I Hope He's Right

It is good to realize that if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our children to honor nature's gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever.

~ Jimmy Carter ~
Photo by Shawn Hayes.

Yes, Go to the Library!

If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.

~ Frank Zappa ~

Everybody Sing!

It's practically impossible to look at a penguin and feel angry.

~ Joe Moore ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

...In the pewter mornings, the cat,
a black fur sausage with yellow
Houdini eyes, jumps up on the bed and tries
to get onto my head.

~ Margaret Atwood from "February." ~

Photo by stychy.

The Truth

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

~ Oscar Wilde ~

Poetry Friday

Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.

~ Bertolt Brecht ~





Photo by ho visto nina volare.

Faery Songs

Illustration by Edmund Dulac courtesy Project Gutenberg.

Happy World Day of Social Justice

I want my fair share--and that's ALL of it.

~ Charles Koch ~
I guess Mr. Koch won't be honoring this special day. To learn about World Day of Social Justice, click here.

Names

And so with all things: names were vital and important.

~ Algernon H. Blackwood ~

Happy President's Day!

Property as compared with humanity, as compared with the red blood in the American people, must take second place, not first place.

~ Woodrow Wilson ~



Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The organization of cats is musical; they are capable of giving many modulations to their voices and in the different passions which occupy them they use diverse tones.

~ F. A. Paradis de Moncrif ~

1805 engraving courtesy Library of Congress.

Common Sense

And for me, to live in fear of you and your unnecessary fears, that’s not Freedom, nor is that Liberty. A gun doesn’t make a fearful person brave, it only makes you a fearful person with a gun…and I can’t think of a worse combination in this society for the rest of us. That’s why I support treating a gun the way we treat owning a car or buying a box of Sudafed, like it may just be a big enough deal to have a few rules, since they have the power to end an innocent life.

More than 12,000 a year, to be more precise.

~ Vince Yanez ~

Poetry Friday

Poets write, I do believe, because they have to--it's something nothing else quite satisfies. One has to do it--compulsively.

~ Robert Creeley ~

Happy Valentine's Day to All!

Love is a human experience, not a political statement.

~ Anne Hathaway ~
Image courtesy Open Clip Art Library.

What is Art?

True Art is an organized piece of work that effectively communicates a genuine human experience.

~ Caleb Jacobo ~
13th century Chinese fan courtesy ibiblio.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Sorry, you'll probably have an earworm for the rest of the day. --KK

Valentine's Day Is Coming

'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
      Till China and Africa meet,
             And the river jumps over the mountain
                  And the salmon sing in the street,

~ W. H. Auden ~

Poetry Friday

I could never, even as a child, see any good reason why the language of verse should be distorted almost out of recognition in order to be poetical.

~ Edwin Arlington Robinson ~





Photo courtesy Maine Historical Society.

Yes, We Do!

The audience likes to be taken on new journeys.

~ David Copperfield ~

Train Station

The energy in a train station is an odd combination of adrenaline and boredom; anticipation for the destination tempered by impatience at how long it's taking to get there.

~ Beth Novey ~
Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Proverbial Wisdom

A bad word whispered will echo a hundred miles.

~ Chinese proverb ~
Courtesy New York Public Library Digital Gallery.

Not Quite Sure I Get This One!

I shall not die of a cold. I shall die of having lived.

~ Willa Cather ~




Photo courtesy the Willa Cather Archive.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

It is not worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar.

~ Henry David Thoreau ~
Photo by katstan.

From "On the Grasshopper and Cricket"

The Poetry of earth is never dead.

~ John Keats ~
Photo by Striving to a Goal.

Poetry Friday

Most of the time, poetry enjoys the visibility of other minor cultural subcultures like chess or quilting.

~ Anita Diamant ~
Cover of The Patchwork Quilt, a book of poetry, courtesy Baylor University Libraries Digital Collections.