Yup, They Do!

You know, the Beatles seem to find a new audience each time another generation comes along.

~ George Martin ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

For by stroaking of him I have found out electricity.

~ Christopher Smart from Jubilate Agno ~

Photo by Hybernaut.

Believe It!

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world.

~ Jack Layton ~

Poetry Friday

The poet doesn't invent. He listens.

~ Jean Cocteau ~


Photo courtesy David Reverchon.

Picture This...

Whenever you're sitting across from some important person, always picture him sitting there in a suit of long red underwear. That's the way I always operated in business.

~ Joseph P. Kennedy ~

Photo by Wigwam Jones.

He Must Have Been Sleeping Under Virginia

The awakening of a giant shakes the world.

~ Arabian proverb ~

Graphic courtesy USGS.

Music

One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.

~ Bob Marley ~

Some Things Never Change

Don't forget what I discovered that over ninety percent of all national deficits from 1921 to 1939 were caused by payments for past, present, and future wars.

~ Franklin D. Roosevelt ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

What intenseness of desire,
In her upward eye of fire!
With a tiger-leap half-way,
Now she meets the coming prey.
Lets it go as fast, and then;
Has it in her power again.

~ William Wordsworth from "See the Kitten on the Wall" ~

Photo by malingering.

And "Best" Is a Subjective Term

Use what talents you possess. The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang the best.

~ Henry Van Dyke ~

Photo by rkblogs.

Poetry Friday

A poet can survive everything but a misprint.

~ Oscar Wilde ~

Walpole Wisdom

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he isn't. A sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is.

~ Horace Walpole ~

The Choice Is Yours

Our attitude towards what has happened to us in life is the important thing to recognize. Once hopeless, my life is now hope-full, but it did not happen overnight. The last of human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, is to choose one's own way.

~ Victor Frankl from Man's Search for Meaning ~

The Importance of Writing

I never know what I think about something until I read what I've written on it.

~ William Faulkner ~



Photo by Carl Van Vechten courtesy Library of Congress.

Friendship

Don’t walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead. Walk beside me and be my friend.

~ Albert Camus ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.

~ Christopher Smart from "Jubilate Agno" ~

Photo by ringogoingo.

Be Gentle

Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. We are all children of chance and none can say why some fields will blossom while others lay brown beneath the August sun.

~ Kent Nerburn ~

Photo by ~Sage~

Poetry Friday

I've written some poetry I don't understand myself.

~ Carl Sandburg ~

One Big Machine

I like to imagine that the world is one big machine. You know, machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact number and types of parts they need. So I figure if the entire world is a big machine, I have to be here for some reason, too.

~ Brian Selznick from The Invention of Hugo Cabret ~

I Hope This Was Said Tongue-in-Cheek!

I believe that I was a dog in a past life. That's the only thing that would explain why I like to snack on Purina Dog Chow.

~ Dean Koontz ~

The Postcard Craze

Official United States Post Office figures for the year ending June 30, 1908 cited 667,777,798 postcards mailed in the United States. By 1913 the total in this country was over 968,000,000...

~ Postcard Collecting History ~

Send Me a Postcard

Sunday's Kat Kwote

A Man loved his Cat with a love quite fanatic;
He thought her darling, lovely, dainty, and
         dramatic.

~ Jean de la Fontaine ~

Photo by Terry Bain.

Today Is Do Nothing But Read Day!

Reading takes solitude and it takes focus.

~ Augusten Burroughs ~

Poetry Friday

Taking us by and large, we're a queer lot
We women who write poetry. And when you think
How few of us there've been, it's queerer still.

~ Amy Lowell from "The Sisters" ~

Imaginative Act

Writing and reading seem to me to be different aspects of a single imaginative act.

~ Margaret Mahy ~

Why Buy?

Why buy a book when you can join a library.

~ Ricky Gervais ~

Photo courtesy Little Free Library.

I Like the Way He Thought

I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.

