Today is the birthday of the following people:
Rumi (1207 -1273):
“Your task is not to
seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.”
and
“Dance, when you're
broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the
fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.”
Truman Capote (1924 - 1984):
“Failure is the
condiment that gives success its flavor.”
and
“He loved her, he
loved her, and until he'd loved her she had never minded being alone....”
and
“You can’t give your
heart to a wild thing.”
and
“I don't care what
anybody says about me as long as it isn't true.”
and
“You can't blame a
writer for what the characters say.”
and
“Life is a moderately
good play with a badly written third act.”
and
“To me, the greatest
pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the music the words make.”
Elie Wiesel (1928 - ):
“The opposite of love
is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's
indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the
opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”
and
“Friendship marks a
life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession,
friendship is never anything but sharing.”
and
“There is divine
beauty in learning... To learn means to accept the postulate that life did not
begin at my birth. Others have been here before me, and I walk in their
footsteps. The books I have read were composed by generations of fathers and
sons, mothers and daughters, teachers and disciples. I am the sum total of
their experiences, their quests. And so are you.”
W.S. Merwin (1927 - ):
“On the last day of
the world
I would want to plant
a tree”
“Poetry is like
making a joke. If you get one word wrong at the end of a joke, you've lost the
whole thing.”
A BIRTHDAY
by W.S. Merwin
Something continues
and I don't know what to call it
though the language
is full of suggestions
in the way of
language
but they are all
anonymous
and it's almost your
birthday music next to my bones
these nights we hear
the horses running in the rain
it stops and the moon
comes out and we are still here
the leaks in the roof
go on dripping after the rain has passed
smell of ginger
flowers slips through the dark house
down near the sea the
slow heart of the beacon flashes
the long way to you
is still tied to me but it brought me to you
I keep wanting to
give you what is already yours
it is the morning of
the mornings together
breath of summer oh
my found one
the sleep in the same
current and each waking to you
when I open my eyes
you are what I wanted to see.
“Inside this pencil
crouch words that
have never been written
never been spoken
never been taught
they’re hiding
they’re awake in
there
dark in the dark
hearing us
but they won’t come
out
not for love not for
time not for fire
even when the dark
has worn away
they’ll still be
there
hiding in the air
multitudes in days to
come may walk through them
breathe them
be none the wiser
what script can it be
that they won’t
unroll
in what language
would I recognize it
would I be able to
follow it
to make out the real
names
of everything
maybe there aren’t
many
it could be that
there’s only one word
and it’s all we need
it’s here in this
pencil
every pencil in the
world
is like this”
Terrance Terich (1971 - ):
“For most people,
their favorite part of the day is when work is over, when they put on their
sweatpants or pajamas and relax. That is not MY favorite part of the day. I
have five favorite parts of the day, at the beginning of every period, when I
see each student’s face as he or she walks in through the door. THOSE MOMENTS
are MY favorite parts of the day.”
and
“Provide the world
with something that it is severely lacking. The world has
enough people staring at screens. The world has enough people using those
screens to snipe at each other. The world has enough friendships
falling apart. What this world lacks more than anything is empathy, the ability
to understand how other people are feeling, not just yourself, so
I hope you can add some of that empathy to the world. When
you can see another person's point of view, you can begin to understand, well,
everything.”
and
“Many times, I've
thought that other people were becoming obstacles in my path to a good life.
But, life doesn't have a right path. There is no such thing as a good life.
There is only life. There is only your path, and your path has many possible
branches, and there are detours, and side streets, and u-turns. ”
and
“As you go forward in
your lives, all of you on different paths, there is no better advice I can give
you than to realize that you are surrounded by people. People who have your
back. People who are strangers, but may soon turn out to be friends. People who
need help. People who could benefit from your wisdom, or even just your
attention. People who are alone, or lonely, or afraid. People just like you.
People who need a kind word, a smile, a hand on the shoulder, a wink, a nod, a
fist bump, a hug. The knowledge that they are distinct. You can make the
difference in someone’s life. You've already made the difference in mine.
Continue to be the difference. Be distinct.”
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