Sunday, February 28, 2010

Meandering freely . . .

Today is the birthday of Ben Hecht (February 28, 1894 – April 18, 1964), screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist.

"Time is a circus, always packing up and moving away." - Ben Hecht

"A man nearly always loves for other reasons than he thinks. A lover is apt to be as full of secrets from himself as is the object of his love from him." - Ben Hecht

"I know that a man who shows me his wealth is like the beggar who shows me his poverty; they are both looking for alms from me, the rich man for the alms of my envy, the poor man for the alms of my guilt." - Ben Hecht

"The rule in the art world is: you cater to the masses or you kowtow to the elite; you can't have both." - Ben Hecht

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Saturday, February 27, 2010

Meandering to and fro . . .

Today is the birthday of John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. (February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968), writer. He wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and the novella Of Mice and Men (1937). John Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.

"A sad soul can kill quicker than a germ." - John Steinbeck

"I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit." - John Steinbeck

"We spend our time searching for security and hate it when we get it." - John Steinbeck

"It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure on the world." - John Steinbeck

"No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself." - John Steinbeck

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Friday, February 26, 2010

Meandering . . .

Today is the birthday of Victor-Marie Hugo (February 26, 1802 – May 22, 1885), novelist, poet, and dramatist. He is best-known works are The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) and Les Misérables (1862).

"All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come." - Victor Hugo

"He, who every morning plans the transactions of the day, and follows that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through a labyrinth of the most busy life." - Victor Hugo

"Do not let it be your aim to be something, but to be someone." - Victor Hugo

"Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet." - Victor Hugo


"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent." - Victor Hugo

"Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time." - Victor Hugo

"There is nothing like a dream to create the future." - Victor Hugo

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Thursday, February 25, 2010

Meandering around and around . . .

Today is the birthday of John Burgess Wilson (February 25, 1917 – November 22, 1993), author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. He is best known by his pen name Anthony Burgess and his novel A Clockwork Orange.

"Violence among young people is an aspect of their desire to create. They don't know how to use their energy creatively so they do the opposite and destroy." - Anthony Burgess

"When we promise to love we really mean that we promise to honor a contract." - Anthony Burgess

"It's always good to remember where you come from and celebrate it. To remember where you come from is part of where you're going." - Anthony Burgess

"Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions, when it ceases to be dangerous you don't want it." - Anthony Burgess

"Language exists less to record the actual than to liberate the imagination." - Anthony Burgess

"Every dogma has its day." - Anthony Burgess

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Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Meandering about . . .

Today is the birthday of George Augustus Moore (February 24, 1852 – January 21, 1933), novelist, short-story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist.

"Reality can destroy the dream; why shouldn't the dream destroy reality?" - George Moore

"A man travels the world over in search of what he needs, and returns home to find it." - George Moore

"A very slight change in our habits is sufficient to destroy our sense of our daily reality, and the reality of the world about us; the moment we pass out of our habits we lose all sense of permanency and routine." - George Moore

"Everybody sets out to do something, and everybody does something, but no one does what he sets out to do." - George Moore

"We live in our desires rather than in our achievements." - George Moore

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Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Meandering across the board . . .

Today is the birthday of William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963), civil rights activist, sociologist, historian, author, and editor.

"Believe in life! Always human beings will progress to greater, broader, and fuller life." - W. E. B. Du Bois

"The return from your work must be the satisfaction which that work brings you and the world's need of that work. With this, life is heaven, or as near heaven as you can get. Without this — with work which you despise, which bores you, and which the world does not need — this life is hell." - W. E. B. Du Bois

"Herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poor, — all men know something of poverty; not that men are wicked — who is good? not that men are ignorant, — what is Truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men." - W. E. B. Du Bois

"When you have mastered numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading books You will be reading meanings." - W. E. B. Du Bois

"To stimulate wildly weak and untrained minds is to play with mighty fires." - W. E. B. Du Bois

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Monday, February 22, 2010

Meandering in the shadows . . .

Today is the birthday of Arthur Schopenhauer (February 22, 1788 – September 21,1860), philosopher. He is best known for his work The World as Will and Representation.

