#96221
02/19/2003 1:30 AM
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Joined: Feb 2002
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Anyone else feel like sharing items from his/her commonplace book?
I'm sure you all have something similar? a treasure trove of bon mots, favourite quotes, etc....
In case anyone's innerested, here are some bits and bobs from mine:
From Henry Beard's Latin for All Occasions:
"Hostes me alienieni me abduxerunt. Qui annus est?" ("I was kidnapped by aliens. What year is it?")
From French for Cats, by Henri de la Barbe (Henry Beard):
- "Brossez–moi" ("Brush me"); "Le moment est venu de changer la litière" ("It is time to change the kitty litter")
- And from Advanced French for Exceptional Cats, also by Henri de la Barbe (Henry Beard):
- "I have the honour to present you with this mostly dead chipmunk"; "I nap, therefore I am."
Intro to the ninth day of Boccaccio's Decameron:
These people will not be conquered by death, or at worst will die happy.
From J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye:
– "The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." – Wilhelm Stekel, quoted by Holden's teacher
– Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody. – Holden Caulfield (last 2 sentences of the book)
From E.M. Forster's Howards End:
"Far more mysterious than the call of sex to sex is the tenderness that we throw into that call." (p225)
From Clarissa (on Masterpiece Theatre):
"You're a disgrace to your name and a traitor to everyone around you." (the real Lady Betty to her miscreant relative, Lovelace)
From the Globe & Mail's Social Studies section – "the birth of the blue":
"by the number 4" was used by the Greek philosopher Pythagoras; "ma tin krambin" from Ionia (now part of Turkey) means "by the cabbage"; French poet Charles Baudelaire swore "by the sacred Saint Onion"; in 17th–c England, "as God is my witness" and "upon my life" were considered blue expressions; swearing in Arabic & Turkish is common and includes phrases like "You father of 60 dogs" and "You ride a female camel"; in 1957 a Quebec provincial secretary suggested substitute swear words for foul–mouthed habitants – they included "sapristi" and "saperlipopette" (both untranslatable) and "sirop d'erable" ("maple syrup").
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#96222
02/19/2003 1:32 AM
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Joined: Feb 2002
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and some more (from page two!)....
From the Globe & Mail:
(item: "Just what was said") U.S. President George Bush, at a press conference on July 28 [19??], was asked whether he felt that his push to amend the U.S. Constitution to forbid flag–burning might weaken the First Amendment. Mr Bush said he felt a carefully drafted amendment could solve that problem, and continued: "And – but it's not a – I mean, I don't have disrespect for those who want to find a different answer. The thing that I think is heartening is that there's a wide array of support for doing something about this question, people that have maybe in the past not been identified, as I got to be, or, some years, you know, in this department. But there – so I don't question motives on this one. But I know what I think is right."
From the Globe & Mail's Social Studies section – Texan lingo:
Thunder and potatoes!; Dumber than a barrel of hair; (Crazy) He's on a different page than the rest of us; He was so ugly his mother borrowed a baby to take to church; She could start a fight in an empty house; (Bad singing) Melody that would give a headache to a dog; Don't that give you the saddle rash?; Mean enough to go bear hunting with a switch; Never sign nothing by neon; That truck couldn't pull a fat baby off a tricycle; No matter how popular you are, the size of your funeral depends on the weather.
From the Globe & Mail's Social Studies section – "Let me rephrase that – Some nice ways to say not–so–nice things":
Road kill: Vehicularly compressed maladapted life form.
Plagiarism: Previously owned prose.
Cannibalism: Intra–species dining.
Vomiting: Unplanned re–examination of recent food choices.
Alcoholic: Anti–sobriety activist.
Shoplifter: Cost–of–living adjustment specialist.
Stabbing: Social surgery.
Dead: Actuarially mature.
Homelessness: Mortgage–free living.
Corpse: Permanently static post–human mass.
From Giovanni Guareschi's The Little World of Don Camillo:
" ... as full as an egg ... " (p101)
From a birthday card:
It's your birthday! Try to be the centre of attention! Only do things that make you happy! Talk about yourself all day long! [inside] You know – pretend you're a guy.
Seen in Steve Lukits' office at the Whig–Standard:
All Is Vanity
Talk Is Cheap
It's Only Money
Everybody Dies
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#96223
02/19/2003 1:34 AM
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Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 833
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I'm giving these in little (or, well, sort of little!) bites and possibly no one is interested, but I'm doing an Uncle Bill and replying to myself over and over again....from page three:
From the movie He Said, She Said:
– "Pithy! Dumb, but pithy!"
– "Classy, with a capital K."
From Robert Graves' Wife to Mr Milton:
– Do you, then, a witling, a sot, a mouther, a pettifogger, born only to transcribe or steal from good authors, do you indeed imagine that you are able to write any book of your own acceptable to posterity? Nay, Fool, the coming age will wrap you in a bundle of your own fusty writings and consign you to oblivion ... – John Milton, from The Defence of the English People (quoted on p385)
– Yet there are two unlike manners in which a woman – for here I can write only of women – may become aware of a glance directed at her; either with a gross disgust as though someone were taking liberty with her body, or, it may be, with a deep delight as though the eye conferred a lasting benefit upon her, so that, were she a cat, she could cry 'purr, purr'. (2nd PP, p37)
From Warren Clements' The Challenge (72) in the Globe & Mail: The challenge was to compose a forced apology containing the hint of a further insult:
– I'm sorry. Had I known you were going to lose, I wouldn't have won by a mile.
