July 24, 2014

Good Morning! Here are your daily birthday quotations...

Alexandre Dumas (1802 – 1870):

“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes.”

and

“All human wisdom is contained in these two words--"Wait and Hope.”

and

“I have always had more dread of a pen, a bottle of ink, and a sheet of paper than of a sword or pistol.”

and

“I prefer rogues to imbeciles, because they sometimes take a rest.”

Jun'ichirō Tanizaki (1886 – 1965):

“The older we get the more we seem to think that everything was better in the past.”

Robert Graves (1895 – 1985):

“There's no money in poetry, but there's no poetry in money, either.”

and

“The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.”

and

“If I were a girl, I'd despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of the men who deserve them.”

and

“To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.”

and

“Never use the word 'audience.' The very idea of a public, unless the poet is writing for money, seems wrong to me. Poets don't have an 'audience': They're talking to a single person all the time.”

John D. MacDonald (1916 – 1986):

“If the cards are stacked against you, reshuffle the deck.”

and

“...there are people who try to look as if they are doing a good and thorough job, and then there are the people who actually damn well do it, for its own sake.”

Banana Yoshimoto (1964 - ):

“Sometimes people put up walls, not to keep others out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.”

and

“No matter where you are, you're always a bit on your own, always an outsider.”

and

“As I grow older, much older, I will experience many things, and I will hit rock bottom again and again. Again and again I will suffer; again and again I will get back on my feet. I will not be defeated. I won't let my spirit be destroyed.”