The Wish Remains...

I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves.

~ Mary Shelley ~

So Obvious!

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.

~ Albert Einstein ~







Photo by F. Schmutzer, courtesy Wikipedia.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Her head is under the cat and
like the cat, she sleeps.

~ Susan Griffin from "The Perfect Mother" ~

Photo by Daveybot.

It's Probably Harder Today!

I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.

~ Isaac Newton ~

Poetry Friday

Who will guard over the fragile blossom of haiku poetry? Who will protect it in our own time against all that threatens it: societal indifference to poetry in general, materialism, a blindness to nature and our absolute inclusion in it, and, structurally, the heresy that "haiku" can be any utterance written in 5-7-5 syllables, or the recent disturbing trend of defining as haiku short, obtuse, experimental language games that only seem to proclaim the poet's cleverness for cleverness's sake? Who, indeed, will guard over haiku?

~ David Lanoue ~

Losing My Mind

I must be losing my mind. I forgot yesterday, and nearly forgot to post today! --KK

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

~ Buddha ~

Houdini

Houdini connected to people on an emotional level so that when he would escape that straight jacket it wasn't about the straight jacket. It was about people looking at it and escaping poverty. When you have that it's the truest form of magic.

~ Criss Angel ~

Sage Advice

My advice to other disabled people would be, concentrate on things your disability doesn't prevent you doing well, and don't regret the things it interferes with. Don't be disabled in spirit as well as physically.

~ Stephen Hawking ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The black kitten cries at her bowl
meek meek and the gray one glowers
from the windowsill. My hand on the can
to serve them. First day of spring.

~ Gail Mazur from "I Wish I Want I Need" ~

Photo by jambox998.

Communication

A writer writes not because he is educated, but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood. The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others.

~ Leo Rosten ~

Poetry Friday

Everything is complicated; if that were not so, life and poetry and everything else would be a bore.

~ Wallace Stevens ~




Photo from The Wallace Stevens Society website.

Do You Hear Yourself Living?

I would like to spend the rest of my days in a place so silent--and working at a pace so slow--that I would be able to hear myself living.

~ Elizabeth Gilbert from The Signature of All Things ~

Landscaping

All gardening is landscape painting.

~ William Kent ~
Image courtesy Wikipedia.

Series Books

The most difficult book I wrote was the fourth in a series of linked children's books. It was like pulling teeth because the publisher wanted exactly the same but completely different. I'd much rather just do something completely different, even if there's a risk of it going wrong.

~ Mark Haddon ~

Writers Learn From Their Own Books!

With every book, you go back to school. You become a student. You become an investigative reporter. You spend a little time learning what it's like to live in someone else's shoes.

~ John Irving ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

We

The single-most powerful word in our democracy is the word "we." We the People. We shall overcome. Yes we can. That word is owned by no one. It belongs to everyone.

~ Barack Obama ~

Poetry Friday

Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.

~ Plato ~

Happy Birthday, Jack Kerouac!

Something that you feel will find its own form.

~ Jack Kerouac ~
Photo courtesy Wikipedia.

Books

My favorite books are the ones that make me smile for hours after reading them. I want that for my readers, for the sweetness to linger. Sort of like chocolate, but without the calories.

~ Sarah Addison Allen ~

Indeed!

Courtesy PBS.

Maybe His Next Book Will Be a Cookbook

I have a lot of fans who are in the prison system, where ramen noodles are a kind of staple. Prisoners are always sending me recipes.

~ Chuck Palahniuk ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

There is one thing that cats don't like any better than men and women do, and that is to make fools of themselves.

~ Helen Hunt Jackson ~

You Go, Girl!

I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life, and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.

~ Georgia O'Keeffe ~
Photo by Alfred Stieglitz, courtesy Wikipedia.

Poetry Friday

A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman.

~ Wallace Stevens ~
"Love" by Gustav Klimt, courtesy The Athenaeum.

A Little of This, A Little of That

Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.

~ Arthur Schopenhauer ~

Records Broken

The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for 2014 was the highest among all years since record keeping began in 1880. The December combined global land and ocean average surface temperature was also the highest on record.

~ NOAA ~

Spring!

Spring is nature's way of saying, "Let's party!"

~ Robin Williams ~

Don't Mess With Crows!

Given that crows have impressive memories, people who ruffle the feathers of these birds could experience years of retribution.

~ Jennifer Viegas ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

It is unclear which is larger, the number of dog lovers or the number of cat fanciers. There are as many great literary works about cats as there are about dogs, both Japanese and foreign.

As for haiku, however, my feeling is that cats are more popular than dogs as the themes of these short Japanese poems will show. Is that because the gestures and appearances of cats strongly stimulate the poetic sentiments of haiku composers?


~ From "Vox Populi, Vox Dei," The Asahi Shimbun ~



Print by Hiroshige Ando, courtesy Library of Congress.