– I'm sorry. I was wrong when I said your photographs weren't worth blowing up.
– I'm sorry I was critical of the recent performance of your new trombone concerto. I can truly say I've never heard anything like it.
– I'm sorry, it was cruel of me to say that you're totally brainless.
– I didn't mean to interrupt. I hadn't realized you were saying anything.
– I regret calling you a halfwit, but in the heat of argument I tend to exaggerate.
– I apologize, you're not as stupid as you look.
– I'm sorry I called you an ignoramus. That means a dummy.
– My apologies. I was wrong when I said you were about as much use as a hole in the ground.
– I'm sorry I didn't seem to be listening to you. I was thinking about something interesting.
– Sorry, I forgot we had met before. I have a terrible memory for trivia.
From the Globe & Mail's Social Studies section – On the road again – For those driving home from Thanksgiving festivities today, here are some sophisticated terms related to fellow road users:
– Branch library: Driver who reads behind the wheel.
– Busy signal: Near–miss by someone talking on a car phone.
– Captain canine: Driver with a dog in his lap.
– Date night: Female passenger sitting right up against the male driver.
– Directionally impaired: Driver who signals one way, turns another.
– Legend in his own mind: Person driving a new convertible with stereo on at 103 decibels.
– Metal mamas: Chrome naked ladies on mud flaps.
– Rip van Winkle: Turned left four months ago, signal still on.
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#96224
02/19/2003 1:36 AM
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Joined: Feb 2002
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y'all feel free to start a thread of your own commonplace books if yez like - I'd love to see what other people hoard in the way of words! Here's more from page four - I realise some of them (the one I saw on a blackboard, for example) have other sources but this is where I got 'em from:
From Print Three – Examples of Marbles Metaphor (eg "He's lost his marbles"):
– A few sandwiches short of a picnic.
– A telephone exchange with not enough subscribers.
– Not playing with a full deck.
– His porch light is out.
– When you knock, there's no one home.
– A few bricks short of a load.
– His staircase doesn't climb to the attic.
– Her lift doesn't go to the top floor.
– Golf bag doesn't have a full set of irons.
– Two slices of bread short of a grilled cheese sandwich.
– A couple of coupons short of a pop–up toaster.
– Didn't have all the dots on his dice.
– Antenna didn't pull in all the channels.
And finally, courtesy of Bull (from "Night Court") – Few fries short of a Happy Meal.
From the song "Rich Girl", by Hall and Oates:
"It's so easy to hurt others/When you can't feel pain .... "
Seen on the blackboard in the theatre at St Lawrence College, fall term 1992:
The beatings will continue until higher morale is achieved.
Thought du jour in the Globe & Mail's Social Studies Section:
"I learned three important things in college – to use a library, to memorize quickly and visually, to drop asleep at any time given a horizontal surface and 15 minutes. What I could not learn was to think creatively on schedule." – U.S. dancer and choreographer Agnes de Mille (1908–1993).
Seen on some buttons for sale in The Book Tree in Peterborough:
– I want to be Barbie. The bitch has everything.
– What part of NO! didn't you understand?
– I see you're in touch with your inner monkey.
– You've obviously mistaken me for my evil twin, Skippy.
– Welcome to the Twilight Zone. I'm your usher.
– I'm having a no–life crisis.
– 30 minutes of begging does not constitute foreplay.
– Out of my mind! – Back in five minutes. [– Godot!]
– I dress this way to bother you.
– "Not a morning person" doesn't even begin to cover it.
– The ozone layer or cheese in a spray can? Don't make me choose!
From Primo Levi's essay "The Force of Amber", in his collection Other People's Trades:
To give a name to a thing is as gratifying as giving a name to an island, but it is also dangerous: the danger consists in one's becoming convinced that all is taken care of and that once named, the phenomenon has also been explained.
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#96225
02/19/2003 1:37 AM
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Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 833
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page five:
Told me by Rahul Kumar – the mantra that North American students occasionally murmur to themselves of service in N.A. when they can't get what they want at Oxford!:
North American mantra – Bigger better faster cheaper open longer.
From "Message in a Bottle" by the Police:
"Hope can mend your life but love can break your heart."
In letters from Brian Hollohan:
– "This pursuit of excellence is gratifying and healthy. The pursuit of perfection is frustrating, neurotic, and a terrible waste of time." – Edwin Bliss
– "There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking." – Alfred Korzybski
– "Too much sanity may be madness, and the maddest of all – to see life as it is and not as it should be." – Man of La Mancha
From the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip – Calvin's dad swearing:
Slippin' rippin' dang fang rotten zarg barg–a–ding–dong!
From T.H. White's The Sword in the Stone (an otherwise irredeemably bad novel) – said of Kay:
– He was not at all an unpleasant person really, but clever, quick, proud, passionate and ambitious. He was one of those people who would be neither a follower nor a leader, but only an aspiring heart, impatient in the failing body which imprisoned it.
