Dog Park

 We went to the new dog park and watched all of the dogs going nuts.

The Reward

It's been too long since I vacuumed. So I vacuumed under my bed and then I was off and running. I kept thinking I need to reward myself and then I told myself a clean house will be reward enough. Then I read some story that mentioned an apple pie. I kept thinking apple pie, pie, pie. I had five small apples in the apple drawer that needed saving. So I cored and sliced them, leaving the skins on and put cinnamon and sugar in and tossed them and spooned them into a small greased oven proof dish. I added dried cranberries. I made a small quick crust out of 1/2 cup all purpose flour, salt, 1/8 c corn oil, sugar, and 2 Tbs cold water, and rolled it thin and covered the dish of apples using a fork to press the edges. It's baking now. The house smells good. The pie tastes good. That's the reward.

five apples pie

I had five small apples in the apple drawer that needed saving. So I cored and sliced them and put cinnamon and sugar in and tossed them and spooned them into a small greased oven proof dish. I made a small crust out of all purpose flour, salt, corn oil, sugar, and cold water, and rolled it into a thin crust and covered the dish of apples. It's baking now at 400 degrees.

Introvert Personality

By Rachel Reiff Ellis

Medically Reviewed by Michael W. Smith, MD on June 24, 2020

What Is an Introvert?

An introvert is a person with qualities of a personality type known as introversion, which means that they feel more comfortable focusing on their inner thoughts and ideas, rather than what’s happening externally. They enjoy spending time with just one or two people, rather than large groups or crowds.

When you hear the word introvert, you might think of someone who's shy or quiet and prefers to be alone. While that may be true for some introverts, there's much more to this personality type. Whether you're an introvert or an extrovert all depends on how you process the world around you.

A psychologist named Carl Jung began using the terms introvert and extrovert (sometimes spelled extravert) in the 1920s. These two personality types sort people into how they get or spend their energy. Introverts, Jung said, turn to their own minds to recharge, while extroverts seek out other people for their energy needs.

Signs You Might Be an Introvert

Around one-third to one-half of all people in the U.S. are introverts. Though it looks different in everyone, introverts have many of the same patterns of behavior. In general, introverts:

• Need quiet to concentrate
• Are reflective
• Are self-aware
• Take time making decisions
• Feel comfortable being alone
• Don't like group work
• Prefer to write rather than talk
• Feel tired after being in a crowd
• Have few friendships, but are very close with these friends
• Daydream or use their imaginations to work out a problem
• Retreat into their own mind to rest

One way to find out if you're an introvert is to take a test, such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) or the SAPA project.

Causes of Introversion

Scientists don't know for sure if there's a cause for introversion or extroversion. What they do know is the brains of the two personality types work a little differently from each other. Researchers have found that introverts have a higher blood flow to their frontal lobe than extroverts do. This part of the brain helps you remember things, solve problems, and plan ahead.

Introvert brains also react differently to dopamine than extrovert brains do. That's a chemical that turns on the reward- and pleasure-seeking part of your brain. Introverts and extroverts have the same amount of the chemical, but extrovert brains get an excited buzz from their reward center. Introverts, on the other hand, tend to just feel run-down by it.

Types of Introverts

Being an introvert isn't an all-or-nothing stamp on your personality. Psychologists think of introverts as falling somewhere on a scale. Some people are more introverted than others. Other people fall right in the middle of the scale. They're called ambiverts.

Introverts usually have a few extroverted traits mixed in with their introverted ones, and vice versa. There are a wide range of ways to be an introvert.

One study shows that introverts tend to fall into one of four subtypes:

Social introverts. This is the "classic" type of introvert. Social introverts like small groups and quiet settings over crowds.

Thinking introverts. People in this group are daydreamers. They spend a lot of time in their thoughts and tend to have creative imaginations.

Anxious introverts. They seek out alone time not just because they like it, but also because they often feel awkward or shy around people.

