No Matter What It's Called, There's a Whole Lot of It Goin' On

If men liked shopping, they'd call it research.

~ Cynthia Nelms ~

Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing you a life full of sweets! --KK

There is only one difference between a long life and a good dinner: that, in the dinner, the sweets come last.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson ~

With Undivided Attention

The first duty of love is to listen.

~ Paul Tillich ~

Getting Ready!

I don't like food that's too carefully arranged; it makes me think that the chef is spending too much time arranging and not enough time cooking. If I wanted a picture I'd buy a painting.

~ Andy Rooney ~

The Theory of Relativity

How long a minute is depends on what side of the bathroom door you're on.

~ Anonymous ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Sufferin' succotash!

~ Sylvester ~






Succotash is a stew of corn, lima beans, and tomatoes.

Happy Birthday, Abigail!

I've always felt that a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic.

~ Abigail Adams ~

Abigail was born on this day in 1744.

Poetry Friday

The commonplace, the tawdry, the sordid all have their poetic uses if the imagination can lighten them.

~ William Carlos Williams ~

Don't You Just Love a Friend?

A Chinese bookseller, 1908

To read a book for the first time is to make the acquaintance of a new friend; to read it a second time is to meet an old one.

~ Chinese proverb ~

Two Ways of Getting There

Art and Religion are, then, two roads by which men escape from circumstance to ecstasy. Between aesthetic and religious rapture there is a family alliance. Art and Religion are means to similar states of mind.

~ Clive Bell ~

Something to Think About This Time of Year

I am in the habit of looking not so much to the nature of a gift as to the spirit in which it is offered.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson ~

A Guinness Record Better Off Forgotten

The longest title of a book is 1,433 characters (290 words) and was written by Davide Ciliberti (Italy) in July 2007. The book describes the idiosyncrasies of the PR world. The full title is "Per favore dite a mia madre che faccio il pubblicitario lei pensa che sono un pierre e che quindi regalo manciate di free entry e consumazioni gratis a chi mi pare, rido coi vips, i calciatori le veline e le giornaliste, leggo Novella e mi fotografano i paparazzi, entro neI privé saltando la coda, bevo senza pagare, sono ghiotto di tartine e gin tonic, ho la casa piena di oggetti di design, conosco Paris Hilton, Tom Ford ed Emilio"

~ Guinness World Records ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The idea of calm exists in a sitting cat.

~ Jules Renard ~

Half Way Through the Month Already!

When chill November's surly blast make fields and forest bare.

~ Robert Burns ~

Poetry Friday

Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted.

~ Percy Shelley ~

On Writing

Writing ought either to be the manufacture of stories for which there is a market demand--a business as safe and commendable as making soap or breakfast foods--or it should be an art, which is always a search for something for which there is no market demand, something new and untried, where the values are intrinsic and have nothing to do with standardized values.

~ Willa Cather ~

Natural Beauty

photo © Antonello Michele Mastinu for openphoto.net

It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living.

~ David Attenborough ~

Why Do We Never Learn?

When the days of rejoicing are over,
When the flags are stowed safely away,
They will dream of another wild "War to End Wars"
And another wild Armistice day.

~ Robert Graves ~

So, How Many Do You Need?

Never set a child afloat on the flat sea of life with only one sail to catch the wind.



~ D.H. Lawrence ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

www.catsforobama.com

Pigs

I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

~ Winston Churchill ~

Poetry Friday

The poet and the politician have this in common: their greatness depends on the courage with which they face the challenges of life.

~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy ~

A Time to Celebrate!

Photo BBC News
Altogether shout it now.
There's no one
Who can doubt it now.
So let's tell the world about it now
Happy days are here again.

~ from "Happy Days Are Here Again" music and lyrics by J. Yellen and M. Ager ~

On This Glorious Day!

It's the morning after the election of our new president, Barack Obama, and I think this is an appropriate quote:

We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter's evening. Some of us let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true.

~ Woodrow T. Wilson ~

Too Bad He Wasn't Around for 2008!

What ass first let lose the doctrine that the suffrage is a high boon and voting a noble privilege? Looking back over my 19 years (of it) I can recall few times when I have voted with anything approaching exhilaration.