From Christopher Dewdney's The Secular Grail: Paradigms of Perception:
– in the section CITY STATES: Once you have committed yourself to the role of passenger, your anxieties shift to concerns about lack of control over the handling of the moving vehicle. Certain passengers feel a strong need to communicate with the driver in order to contribute to the vehicle's control. In airplanes this need has to be sublimated entirely, hence the fear of flying. In automobiles, however, passengers have direct access to to the driver and can allay their anxieties by delivering manoeuvering options. (from "Control, Observation and Transit Anxiety")
– in the section INTIMATE STRANGERS: Sexual skill is a creaturely cleverness....the collaborative project of rapture.... (from "Sexual Intelligence")
– in the section SLEIGHTS OF HAND: [daydreaming is] a sort of mental doodling at the edge of our attention. (from "Daydreams")
From Gabriel García Márquez's Love in the Time of Cholera:
Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them...life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves. (p165)
From "Raise a Little Hell" by Trooper:
If you don't like what you've got, why don't you change it –
If your world is all screwed up, rearrange it....
If you don't like what you see, why don't you fight it –
If you know there's something wrong, why don't you right it?
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#96226
02/19/2003 1:40 AM
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Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 833
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Believe it or not, I am doing a little editing as I go along....!
From Antoine de Saint–Exupéry's Night Flight:
One day an engineer had remarked to Rivière, as they were bending above a wounded man, beside a bridge that was being erected: "Is the bridge worth a man's crushed face?" Not one of the peasants using the road would ever have wished to mutilate this face so hideously just to save the extra walk to the next bridge. "The welfare of this community," the engineer had continued, "is just the sum of individual welfares and has no right to look beyond them." "And yet," Rivière observed on a subsequent occasion, "even though human life may be the most precious thing on earth, we always behave as if there were something of higher value than human life....But what thing?"
Irish (?) blessing:
May you never forget what is worth remembering, or remember what is best forgotten.
From the placemat at the Kingston Brewing Company, Jan. '98:
– The only acceptable substitute for intelligence...is silence.
– How did a fool and his money get together in the first place?
– Bumper sticker: "So many pedestrians, so little time..."
– Yes, if Snoop Doggy Dog married Winnie the Pooh, he would be Snoop Doggy Dog Pooh.
Of the two, I prefer those who render vice lovable to those who degrade virtue. – Joseph Joubert (19th century man of letters)
From the Ladies' Home Journal:
– The average girl would rather have beauty than brains because she knows that the average man can see much better than he can think.
from Virginia Woolf's Orlando:
– ...there is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us and not we them... (p144)
– Often a dumb hour is the most ravishing of all; brilliant wit can be tedious beyond description. (p151)
– [Genius] resembles the lighthouse in its working, which sends one ray and then no more for a time... (p159)
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#96227
02/19/2003 1:41 AM
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Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 833
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I can't stop myself.....
From Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well:
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky
Gives us free scope; only doth backward pull
Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.(1.i)
Such a man
Might be a copy to these younger times;
Which, followed well, would demonstrate them now
But goers backward.(1.ii)
Is it possible that he should know what he is, and be that he is?(4.ii)
(re: keeping a secret)
When you have spoken it, 'tis dead, and I am the grave of it.(4.iii)
I am wrapped in dismal thinkings.(5.iii)
From George Eliot's Adam Bede:
– Human feeling is like the mighty rivers that bless the earth: it does not wait for beauty – it flows with resistless force and brings beauty with it.
Love isn't like a reservoir. You'll never drain it dry. It's much more like a natural spring. The longer and farther it flows, the stronger and the deeper and the clearer it becomes. – Eddie Cantor
From Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
– varking fardwarks, sass, hoopy, frood
– "I'd far rather be happy than right, any day." – Slartibartfast
From June Lane's Reflections for Today in Kingston This Week:
– Time spent in laughing is time spent with the gods. (Japanese proverb)
– If we want a love message to be heard, it has to be sent. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it. (Mother Teresa)
– All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honour, duty, mercy, hope. (Winston Churchill)
– I will honour Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all year. (Charles Dickens)
– May the most you wish for be the least you get; may the best times you've ever had be the worst you'll ever see. (Celtic blessing)
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#96228
02/19/2003 1:42 AM
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Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 833
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and a little Jane:
From Jane Austen's Persuasion:
– ...how eloquent were her wishes on the side of early warm attachment, and a cheerful confidence in futurity, against that over–anxious caution which seems to insult exertion and distrust Providence! She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older, – the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning. (ch. IV)
– She had no resources for solitude. (V)
– ...they all went indoors with their new friends, and found rooms so small as none but those who invite from the heart could think capable of accommodating so many. (XI)
– His goodness of heart and simplicity of character were irresistible. (XIII)
– ...it seemed to have been only a struggle on each side, as to which should be most disinterested and hospitable. (XIV)
– "My ideal of good company, Mr. Elliot, is the company of clever, well–informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company." – – "You are mistaken," said he gently, "that is not good company – that is the best...." (XVI)
– She prized the frank, the open–hearted, the eager character beyond all others. Warmth and enthusiasm did captivate her still. She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped. (XVII)
– ...one half of her should not be always so much wiser than the other half, or always suspecting the other of being worse than it was....She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time: but alas! alas! She must confess to herself that she was not wise yet. (XIX)
– "What wild imaginations one forms, where dear self is concerned! How sure to be mistaken!" (XXI)
– "...our hearts must understand each other ere long...." (XXII)
– There is a quickness of perception in some, a nicety in the discernment of character, a natural penetration, in short, which no experience in others can equal.... (XXIV)
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#96229
02/19/2003 1:48 AM
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Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 833
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and just a few more:
From letter 130 in Choderlos de Laclos' Les Liaisons Dangereuses:
– A man enjoys the happiness he feels, a woman the happiness she gives.