Restrained/inhibited introverts. These introverts think before they act. They aren't likely to make a decision on a whim. Typically they take longer to take action.

Your introverted ways may change over time, and in different settings, too. You're not likely to swing from introvert to extrovert. But it's possible you could become more or less introverted, depending on what's going on in your life.

Introversion Versus Shyness

Many people think of introverts as shy, but the two aren’t linked. Introversion is a personality type, while shyness is an emotion.

People who are shy tend to feel awkward or uncomfortable when they’re in social situations, especially when they’re around strangers. They may feel so nervous, they become sweaty. Their heart may beat quicker, and they may get a stomachache. They may be inclined to skip social events because they don’t like the negative feelings that take over their thoughts and bodies when they have to go to parties or other activities.

People who are introverted also prefer to skip social events, but it’s because they feel more energized or comfortable doing things on their own or with one or two other people. Introverts don’t choose to skip social events because they have strong negative reactions to larger gatherings the way that shy people do; they just prefer being alone or in very small groups.

Myths About Introverts

One common myth about introverts is that they’re shy. Some introverts may be shy, but this is not the case for all introverts. Other myths include:

• Introverts are unfriendly. Being an introvert doesn’t affect how friendly you may be. Some people may think that introverts are unfriendly because they don’t tend to have large groups of friends, and they may reflect on situations quietly rather than joining in on conversations at gatherings.
• Introverts can’t be leaders. Although people may think of an extroverted personality when they imagine a leader, introverts have the skills to be bosses and leaders, too. Some of their qualities make them effective leaders: They listen to their employees’ ideas, they can stay focused on long-term goals, and they may seem less threatening, so people may accept them in their roles.
• It’s hard to get to know introverts. Introverts prefer to have deep friendships with only a handful of people. They may not open up to everyone who wants to small-talk, but the people they’re close with know them very well and develop real friendships with them.

 https://www.webmd.com/balance/introvert-personality-overview

Dream

I dreamed I was walking down East School Street with Mick Jagger. He stopped to buy drugs from some people and I kept going and arrived home. He didn't return. I began to worry if things had gone wrong it would be all my fault.

All plays stem from personal experience.

All plays stem from personal experience. I was reading psychoanalytic lit for a couple of years, obsessively, in depth, and I got involved in analyzing everyone around me. . . . Eventually, all my friends' eyes began to glaze over when I started talking this way, and I got the hint that there might be something comical in it.

John Patrick Shanley

If you put someone in a room with no script

If you put someone in a room with no script to direct, they're just going to sit there. Writing scripts is the execution for a show. Then the director takes that and hires people. It's like trying to build a house without any bricks. 

John Patrick Shanley

Where the terror is

Where the terror is, you must go.

 John Patrick Shanley

Everything is painful

 Everything is painful, so why not be honest about the pain?

 John Patrick Shanley

People ask me if I believe in things

People ask me if I believe in things: in God, in astrology, and I say, absolutely! I believe in everything! And I believe in its opposite. Like the positive and negative volts on a battery, you need both for power.

John Patrick Shanley

Theatre

Theatre is the safe place to do the unsafe things that need to be done. 

John Patrick Shanley

Choose Life over the other stuff. Get out of your head. Live. Dress up. Eat. Touch people. Help out. Give up. Love people. Give your best away. There’s more. What’s the problem? Relax. You’re going to die. Throw a party. Eat off my plate. Sing to me. Meet me in the bedroom. Get a massage. Give one. Let your amazement out into the room. Pry open the box you hide your joy in. Be a poem. 

John Patrick Shanley

Doubt requires more courage

Doubt requires more courage than conviction does, and more energy; because conviction is a resting place and doubt is infinite – it is a passionate exercise. You may come out of my play uncertain. You may want to be sure. Look down on that feeling. We’ve got to learn to live with a full measure of uncertainty. There is no last word. That’s the silence under the chatter of our time.
― John Patrick Shanley, Doubt, a Parable

I am not a courageous person by nature.

