How Sad Is This?

Every time a child says, "I don’t believe in fairies," there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.

~ J.M. Barrie from Peter Pan ~

An Admirable Hobby

I took up a sort of a hobby of just hanging around the local library. I'd pick out an author and I would read all their books.

~ Tom T. Hall ~

Photo by Kevin H.

Fishing

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.

~ Henry David Thoreau ~

R.I.P. Peter Falk

Usually, I get hired because I'm tall.

~ Peter Falk ~



Sketch by Peter Falk courtesy PeterFalk.com.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

If there were to be a universal sound depicting peace, I would surely vote for the purr.

~ Barbara L. Diamond ~

Photo by spear of the nation

The Power of Imagination

...you will find with the proper use of "imagination" almost all the problems in one's life and possibly the world would vanish as if they were illusions.

~ Sidney Madwed ~

Poetry Friday

That's how poetry has always been for me. It's been a way of sustaining my questions about life and mortality and all those things that we don't like to talk about, but they're always there, you know, knocking on the window.

~ Charles Wright ~

Write Your Own Ending

Life's like a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing, keep pretending.

~ Kermit the Frog from "The Rainbow Connection Finale" ~

Stories

The richest most meaningful stories are found in small places: made, carried, crafted, told, and retold by apparently unimportant people.

~ Louise Brown ~

Music Is a Gift

A singer starts by having his instrument as a gift from God...When you have been given something in a moment of grace, it is sacrilegious to be greedy.

~ Marian Anderson ~

Photo by Carl Van Vechten courtesy Library of Congress.

The Big (Hearted) Man

I do read music, but I prefer playing from the heart.

~ Clarence Clemons ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

They say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, "Can he name a kitten?"

~ Samuel Butler ~






Photo by PDXdj.

Summer's Here

Long stormy spring-time, wet contentious April, winter chilling the lap of very May; but at length the season of summer does come.

~ Thomas Carlyle ~

Poetry Friday

Poetry fettered, fetters the human race. Nations are destroyed or flourish in proportion as their poetry, painting, and music are destroyed or flourish.

~ William Blake ~

A "W"

I cannot remember back to a year in which I did not consider myself to be a writer, and the younger I was the bigger the capital "W."

~ Maud Hart Lovelace ~

Let It Shine!

But what I hope for from a book--either one that I write or one that I read--is transparency. I want the story to shine through. I don't want to think of the writer.

~ Anne Tyler ~

"Pernicious" Is a Little Strong

Know thyself! A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever observes himself arrests his own development. A caterpillar who wanted to know itself well would never become a butterfly.

~ Andre Gide ~

Photo by Michael McDonough.

Teamwork

I'm not under too much of an illusion of how smart or un-smart I am, because filmmaking ultimately is about teamwork.

~ Guy Ritchie ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Long hair, soft as satin,
    A musical purr,
'Gainst the window she'd flatten
    Her delicate fur

~ Frederick Locker-Lampson from "Loulou and Her Cat" ~

Photo by sean94110.

Extremes

Our age knows nothing but reaction, and leaps from one extreme to another.

~ Reinhold Niebuhr ~

Image courtesy Open Clip Art Library.

Poetry Friday

A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.

~ W. H. Auden ~

Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

History is Not a Political Issue

The Archivist of the United States essentially works for the American people across partisan lines and not, regardless of which Administration nominates the person, for a particular President or political party.

~ Allen Weinstein ~

Photo courtesy National Archives.

Comics

I found one remaining box of comics which I had saved. When I opened it up and that smell came pouring out, that old paper smell, I was struck by a rush of memories, a sense of my childhood self that seemed to be contained in there.

~ Michael Chabon ~

Weddings

Christmas carols always brought tears to my eyes. I also cry at weddings. I should have cried at a couple of my own.

~ Ethel Merman ~

Does anyone remember Ethel Merman? --KK

And We're Happy He Did It!

It's a precious thing to be communicating to children, helping them discover the gift of language and thought. I'm happy to be doing it.

~ Richard Scarry ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Cats eat catnip excitedly,
Get drunk and jump around

~ Howard Moss from "Catnip and Dogwood" ~

Smudge in a drunken stupor on a catnip mat.

'Tis the Season

In the span of my own lifetime I observed such wondrous progress in plant evolution that I look forward optimistically to a healthy, happy world as soon as its children are taught the principles of simple and rational living.
~ Luther Burbank ~

Poetry Friday

If I could catch the green lantern of the firefly
I could see to write you a letter.

~ Amy Lowell "A Lover" ~



Note: this is the complete poem--only two lines!

Photo by art farmer.

Much Better!

Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.

~ Wendell Berry ~
Photo by adwriter.

Really?

If I have to spend time in purgatory before going to one place or the other, I guess I'll be all right as long as there's a lending library.

~ Stephen King ~