This troper's friend once told him "The past is behind us, the future hasn't come, but now is a gift, which is why it's call the present." The semantic nonsense of that sentence and the smug look of total self-satisfaction on his face after he said that made me want to punch him.

This troper recently had an English assignment entitled "Twenty Little Poetry Projects," which required each line (or number of lines specified in the prompt) to use a specific rhetorical device/dialogue trope. For Line #17, the assignment's instructions were to "make a declarative statement that sounds convincing but finally makes no sense." In case anyone is wondering, this troper wrote, for her meaningless meaningful sentence, "Hope for tomorrow is the result of knowing the past will never come and today, never go." Crap, but at least it ''looks'' meaningful, right?

A few months ago, this troper gave his little brother a piece of advice that basically boiled down to this: #QUOTE# Fishbreath: The first time I went golfing I'd never been golfing either.

Actually, I have a line similar to that. I always say, "Before they were famous, famous people weren't famous." It sounds pointless at first, but it does has a meaning. Namely, that if the famous people had never seen themselves as ever becoming famous, they wouldn't have. Or, succintly, "don't judge the future based on the past."

MWchase, trying not to spoil the plot of RODTheTV: #QUOTE# We must look to the future that exists within the past.

I'm moderately sure this makes no sense until you've gotten to the last few episodes, at which point it tells you nothing that you don't already know.

From ''MetalGearSolid'', which usually interprets these pretty well: #QUOTE# '''Mei Ling''': Snake, in China they say, "When walking through a melon patch, don't adjust your sandals." That means that when things get really bad, you have to try to remember what's important. Keep things in the proper perspective, okay? % The usual interpretation of this proverb is ''don’t make it look like you’re doing fishy business''. This troper nearly sneezed at this one.

In computer science, I have created a game of hangman which can be neither won nor lost. Whoops. It's a very Zen mistake.

Out of curiosity, what happened?

Literal Ice Cream Koan here! This Troper was at Baskin Robins today and the wallpaper was covered in ice cream themed quotes. This one made This Troper want to bash his head against the wall: "Variety is the ice of life". If ANYTHING was the "variety" in ice cream, it would be the wide variety of flavors. I tried to see the other perspective, but I JUST COULDN'T.

What a waste. "Variety is the flavor of life" would've actually started to make sense.

"If you know immediately that the flame is a candle, the meal was cooked long ago." If you know X is X, then x must not be a likely possibility. Unfortunately, I always transposed "candle" with "flame", and "...the candle is a flame..." is completely meaningless. Thanks, TVTropes, you taught me that something I always thought was cool was meaningless!

I thought the line was "realize that candlelight is fire". Now I have to find that episode. Would make a good entry for a Pop Koan.

I recently found out that the page koan doesn't work as an ice cream koan. "If you have ice cream, I will give it to you." You mean you'll give me ''more'' ice cream, even though I already have some? Thanks! "If you have no ice cream, I will take it away from you." You'll take my lack of ice cream for yourself? You mean you'll give me '''all''' your ice cream? Wow, what a swell guy! Then again, maybe it's a koan saying, "Don't read too deeply into things."

ThisTroper 's mother favoured the following: #QUOTE# A leaf of lettuce #QUOTE# Falls out of the salad bowl. #QUOTE# So what?

This troper once admired the chanting in ''{{Bleach}}'' whenever a character would call an attack. During the recent arcs, the troper realized Tite Kubo is simply pulling random words out of his ass, and cannot watch the earliest episodes with any attack calls in them anymore without cringing. The manga makes it somehow more profound though. Kubo is more of a poet than anything else.

From my brother: "The best things always happen when the camera is off, or at home." Come to think of it, it's pretty much true.

I saw a Facebook post that said "It's easy to make a friend, but it's harder to make a stranger." That is just...sorry, ''no''.