The Secret

The most direct path to achievement whether you're an entrepreneur, a company executive, or a pro soccer player is to be a great performer and a great team member. This is also the secret to a meaningful career and self-fulfillment.

~ Maynard Webb ~

Nice Hat...

Everyone likes flattery; and when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel.

~ Benjamin Disraeli ~
Photo courtesy New York Social Diary.

Everyone Should Have a Bookshelf!

Behind every writer stands a very large bookshelf.

~ Justin Cronin ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The cat sits on the ledge inside the window and watches me returning
through the dusk. Predictable as the hands of a clock,
the eyes of the cat are on my return.

~ Ciaran O'Driscoll ~
Photo by Chris Carter.

It's the Least You Can Do

If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.

~ Dorothy Parker ~

Poetry Friday

And what is "the wild mind," anyway? Can we find a way to bring it into our poetry? Might poetry itself be a kind of "wild mind" on the page? And I love the way we glimpse a wild creature sometimes—with a fleeting sense of its presence that immediately vanishes into its own world. The effect is like poetry itself, sometimes.

~ Michael Hettich ~

Good Thing He Was Never Asked!

If the Almighty were to rebuild the world and asked me for advice, I would have English Channels round every country. And the atmosphere would be such that anything which attempted to fly would be set on fire.

~ Winston Churchill ~

Ha, Ha!

Camping is nature's way of promoting the motel business.

~ Dave Barry ~
Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Chess

...what chess teaches you is that you must sit there calmly and think about whether it's really a good idea and whether there are other, better ideas.

~ Stanley Kubrick ~

You Can't Beat a Good Knock-Knock Joke!

Knock knock!
Who's there?
Little old lady?
Little old lady who?
I didn't know you could yodel!

Sundays Kat Kwote

If it be true that all remarkable human beings resemble animals, then Walt Whitman was like a cat--a great old grey Angora Tom, alert in response, serenely blinking under his combed waves of hair, with eyes inscrutably dreaming.

~ Edmund Gosse ~






1854 Whitman photo courtesy Library of Congress. Cat photo by Valerian Gaudeau.

Not Obvious Enough!

I think to a great degree, we humans still divide ourselves into two species, even though we are monotypic. There are males and females. We see them as different and not equal. Things get better when women get more equality. That is a bit obvious but I think it leads to better results up the road. If it’s a man’s world as they say, then men, your world is a poorly run carnage fest.

~ Henry Rollins ~

Poetry Friday

Click here for an article about Moore.

Remembering Marc Simont

Armed with his small "Scribble-In" brand sketchbooks purchased at a five-and-ten-cent store near the Academy, Simont drew in subways, bars, and other public places around town where, as he says, it was possible to work unnoticed, like a "bug in a fold in the curtain." Sketching in this way became a lifelong habit.

~ Leonard Marcus ~

When Playing Cards...

One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.

~ Oscar Wilde ~
Photo by Sam Teigen.

The Patty Group

Mother Nature clearly intended for us to get our food from the "patty" group, which includes hamburgers, fish sticks, and McNuggets--foods that have had all of their organs safely removed.

~ Dave Barry ~
Photo by Christopher Chen.

A Lighthouse

Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all the others were making ships.

~ Charles Simic ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Performing cats, however, are seldom to be seen in circuses or vaudeville. They are most difficult to train, not because they are stupid but because they are too intelligent to be interested in such nonsense. A cat is never vulgar and this sort of thing undoubtedly strikes a cat as vulgar.

~ Carl Van Vechten ~






Poster courtesy Library of Congress.

Truly Regrettable

The only thing I regret is that I will never have time to read all the books I want to read.

~ Francoise Sagan ~
Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Poetry Friday

To him, all good things--trout as well as eternal salvation--come by grace, and grace comes by art, and art does not come easy.

~ Norman Maclean from A River Runs Through It ~
Renoir's "Rainbow Trout," courtesy The Athenaeum.

Is This a Good Thing?

Human nature is like water. It takes the shape of its container.

~ Wallace Stevens ~

Ah, the Seashore...

Every time I have some moment on a seashore, or in the mountains, or sometimes in a quiet forest, I think this is why the environment has to be preserved.

~ Bill Bradley ~
Photo by Jody Roberts.

You Are a Fountain?

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

~ Marcus Aurelius ~
Bethesda Fountain, Central Park, courtesy NYPL Digital Library.

Fishing

It is to be observed that 'angling' is the name given to fishing by people who can't fish.

~ Stephen Leacock ~




Illustration courtesy NYPL Digital Library.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

IV

The cat walks across the board game.
The whims of fate
cast furry shadows.

~ Tabatha Yeatts from "Thirteen Ways of Looking at Emma" ~

Photo by Eleftheria G .

Everyone's Reading!

WPA Art Project poster courtesy Library of Congress.

Poetry Friday

Sometimes I write quickly, sometimes I spend several weeks on a single poem. I would really love for readers not to be able to guess which of the poems took so much work!

~ Wislawa Szymborska ~

Happy 4th of July!

Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.

~ Adlai Stevenson ~
"Independence Day" by John Califano (1900), courtesy The Athenaeum.

A Balanced Diet

Food is an important part of a balanced diet.

~ Fran Lebowitz ~

What Is It?

It ain't the heat, it's the humility.

~ Yogi Berra ~





Baseball Digest, September 1956 issue cover courtesy Wikipedia.

What To Do This Summer?

Summer is a great time to visit art museums, which offer the refreshing rinse of swimming pools--only instead of cool water, you immerse yourself in art.

~ Jerry Saltz ~
Photo by Robert Banh.