~ Henry Louis Mencken ~

Waiting for Tomorrow

Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish is to change again. The world is not yet exhausted; let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.

~ Samuel Johnson ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Smudge and Skippy--friends at last!
True Friendship is a plant of slow growth.

~ George Washington ~

What a Way to Live

We live in the midst of alarms; anxiety beclouds the future; we expect some new disaster with each newspaper we read.

~ Abraham Lincoln ~

Happy Halloween!

From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!

~ Traditional Scottish prayer ~

Isn't It Better to Learn to Work Together?

Men think they think upon the great political questions, and they do; but they think with their party, not independently; they read its literature, but not that of the other side.

~ Mark Twain ~

Oooh...Scary

We go by the major vote, and if the majority are insane, the sane must go to the hospital.

~ Horace Mann ~

I Think Writers All Agree

Talking is a hydrant in the yard and writing is a faucet upstairs in the house. Opening the first takes the pressure off the second.

~ Robert Frost ~

You Still Can Make Egg Salad Out of a 20-Minute Egg

Photo by fille_de_photo
I have met a lot of hardboiled eggs in my time, but you're twenty minutes.

~ Oscar Wilde ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

With the qualities of cleanliness, affection, patience, dignity, and courage that cats have, how many of us, I ask you, would be capable of becoming cats?

~ Fernand Mery ~

Not Just Weakness, But Laziness

To swallow and follow, whether old doctrine or new propaganda, is a weakness still dominating the human mind.

~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman ~

Poetry Friday

If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.

~ Emily Dickinson ~

Poor Dollies

Do dolls invite abuse, with their dent-able heads,
those tight little painted-on or stitched-in grins?
Hurt me, big botched being, they whine in a dialect
only puritans and the frequently punished can hear.

~ Amy Gerstler from "Touring the Doll Hospital" ~

Read the complete poem here.

I Think I Disagree...

A movie is not a book. If the source material is a book, you cannot be too respectful of the book. All you owe to the book is the spirit.

~ Graham Greene ~

Oooh...Sounds Dangerous

Hungry man, reach for the book: it is a weapon.

~ Bertolt Brecht ~

Well-Dressed

I have heard with admiring submission the experience of the lady who declared that the sense of being perfectly well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility which religion is powerless to bestow.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

When you're special to a cat, you're special indeed...she brings to you the gift of her preference of you, the sight of you, the sound of your voice, the touch of your hand.

~ Lester B. Pearson ~

Change Is Gonna Come

There've been times that I've thought I couldn't last for long,
But, now I think I'm able to carry on.
It's been a long time coming.
But, I know, a change is gonna come.

~ Sam Cooke ~

I Never Knew...

My mother used to have little words of wisdom for each and every situation. I just assumed they were all folk sayings or momisms. I heard many times, "Tell the truth and shame the devil." Until today, I never knew it came from Shakespeare!

O! while you live, tell the truth,
And shame the devil!

Sadly True

American youth attributes much more importance to arriving at driver's license age than at voting age.

~ Marshall McLuhan ~

No Longer Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs?

More often than not, I've found, a rut is a consequence of sticking to tried and tested methods that don't take into account how you or the world has changed. It's like your mother serving you the same breakfast you loved as a child. You push the meal away half-eaten and she says, "But you always loved Cocoa Puffs and pork sausage." That was then, this is now.

Age

The old believe everything; the middle aged suspect everything; the young know everything.

~ Oscar Wilde ~

Columbus Day

I also hate those holidays that fall on a Monday where you don't get mail, those fake holidays like Columbus Day. What did Christopher Columbus do, discover America? If he hadn't, somebody else would have and we'd still be here. Big deal.

~ John Waters ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Photo by Tara Severns

Come I will teach you to dance as naturally
as falling asleep and waking and stretching long, long.

~ Marge Piercy from "The Cat's Song" ~

Human Kindness

I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings. I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and angels.

~ Pearl S. Buck ~

Poetry Friday

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture and, if possible, speak a few reasonable words.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ~

Yes!

Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.

~ Ray Bradbury ~

On the Eve of Destruction?

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

~ Abraham Lincoln ~

Look Outside Today

Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, it is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their progress.

