Quote of the day: (Manyfer... from James Lee Burke, one of my favorite writers.) “Louisiana is a fresh-air mental asylum.” “God bless the Reference Librarians” “I long ago became convinced that the most reliable source for arcane and obscure and seemingly unobtainable information does not lie with the government or law enforcement agencies. Apparently neither the CIA nor the military intelligence apparatus inside the Pentagon had even a slight inkling of the Soviet Unions impending collapse, right up to the moment the Kremlins leaders were trying to cut deals for their memoirs with New York publishers. Or, if a person really wishes a lesson in the subjective nature of official information, he can always call the IRS and ask for help with his tax forms, then call back a half hour later and ask the same questions to a different representative. So where do you go to find a researcher who is intelligent, imaginative, skilled in the use of computers, devoted to discovering the truth, and knowledgeable about science, technology, history, and literature, and who usually works for dirt and gets credit for nothing? After lunch I drove to the city library on Main and asked the reference librarian to find what she could on Junior Crudup.” “A lie is an act of theft. It steals peoples faith and makes them resent themselves” “When people make a contract with the devil and give him an air-conditioned office to work in, he doesnt go back home easily.” “It has been my experience that most human stories are circular rather than linear. Regardless of the path we choose, we somehow end up where we commenced - in part, I suspect, because the child who lives in us goes along for the ride.” “writing is like being in love. You never get better at it or learn more about it. The day you think you do is the day you lose it. Robert Frost called his work a lovers quarrel with the world. Its ongoing. It has neither a beginning nor an end. You dont have to worry about learning things. The fire of ones art burns all the impurities from the vessel that contains it.” “And every good artist knows that the gift comes from somewhere else, and its there for a reason, and thats to make the world a better place.” “I sometimes subscribe to the belief that all historical events occur simultaneously, like a dream in the mind of God. Perhaps it is only man who views time sequentially and tries to impose a solar calendar upon it. What if other people, both dead and unborn, are living out their lives in the same space we occupy, without our knowledge or consent? “Money cant buy happiness but itll sure keep a mess of grief off your front porch.” “We decry violence all the time in this country, but look at our history. We were born in a violent revolution, and weve been in wars ever since. Were not a pacific people.” “How do you explain to yourself the casual manner in which you threw your life away?” “Humility is not a virtue in a writer, it is an absolute necessity.” “If there is any human tragedy, there is only one, and it occurs when we forget who we are and remain silent while a stranger takes up residence inside our skin.” “Age is a peculiar kind of thief. It slips up on you and steps inside your skin and is so quiet and methodical in its work that you never realize it has stolen your youth until you look into the mirror one morning and see a man you dont recognize.” “In the alluvial sweep of the land, I thought I could see the past and the present and the future all at once, as though time were not sequential in nature but took place without a beginning or an end, like a flash of green light rippling outward from the center of creation, not unlike a dream inside the mind of God.” “And like most middle-aged people who hear the clock ticking in their lives, I had come to resent a waste or theft of my time that was greater than any theft of my goods or money.” “How do you caution a fawn about a cigarette a motorist has just flipped from his car window into a patch of yellow grass, or tell a sparrow that winged creatures eventually plummet to earth?” “...young people...who were casually profane, as though the validation of their own power could be achieved only by their assault on the sensibilities of others.” “. . . I had found the edge. The place where you unstrap all your fastenings to the earth, to what you are what you have been, where you flame out on the edge of the spheres, and the sun and moon become eclipsed and the world below is as dead and remote and without interest as if it were glazed with ice. ” Thats all, folks! (Sent from my writing desk where the rare and elusive sun is shining...)
Posted on: Tue, 08 Apr 2014 15:55:06 +0000
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