"Friends and acquaintances are the surest passport to fortune." - Arthur Schopenhauer

"After your death you will be what you were before your birth." - Arthur Schopenhauer

"The effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence." - Arthur Schopenhauer

"Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world." - Arthur Schopenhauer

"Wicked thoughts and worthless efforts gradually set their mark on the face, especially the eyes." - Arthur Schopenhauer

"It is in the treatment of trifles that a person shows what they are." - Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difficulty is to try and teach the multitude that something can be true and untrue at the same time." - Arthur Schopenhauer

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Sunday, February 21, 2010

Meandering in the stacks . . .

Today is the birthday of Anaïs Nin (February 21, 1903–January 14, 1977), author.

"Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age." - Anaïs Nin

"Dreams are necessary to life." - Anaïs Nin

"Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish it's source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings." - Anaïs Nin

"How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself." - Anaïs Nin

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." - Anaïs Nin

"Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living." - Anaïs Nin

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born." - Anaïs Nin

"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." - Anaïs Nin

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Saturday, February 20, 2010

Simply meandering . . .

Today is the birthday of Richard Burton Matheson (born 20 February 1926), author and screenwriter. He is best known as the author of What Dreams May Come, Somewhere In Time and I Am Legend - which have been all been adapted as major films.

"I think we’re yearning for something beyond the every day. And I will tell you that I don’t believe in the supernatural, I believe in the supernormal. To me there is nothing that goes against nature. If it seems incomprehensible, it’s because we haven’t been able to understand it yet." - Richard Matheson

"Our world is in profound danger. Mankind must establish a set of positive values with which to secure its own survival. This quest for enlightenment must begin now. It is essential that all men and women become aware of what they are, why they are here on Earth and what they must do to preserve civilization before it is too late." - Richard Matheson (The Path)

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Friday, February 19, 2010

Meandering freely . . .

Today is the birthday of André Breton (February 19, 1896 – September 28, 1966), writer, poet, and surrealist theorist. He is best known as the principal founder of Surrealism and his Surrealist Manifesto of 1924.

"All my life, my heart has yearned for a thing I cannot name." - André Breton

"Everything tends to make us believe that there exists a certain point of the mind at which life and death, the real and the imagined, past and future, the communicable and the incommunicable, high and low, cease to be perceived as contradictions." - André Breton

"I have always been amazed at the way an ordinary observer lends so much more credence and attaches so much more importance to waking events than to those occurring in dreams... Man... is above all the plaything of his memory." - André Breton

"Love is when you meet someone who tells you something new about yourself." - André Breton

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Thursday, February 18, 2010

Meandering in thought . . .

Today is the birthday of Nikos Kazantzakis (February 18, 1883 - October 26, 1957), writer and philosopher. He is best known for Zorba the Greek (Vios kai politeia tou Alexi Zorba) and The Last Temptation of Christ (O teleutaios peirasmos).

Here again is an author whose work was banned. His book, The Last Temptation of Christ, was considered quite controversial when first published in 1955, and prompted angry reactions from both the Roman Catholic Church which banned it, and from the Greek Orthodox Church which excommunicated him. - source (1)

"Where are we going? Do not ask! Ascend, descend. There is no beginning and no end. Only this present moment exists, full of bitterness, full of sweetness, and I rejoice in it all." Gather your strength and listen; the whole heart of man is a single outcry. Lean against your breast to hear it; someone is struggling and shouting within you." - Nikos Kazantzakis

"Every perfect traveller always creates the country where he travels." - Nikos Kazantzakis

"A man needs a little madness, or else he never dares cut the rope and be free." - Nikos Kazantzakis
"Gather your strength and listen; the whole heart of man is a single outcry. Lean against your breast to hear it; someone is struggling and shouting within you. It is your duty every moment, day and night, in joy or in sorrow, amid all daily necessities, to discern this Cry with vehemence or restraint, according to your nature, with laughter or with weeping, in action or in thought, striving to find out who is imperiled and cries out. And how we may all be mobilized together to free him." - Nikos Kazantzakis

"You are not a miserable and momentary body; behind your fleeting mask of clay, a thousand-year-old face lies in ambush. Your passions and your thoughts are older than your heart or brain." - Nikos Kazantzakis

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Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Meandering here and there . . .

Today is the birthday of Herman Harold Potok (February 17, 1929 - July 23, 2002), author and rabbi. He is best known as Chaim Potok, author of The Chosen. It was one of the first books from a major publisher to portray Orthodox Judaism in the United States. The 1967 novel was a bestseller and stayed on New York’s best seller list for 39 weeks.