I am not a courageous person by nature. I have simply discovered that, at certain key moments in this life, you must find courage in yourself, in order to move forward and live. It is like a muscle and it must be exercised, first a little, and then more and more. All the really exciting things possible during the course of a lifetime require a little more courage than we currently have. A deep breath and a leap.

 ― John Patrick Shanley, 13 by Shanley

My father says that almost the whole world is asleep.

My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake, and they live in a state of constant total amazement.
― John Patrick Shanley, Moonstruck, Joe Versus the Volcano, and Five Corners

I am happy because I want nothing from anyone.

I am happy because I want nothing from anyone. I do not care for money. Decorations, titles or distinctions mean nothing to me. I do not crave praise. The only thing that gives me pleasure, apart from my work, my violin and my sailboat, is the appreciation of my fellow workers. 

Albert Einstein

Swimming and Appetite

Sip a hot drink such as tea or coffee just after exiting the pool. This should bring your body back to a stable temperature.

article

Unicorn Hospital

Last Sunday morning I saw a white plush toy on the low roof of the next door tenement. It had been thrown out the window. The next time I looked it was in the parking lot on the ground. The wind had blown it down.

A few days later Jailenys and Khi'laisha found the pink and white stuffed unicorn. By this time little white clouds of spun fiber littered the parking lot. 

"I love him," Jailenys said clutching him to her chest.

"He needs a hospital. He has a hole in his head. He can probably be fixed with a needle and thread and some stuffing," I said.

"I don't have those things. Can you fix him?" Jailenys asked.

"Not today but I'll work on gathering materials and we can make a plan." 

Yesterday I found white thread and pins scissors and magnifying glasses and a bag of old worn out socks for stuffing. When I saw the girls outside I said, "I have the materials ready. We can do it together. How about Sunday? It will be a warm day, almost seventy degrees and we can sit outside right here on the stoop and open the Unicorn Hospital." They beamed. "How does one o'clock sound?"

"Sounds good," they said. I ran inside and grabbed a notepad and wrote two notes giving them each a copy. SUNDAY 1pm UNICORN HOSPITAL at the STOOP and I wrote one for myself.

"It's a date!" I said.

Yesterday I heard a little tiny scratchy sound and discovered it was a mouse eating our big fat green candle. He was so cute. I threw out the candle. I hope he goes out to play. I forgot that candles are food for mice. I am also remembering that mice love to eat bar soap.

The Chateau Bercy

The Chateau Bercy was old but made over. It had the sort of lobby that asks for plush and india-rubber plants, but gets glass brick, cornice lighting, three-cornered glass tables, and a general air of having been redecorated by a parolee from a nut hatch. Its color scheme was bile green, linseed-poultice brown, sidewalk gray and monkey-bottom blue. It was as restful as a split lip.

Raymond Chandler, The Little Sister ch 34

You go in through double swing doors.

You go in through double swing doors. Inside the double doors there is a combination PBX and information desk at which sits one of those ageless women you see around municipal offices everywhere in the world. They were never young and will never be old. They have no beauty, no charm, no style. They don't have to please anybody. They are safe. They are civil without ever quite being polite and intelligent and knowledgeable without any real interest in anything. They are what human beings turn into when they trade life for existence and ambition for security.
― Raymond Chandler, The Little Sister (p434) ch 32

The lady in the blue duplex

The lady in the blue duplex placed cat food out on the stoop and went inside and opened her drapes on the twin windows. 

The detective had a few drags of a cigarette before bolting from headquarters in a silver sports car.

The sweaty jogger in orange T-shirt ran through the park.

The lady in the high-rise stirred sugar into her tea.

David Bellantoni Play April 29th

Hello Friends!

 

I hope you had a great weekend. 

 

I'd love to invite you all to a play on Zoom this Friday night at 7:30. Sure, we're all tired of the Zoom thing but it is free and no hassles getting to the theatre. This is a brand new piece and I'm proud of it and the work my cast has done.

