I have read in my earlier years about prisoners in the revolutionary war, and other wars. It sounded noble and heroic to be a prisoner of war, and accounts of their adventures were quite romantic; but the romance has been knocked out of the prisoner of war business, higher than a kite. It's a fraud.
~ from the diary of John L. Ransom, prisoner at Andersonville ~
Strangely enough, politics may just be the one realm in which having kids imposes no penalty on women. Kids are practically a necessity. For scientists, or Supreme Court justices, or chief executives, or the woman who wants to learn to fly F-l8s off an aircraft carrier, it works differently.
Your part is equivalent to the part you place in your everyday life to keep yourself safe: You know which alleys not to walk down at night, when to buckle your seatbelt, when to lock the front door, and when to toss the moldy bread before making a sandwich. Add these to your list:
I use my Facebook privacy settings wisely.
I am careful about what information I expose to lots of people.
~ Carolyn Abram and Leah Pearlman from Facebook for Dummies ~
For me, problem solving is a normal part of the art-making process, regardless of the media used. If something happens that I don't like, a creative fix usually results in something better than if I hadn't taken that interesting detour.
A bookstore cat is a shop's mascot and keeper, equally adept at charming customers and, when the lights go out, chasing away rodents. And so let us celebrate these furry souls--hopefully not an endangered species!--as more and more readers get their books delivered in shrink-wrapped packages from out-of-state corporate behemoths, or transmitted, in blips, to hand-held devices no cat would ever want to cuddle up to.
Once when a lady was visiting the painter Matisse in his studio, she remarked 'But surely, the arm of this woman is much too long!' Matisse replied politely 'Madame, you are mistaken. This is not a woman; this is a picture.'
To conceive of a world without physical books is to conceive of a world somehow diminished. It may be more efficient—yes, you can take a "stack" of books on vacation with an e-reader. It may spare quite a few forests from the pulpmaker’s ax. But efficiency is no substitute for pleasure. The future may be less cluttered. It may also be less fun.
LIBRARY To dream that you are in a library, denotes that you will grow discontented with your environments and associations, and seek companionship in study and the exploration of ancient customs.
~ Gustavus H. Miller from 10,000 Dreams Interpreted ~
The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who, in their grueling travels across trackless lands in prehistoric times, looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space, at full speed, above all obstacles, on the infinite highway of the air.
Toys are among the most important human artifacts. They are learning tools. By guiding play, they foster imagination, creativity, and critical thinking. They socialize us and teach fairness. They reveal what we believed and valued, encouraged and endorsed, dismissed and feared. They remind us of who we were, who we are, and who we hope to become. They help us imagine what’s next.