So True...

Somebody just back of you while you are fishing is as bad as someone looking over your shoulder while you write a letter to your girl.

~ Ernest Hemingway ~

Photo of Hemingway taken in 1904, courtesy JFK Presidential Library and Museum.

A Shame She Had to Miss the 2012 Issues

I do a lot of running and hiking, and I also collect stamps--space stamps and Olympics stamps.

~ Sally Ride ~



See other Olympics postage stamps at Philatelynews.com. --KK

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Diddlty, diddlty, dumpty,
The cat ran up the plum tree,
Give her a plum, and down she’ll come,
Diddlty, diddlty, dumpty.

~ Mother Goose ~

Probably True...

A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.

~ Jerry Seinfeld ~

Poetry Friday

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ~

I Love This Quote!

Parents are like shuttles on a loom. They join the threads of the past with threads of the future and leave their own bright patterns as they go.

~ Fred Rogers ~

Mysteries

It's good to have mysteries. It reminds us that there's more to the world than just making do and having a bit of fun.

~ Charles de Lint ~

R.I.P. Else Holmelund Minarik

~ Else Holmelund Minarik from Little Bear ~

In Art

To emphasize only the beautiful seems to me to be like a mathematical system that only concerns itself with positive numbers.

~ Paul Klee ~

"Tropical Blossom" (1920) courtesy Zentrum Paul Klee.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

"Don't worry about me. I will die soon enough and go to be with your father and with your poor brothers."

"You're not dying," Pasquale said.

"I am dead already inside," she said. "You should push me out into the sea and drown me like that old sick cat of yours."

Pasquale straightened. "You said my cat ran away. While I was at university."

She shot him a glance from the corner of her eye. "It is a saying."

"No. It's not a saying. There is no saying such as that. Did you and Papa drown my cat while I was in Florence?"

"I'm sick, Pasqo! Why do you torment me?"

~ Jess Walter from Beautiful Ruins: A Novel ~

Guess What's Winning In 2012

We can have a democracy or we can have great wealth in the hands of a comparative few, but we cannot have both.

~ Louis Brandeis ~

Photo by AMagill.

Poetry Friday

A work of art is one through which the consciousness of the artist is able to give its emotions to anyone who is prepared to receive them.

~ Muriel Rukeyser ~

Feeling Expanded

The awareness that what we are feeling is not necessarily what another is feeling, coupled with our drive to create social bonds with others, gave rise to language and art, to poetry, drawing, dance, sculpture...and music.

~ Daniel J. Levitin ~

Music Should Reflect the Soul

What is the best music is impossible to define. Just because it's played by a virtuoso player, doesn't mean it's great music. It might not reflect the soul of a people, which is really my criteria for great music.

~ Mickey Hart ~

Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Are You An Internet Addict?

The brains of Internet addicts, it turns out, look like the brains of drug and alcohol addicts.

~ Tony Dokoupil ~

Photo by Pierre-Olivier.

Amelia Earhart

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.

~ Amelia Earhart ~





Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

THE CAT IN THE WOOD

The cat in the wood cried farewell cried farewell
Farther and farther away and the leaves
Covered her over with sound of the leaves
And sound of the wood O my love O my love
Farther and farther away and the sound
Of leaves overhead when I call to you
Leaves on the ground.

~ Archibald MacLeish ~

Photo by heathergm.

Even More Important in 2012

People who wish to govern themselves must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives.

~ James Madison ~

Photo by Carol M. Highsmith courtesy Library of Congress.

Poetry Friday

Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them.

~ Charles Simic ~

Illustration by R. Caldecott from The Babes in the Wood.

Cinderella's Opposite

I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.

~ Henry David Thoreau ~







Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

How We Live

And all people live, not by reason of any care they have for themselves, but by the love for them that is in other people.

~ Leo Tolstoy ~

Photo courtesy prokudin-gorsky.org.

Where Does the Other 90% Go?

People don't live nowadays: they get about ten percent out of life.

