If you came for a Sunday Kat Kwote, you're out of luck. It struck me, the other day that now is the time to end KK's Kwotes. I don...

It interests me how we find ways to feel superior to another person, another group of people. It happens everywhere, and all the time....

...I didn't think I could understand poetry; I didn't think that it had any relevance to my life, the feelings that I endured on a ...

Influenza pandemics must be taken seriously, precisely because of their capacity to spread rapidly to every country in the world. ~ Marga...

...a new brain scan study explains that reading to a child early and often activates the part of the brain that allows them to understand t...

...learning to enjoy today has two benefits: it gives me happiness right now, and it becomes a good memory later. ~ George Foreman ~ ...

You can't just tell actors, especially young ones, to "act happy" and expect them to do it. They must in some essential way be...

From The Baby's Bouquet , illustrated by Walter Crane.

A survey of Canadian media consumption by Microsoft concluded that the average attention span had fallen to eight seconds, down from 12 in ...

Poems have to be based in autobiography; how else should they come about? But if they are to be of any use, they must end by being about ...

A snow day literally and figuratively falls from the sky, unbidden, and seems like a thing of wonder. ~ Susan Orlean ~ Wood...

The spirit of slavery so strongly existed that letters could not reach her; they were all destroyed. My parents had never learned the rescui...

And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only ...

I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of m...

For cats that have good constitutions     Have eight more lives than a man; Which proves we are better than humans     To my mind, if any...

It came to me recently that I always write for a reader who "needs" the book at whatever time in their life it arrives. And rea...

I got a beautiful new bike and am looking forward to riding it more. I also want to do more woolgathering—idle rumination, daydreaming—whic...

All good books have one thing in common--they are truer than if they had really happened. ~ Ernest Hemingway ~ Photo by Sus...

For most of the history of our species we were helpless to understand how nature works. We took every storm, drought, illness and comet per...

[Note: I forgot to post Sunday's Kat Kwote! I'll save it for next week. --KK]

Perhaps more telling is the total cost of firearm injury--$235 billion a year. ~ Ted Miller ~

The best thing you can do with poetry is just enjoy reading it together with the children. That has to be the starting point--not all th...

We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. ~ B. F. Skinner ~

The garden suggests there might be a place where we can meet nature halfway. ~ Michael Pollan ~

Skiing combines outdoor fun with knocking down trees with your face. ~ Dave Barry ~ Graphic courtesy openclipart .

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the...

Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another. ~ Robert Frost ~ I'm losing it! I didn'...

If I cannot bring you comfort Then at least I bring you hope ~ Wendy and Lisa ~

I think music in itself is healing. It's an explosive expression of humanity. It's something we are all touched by. No matter wh...

For those days when you'd like to throw most of humanity down the drain...

For me, the compelling question is the psychological state of his supporters. They are unable or unwilling to make a connection between t...

Remembering the stable where for once in our lives Everything became a You and nothing was an It. ~ W. H. Auden from "Christmas Ora...

P.S. Please do not forget the poor. ~ Mary McGann ~

We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called memories. Some take us forward, they're called dreams. ~ Jerem...

Yesterday I went outside With my momma's mason jar Caught a lovely Butterfly ~ Weezer ~

[Note: Sainsbury's is a large supermarket chain in the U. K.]

To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what the clocks say or t...

Artists are not cheerleaders, and we're not the heads of tourism boards. We expose and discuss what is problematic, what is contradi...

Everyone likes birds. What wild creature is more accessible to our eyes and ears, as close to us and everyone in the world, as univer...

You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. ~ Maya Angelou ~

Life is never all one thing. It bounces around. Certainly, my own life has. Look at Woody Allen's funny movies--all the humor comes o...

Obviously, you would give your life for your children, or give them the last biscuit on the plate. But to me, the trick in life is to take ...

~ The Monkey's Frolic by Anonymous ~ Published in 1843 .

There are two doors. Behind Door Number One is a completely sealed room, with a regular, gasoline-fueled car. Behind Door Number Two is an i...

Just read poetry, love it to pieces, and enjoy it to the fullest. ~ Lee Bennett Hopkins ~ Photo by Charles Egita, courtesy Harpe...

You know, people call mystery novels or thrillers "puzzles." I never understood that, because when I buy a puzzle, I already know...

Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced. ~ Leo Tolstoy ~ Painting by Ilya Rep...

Knitters use knitting to value-add to the world. ~ Stephanie Pearl-McPhee ~

Does anyone not know who this character is?

But sometimes at dusk when we're driving home And come on the cats by surprise, I feel a shiver go down my back Facing their burning...

In a sense the world dies every time a writer dies, because, if he is any good, he has been a wet nurse to humanity during his entire exis...

Humility Poems arrive ready to begin.     Poets are only the transportation. ~ Mary Oliver ~

Nothing says holidays, like a cheese log. ~ Ellen DeGeneres ~

Crying is really bad for your vocal cords. ~ Adele ~

Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come. ~ James Russell Lowell...

The world is neither wise nor just, but it makes up for all its folly and injustice by being damnably sentimental. ~ Thomas Huxley ~

Let your children love pussy, pussy loves your children; only kindly point out to them the essential difference between a play thing and a...

As anti-refugee hysteria sweeps many of our political leaders, particularly Republicans, I wonder what they would have told a desperate ref...

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it. ~ Vincent Van Gogh~ "Starry Night o...

Postcard courtesy NY Public Library Digital Collections .

Next to the fugitives whom Moses led out of Egypt, the little shipload of outcasts who landed at Plymouth are destined to influence the fut...

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unre...