Sunday's Kat Kwote

Did St. Francis preach to the birds? Whatever for? If he really liked birds he would have done better to preach to the cats.

~ Rebecca West ~

Photo by BlancheK.

Let's Get to Work!

Little progress can be made by merely attempting to repress what is evil. Our great hope lies in developing what is good.

~ Calvin Coolidge ~

Poetry Friday

Real poetry can use any material. The important thing is that it be judiciously, infallibly, inevitably selected and arranged so that the perfect form is found, and so that the poet express the truth as it is.

~ Joan Giroux from The Haiku Form ~

And a Teacher Is a Sculptor

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul.

~ Joseph Addison ~

Road Maps

We're all pilgrims on the same journey--but some pilgrims have better road maps.

~ Nelson DeMille ~

I Do!

I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.

~ Emily Dickinson ~







Print courtesy Library of Congress.

Intellectual Freedom

Intellectual freedom can exist only where two essential conditions are met: first, that all individuals have the right to hold any belief on any subject and to convey their ideas in any form they deem appropriate, and second, that society makes an equal commitment to the right of unrestricted access to information and ideas regardless of the communication medium used, the content of work, and the viewpoints of both the author and the receiver of information.

~ American Library Association from the Intellectual Freedom Manual ~

Natural Resource

Intelligence is the only unlimited natural resource.

~ Robert Theobald ~

Poetry Friday

The Sixth Night: Waking

That first green night of their dreaming, asleep beneath the Tree,
God said, "Let meanings move," and there was poetry.

~ Muriel Rukeyser ~

Photo by Muffet.

The Fluffernutter

This trusty sandwich is almost more dessert than meal, which is why kids like it, and it is so simple to slap together, it hardly requires directions...

~ Michael McLaughlin ~

What's Up, Chuck?

Photo courtesy ChuckJones.com.

Ambition

I see no reason to spend your life writing poems unless your goal is to write great poems.

~ Donald Hall from "Poetry and Ambition" ~

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Life's pretty good, and why wouldn't it be? I'm a pirate, after all.

~ Johnny Depp ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Politeness pleases even a cat.

~ Czech proverb ~

Drawing by Alice Barber Stephens courtesy Library of Congress.

Art

Art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another land, but part of the present life of all living and creating peoples.

~ Franklin D. Roosevelt ~

Mural photo by Carol M. Highsmith courtesy Library of Congress.

Poetry Friday

Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.

~ Pablo Picasso ~





This is especially true of poetry, don't you think? --KK

Image courtesy the State Hermitage Museum

Standing in Libraries!

Books are standing counselors and preachers, always at hand, and always disinterested...

~ Louis Nizer ~

Photo by Ellen Forsyth.

A Sad Commentary...

All kids, when they go to school, are pretty good artists and dancers and singers and poets. All that gets buried, basically through being educated, or brainwashed.

~ William Wiley ~

Photo by Russell Lee courtesy Library of Congress.

Happy Birthday, Roald Dahl!

A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom.

~ Roald Dahl ~

Breast Cancer

12.2 percent of women born in the United States today will develop breast cancer at some time in their lives. This estimate is based on breast cancer statistics for the years 2005 through 2007.

~ National Cancer Institute ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

the cat waits
hour upon hour
...September 11

~ Diane Mayr ~

Photo by bonnyweb.

Embrace It

In a post-9/11 world, diversity has become even more important.

~ Jane Harman ~

Photo courtesy Oregon DOT.

Poetry Friday

The mythic nature of this attack, this disaster--echoing everything from the tower of Babel to the fall of Icarus--is undeniable, and the acts of heroism and the brute loss of so many makes it difficult to find adequate words, even for our most accomplished poets.

~ Philip Metres from "Beyond Grief and Grievance" ~

Film

A film is--or should be--more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings.

~ Stanley Kubrick ~





Image courtesy Open Clip Art Library.

Advice

We hate those who will not take our advice, and despise them who do.

~ David Sarnoff ~

Improvement

Improvement begins with I.

~ Arnold H. Glasow ~

Happy Labor Day!

Dignify and glorify common labor. It is at the bottom of life that we must begin, not at the top.

~ Booker T. Washington ~

Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The real measure of a day's heat is the length of a sleeping cat.

~ Charles J. Brady ~

Photo by Stephen and Claire Farnsworth.

Singing Words!

I'm not against e-books in principle – I'm tempted by the Kindle – but the more they become interactive and linked, the more they multitask and offer a hundred different functions, the less they will be able to preserve the aspects of the book that we actually need. An e-book reader that does a lot will not, in the end, be a book. The object needs to remain dull so the words – offering you the most electric sensation of all: insight into another person's internal life – can sing.

~ Johann Hari ~

Poetry Friday

Poetry--
but what is poetry anyway?
More than one rickety answer
has tumbled since that question first was raised.
But I just keep on not knowing, and I cling to that
like a redemptive handrail.

~ Wislawa Szymborska from "Some People Like Poetry" translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh ~

You Go, Melvil!

The librarian must be the librarian militant before he can be the librarian triumphant.

~ Melvil Dewey ~

Image courtesy Instant Attitudes.

Or Take the Bus

I'm not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did.

~ Yogi Berra ~

Home

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

~ Robert Frost ~

Photo courtesy Robert Frost Farm.

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.