~ Isadora Duncan ~







Photo by Arnold Genthe courtesy Library of Congress.

The Hobbit (Soon To Be a Major Motion Picture)

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

~ J. R. R. Tolkien from The Hobbit ~

Photo by Heather F.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Stately, kindly, lordly friend,
        Condescend
Here to sit by me, and turn
Glorious eyes that smile and burn,
Golden eyes, love's lustrous meed,
On the golden page I read.

~ Algernon Charles Swinburne
from "To a Cat" ~

Long Live Cooks!

~ From The Suffrage Cook Book ~

Note: click on the image for a larger view.

Poetry Friday

Poetry is like making a joke. If you get one word wrong at the end of a joke, you've lost the whole thing.

~ W. S. Merwin ~

So true! --KK

Photo by Djenan.

Not Any More!

A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face. It is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind can get both provocation and privacy.

~ Edward P. Morgan ~

Happy Independence Day!

It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment, independence now and independence forever.

~ Daniel Webster ~



Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Who Knew?

Natasha is a Balkan spy.

~ June Foray ~

Support Your Local Public Library!

Just imagine, every single citizen, everybody of every age in this country can get essentially a free education by going to the public library.

~ David McCullough ~

Photo by Carol M. Highsmith courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Having gone into the inn they all three sat down to table, but none of them had any appetite.

The Cat, who was suffering from indigestion and feeling seriously indisposed, could only eat thirty-five fish with tomato sauce and four portions of tripe with Parmesan cheese; and because she thought the tripe was not seasoned enough, she asked three times for the butter and grated cheese!

~ Carlos Collodi from Pinocchio ~

Unbelievable

There are surveys that say people will vote for almost anyone over an atheist. There is a 30 or 40 percent part of the population that will not vote for someone who doesn’t believe in God, so there’s definitely a religious test for the highest office.

~ Michael I. Meyerson ~

Poetry Friday

Everyone knows what 911 means. Everyone should know what 811 means--that’s the poetry section of the library. Visit as often as you can.

~ J. Patrick Lewis ~

R.I.P. Nora Ephron

I try to write parts for women that are as complicated and interesting as women actually are.

~ Nora Ephron ~

I Never Associated Dickens With Butterflies!

I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.

~ Charles Dickens ~

Ansel Adams

Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.

~ Ansel Adams ~

Ansel Adams photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Only If You Live Alone, Bill

I had always thought that once you grew up you could do anything you wanted--stay up all night or eat ice-cream straight out of the container.

~ Bill Bryson ~



Photo by TomD.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

C was Papa's gray Cat,
  Who caught a squeaky Mouse;
She pulled him by his twirly tail
  All about the house.

~ Edward Lear ~

Title IX Signed into Law 40 Years Ago Today

While the impact of this amendment would be far-reaching, it is not a panacea. It is, however, an important first step in the effort to provide for the women of America something that is rightfully theirs—an equal chance to attend the schools of their choice, to develop the skills they want, and to apply those skills with the knowledge that they will have a fair chance to secure the jobs of their choice with equal pay for equal work.

~ Birch Bayh ~

Poetry Friday

Isn’t that the beauty of writing? Everyone else but us knows what we mean.

~ Pamela Ross ~

Title IX

When it comes down to it, the majority of the characteristics I like about myself--my competitive spirit, perseverance, decision-making and communication skills, ability to handle pressure, to solve problems, to overcome adversity and to work with others--were developed through a lifetime of athletic competition. I am who I am because Title IX gave me the opportunity to play.

~ Beverly Oden ~

Summer--It Does Exist!

People take pictures of the Summer, just in case someone thought they had missed it, and to prove that it really existed.

~ Ray Davies ~




Photo by Diane Mayr.

Music

Music is forever; music should grow and mature with you, following you right on up until you die.

~ Paul Simon ~

Image courtesy Open Clip Art Library.

Instant Vacation

Laughter is an instant vacation.