From Nol Cock's commonplace book:
– Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort, of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weight thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away. – Dinah Maria Craik
Thought du jour from the Globe and Mail, some jour or other:
– The particular charm of marriage is the duologue, the permanent conversation between two people who talk over everything and everyone until death breaks the record. It is this back–chat which, in the long run, makes a reciprocal equality more intoxicating than any form of servitude or domination. – English critic Cyril Connolly
The dubious privilege of a freelance writer is he's given the freedom to starve anywhere. – S. J. Perelman
From the Brobdingnag section of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels:
– He said, he knew no reason, why those who entertain opinions prejudicial to the public should be obliged to change, or should not be obliged to conceal them. And as it was tyranny in any government to require the first, so it was weakness not to enforce the second: for, a man may be allowed to keep poisons in his closet, but not to vend them about as cordials.
Permission
It is okay to try something you don't know.
It is okay to make mistakes.
It is okay to find your own pace.
It is okay to do it your own way.
It is okay to bungle – so next time you are free of the fear of failure enough to succeed.
It is okay to risk looking foolish.
It is okay to be original and different.
It is okay to wait until you feel ready.
It is okay to experiment – safely.
It is okay to question the "Shoulds."
It is special to be you.
It is necessary to make a "mess," which you should be willing to clean up.
The act of creation is often messy.
When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it. Always. – Gandhi, quoted in the Richard Attenborough movie about his life
In real love you want the other person's good. In romantic love you want the other person. – Margaret Andersen
From Volume III of Jane Austen's juvenilia:
– "The welfare of every nation depends upon the virtue of its individuals, and anyone who offends in so gross a manner against decorum and propriety is certainly hastening its ruin. You have been giving a bad example to the world, and the world is but too well disposed to receive such."
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#96230
02/19/2003 1:53 AM
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Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 833
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and some pomes:
Wild Geese – Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains, and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
After Awhile – by Veronica A. Shoffstall
After awhile you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul
And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning,
And company doesn't mean security,
And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts,
And presents aren't promises,
And you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open,
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,
And learn to build your roads on today because tomorrow's ground
is too uncertain for plans, and futures have a way of falling down in mid–flight.
After awhile you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much.
So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone else to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure...
That you really are strong,
And you really do have worth.
And you learn and learn...
With every goodbye, you learn.
Cri de Couer – Virginia Graham (Punch)
With an escort on whom I am keen to make an impression
I behave like a fool, and grovel and drool,
With a worshipping spaniel expression.
When my escort is boring, my poise never flags for a minute,
I'm a roaring success when I couldn't care less –
There's no future in it!
Attempting to Learn the Language of Love – Steven Reinke
I. I only. I only want. I only want you. I only want you to. I only want you to tell. I only want you to tell me what. I only want you to tell me what you. I only want you to tell me what you want. Only want you to tell me what you want. Want you to tell me what you want. You tell me what you want. To tell me what you want. Tell me what you want. Me what you want. What you want. You want. Want.
Not That It Matters In The Least (Punch)
O, the sun is making magic on the sea–embroidered sand
And the water's making music of her wild and wayward will
And the world is warm and war–less and the sandwiches are grand,
And the sight of you is more exciting still!
Coloured bubbles come and caper to the waves' unruly beat
While the rocks lie back and wriggle in the sullage of the sea
And the sunlight and the sea–light and the smell of potted meat
Are the only things that count for you and me.
You can see the sponges squirming in the still, sequestered pools
That are foundlings of the ocean they can echo with a lisp,
And the porpoises proceeding in their solemn public schools,
And the lettuces – so curly, cool and crisp.
You can find the quaintest sea–shells with the queerest sort of mess
In the complicated catacombs of almost every one
And the slightly shocking sea–weed with its slithery caress
And the cider scintillating in the sun.
And it's here among the starfish I am wanting rather badly
To embrace you with the breezes and the surf discreetly sprayed
To inform you that I love you and would perish for you gladly
And to mention, just in passing, that the corkscrew's been mislaid.
Seagulls – Humbert Wolfe
The gifts of song and flight are separate,
The thrush and blackbird are content to be
Pedestrians of the air. Of her own weight,
It seems, the lark falls upward precipitously.
But over the ice of the wind the swallows skate
On their wings' outside edge their flawless 3,
Nor could old Euclid's self assimilate
The gull's celestial geometry.
When birds were still at twilight in February
I watched while rain was flogging Thames with looped
And windy thongs, diagonally dull,
How suddenly through gloom and sleet and flurry
With motion bright as torches, rose and stooped
The Phoenix resurrection of a gull.
A Love Poem – Virginia Graham (from Punch)
When I am in the desert of a dinner party,
or sitting on some tired, smoke–wreathed committee,
or listening to a speech about the United Nations,
my thoughts run to you, my darling, as swiftly as winged antelopes.
