Happy Halloween!

From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!

~ Traditional Scottish prayer ~

Isn't It Better to Learn to Work Together?

Men think they think upon the great political questions, and they do; but they think with their party, not independently; they read its literature, but not that of the other side.

~ Mark Twain ~

Oooh...Scary

We go by the major vote, and if the majority are insane, the sane must go to the hospital.

~ Horace Mann ~

I Think Writers All Agree

Talking is a hydrant in the yard and writing is a faucet upstairs in the house. Opening the first takes the pressure off the second.

~ Robert Frost ~

You Still Can Make Egg Salad Out of a 20-Minute Egg

Photo by fille_de_photo
I have met a lot of hardboiled eggs in my time, but you're twenty minutes.

~ Oscar Wilde ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

With the qualities of cleanliness, affection, patience, dignity, and courage that cats have, how many of us, I ask you, would be capable of becoming cats?

~ Fernand Mery ~

Not Just Weakness, But Laziness

To swallow and follow, whether old doctrine or new propaganda, is a weakness still dominating the human mind.

~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman ~

Poetry Friday

If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.

~ Emily Dickinson ~

Poor Dollies

Do dolls invite abuse, with their dent-able heads,
those tight little painted-on or stitched-in grins?
Hurt me, big botched being, they whine in a dialect
only puritans and the frequently punished can hear.

~ Amy Gerstler from "Touring the Doll Hospital" ~

Read the complete poem here.

I Think I Disagree...

A movie is not a book. If the source material is a book, you cannot be too respectful of the book. All you owe to the book is the spirit.

~ Graham Greene ~

Oooh...Sounds Dangerous

Hungry man, reach for the book: it is a weapon.

~ Bertolt Brecht ~

Well-Dressed

I have heard with admiring submission the experience of the lady who declared that the sense of being perfectly well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility which religion is powerless to bestow.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

When you're special to a cat, you're special indeed...she brings to you the gift of her preference of you, the sight of you, the sound of your voice, the touch of your hand.

~ Lester B. Pearson ~

Change Is Gonna Come

There've been times that I've thought I couldn't last for long,
But, now I think I'm able to carry on.
It's been a long time coming.
But, I know, a change is gonna come.

~ Sam Cooke ~

I Never Knew...

My mother used to have little words of wisdom for each and every situation. I just assumed they were all folk sayings or momisms. I heard many times, "Tell the truth and shame the devil." Until today, I never knew it came from Shakespeare!

O! while you live, tell the truth,
And shame the devil!

Sadly True

American youth attributes much more importance to arriving at driver's license age than at voting age.

~ Marshall McLuhan ~

No Longer Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs?

More often than not, I've found, a rut is a consequence of sticking to tried and tested methods that don't take into account how you or the world has changed. It's like your mother serving you the same breakfast you loved as a child. You push the meal away half-eaten and she says, "But you always loved Cocoa Puffs and pork sausage." That was then, this is now.

Age

The old believe everything; the middle aged suspect everything; the young know everything.

~ Oscar Wilde ~

Columbus Day

I also hate those holidays that fall on a Monday where you don't get mail, those fake holidays like Columbus Day. What did Christopher Columbus do, discover America? If he hadn't, somebody else would have and we'd still be here. Big deal.

~ John Waters ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Photo by Tara Severns

Come I will teach you to dance as naturally
as falling asleep and waking and stretching long, long.

~ Marge Piercy from "The Cat's Song" ~

Human Kindness

I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings. I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and angels.

~ Pearl S. Buck ~

Poetry Friday

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture and, if possible, speak a few reasonable words.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ~

Yes!

Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.

~ Ray Bradbury ~

On the Eve of Destruction?

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

~ Abraham Lincoln ~

Look Outside Today

Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, it is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their progress.

~ Charles Dickens ~

Have You Taken a Child to a Museum Lately?

The Smithsonian long ago.

Most convicted felons are just people who were not taken to museums or Broadway musicals as children.

~ Libby Gelman-Waxner ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

In memory of Bitz.

Big droplet tears are shed for yesterday, but are dried in time for tomorrow, until all that remain are foggy, broken memories of a happy yesteryear.

~ Daniela Gallo ~

Keep Smiling

In the time of your life, live--so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite variety and mystery of it.

~ William Saroyan ~

Poetry Friday

People wish to be poets more than they wish to write poetry, and that's a mistake. One should wish to celebrate more than one wishes to be celebrated.

~ Lucille Clifton ~

October is Archaeology Month

Archaeology is the peeping Tom of the sciences. It is the sandbox of men who care not where they are going; they merely want to know where everyone else has been.

~ Jim Bishop ~

The Elephant

Nature's great masterpiece, an elephant--the only harmless great thing.

~ John Donne ~