"We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what values is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye? A blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant. A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life. It is hard work to fill one's life with meaning. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest." — Chaim Potok

"Every man who has shown the world the way to beauty, to true culture, has been a rebel, a 'universal' without patriotism, without home, who has found his people everywhere." - Chaim Potok

"Come, let us have some tea and continue to talk about happy things." - Chaim Potok

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Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Meandering in happiness . . .

Today is the birthday of Eckhart Tolle (born Ulrich Leonard Tolle, February 16, 1948), public speaker and author. He is best known for his books The Power of Now and A New Earth.

"You are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold. That is how important you are." - Eckhart Tolle

"To the ego, the present moment hardly exists. Only past and future are considered important. This total reversal of the truth accounts for the fact that in the ego mode the mind is so dysfunctional. It is always concerned with keeping the past alive, because without it - who are you?" - Eckhart Tolle

"I cannot tell you any spiritual truth that deep within you don't know already." - Eckhart Tolle

"When you don't cover up the world with words and labels, a sense of the miraculous returns to your life." - Eckhart Tolle

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Monday, February 15, 2010

Meandering around . . .

Today is the birthday of Alfred North Whitehead (February 15, 1861 – December 30, 1947), mathematician and philosopher.

"Almost all new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced." - Alfred North Whitehead

"Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self." - Alfred North Whitehead

"No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude." - Alfred North Whitehead

"The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, seek simplicity and distrust it." - Alfred North Whitehead

"Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure." - Alfred North Whitehead

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Sunday, February 14, 2010

Meandering about . . .

Today is the birthday of George Jean Nathan (February 14 1882 – April 8 1958), drama critic and editor. He was a founder and an editor (1932–35) of the American Spectator magazine.

The George Jean Nathan Award, an honor in dramatic criticism, is named after him. - George Jean Nathan

"What passes for woman's intuition is often nothing more than man's transparency." - George Jean Nathan

"No man thinks clearly when his fists are clenched." - George Jean Nathan

"A life spent in constant labor is a life wasted, save a man be such a fool as to regard a fulsome obituary notice as ample reward." - George Jean Nathan

"The path of sound credence is through the thick forest of skepticism." - George Jean Nathan

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Saturday, February 13, 2010

Meandering in the stacks . . .

Today is the birthday of Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (February 13, 1903 – September 4, 1989), writer. Georges Simenon is best known for the creation of the fictional detective Maigret.

"I adore life but I don't fear death. I just prefer to die as late as possible." - Georges Simenon

"The fact that we are I don't know how many millions of people, yet communication, complete communication, is completely impossible between two of those people, is to me one of the biggest tragic themes in the world." - Georges Simenon

"Writing is not a profession, but a vocation of unhappiness." - Georges Simenon


"Truth never seems true. I don't mean only in literature or in painting. I won't remind you either of those Doric columns whose lines seem to us strictly perpendicular and which only give that impression because they are slightly curved. If they were straight, they'd look as if they were swelling, don't you see?" - Georges Simenon

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Friday, February 12, 2010

Do we meander on . . .

Today is the birthday of Charles Darwin (February 12, 1809 - April 19, 1882), naturalist. He is renowned for his documentation of evolution and for his theory of its operation, known as Darwinism. He published his theory with his compelling evidence for evolution in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species.

"A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life." - Charles Darwin

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin

"In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed." - Charles Darwin

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change." - Charles Darwin

"The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts." - Charles Darwin

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Thursday, February 11, 2010

Meandering, meandering, meandering we go . . .

Today is the birthday of Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931), inventor, scientist and businessman.

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." - Thomas A. Edison

"I know this world is ruled by infinite intelligence. Everything that surrounds us- everything that exists - proves that there are infinite laws behind it. There can be no denying this fact. It is mathematical in its precision." - Thomas A. Edison

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." - Thomas A. Edison

"If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves." - Thomas A. Edison

"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time." - Thomas A. Edison

"Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits." - Thomas A. Edison

"The value of an idea lies in the using of it." - Thomas A. Edison

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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Meandering in joy . . .

Today is the birthday of William Allen White (February 10, 1868 – January 29, 1944), newspaper editor, politician, and author.

