Today's Words of Wisdom - October 2, 2015

Today is the birthday of the following people:

Groucho Marx (1890 - 1977):

"From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it."

and

"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book."

and

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."

and

"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."

Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955):

“Death is the mother of beauty. Only the perishable can be beautiful, which is why we are unmoved by artificial flowers.”

and

“Human nature is like water. It takes the shape of its container.”

and

“It is not everyday that the world arranges itself into a poem.”

and

“A poet looks at the world as a man looks at a woman.”

 The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm

The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book.

The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The words were spoken as if there was no book,

Except that the reader leaned above the page,

Wanted to lean, wanted much to be

The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.

The house was quiet because it had to be.

The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:

The access of perfection to the page.

And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,

In which there is no other meaning, itself

Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself

Is the reader leaning late and reading there.

― Wallace Stevens

Graham Greene (1904 - 1991):

“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.”

and

“People who like quotations love meaningless generalizations.”

Jack Finney (1911 - 1995):

“Have you ever given someone a book you enjoyed enormously, with a feeling of envy because they were about to read it for the first time, an experience you could never have again?”

Richard Hell (1949 - ):

“You realize there are certain things that you'll never do that you always thought would be part of your future. It's a big relief to discover what you are best suited for, and it's a real advantage to be able then to focus.”

Annie Leibovitz (1949 - ):

"If it makes you cry, it goes in the show."

Badly Drawn Boy (1969 - ):

"I remember doing nothing on the night Sinatra died

And the night Jeff Buckley died

And the night Kurt Cobain died

And the night John Lennon died

I remember I stayed up to watch the news with everyone

And that was a lot of nights

And that was a lot of lives"