the radio. When I went in, the big bands were just getting up a good head of steam. Now every song sounds like it's about fucking.

As I believe I have said, everyone in prison is an innocent man. Oh, they read the scripture the way those holy rollers on TV read the Book of Revelations. They were the victims of judges with hearts of stone and balls to match, or incompetent lawyers, or police frame-ups, or bad luck. They read the scripture, but you can see a different scripture in their faces. Most cons are a low sort, no good to themselves or anyone else, and their worst luck was that their mothers carried them to term.

I don’t have to listen to rumors about a man when I can judge him for myself.

In here I'm the guy who can get things for you... outside all you need is the Yellow Pages. I don't think I could make it.