April 26, 2014

Good Morning!

Today is the birthday of Marcus Aurelius (121 – 180) who said:

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”

and

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”

It is also the birthday of William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) who today would be celebrating the fact that he would be 450 years old. He wrote a great many things, of which these are only a scant few:

“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”

and

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,

And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”

and

“Doubt thou the stars are fire;

Doubt that the sun doth move;

Doubt truth to be a liar;

But never doubt I love.”

and

“Lord, what fools these mortals be.”

Happy Birthday to Anita Loos (1889 – 1981) who said:

“I've always loved high style in low company.”

Today is the birthday of Bernard Malamud (1914 – 1986) who said:

“There comes a time in a man's life when to get where he has to go--if there are no doors or windows--he walks through a wall.”

and

“Teach yourself to work in uncertainty.”

and

“The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself."

and

“Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.”

Finally, birthday greetings to Carol Burnett (1933 - ) who said:

“Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me.”

and

“I have always grown from my problems and challenges, from the things that don't work out, that's when I've really learned.”

April 25, 2014

Good Morning!

Today is the birthday of Edward R. Murrow (1908 – 1965) who said:

“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”

and

“We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.”

and

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.”

and

“To be persuasive, We must be believable,

To be believable, We must be credible,

To be credible, We must be truthful.”

It is also the birthday of Ella Fitzgerald (1917 – 1996) who said:

“Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.”

Happy Birthday to Al Pacino (1940 - ) who said:

“I don’t understand the hatred and fear of gays and bisexuals and lesbians…

it’s a concept I honestly cannot grasp. To me, it’s not who you love…

a man, a woman, what have you…

it’s the fact that you love. That is all that truly matters.”

and

“You'll never be alone if you’ve got a book.”

Today is the birthday of James Fenton (1949 - ) who wrote this poem:

The Mistake

"With the mistake your life goes in reverse.

Now you can see exactly what you did

Wrong yesterday and wrong the day before

And each mistake leads back to something worse

And every nuance of your hypocrisy

Towards yourself, and every excuse

Stands solidly on the perspective lines

And there is perfect visibility.

What an enlightenment. The colonnade

Rolls past on either side. You needn't move.

The statues of your errors brush your sleeve.

You watch the tale turn back — and you're dismayed.

And this dismay at this, this big mistake

Is made worse by the sight of all those who

Knew all along where these mistakes would lead —

Those frozen friends who watched the crisis break.

Why didn't they say? Oh, but they did indeed —

Said with a murmur when the time was wrong

Or by a mild refusal to assent

Or told you plainly but you would not heed.

Yes, you can hear them now. It hurts. It's worse

Than any sneer from any enemy.

Take this dismay. Lay claim to this mistake.

Look straight along the lines of this reverse.”

April 24, 2014

Good Morning! 

Today is the birthday of Anthony Trollope (1815 – 1882) who said:

“What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?...Was ever anything so civil?”

and

“That I can read and be happy while I am reading, is a great blessing.”

and

“Never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. People will take you very much at your own reckoning.”

It is also the birthday of Robert Penn Warren (1905 – 1989) who said:

“Tell me a story.

In this century, and moment, of mania, tell me a story.

Make it a story of great distances, and starlight.

The name of the story will be time,

But you must not speak its name.

Tell me a story of deep delight.” 

April 23, 2014

Good Morning! 

Today is the birthday of Halldór Laxness (1902 – 1998) who said:

“Human beings, in point of fact, are lonely by nature, and one should feel sorry for them and love them and mourn with them. It is certain that people would understand one another better and love one another more if they would admit to one another how lonely they were, how sad they were in their tormented, anxious longings and feeble hopes.”

and

“Whoever doesn't live in poetry cannot survive here on earth.”

It is also the birthday of J.P. Donleavy (1926 - ) who said:

“When I'm dead, I hope it may be said: his sins were scarlet, but his books were read.”

and

“Writing: Turning one's worst moments into profit.”

Happy Birthday to Arthur Phillips (1969 - ) who said:

“Love is not sufficient. It never has been. Stories that claim otherwise are lies. There's always SOMETHING after happily ever after.”

Finally, it is the birthday of John Oliver (1977 - ) who said:

“The world's become so horrifying now. It's too easy to become cynical about things and that's not fair and it doesn't work. And in fact, there is hope for the world. And it is in the form of Wikipedia. Now Wikipedia will save us all. I found this out when recently a friend of mine emailed me and he said that someone had created a Wikipedia entry about me. I didn't realize this was true, so I looked it up. And like most Wikipedia entries, it came with some flamboyant surprises, not least amongst them my name. Because in it it said my name was John Cornelius Oliver. Now my middle name is not Cornelius because I did not die in 1752. But obviously, I wanted to be. Cornelius is an incredible name. And that's when it hit me --the way the world is now, fiction has become more attractive than fact. That is why Wikipedia is such a vital resource. It's a way of us completely rewriting our history to give our children and our children's children a much better history to grow up with. We seem to have no intention of providing them with a future. Let's at least give them a past. It is in a very real sense the least we can do.”