A PORTRAIT A DAY KEEPS MYSELF SANE

“If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I...

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:01:40 -0400

“If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.”
― L. Frank Baum

“Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history...

Thu, 16 May 2013 10:01:17 -0400

“Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are engines of change (as the poet said), windows on the world and lighthouses erected in the sea of time. They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.”
― Barbara W. Tuchman

“To me, a writer is one of the most important soldiers in the...

Wed, 15 May 2013 10:01:27 -0400

“To me, a writer is one of the most important soldiers in the fight for survival of the human race. He must stay at his post in the thick of fire to serve the cause of mankind.”
― Leon Uris

“Fiction is art and art is the triumph over chaos (no less) and...

Tue, 14 May 2013 10:02:19 -0400

“Fiction is art and art is the triumph over chaos (no less) and we can accomplish this only by the most vigilant exercise of choice, but in a world that changes more swiftly that we can perceive there is always the danger that our powers of selection will be mistaken and that the vision we serve will come to nothing.”
― John Cheever

“Gossip is never fatal until it is denied. Gossip goes on about...

Mon, 13 May 2013 10:01:20 -0400

“Gossip is never fatal until it is denied. Gossip goes on about every human being alive and about all the dead that are alive enough to be remembered, and yet almost never does any harm until some defender makes a controversy. Gossip’s a nasty thing, but it’s sickly, and if people of good intentions will let it entirely alone, it will die, ninety-nine times out of a hundred.”
― Booth Tarkington

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as...

Sun, 12 May 2013 10:01:29 -0400

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.”
― Karl Marx

“That philosophy died yesterday, since Hegel or Marx, Nietzsche,...

Sat, 11 May 2013 10:01:30 -0400

“That philosophy died yesterday, since Hegel or Marx, Nietzsche, or Heidegger—and philosophy should still wander toward the meaning of its death—or that it has always lived knowing itself to be dying… that philosophy died one day, within history, or that it has always fed on its own agony, on the violent way it opens history by opposing itself to nonphilosophy, which is its past and its concern, its death and wellspring; that beyond the death, or dying nature, of philosophy, perhaps even because of it, thought still has a future, or even, as is said today, is still entirely to come because of what philosophy has held in store; or, more strangely still, that the future itself has a future—all these are unanswerable questions. By right of birth, and for one time at least, these are problems put to philosophy as problems philosophy cannot resolve.”
― Jacques Derrida

“As long as the plots keep arriving from outer space,...

Fri, 10 May 2013 10:01:48 -0400

“As long as the plots keep arriving from outer space, I’ll go on with my virgins.”
Barbara Cartland

“Be true to God, your native land and yourself - then...

Thu, 09 May 2013 10:01:32 -0400

“Be true to God, your native land and yourself - then lifes battles will be won.”

Ned Buntline

“Some day I’ll probably marry a horny-handed son of a...

Wed, 08 May 2013 10:01:32 -0400

“Some day I’ll probably marry a horny-handed son of a toil, and if I do it’ll be the horny hands that will win me. If you want to know, I like ‘em with their scars on them. There’s something about a man who has fought for it - I don’t know what it is - a look in his eye - the feel of his hand. He needn’t have been successful - thought he probably would be. I don’t know. I’m not very good at this analysis stuff. I know he - well, you haven’t a mark on you. Not a mark. You quit being an architect, or whatever it was, because architecture was an uphill disheartening job at the time. I don’t say that you should have kept on. For all I know you were a bum architect. But if you had kept on - if you had loved it enough to keep on - fighting, and struggling, and sticking it out - why, that fight would show in your face to-day - in your eyes and your jaw and your hands and in your way of standing and walking and sitting and talking. Listen. I’m not criticizing you. But you’re all smooth. I like ‘em bumpy.”
― Edna Ferber

Gene Wolfe: Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:23:23 -0400

Gene Wolfe: Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Said one, who upward turned his eye,To scan the trunks from...

Tue, 07 May 2013 10:01:53 -0400

Said one, who upward turned his eye,
To scan the trunks from earth to sky:
‘These trees, no doubt, well rooted grew
When ancient Nineveh was new;
And down the vale long shadows cast
When Moses out of Egypt passed,
And o’er the heads of Pharaoh’s slaves
And soldiers rolled the Red Sea waves.’
‘How must the timid rabbit shake,
The fox within his burrow quake,
The deer start up with quivering hide
To gaze in terror every side,
The quail forsake the trembling spray,
When these old roots at last give way,
And to the earth the monarch drops
To jar the distant mountain-tops.’
Palmer Cox

“I would like to carve my novel in a piece of wood. My...

Mon, 06 May 2013 10:01:28 -0400

“I would like to carve my novel in a piece of wood. My characters—I would like to have them heavier, more three-dimensional … My characters have a profession, have characteristics; you know their age, their family situation, and everything. But I try to make each one of those characters heavy, like a statue, and to be the brother of everybody in the world.”
― Georges Simenon

There is a lovable quality about the actual tools. One feels so...

Sun, 05 May 2013 10:01:27 -0400

There is a lovable quality about the actual tools. One feels so kindly to the thing that enables the hand to obey the brain. Moreover, one feels a good deal of respect for it; without it the brain and the hand would be helpless.
Gertrude Jekyll

“The continuity of life is never broken; the river flows onward...

Sat, 04 May 2013 10:01:27 -0400

“The continuity of life is never broken; the river flows onward and is lost to our sight, but under its new horizon it carries the same waters which it gathered under ours, and its unseen valleys are made glad by the offerings which are borne down to them from the past,—flowers, perchance, the germs of which its own waves had planted on the banks of Time.”
― John Greenleaf Whittier

“A book is more than a verbal structure or series of verbal...

Fri, 03 May 2013 10:01:21 -0400

“A book is more than a verbal structure or series of verbal structures; it is the dialogue it establishes with its reader and the intonation it imposes upon his voice and the changing and durable images it leaves in his memory. A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships.”
― Jorge Luis Borges

“The need of one human being for the approval of his fellow...

Thu, 02 May 2013 10:01:28 -0400

“The need of one human being for the approval of his fellow humans, the need for a certain cult of fellowship - a psychological, almost physiological need for approval of one’s thought and action. A force that kept men from going off at unsocial tangents, a force that made for social security and human solidarity, for the working together of the human family.
Men died for that approval, sacrificed for that approval, lived lives they loathed for that approval. For without it man was on his own, an outcast, an animal that had been driven from the pack.
It had led to terrible things, of course - to mob psychology, to racial persecution, to mass atrocities in the name of patriotism or religion. But likewise it had been the sizing that held the race together, the thing that from the very start had made human society possible.
And Joe didn’t have it. Joe didn’t give a damn. He didn’t care what anyone thought of him. He didn’t care whether anyone approved or not.”
― Clifford D. Simak

“Much have I lost, but much have I had -Maybe it’s best...

Wed, 01 May 2013 10:01:23 -0400

“Much have I lost, but much have I had -
Maybe it’s best things went as they did -
and so I give you thanks then God.”
― O.E. Rolvaag

“The nicest thing about feeling happy is that you think...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:02:04 -0400

“The nicest thing about feeling happy is that you think you’ll never be unhappy again.”
― Manuel Puig,

“La luna non è che il complemento della terra, il suo rovescio...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 10:01:41 -0400

“La luna non è che il complemento della terra, il suo rovescio speculare, il luogo dove s’aduna tutto ciò che sulla terra si perde.”
― Ludovico Ariosto