"I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today." - William Allen White

"I have never been bored an hour in my life. I get up every morning wondering what new strange glamorous thing is going to happen and it happens at fairly regular intervals." - William Allen White

"I have tried to teach people there are three kicks in every dollar: one, when you make it; two, when you have it. The third kick it when you give it away -- and it is the biggest kick of all." - William Allen White

"Lady Luck has been good to me and I fancy she has been good to everyone. Only some people are dour, and when she gives them the come hither with her eyes, they look down or turn away and lift an eyebrow. But me, I give her the wink and away we go." - William Allen White


"If the world were extremely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world, and a desire to enjoy the world. That makes it hard to plan the day." - William Allen White

"Live for today. Multitudes of people have failed to live for today. . . . What they have had within their grasp today they have missed entirely, because only the future has intrigued them." - William Allen White

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Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Meandering . . .

Today is the birthday of Nicolaas Thomas Bernhard (February 9, 1931 – February 12, 1989), playwright, novelist and poet.

"We only really face up to ourselves when we are afraid." - Thomas Bernhard

"I did not want to be anything, and naturally I did not want to turn myself into a mere profession: all I ever wanted was to be myself." - Thomas Bernhard (Gathering Evidence)

"Art altogether is nothing but a survival skill, we should never lose sight of this fact, it is, time and again, just an attempt -- an attempt that seems touching even to our intellect -- to cope with this world and its revolting aspects, which, as we know, is invariably possible only by resorting to lies and falsehoods, to hyprocrisy and self-deception, Reger said. These pictures are full of lies and falsehoods and full of hypocrisy and self-deception, there is nothing else in them if we disregard their often inspired artistry. All these pictures, moreover, are an expression of man's absolute helplessness in coping with himself and with what surrounds him all his life. That is what all these pictures express, this helplessness which, on the one hand, embarasses the intellect and, on the other hand, bewilders the same intellect and moves it to tears, Reger said." — Thomas Bernhard (Old Masters: A Comedy)

"We only control what we ultimately find ridiculous, only if we find the world and life upon it ridiculous can we get any further, there is no other, no better, method." - Thomas Bernhard (Old Masters: A Comedy)

"Everyone, he went on, speaks a language he does not understand, but which now and then is understood by others. That is enough to permit one to exist and at least to be misunderstood." — Thomas Bernhard (Gargoyles: A Novel)

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Monday, February 8, 2010

Meandering in thought . . .

Today is the birthday of Martin Buber (February 8, 1878 – June 13, 1965), philosopher, theologian, story-teller, and teacher.

"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware." - Martin Buber

"There are three principles in a man's being and life, the principle of thought, the principle of speech, and the principle of action. The origin of all conflict between me and my fellow-men is that I do not say what I mean and I don't do what I say." - Martin Buber

"I do not accept any absolute formulas for living. No preconceived code can see ahead to everything that can happen in a man's life. As we live, we grow and our beliefs change. They must change. So I think we should live with this constant discovery. We should be open to this adventure in heightened awareness of living. We should stake our whole existence on our willingness to explore and experience." - Martin Buber

"A person cannot approach the divine by reaching beyond the human. To become human, is what this individual person, has been created for." - Martin Buber


"An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language." - Martin Buber

"The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable: through the embracing of one of its beings." - Martin Buber

"Play is the exultation of the possible." - Martin Buber

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Sunday, February 7, 2010

Meandering in the studies . . .

Today is the birthday of Alfred Adler (February 7, 1870 – May 28, 1937), doctor, psychologist and founder of the school of individual psychology.

"Man knows much more than he understands." - Alfred Adler

"A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt dangerous." - Alfred Adler

"A simple rule in dealing with those who are hard to get along with is to remember that this person is striving to assert his superiority; and you must deal with him from that point of view." - Alfred Adler

"We must interpret a bad temper as a sign of inferiority." - Alfred Adler

"Meanings are not determined by situations, but we determine ourselves by the meanings we give to situations." - Alfred Adler

"The greater the feeling of inferiority that has been experienced, the more powerful is the urge to conquest and the more violent the emotional agitation." - Alfred Adler

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Saturday, February 6, 2010

Meandering across the board . . .

Today is the birthday of Johann Adam Weishaupt (February 6, 1748 – November 18, 1830), philosopher. He is best known as the founder of the Order of Illuminati, a secret society with origins in Bavaria.