In the noise and confusion I come to you who are quiet,
from the impermeable boredom of conversation
I turn to the sound of your voice,
and the horrible secret faces of strangers
merge into yours which I know and love so well.
You will understand this, and yet when I tell you
that yesterday I was swept with a wild wave of love for you
standing beside a counter of pickled peaches
in Portman and Jason's,
you will not understand. Indeed, it was very surprising.
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#96231
02/19/2003 1:58 AM
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Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 833
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and...just a few more....(hey, I just noticed I'm an old hand now, no longer a "mere" addict - when did that happen?!  ) From Nelson Mandela's inauguration speech: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. Never retract, never explain, never apologize; get the thing done and then let them howl. – Nellie Mooney McClung. All truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self–evident. – Schopenhauer The great question...which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is "what does a woman want?" – Sigmund Freud Parent's Pledge, from home–order toy catalogue (author unknown): I will always love and respect my child for who he and and not who I want him to be. I will give my child space – to grow, to dream, to succeed, and even, sometimes, to fail. I will create a loving home environment and show my child that she is loved, whenever and however I can. I will, when discipline is necessary, let my child know that I disapprove of what he does, not who he is. I will set limits for my child and help her find security in the knowledge of what is expected of her. I will make time for my child and cherish our moments together, realizing how important – and fleeting – they are. I will not burden my child with emotions and problems he is not equipped to deal with, remembering that I am the parent and he is the child. I will encourage my child to experience the world and all its possibilities, guiding her in its ways and taking pains to leave her careful, but not fearful. I will take care of myself physically and emotionally so that I can be there for my child when he needs me. I will try to be the kind of person I want my child to grow up to be – loving, fair–minded, moral, giving and hopeful. From "Nepalese Tantric Totem" off the Internet (email): – When you say, "I love you," mean it. – When you say, "I'm sorry," look the person in the eye. – Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk. – Remember the three R's: respect for self, respect for others, responsibility for all your actions. – Pray. There's immeasurable power in it. – Once a year, go someplace you've never been before. – Remember that your character is your destiny. supposedly if you sent this to 15 or more people, "Your life will improve drastically and everything you ever dreamed of will begin to take shape." I did it back in April 1999, and have yet to see that happen....and I sent it to 35 people! From The Body Shop's gift bag: – Lighten up. Take in some fresh air and sunlight. Dream of harmony. Face challenges eagerly. Look through the eyes of appreciation. Relish adventure. Forgive your parents and cut yourself some slack. Make someone happy. Work for peace. Never be disheartened. Re–invent. Reach. Risk. Refuse, resist and re–use. Make a wish. Send little gifts in the mail. Accept love. Walk the dog. Surrender. Be silly. Do not wait for a better world. Show respect to your body and the earth. Dance with the stars. Let it go. Expect the best. Know all difficulties in your life have purpose. Follow your bliss. Practise random acts of kindness. Find calm (go there daily). Stand tall. Walk proud. Run after your dreams. Learn from the past. Look to the future. Live every moment. Rules for dealing with animals often also work for guys: make no sudden moves, let them sniff you first, and remember that they're probably more frightened of you than you are of them.... – Dave Cheoros, in an email, May 2000 From Clarissa Pinkola Estes' Women Who Run With the Wolves: General Wolf Rules For Life: 1. Eat. 2. Rest. 3. Rove in between. 4. Render loyalty. 5. Love the children. 6. Cavil by moonlight. 7. Tune your ears. 8. Attend to the bones. 9. Make love. 10. Howl often. The Mutineer (Punch magazine?) I have handed the whole thing back to Mr Bevin. I can no longer direct our foreign policy over the dinner table. Poor Mr Morrison must do what he can with America without my advice propounded to the moon in the middle of the night. Mr Shinwell may or may not produce coal, I will not help him. I have no views whatever on housing, rationing, education or national insurance. If there is a drain handy, let the world go down it. Today I am going to devote to my darling self. I am going to lie on the green grass in the Park under a pink may–tree on a blue rug, I am going to read all about Unity, the baby Panda, I am going to suck an orange through a lump of sugar. I am going to think about the joke I made last March. With all my heart and mind and soul I am going to love my adorable self and not give a thought to the universe or the ways in which it can be saved. Lord Pethick–Lawrence can hand India over to the Eskimoes for all it concerns me. What if the lads do miss me? Although I have given Mr Dalton a lot of assistance lately he must jolly well get on as best he may without me, while I take that kind face of mine to look at the ducks, while I sing myself little songs and write myself poems, and pick myself bouquets of roses tied up in ribbon, while I flirt with that carefree delightful old dear that is me. From P.D. James' Shroud for a Nightingale: – This, after all, was the commonest, the most banal of personal tragedies. You loved someone. They didn't love you. Worse still, in defiance of their own best interests and to the destruction of your peace, they loved another. (p. 119) – In any relationship there was one who loved and one whopermitted himself or herself to be loved. This was merely to state the brutal economics of desire; from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. But was it selfish or presumptuous to hope that the one who took knew the value of the gift...? (p. 141) – "I'm too old to feel sexy when I'm cold and tired. At my age you need the creature comforts if you're to perform with any pleasure to your partner or credit to yourself." (Adam Dalgliesh, p. 215) – "We were talking once about sex and she said that a man's nature and character were always completely revealed when he made love. That if he were selfish or insensitive or brutal he couldn't conceal it in bed whatever he might do with his clothes on...." (Arnold Dawson, p. 225)
