Today's Words of Wisdom - November 6, 2015

Today is the birthday of the following people:

Ethan Hawke (1970 - ):

“Don't you find it odd," she continued, "that when you're a kid, everyone, all the world, encourages you to follow your dreams. But when you're older, somehow they act offended if you even try.”

and

“Give your heart to everybody you meet. The rest is pretense.”

and

“The older I get, the more I realize how rare it is to meet a kindred spirit.”

Robert Musil (1880 – 1942):

“One does what one is; one becomes what one does.”

and

“Hardly anyone still reads nowadays. People make use of the writer only in order to work off their own excess energy on him in a perverse manner, in the form of agreement or disagreement.”

James Jones (1921 – 1977):

“Having a little talent as a writer is like having a little talent as a brain surgeon.”

and

“I write to reach eternity”

and

“That was one of the virtues of being a pessimist: nothing was ever as bad as you thought it would be.”

Michael Cunningham (1952 - ):

“One always has a better book in one's mind than one can manage to get onto paper.”

and

“We throw our parties; we abandon our families to live alone in Canada; we struggle to write books that do not change the world, despite our gifts and our unstinting efforts, our most extravagant hopes. We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep. It's as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out windows, or drown themselves, or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us are slowly devoured by some disease, or, if we're very fortunate, by time itself. There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) know these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more. Heaven only knows why we love it so...”

Amir Aczel (1950 - ):

“Mathematics is not a careful march down a well cleared highway, but a journey into a strange wilderness, where the explorers often get lost.”

Mike Nichols (1931 – 2014):

“There's nothing better than discovering, to your own astonishment, what you're meant to do. It's like falling in love.”