May 7, 2014

Good Morning!

Today is the birthday of Robert Browning (1812 – 1889) who said:

“Love is the energy of life.”

and

“I was made and meant to look for you and wait for you and become yours forever.”

and

“Grow old with me! The best is yet to be.”

It is also the birthday of Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897) who said:

“The idea comes to me from outside of me - and is like a gift. I then take the idea and make it my own - that is where the skill lies.”

And that of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 -1893) who said:

“Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.”

and

“Truly there would be reason to go mad were it not for music.”

Happy Birthday to Rabindranath Tagore (1861 – 1941) who wrote: 

“If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars.”

and

“Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,

but to be fearless in facing them.

Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but

for the heart to conquer it.”

and

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”

and

“Where the mind is without fear

and the head is held high,

where knowledge is free.

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls.

Where words come out from the depth of truth,

where tireless striving stretches its arms toward perfection.

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

into the dreary desert sand of dead habit.

Where the mind is led forward by thee

into ever widening thought and action.

In to that heaven of freedom, my father,

LET MY COUNTRY AWAKE!”

Today is the birthday of Gene Wolfe (1931 - ) who said:

“My definition of good literature is that which can be read by an educated reader, and reread with increased pleasure.”

and

“All novels are fantasies. Some are more honest about it.”

It is also the birthday of Angela Carter (1940 – 1992) who said:

“Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. You bring to a novel, anything you read, all your experience of the world. You bring your history and you read it in your own terms.”

Happy Birthday to Peter Carey (1943 - ) who said:

“To know you will be lonely is not the same as being lonely.”

and

“People do not love those whose eyes show that they are somewhere else”

and

“If you ever read one of my books I hope you'll think it looks so easy. In fact, I wrote those chapters 20 times over, and over, and over, and that if you want to write at a good level, you'll have to do that too.”

Finally, it is the birthday of Doug Benson (1964 - ) who said:

“In Seattle, they have a saying: 'If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes and then shoot yourself in the face.”