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#96232
02/19/2003 1:59 AM
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a touch more Jane:
From Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey:
– Mrs Allen was one of that numerous class of females, whose society can raise no other emotion than surprise at there being any men in the world who could like them well enough to marry them. (ch. II)
– "In every power, of which taste is the foundation, excellence is pretty fairly divided between the sexes." (Tilney, III)
– Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love. (IV)
– This sort of mysteriousness, which is always so becoming in a hero, threw a fresh grace, in Catherine's imagination, around his person and manners, and increased her anxiety to know more of him. (V)
– [of novels]...in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best–chosen language." (V)
– ...it did not appear to her that life could supply any greater felicity. (X)
– "What a picture of intellectual poverty!" (Tilney, re: Mrs Allen's company, X)
– "The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." (Tilney, XIV)
– A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can. (XIV)
– ...from politics it was an easy step to silence. (XIV)
– "...you alone who know my heart can judge of my present happiness." (Isabella, XV)
– "You have gained a new source of enjoyment, and it is well to have as many holds upon happiness as possible." (Tilney, XXII)
– "The mere habit of learning to love is the thing; and a teachableness of disposition in a young lady is a great blessing." (Tilney – who else?! – XXII)
– "I think it would be acknowledged by the most impartial eye to have many recommendations." (the general, XXII)
– ...her resolution formed, of always judging and acting infuture with the greatest good sense... (XXV)
– ...her grief and agitation were excessive. (XXIX)
– ...a persuasion of her partiality for him had been the only cause of giving her a serious thought. (XXX)
– ...nothing, after all, could be more natural than Catherine's being beloved... (XXXI)
– His pleasing manners and good sense were self–evident recommendations; and having never heard evil of him it was not their way to suppose any evil could be told. (XXXI)
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#96233
02/19/2003 2:02 AM
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Food For Thought, from The Common Bond, newsletter of the Kingston Community Credit Union Limited, issue 3/99, October 1999:
– "If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look like the following. There would be:
57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
8 Africans
52 would be female
48 would be male
70 would be non–white
30 would be white
70 would be non–Christian
30 would be Christian
89 would be heterosexual
11 would be homosexual
6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States
80 would live in sub–standard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death
1 would be near birth
1 (yes, only one) would have a college education
1 would own a computer
When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for both acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent." – Phillip M. Harter, MD, FACEP Stanford University, School of Medicine
Dance as though no one is watching you, love as though you've never been hurt before, sing as though no one can hear you, live as though heaven is on earth. – Unknown
From a circular poster bought from the Bay of Islands Maritime and Historic Park, Bay of Islands, North Island, New Zealand:
– If the Earth were only a few feet in diameter, floating a few feet above a field somewhere, people would come from everywhere to marvel at it. People would walk around it, marvelling at its big pools of water, its little pools, and the water flowing between the pools. People would marvel at the bumps on it, and the holes in it, and they would marvel at the very thin layer of gas surrounding it and the water suspended in the gas. The people would marvel at the creatures walking around the surface of the ball, and at the creatures in the water. The people would declare it as sacred because it was the only one, and they would protect it so that it would not be hurt. The ball would be the greatest wonder known, and people would come to pray to it, to be healed, to gain knowledge, to know beauty and to wonder how it could be. People would love it, and defend it with their lives because they would somehow know that their lives, their own roundness, could be nothing without it. If the Earth were only a few feet in diameter.
Why not go out on a limb, that's where all the fruit is! – Mark Twain
If you don't like someone, the way he holds his spoon will make you furious; if you do like him, he can turn his plate over into your lap and you won't mind. – Irving Becker
To win back my youth...there's nothing I wouldn't do – except take exercise, get up early, or be a useful member of the community. – Oscar Wilde
From The Shipping News, by E. Annie Proulx:
"You needs kids about. Keeps you young." – Yark, p. 303
Seen in a gift shop/cafe in Alaska:
I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
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#96234
02/19/2003 2:06 AM
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and this is the last, I promise (well, from Vol. I of my commonplace book, anyway!) - from two good reads - the first brilliant for its take on the human condition and gender relations in particular, the second just typically pithy/interesting Maugham:
From The Hearts and Lives of Men, by Fay Weldon:
– She wasn't nice, but we can pity her, as we can pity any woman in love with a man who doesn't love her, but is deciding whether or not to marry her, and taking his time about it, and in the meantime making her jump through unkind hoops. [said of Angie]
– Nations which have no religion make do with Art: the imposition of not just order, but beauty and symmetry, upon chaos... [above quote and this from Beginnings]
– Abortion is sometimes necessary, sometimes not, always sad. It is to the woman as war is to the man – a living sacrifice in a cause justified or not justified, as the observer may decide. It is the making of hard decisions – that this one must die that that one can live in honour and decency and comfort. Women have no leaders, of course; a woman's conscience must be her General. There are no stirring songs to make the task of killing easier, no victory marches and medals handed around afterwards, merely a sense of loss. And just as in war there are ghouls, vampires, profiteers and grave–robbers as well as brave and noble men, so there are wicked men, as well as good, in abortion clinics and Dr. Runcorn was an evil man. [Rescue!]