~ Charles Dickens ~

Have You Taken a Child to a Museum Lately?

The Smithsonian long ago.

Most convicted felons are just people who were not taken to museums or Broadway musicals as children.

~ Libby Gelman-Waxner ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

In memory of Bitz.

Big droplet tears are shed for yesterday, but are dried in time for tomorrow, until all that remain are foggy, broken memories of a happy yesteryear.

~ Daniela Gallo ~

Keep Smiling

In the time of your life, live--so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite variety and mystery of it.

~ William Saroyan ~

Poetry Friday

People wish to be poets more than they wish to write poetry, and that's a mistake. One should wish to celebrate more than one wishes to be celebrated.

~ Lucille Clifton ~

October is Archaeology Month

Archaeology is the peeping Tom of the sciences. It is the sandbox of men who care not where they are going; they merely want to know where everyone else has been.

~ Jim Bishop ~

The Elephant

Nature's great masterpiece, an elephant--the only harmless great thing.

~ John Donne ~

A True Visionary

Waste is worse than loss. The time is coming when every person who lays claim to ability will keep the question of waste before him constantly. The scope of thrift is limitless.

~ Thomas A. Edison ~

What's Not to Like About Beans?

Photo by DawnsRecipes

Better beans and bacon in peace
than cakes and ale in fear.
~ Aesop ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Just as the would-be debutante will fret and fuss over every detail till all is perfect, so will the fastidious feline patiently toil until every whiskertip is in place.

~ Lynne Caiafa ~

Books

Some books leave us free and some books make us free.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

Debate Tonight!

Politics calls for robust debate and criticism, but this should never descend to personal and demeaning slurs.

~ Kim Beazley ~

What Does He Call the Time Between?

You only live twice. Once when you are born and once when you look death in the face.

~ Ian Fleming ~

Time

Time! Joyless emblem of the greed of millions, robber of the best which earth can give.

~ Amy Lowell ~

Oh, New Hampshire

She has a touch of gold. New Hampshire gold—
You may have heard of it. I had a farm
Offered me not long since up Berlin way
With a mine on it that was worked for gold;
But not gold in commercial quantities,
Just enough gold to make the engagement rings
And marriage rings of those who owned the farm.
What gold more innocent could one have asked for?

~ Robert Frost from the poem "New Hampshire" ~

Happy Birthday!

Birthdays are nature's way of telling us to eat more cake.

~ Anonymous ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

I am not a cat man, but a dog man, and all felines can tell this at a glance--a sharp, vindictive glance.

~ James Thurber ~

2008 Election Season

There are two sides to every issue, and a politician usually takes both.

~ Anonymous ~

Poetry Friday

Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.

~ Thomas Macaulay ~

Funny How That Works...

We climb to heaven most often on the ruins of our cherished plans, finding our failures were successes.

~ Amos Bronson Alcott ~

Photographs

It is one thing to photograph people. It is another to make others care about them by revealing the core of their humanness.

~ Paul Strand ~

Obviously Venus Improved With a Little Color!

Adding sound to movies would be like putting lipstick on the Venus de Milo.

~ Mary Pickford ~

Ignorance

Ignorance is the night of the mind, a night without moon or star.

~ Confucius ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Women are just like cats--they always land on their feet.
~ Iranian proverb ~

A Nation of Inventors

We are called the nation of inventors. And we are. We could still claim that title and wear its loftiest honors if we had stopped with the first thing we invented, which was human liberty.

~ Mark Twain ~

Poetry Friday--Oh, So True

There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either.

~ Robert Graves ~

Never Be Without a Home

Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere.

~ Jean Rhys ~

Book Titles

Lost Illusion is the undisclosed title of every novel.

~ Andre Maurois ~

Talk about International Cooperation!

In Northern Lapland, four towns share a mobile library bus, which also carries children's books. What makes this bus special is that the service is shared by communities in three countries: Finland, Sweden, and Norway.

~ Margriet Ruurs from My Librarian is a Camel: How Books are Brought to Children Around the World ~

Here's a Norwegian mobile library bus that is shared by several communities:

In Norwegian, a mobile library bus is called a Bibliotekbussen.