~ Oliver Wendell Holmes ~

The photo of the Library of Congress Jefferson Building, as well as the structure and its contents, courtesy our taxes!

Questions Are Good!

I've been traveling all over the world for 25 years, performing, talking to people, studying their cultures and musical instruments, and I always come away with more questions in my head than can be answered.

~ Yo-Yo Ma ~

Image courtesy Open Clip Art Library.

Poetry Friday

When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

~ Mary Oliver ~

Yoga

Yoga is almost like music in a way; there's no end to it.

~ Sting ~

Chart courtesy Open Clip Art Library.

Joy of Dancing

Part of the joy of dancing is conversation. Trouble is, some men can't talk and dance at the same time.

~ Ginger Rogers ~

And it's the rare one who can sing and dance and do both well. --KK

It's As Good a Reason As Any

God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road.

~ Isak Dinesen ~

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Remember me with smiles and laughter, for that is how I will remember you all. If you can only remember me with tears, then don't remember me at all.

~ Laura Ingalls Wilder ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

~ From Punky Dunk and the Gold Fish by Anonymous ~

Technology

Technology is a set of habits, and they can be good or bad for you.

~ Lauren Cerand ~



Image courtesy Open Clip Art Library.

Poetry Friday

Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out.

~ Oliver Wendell Holmes ~

The Only Real Reason to Write!

Write in recollection and amazement for yourself.

~ Jack Kerouac ~



Photo by wallyg.

Absolutely!

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.

~ Joseph Addison ~

Libraries

There are an estimated 122,101 libraries of all kinds in the United States today.

~ American Library Association Library Fact Sheet 1 ~

*Magic*

After being in Harry Potter, I believe a bit more in magic than I did before.

~ Rupert Grint ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Then Tabitha Twitchit came down the garden and found her kittens on the wall with no clothes on.

~ Beatrix Potter from The Tale of Tom Kitten ~

A Simple Truth

Don't pray when it rains if you don't pray when the sun shines.

~ Satchel Paige ~

Photo by zinetv.

Poetry Friday

Efficient use of language is one of the major hallmarks of poetry. For the poet, this means avoiding clumsy or pointless repetition by saying things forcefully and right the first time. It means avoiding abstractions and generalizations in favor of presenting the scene which generated the abstraction. It means that each gesture has its point and no moment of the poem is wasted.

~ Ed Ochester ~

A Friend

A friend--one soul, two bodies.

~ Chinese proverb ~

Land of Dreams

In almost all of our family trees we have someone who was brave enough--sometimes crazy enough--to leave his or her home country to come to this land of dreams.

~ Lisa See ~

Image courtesy Library of Congress.

Ouch!

Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

~ Thomas Jefferson ~

No!

Did any artist ever bring more pure joy to more people than Fred Astaire?

~ Jack Kroll ~





Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Rain

The rain is raining everywhere,
          Kittens to shelter fly—-
But Human Folk wear overshoes,
          To keep their hind paws dry.

Oliver Herford from The Kitten's Garden of Verses

As the 2012 Election Season Begins...

the bees got their
governmental system settled
millions of years ago
but the human race is still
groping

~ Don Marquis from archy and mehitabel ~

Poetry Friday

I don't know whether a poem has be there to help to develop something. I think it's there for itself, for what the reader finds in it.

~ Marilyn Hacker ~

Risk

It seems to be a law of nature, inflexible and inexorable, that those who will not risk cannot win.

~ John Paul Jones ~

Happy Trails to You!

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.

~ Edward Abbey ~

Reading

Reading is a means of thinking with another person's mind; it forces you to stretch your own.

~ Charles Scribner, Jr. ~



Photo by Overduebook.

Independence Day

Have a safe and happy 4th!
Image courtesy riptheskull.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

the big cat sleeps
in the same seat...
with the doll

~ Issa, translated by David G. Lanoue ~

Photo by .. marta ..

Vision

You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

~ Mark Twain ~

Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Poetry Friday

Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

~ Thomas Gray ~