– Clifford was accustomed to handling objects of great value. And there and then he felt, to his surprise, and acutely, both the pain and pleasure of fatherhood – the piercing anxious needle in the heart which is the drive to protect, the warm reassuring glow which is the conviction of immortality, the recognition of privilege, the knowledge that it is more than just a child you hold in your arms, but the whole future of the world, as it works through you. [A time of happiness]
– Men are so romantic, don't you think? They look for a perfect partner, when what they should be looking for is perfect love. They find failings in their loved ones (of course they do! Who's perfect? They're not!) when the failing of course is in themselves: in their own inability to perfectly love. [Revivals]
– If only creativity and money could be separated. But it can't, if only because each artist – be he (she) painter, writer, poet, composer – anyone who makes something where nothing was before, provides occupation and profit for so many others. Just as the criminal supports on his angry shoulders a whole army of policemen, sociologists, magistrates, governors, jailors, prison officials, journalists, commentators, reform societies, Ministers of State and so on – all dependent upon his ability to perform a criminal act – so does each act of artistic creation support publishers, critics, libraries, galleries, theatres, concert halls, actors, printers, framers, musicians, ushers, janitors, academics, arts councils, the organizers of international cultural exchanges, art administrators, Ministers of the Arts and so forth – and the weight can seem excessive, the rewards astonishingly little, and society's expectation that the artist will do it for free (or just enough to keep him alive and still producing) for sheer abstract love of form, beauty, Art, oh Art – while those who are parasitical upon the artist will commandhigher salaries, higher status – oh intolerable, extraordinary! [Surprise! Surprise!]
– It is my ambition to see the word "punishment" removed forthwith from the English language. I never knew anyone, child or adult, who was "punished" and was better for the experience. Punishment is inflicted by the powerful upon the powerless. It breeds defiance, sulking, fear and hatred, but never remorse, reform or self–understanding. It makes matters worse, not better. It adds to the sum total of human misery; it cannot possibly subtract from it. [Peace and quiet]
From Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham:
- ...I know now that there was a disarming frankness in her manner that put one at one’s ease. She talked with a kind of eagerness, like a child bubbling over with the zest of life, and her eyes were lit all the time by her engaging smile. I did not know why I liked it. I should say it was a little sly, if slyness were not a displeasing quality; it was too innocent to be sly. It was mischievous rather, like that of a child that has done something that he thinks funny but is quite well aware that you will think rather naughty; he knows all the same that you won’t be really cross and if you don’t find out about it quickly he’ll come and tell you himself. But of course then I only knew that her smile made me feel at home. (the narrator, speaking of Rosie - p55)
- “I dare say she’s been no worse than plenty of others if the truth was only known. She ‘ad more temptation than most, and I dare say a lot of them as blame her would ‘ave been no better than what she was if they’d ‘ad the opportunity.” (Mary-Ann, speaking of Rosie, p73)
- The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes; he makes the best of us look like a piece of cheese.... (the narrator, p123)
- ...her silence was intimate and comfortable. It did not exclude you from thoughts that engaged her apart from you; it included you in a pervasive well-being. (the narrator, speaking of Rosie again, p138)
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#96235
02/19/2003 2:25 AM
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– "If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look like the following. There would be:Or not, as the case may be: http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/populate.htm
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#96236
02/19/2003 2:35 AM
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From Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
– varking fardwarks, sass, hoopy, frood
– "I'd far rather be happy than right, any day." – Slartibartfast
That should be zarking, fwiw. I also like the continuation of Slarti's wish:
"I'd far rather be happy than right, any day."
"And are you?"
"No. That's where it all falls down of course."
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#96237
02/19/2003 2:36 AM
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Or not, as the case may be:All I got from that, my honey, was that something based on statistics is bound to become out-of-date. Still, it was interesting to see....You didn't write it, did you, darling? it had your nit-picking hair-splitting style....(you know I love you! ) anyway....glad you read SOMETHING from my commonplace book, even though it appears you didn't enjoy it....! Did you notice the item from NZ? from a circular poster I bought in the Bay of Islands....
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#96238
02/19/2003 2:41 AM
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I also like the continuation of Slarti's wish:you would! zarking, huh? obviously I couldn't read my own writing when I transcribed that into my quotable quotes, from my transcription from the book....
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#96239
02/19/2003 2:42 AM
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>Or not, as the case may be:
All I got from that, my honey, was that something based on statistics is bound to become out-of-date.
Substitute "utterly inaccurate from the get-go" for "become out-of-date" and you're getting nearer the mark. For example:6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth, and all 6 would be from the United States.
"This claim demontrates the precariousness of trying to summarize a very large, diverse population in a few simple statistics. For starters, our miniature world of 100 people only includes 5 people from all of North America, so any statement involving 6 people from the United States just doesn't compute!