~ Milton Berle ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

I never thought I should come to like cats. But I have. Perhaps it is because, as my Aunt Amanda used to say, we change every seven years, sort of start over again, as it were; and find we have new thoughts, different ideas, unexpected tastes, strange attractions, and shifting doubts.

~ Ida R. Fargo from "Somebody's Cat" in American Cookery, November 1921 ~




Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Pray Justice Is the Winner

As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.

~ John Stuart Mill ~

Poetry Friday

How can a word taste, smell, feel? It just can. It just does. At least for me. And that’s where it all begins: in that sensory place where pleasure meets up with the desire to make something out of nothing: to make love.

~ Peter Markus ~

Flag Day!

Let it be borne on the flag under which we rally in every exigency, that we have one country, one constitution, one destiny.

~ Daniel Webster ~

Photo by bbaltimore.

Don't Forget a Cat...

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

~ Marcus Tullius Cicero ~







Photo courtesy State Library of Victoria Collections.

The Head in the Sand Response

There is a tendency at every important but difficult crossroad to pretend that it's not really there.

~ Bill McKibben from The End of Nature ~

Wild Expressions!

Grant me some wild expressions, Heavens, or I shall burst.

~ George Farquhar ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

June is designated as National Adopt a Shelter Cat month. June is the height of "kitten season" and animal shelters everywhere are receiving litters of abandoned kittens; single sick or injured kittens as well as adult cats.

Those adult cats arrive very pregnant or with their litter of kittens. They arrive by the thousands.

For those folks living in the country, you already know this and you know how hard it is to manage so many stray cats and their offspring.

Spaying and neutering your cat is one of the most important things a pet owner can do.

~ Tami Crawford ~

Photo by TNT Photo.

The Difference Is Huge

No, Mitt, corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they love, they cry, they dance, they live and they die. Learn the difference.

~ Elizabeth Warren ~

Poetry Friday

I'm terrified of switching the computer on because there are so many poems.

~ Roger McGough ~

Photo by Chris Boland.

Reading

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.

~ Oscar Wilde ~

The Dangers of Being an Orchestra Leader

"Pinocchio, come up here to me," cried Harlequin, "and throw yourself into the arms of your wooden brothers!"

At this affectionate invitation Pinocchio made a leap from the end of the pit into the reserved seats; another leap landed him on the head of the leader of the orchestra, and he then sprang upon the stage.

The embraces, the friendly pinches, and the demonstrations of warm brotherly affection that Pinocchio received from the excited crowd of actors and actresses of the puppet dramatic company are beyond description.

~ C. Collodi ~

Child Labor

Child labor and poverty are inevitably bound together and if you continue to use the labor of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labor to the end of time.

~ Grace Abbott ~

Photo taken in Manchester, NH, 1909, by Lewis Hine, courtesy Library of Congress.

Venus

Venus favors the bold.

~ Ovid ~

Photo by Carol M. Highsmith courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

~ J. G. Francis from A Book of Cheerful Cats and Other Animated Animals ~

[Note: click on the illustration to make it easier to read.]

Don't Even Think It!

Don't join the book burners. Don't think you're going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed.

~ Dwight D. Eisenhower ~


Photo from National Archive courtesy U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Poetry Friday

There is the sense that we are all, as writers, part of something which is more powerful than any of us.

~ Helen Dunmore ~

KK note: as readers, too!

Berry

Berry comes from an Indo-European root meaning "to shine," perhaps for the bright colors of many small fruits.

~ Harold McGee from On Food and Cooking:
The Science and Lore of the Kitchen ~

Image by robynejay.

R.I.P. Leo Dillon

When we first met, we thought that there would be vast differences between us since we were different races and from different cultures. It wasn’t long before we began to understand that there really is no difference between people. There might be ideas that you’ve grown up with and believe are true. But you realize early on that those are really surface things; that underneath it all, we’re the same.

~ Leo Dillon ~

It's the Smart Thing To Do!

It is no disgrace to move out of the way of the elephant.


~ Vietnamese proverb ~



Photo by easegill.