"Of all the means I know to lead men, the most effectual is a concealed mystery. The hankering of the mind is irresistible." - Adam Weishaupt

"And of all illumination which human reason can give, none is comparable to the discovery of what we are, our nature, our obligations, what happiness we are capable of, and what are the means of attaining it." - Adam Weishaupt

"By establishing reading societies, and subscription libraries, and taking these under our direction, and supplying them through our labors, we may turn the public mind which way we will." - Adam Weishaupt

"For the Order wishes to be secret, and to work in silence, for thus it is better secured from the oppression of the ruling powers, and because this secrecy gives a greater zest to the whole." - Adam Weishaupt

"I am proud to be known to the world as the founder of the Illuminati." - Adam Weishaupt

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Friday, February 5, 2010

Meandering on the edge . . .

Today is the birthday of William Seward Burroughs II (February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997), novelist, essayist, social critic, painter and spoken word performer.

He was an avant-garde author who was a key figure in the Beat Generation. In 1975, he was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

"In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen." - William S. Burroughs

"I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it." - William S. Burroughs

"Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing." - William S. Burroughs

"Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his hope for other people is that they will also make it exist by observing it. I call it creative observation. Creative viewing." - William S. Burroughs

"A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on." - William S. Burroughs

"Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer." - William S. Burroughs

"I am getting so far out one day I won't come back at all." - William S. Burroughs

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Thursday, February 4, 2010

Meandering about . . .

Today is the birthday of Russell Conwell Hoban (born February 4, 1925), writer of fantasy, science fiction, mainstream fiction, magic realism, poetry, and children's books.

"There is only one place, and that place is time." - Russell Hoban

"If the past cannot teach the present and the father cannot teach the son, then history need not have bothered to go on, and the world has wasted a great deal of time." - Russell Hoban

"Nothing to be done really about animals. Anything you do looks foolish. The answer isn't in us. It's almost as if we're put here on earth to show how silly they aren't." - Russell Hoban

"After all, when you come right down to it, how many people speak the same language even when they speak the same language?" - Russell Hoban

"One assumes that the world simply is and is and is but it isn't, it is like music that we hear a moment at a time and put together in our heads. But this music, unlike other music, cannot be performed again." - Russell Hoban

"Explorers have to be ready to die lost." - Russell Hoban

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Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Meandering freely . . .

Today is the birthday of Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946), writer, poet, feminist, and playwright.

"A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears." - Gertrude Stein

"If you can do it then why do it?" - Gertrude Stein

"Action and reaction are equal and opposite." - Gertrude Stein

"Argument is to me the air I breathe. Given any proposition, I cannot help believing the other side and defending it." - Gertrude Stein

"When they are alone they want to be with others, and when they are with others they want to be alone. After all, human beings are like that." - Gertrude Stein

"I do want to get rich but I never want to do what there is to do to get rich." - Gertrude Stein

"The deepest thing in any one is the conviction of the bad luck that follows boasting." - Gertrude Stein

"It is awfully important to know what is and what is not your business." - Gertrude Stein

"Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose." - Gertrude Stein

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Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Meandering forever . . .

Today is the birthday of James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (February 2, 1882 – January 13, 1941), novelist, short-story writer and poet. He is best known for his oft-banned novel Ulysses (1922) and is considered one of the influential authors of the 20th century.

"Shut your eyes and see." - James Joyce

"A man's errors are his portals of discovery." - James Joyce

"There is not past, no future; everything flows in an eternal present." - James Joyce

"I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day." - James Joyce

"While you have a thing it can be taken from you... but when you give it, you have given it. No robber can take it from you. It is yours then for ever when you have given it. It will be yours always. That is to give." - James Joyce

"Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home." - James Joyce


"Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves." - James Joyce

"The present is the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past." - James Joyce

"One by one, they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age." - James Joyce

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Monday, February 1, 2010

Meandering . . .

Today is the birthday of James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967), poet, novelist, playwright, short story writer, and columnist.

"An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose." - Langston Hughes

"Hold fast to your dreams, for without them life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly." - Langston Hughes

"I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go." - Langston Hughes

"When peoples care for you and cry for you, they can straighten out your soul." - Langston Hughes

"What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun?... Or does it explode?" - Langston Hughes

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