"Wealth" is a concept difficult to measure with any precision, but we can use Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a reasonable approximation. If we take some figures from the CIA's World Factbook 2000, we find that the estimated GDP of the United States in 1999 was $9.255 trillion, out of a world total of $40.7 trillion. In other words, in 1999 the United States possessed about 23% of the world's wealth. If we assume that all 5 North Americans in our miniature world are from the United States, and that they have inherited an amount of wealth proportional to that held by the United States in the "real" world, together they'd still have only 23% of the world's wealth, not 59%. Even if you could find some combination of 6 people in our putative population of 100 who held 59% of the total wealth, they wouldn't all be from the United States. "
The piece, typical half-baked schmalzy internet crap that it is, clings ferociously to the age old tenet: "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story."
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#96240
02/19/2003 3:05 AM
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Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
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wow, mg. I hope you have a scanner... I enjoyed all of this that I read, really!
formerly known as etaoin...
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#96241
02/19/2003 3:34 AM
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Substitute "utterly inaccurate from the get-go" for "become out-of-date" and you're getting nearer the mark.At the risk of making your head explode, I would like to suggest that your glass is half empty.... You seem to have plucked the principal "out there" statement from among all the ones that the snopes site merely modified. That one (about how many people control the wealth) did not make sense - you're right. But many of the others were quite close (like a 33/67 split instead of a 30/70 split in one instance - that kind of thing). You shouldn't (hark at me, telling someone what to do - and it's sjm, too!  ) you SHOULDN'T completely discredit something because some parts of it are wrong. Discredit the wrong parts and welcome; but don't paint it all with the same brush. You get into trouble when you see the world in black and white. You miss all the lovely subtle colours it's really painted in. Funny how badly I want to squeeze you right now. (In a good way! ie, with a hug!) (Hm. Is that remark more calculated to make your head explode, than all that went before?! it's not intended that way, I assure you! I love a good pedant. I also love a good pendant, but that, as a friend of mine would say, is a whole other website. )
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#96242
02/19/2003 5:04 AM
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In reply to:
– A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can. (XIV)
Another one that deserves to be quoted in full:
She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance. A misplaced shame. Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.
The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already set forth by the capital pen of a sister author; and to her treatment of the subject I will only add, in justice to men, that though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire anything more in woman than ignorance.
Bingley
Bingley
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#96243
02/19/2003 5:05 AM
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>At the risk of making your head explode, I would like to suggest that your glass is half empty....
Nope, it's completely empty. I'd rather be right than happy any day, and the reason I detest, loathe and abhor crap of this sort is that it gets regurgitated as gospel - it's the "I read this on the Internet so it must be true" syndrome that pushes my buttons. Whenever anybody sends me anything like this, I go stright to snopes.com, and more often than not, my cynical mistrust is completely vindicated.
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#96244
02/19/2003 5:41 AM
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It gets me going as well, sjm, and I get a lot of this rubbish from other people in the office. I've tried referring them to Snopes on a regular basis but it doesn't do any good. From talking to them I've come to realise that the truth just doesn't matter. What's important to them is that they can show what good, caring people they are by forwarding this sort of thing.
Bingley
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#96245
02/19/2003 11:25 AM
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Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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MG, you fill me with the same kind of envy that I feel towards people who manage to keep diaries; I mean proper diaries, not just engagement books. I am really impressed with your collection. I found them all interesting and thank you for sharing them. I imagine that I can see a recurring theme there that leads me to say, “At least we continue to strive to understand one another.”
Jane Austen’s slyly phrased humour is always delightful. I like to imagine her hugging herself with glee after crafting one of her comments on the condition of being human. A favourite with me is:
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” It is such a cleverly succinct expression of the middle-class woman’s necessary approach to survival at that period.
And one quote I came across a few days ago that appealed, but I don’t know the source:
“Actually, I like mosquitoes. They are the only ones left who want me for my body.”
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#96246
02/19/2003 11:27 AM
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Sometimes I get up in the morning and I just don't know.
-- Eddie John
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#96247
02/19/2003 6:29 PM
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I go stright to snopes.comBut I thought you were from New Zealand? or are you just practising your Aussie accent?  The only point I'm trying to make is this: some stories sometimes contain some truth. I like being right too; but I'm happy to be proven wrong, especially in a case such as this. Still, I look at the stats they've altered, and not all are that far wrong - so those ones, I'm interested to mull over. The rest I'll happily reject because sjm tells me they is, ahem, wong. I don't believe in fwding everything I receive and in fact I recently asked the aggressive fwders among my acquaintance to please stop sending any non-personal email - because I was just taking far too much time to read it. Now, if I get a fwd, often as not, I'll delete it unread. Not invariably, but. You just gotta go with yer own personal filter. And if you must point out the error of others' ways, do it nicely. (I'm forever - it feels like - sending people to Symantec Antivirus Research Centre, when they've sent me a false alarm about a virus that n'existe pas.)
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#96248
02/19/2003 6:33 PM
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Hello dxb (I don't think "Dex" - I think "Dixbie"!) - thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed them. I found it hard to weed out any but a few fell by the wayside as being, um, unworthy, I guess! (One was a single word, which I am now going to reveal: a friend was talking about long, dull bits of movies, and got tripped up over his tongue and called one such instance a "dulbulbit" - I loved it so there it is in my commonplace book!) I hoped people might just like a browse through and find something here and there to interest them....It's nice to know someone did that. and I like the mosquito quote....! (and the Jane quote - the precursor, perhaps, to the "If you're rich, I'm single" bumper sticker of modern times?! but so much more elegantly put!)
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