January 6, 2015

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

Alex Turner (1986 - ):

"Rock’n’roll or whatever you want to call it sort of goes away with trends, but it’ll never go away completely. It can’t die because it’s so fundamentally attractive."

Elizabeth Strout (1956 - ):

“I suspect the most we can hope for, and it's no small hope, is that we never give up, that we never stop giving ourselves permission to try to love and receive love.”

and

“People like to think the younger generation's job is to steer the world to hell. But it's never true, is it? They're hopeful and good - and that's how it should be.”

Rowan Atkinson (1955 - ):

“As I was leaving this morning, I said to myself, 'The last thing you must do is forget your speech.' And, sure enough, as I left the house this morning, the last thing I did was to forget my speech.”

Anthony Minghella (1954 – 2008):

“The feeling of not belonging, of not being entirely worthy, of being sometimes hostage to your own sensibilities. Those things speak to me very personally.”

and

“I never feel more myself than when I'm writing; I never enjoy any day more than a good writing day.”

Syd Barrett (1946 – 2006):

“I don't think I'm easy to talk about. I've got a very irregular head. And I'm not anything that you think I am anyway.”

Barry Lopez (1945 - ):

“Everything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion.”

and

“No culture has yet solved the dilemma each has faced with the growth of a conscious mind: how to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in all life, when one finds darkness not only in one’s own culture but within oneself.”

and

“Remember on this one thing, said Badger. The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other's memories. This is how people care for themselves.”

E.L. Doctorow (1931 - ):

“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

and

“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader—not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”

and

“Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing.”

Alan Watts (1915 – 1973):

“Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.”

and

“This is the real secret of life -- to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.”

and

“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”

and

“Advice? I don’t have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you’re writing, you’re a writer. Write like you’re a death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there’s no chance for a pardon. Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves. Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone. Write like you have a message from the king. Or don’t. Who knows, maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have to.”

Kahlil Gibran (1883 – 1931):

“If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. If they don't, they never were.”

and

“One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours? I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life.”

and

“Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.”

Carl Sandburg (1878 – 1967):

“Time is the coin of your life. You spend it. Do not allow others to spend it for you.”

and

“Life is like an onion; you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.”

and

“Poetry is an echo asking a shadow to dance.”

and

“Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what was seen during a moment.”