Bill Hillman's

Issue No. 009
Presents


MOTES & QUOTES IX
BARSOOMIAN QUOTES
Compiled by Bill Hillman

From the Mouths of ERBabes...Ejaculations, Exclamations, Emissions, Exchanges, Eloquence, Enumerations, Endorsements, Elaborations, Embellishments, Enlightenments, Entanglements, Enticements, Entreatments, Evincements, Exonerations, Explanations...and...ah...other neat stuff...and even quotes from and around...
JOHN CARTER - WARLORD OF MARS

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"I know that you are interested and that you believe, and I know that the world, too, is interested, though they will not believe for many years; yes, for many ages, since they cannot understand." (GMFW) Carter's words to ERB.

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John Carter’s Favourite Jasoom Colloquialisms

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John Carter made relatively few visits to Earth after his miraculous transportation to his beloved adopted home Barsoom. His formative years (and the occasional contact with his former planet), however, left him with a legacy of Terranian colloquialisms. Here is a partial list of some of the phrases which reflect his North American English heritage: Keep in mind that Burroughs had a hand in many of the Carter manuscripts and that Synthetic Men of Mars was translated into English and sent by Gridley Wave to ERB.)

“It was all Greek to me...,” PM
“What do you make of it all?...Where in the deuce are we?” GM
“In the nick of time,” WM
“Right you are,” WM
“God alone knows...” SM
“...in cold blood” SM
“Sultan of Swat” ( Babe Ruth influence here) LG
“...I surely could not respect a bag of bones” JCM
“...he came back with a haymaker that I ducked, “ JCM
"As Earth men say, we are between the devil and the deep blue sea, Tars Tarkus," GM
"There is no question about it, John Carter." MMM14 (The first words spoken by one Earthman, Paxton, to another, JC, on Barsoom.)
The term “fagged out” appears numerous times in Carter’s speech.

"Shadow of my first ancestor." CM4
"Our ancestors are with us to-night" FMM4
"May my ancestors forgive me!" FMM/5
"Blood of our first ancestor!" FMM12

"The Gods sent you." CM8
"...the head is useless when the heart usurps its functions..." CM14
"You have no right to assume aught else than my lips testify." CM18
"The eyes are oftimes more eloquent than the lips..." CM18
"To be abused, even by the mistress of one's heart is better than to be ignored." CM18
"...the voiceless message in the air..." CM20 (Rumours)
"I admire the will, but fear that the flesh is without sufficient strength." MMM8
"Dark as the depths of Omean." FMM4
"...first thoughts are often inspirations, while sober afterthought may lead to failure, or so delay action as to nullify all its effect." FMM11 (Similar to He who hesitates is lost.)
"You shall find a home in the house of my father and a mother in my mother." FMM14
"You haven't the brains of a sorak." SMM7
"It is the character that makes the man, not the clay which is its abode." SMM30
"I want to make more than enough to feed my wife's sorak." LG-2/7
"...he's as mean as an ulsio." LG-3/5
"...that son of a calot..." LG-3/5
"If it has happened or is going to happen, the market place knows it." LG-3/11
"We have the Princess." (LG-4/8) (Jetan term similar to our "It's in the bag.")

"All Barsoomians speak the same tongue from the ice-clad south to the ice-clad north, though their written languages differ. Only in the valley Dor, where the river Iss empties into the lost sea of Korus, is there supposed to be a different language spoken, and, except in the legends of our ancestors, there is no record of a Barsoomian returning up the river Iss." DT 

"My sword, my body, my life, my soul are yours to do with as you wish. Until death after death I look to you alone for authority for my every act. Be you right or wrong, your word shall be my only truth. Whoso raises his hand against you must answer to my sword..."
"...accept from John Carter upon his sacred honor the assurance that he will never call upon you to draw this sword other than in the cause of truth, justice and righteousness." GM16

"War never brought peace--it but brings more and greater wars. War is Nature's natural state--it is folly to combat it." MMM9
"The fate of a friend transcends that of a planet." SMM30
"It is the character that makes the man, not the clay which is its abode." SMM30
"...if one of them ever dropped his egotism and broke it it would take a week to fumigate Helium." CM6 (JC on intellectual snobbery)

"Nonchalance is a corollary of poise." SM7
"Eyes speak the truth more often than the lips." SM9
"The fate of a friend transcendds that of a planet." SMM30
"No matter how instinctively gregarious one may be there are times when one longs for solitude." LG-1/1
"Moping seems to be the natural state of all lovers." LG-3/1

ERB: "This man...who had dandled my granfather's great grandfather upon his knee...."

PM Narrator: "My first recollection of Captain Carter is of the few months he spent at my father's home in Virginia, just prior to the opening of the Civil War. I was then a child of but five years."

"Why attempt to explain the inexplicable?" CMFW

"...I do not know how old I am. I recall no childhood. I have always appeared to be about thirty years old. I still do.... Perhaps I am the materialization of some long dead warrior of another age. Who knows?"  LG

"There is no hope, there is no hope, the dead return not, the dead return not, nor is there any resurrection. Hope not, fo rthere is not hope." GM3 (Thern warning to those who reach "Heaven" in the Valley Dor)

"Leave to a Thark his head and one hand and he may yet conquer." GM4

"Man builds naught that man may not destroy." TMM2

"...the lower orders that stupidly float down an unknown river to an unknown land..." GM8 (The contempt shown by priests for the Barsoomians of the outside world)

"...that pitiful purgatory peopled by the poor unfortunates who dare not continue their abandoned pilgrimage to Dor..." (WM4) Reference to the Valley of Lost Souls by JC

"The Martians are a happy people; they have no lawyers." PM9

"...absolute perfection is as little to be desired as its its antithesis." CM6 (Tara's observations on the Kaldanes.)
"If there is an Almighty God he may resent this usurpation of his prerogatives." SMM7 (JC about Ras Thavas' experiments.)

"But wars are not won by defensive methods." SMJ4

"Cluros, the further moon, rode high in the heavens, lighting dimly the streets of Zodanga like a dusty bulb in a huge loft..." (SM8) JC

"The last of the great oceans... Its eventual passing will doubtless mark the passing of a world, and Mars will hurtle on through all eternity peopled by not even a memory of its past grandeur." SMM30 JC while in the Toonolian Marshes.)

"The knowledge and the arts of the ancients are beyond the ken of modern man." LG-1/5