Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Issues? Always!






With any tween, you have issues, from what they are going to wear to school, to how do you get them to speak politely, to how regularly they lose their contact lenses.

~ Marcia Gay Harden ~


Monday, June 29, 2015

Yes!


Our society spends a lot of money on prison bars. For the sake of our kids, let's invest in monkey bars.

~ Darell Hammond ~

Photo by Marjory Collins (1942), courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday, June 28, 2015

Sunday's Kat Kwote


The 10-pound, 6-ounce cat would become the nighttime warden at the Original L.A. Flower Market, making sure rodents and other vermin didn't get out of hand. He's part of a group of tough cats recruited by an animal rights nonprofit to find homes in places that could use their hard-scrabble qualities. Along with another cat named DeNiro, Pacino would prowl the Italian side of the flower market.

~ Jerome Campbell ~

Photo © Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times.

Friday, June 26, 2015

Poetry Friday

Literature, like magic, has always been about the handling of secrets, about the pain, the destruction, and the marvelous liberation that can result when they are revealed. If a writer doesn't give away secrets, his own or those of the people he loves, if he doesn't court disapproval, reproach and general wrath, whether of friends, family or party apparatchiks...the result is pallid, inanimate, a lump of earth.

~ Michael Chabon ~

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Curiosity


The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

~ Albert Einstein ~

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Some Things You Just Gotta Do


Just as the bird sings or the butterfly soars, because it is his natural characteristic, so the artist works.

~ Alma Gluck ~

Monday, June 22, 2015

Butterflies







In popular esteem the butterflies among the insects are what the birds are among the higher animals—the most attractive and beautiful members of the great group to which they belong.

~ Clarence M. Weed ~

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Sunday's Kat Kwote


The airs he assumed! The graces he put on! The arts he practised! The condescension of his smile! The upward tilt of his nose! The twirl of his moustachios! The defiant angle of his tail!

~ Ada M. Marzials from More Tales in the Land of Nursery Rhyme ~

Photo by Romana Klee.

Saturday, June 20, 2015

Such a Sad Week...

The hateful killing of nine people praying inside a church is a horrific reminder that, while we have made significant progress in advancing civil rights in this country, we are far from eradicating racism. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and their congregation.

~ Bernie Sanders ~

Friday, June 19, 2015

Poetry Friday






Write what should not be forgotten.

~ Isabel Allende ~






Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Equality of Rights



The principle of equality of rights underlies all human sentiments, and its assertion by any individual or class must rouse antagonism, unless conceded. This has been the battle of the ages, and will be until all forms of slavery are banished from the earth. Philosophers, historians, poets, novelists, alike paint woman the victim ever of man's power and selfishness.

~ from the "Introduction" to History of Woman Suffrage, edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage ~

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Be Bold!





The only difference between an experienced knitter and new knitter is that the experienced knitter makes bigger mistakes faster. Be bold; there are no terrible consequences in knitting.

~ Stephanie Pearl-McPhee ~





Graphic courtesy openclipart.

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Always at War

A book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements and clumsy hands. So the librarian protects the books not only against mankind but also against nature and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion.

~ Umberto Eco ~

Monday, June 15, 2015

To Combat Hunger


If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.

~ Mother Teresa ~

Image courtesy Internet Archive.

Sunday, June 14, 2015

Sunday's Kat Kwote


Zu des Müllers Haus,
Aber da war Niemand drinnen
Nur die Katze schaute aus!


The cat looked out from the miller's house,
No one was in, not even a mouse

~ German children's song ~

Photo courtesy Harvard Library.

Saturday, June 13, 2015

Slow Down!




There is more to life than increasing its speed.

~ Mahatma Gandhi ~

Friday, June 12, 2015

Poetry Friday

And if the people find you can fiddle,
Why, fiddle you must, for all your life.

~ Edgar Lee Masters, "Fiddler Jones" from Spoon River Anthology ~

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Dessert


Absolutely eat dessert first. The thing that you want to do the most, do that.

~ Joss Whedon ~

Kate Greenaway illustration courtesy NY Public Library Digital Gallery.

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Life Is a Game?






In life, as in chess, forethought wins.

~ Charles Buxton ~







Photo courtesy NY Public Library Digital Collections.

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Neither Have I

I've never run into a person who yearns for their middle school days.

~ Jeff Kinney ~

Monday, June 8, 2015

Family History


Knowing more about family history is the single biggest predictor of a child's emotional well-being. Grandparents can play a special role in this process, too.

~ Bruce Feiler ~

1844 daguerreotype courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Sunday's Kat Kwote






If you want to reassure your cat, stare at your cat, then very deliberately and very slowly blink. Like that. The cat will also deliberately, slowly blink back at you, and I almost guarantee that she will start to purr. That's a feline reassurance.

~ Walter Murch ~

Saturday, June 6, 2015

Work

The greatest analgesic, soporific, stimulant, tranquilizer, narcotic, and to some extent even antibiotic--in short, the closest thing to a genuine panacea--known to medical science is work.

~ Thomas Szasz ~

[But, it can also kill you! --KK]

Friday, June 5, 2015

Poetry Friday





A poem need not have a meaning and like most things in nature often does not have.

~ Wallace Stevens ~

Thursday, June 4, 2015

The Sooner, the Better

I think what you're seeing is a profound recognition on the part of the American people that gays and lesbians and transgender persons are our brothers, our sisters, our children, our cousins, our friends, our co-workers, and that they've got to be treated like every other American. And I think that principle will win out.

~ Barack Obama ~

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Zoo Animals


Zoo animals are ambassadors for their cousins in the wild.

~ Jack Hanna ~

Card courtesy NYPL Digital Gallery.

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

A Fair Question


How can our kids really understand the moral complexities of being alive if they are not allowed to engage in those complexities outdoors?

~ Richard Louv ~

Monday, June 1, 2015