 

Here's the registration link below. You will need to register first then you will receive another link in your email for the play itself. FYI, there will be a short play before mine goes up.

 

Hope to see you there and thank you!!

 

Love,

 

David B

 

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYsce6gqjgiHdJnVSpWMTs783a59Dep9GBs

Getting the first draft finished is like pushing a peanut with your nose across a very dirty floor. 

Joyce Carol Oates

I have forced myself to begin writing when I've been utterly exhausted, when I've felt my soul as thin as a playing card…and somehow the activity of writing changes everything. 

Joyce Carol Oates

Reward

The cleaning is something I use as a reward if I get some work done. I go into a very happy state of mind when I'm vacuuming.

— Joyce Carol Oates

Travis

When I phoned my dog sitter at 11PM from the train station she told me Travis had run away that day. I took a cab and as we climbed the hill I heard a thump under the rear wheels.

"He'll be okay," the driver said. Whatever it was, I knew it wasn't true but all I could think about was Travis.

I paid the driver and climbed my tenement stairs. Travis was sitting in the hallway at my door as if he had known which day I was returning. He had miraculously navigated the city without getting hurt.

Living and dying, sorrow and joy

Living and dying, sorrow and joy, the blisters on my feet and the jasmine behind the house, the persecution, the unspeakable horrors: it is all as one in me, and I accept it all as one mighty whole and begin to grasp it better if only for myself, without being able to explain to anyone else how it all hangs together. I wish I could live for a long time so that one day I may know how to explain it, and if I am not granted that wish, well, then somebody else will perhaps do it, carry on from where my life has been cut short. And that is why I must try to live a good and faithful life to my last breath: so that those who come after me do not have to start all over again, need not face the same difficulties. Isn't that doing something for future generations?
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

At times

At times I can certainly see a subject clearly and distinctly, think my way through it, great sweeping thoughts that I can scarcely grasp but which all at once give me an intense feeling of importance. Yet when I try to write them down they shrivel into nothing, and that's why I lack the courage to commit them to paper - in case I become too disillusioned with the fatuous little as they that emerges. But let me impress just one thing upon you, sister. Wash your hands of all attempts to embody those great, sweeping thoughts. The smallest, most fatuous little essay is worth more than the flood of grandiose ideas in which you like to wallow. Of course you must hold on to your forebodings and your intuitions. They are the sources upon which you draw, but be careful not to drown in them. Just organise things a little, exercise some mental hygiene. Your imagination and your emotions are like a vast ocean from which you wrest small pieces of land that may well be flooded again. The ocean is wide and elemental, but what matter are the small pieces of land you reclaim from it. The subject right before you is more important than those prodigious thoughts of Tolstoy and Napoleon that occurred to you in the middle of last night, and the lesson you gave that keen young girl and Friday night is more important than all your vague philosophizing. Never forget that. Don't overestimate your own intensity; it may give you the impression that you were cut out for greater things than the so-called men in the street, who's inner life is a closed book to you. In fact, you're no more than a weakling and a non-entity adrift and tossed by the waves. Keep your eyes fixed on the mainland and don't flounder helplessly in the ocean.
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

I don’t want to be anything special.

I don’t want to be anything special. I only want to try to be true to that in me which seeks to fulfill its promise.
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

I really must become a bit simpler.

I really must become a bit simpler. Let myself live a bit more. Not always insist on the results straight away. I know what the remedy is, though: just to crouch huddled up on the ground in a corner and listen to what is going on inside me. Thinking gets you nowhere. It may be a fine and noble aid in academic studies, but you can't think your way out of emotional difficulties. That takes something altogether different. You have to make yourself passive then, and just listen. Reestablish contact with a slice of eternity.

― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

I know that those who hate have good reason

I know that those who hate have good reason to do so. But why should we always have to choose the cheapest and easiest way? It has been brought home forcibly to me here how every atom of hatred added to the world makes it an even more inhospitable place.”

― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

A desire to kneel down

A desire to kneel down sometimes pulses through my body, or rather it is as if my body has been meant and made for the act of kneeling. Sometimes, in moments of deep gratitude, kneeling down becomes an overwhelming urge, head deeply bowed, hands before my face.
― Etty Hillesum

I sprang from the chaos

It is sheer hell in this house. I would have to be quite a writer to describe it properly. Anyhow, I sprang from the chaos and it is my business to pull myself out of it.
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum 1941-43

Every word born of an inner necessity

Every word born of an inner necessity - writing must never be anything else.

― Etty Hillesum

We have to fight them daily

 We have to fight them daily, lake fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies.
― Etty Hillesum

Sometimes I long for a convent cell

Sometimes I long for a convent cell, with the sublime wisdom of centuries set out on bookshelves all along the wall and a view across the cornfields--there must be cornfields and they must wave in the breeze--and there I would immerse myself in the wisdom of the ages and in myself. Then I might perhaps find peace and clarity. But that would be no great feat. It is right here, in this very place, in the here and the now, that I must find them. 

― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum 1941-43 

There is nothing else

There is nothing else for it, I shall have to solve my own problems. I always get the feeling that when I solve them for myself I shall have also solved them for a thousand other women. For that very reason, I must come to grips with myself.

All this devouring of books from early youth has been nothing but laziness on my part. I allow others to formulate what I ought to be formulating myself. I keep seeking outside confirmation of what is hidden deep inside me, when I know that I can only reach clarity by using my own words. I really must abandon all that laziness, and particularly my inhibitions and insecurity, if I am ever to find myself, and through myself, find others. I must have clarity, and I must learn to accept myself. Everything feels so heavy inside me, and I want so much to feel light. For years I have bottled everything up, it all goes into some great reservoir, but it will have to come out again, or I shall know that I have lived in vain, that I have taken from mankind and given nothing back. I sometimes feel I am a parasite and that depresses me and makes me wonder if I lead any kind of useful life.

Perhaps my purpose in life is to come to grips with myself, properly to grips with myself, with everything that bothers and tortures me and clamors for inner solution and formulation. For these problems are not just mine alone. And if at the end of a long life I am able to give some form to the chaos inside me, I may well have fulfilled my own small purpose.
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

What matters

What matters is not to allow my whole life to be dominated by what is going on inside me. That has to be kept subordinate one way or another. What I mean is: one must not let oneself be completely disabled by just one thing, however bad; don’t let it impede the great stream of life that flows through you. I have the feeling of something secret deep inside me that no one knows about.

― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

When you have an interior life

When you have an interior life, it certainly doesn’t matter what side of the prison fence you’re on. . . I’ve already died a thousand times in a thousand concentration camps. I know everything. There is no new information to trouble me. One way or another, I already know everything. And yet, I find this life beautiful and rich in meaning. At every moment.
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

The mother instinct

 The mother instinct is something of which I am completely devoid. I explain it like this to myself: life is a vale of tears and all human beings are miserable creatures, so I cannot take the responsibility for bringing yet another unhappy creature into the world.

― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

Slowly but surely

Slowly but surely I have been soaking Rilke up these last few months: the man, his work and his life. And that is probably the only right way with literature, with study, with people or with anything else: to let it all soak in, to let it all mature slowly inside you until it has become a part of yourself. That, too, is a growing process. Everything is a growing process. And in between, emotions and sensations that strike you like lightning. But still the most important thing is the organic process of growing.
― Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork

One must also accept

One must also accept that one has 'uncreative' moments. The more honestly one can accept that, the quicker these moments will pass.
― Etty Hillesum

I know and share the many sorrows

I know and share the many sorrows a human being can experience, but I do not cling to them; they pass through me, like life itself, as a broad eternal stream...and life continues...

 ― Etty Hillesum

I do believe it is possible to create

I do believe it is possible to create, even without ever writing a word or painting a picture, by simply molding one’s inner life. And that too is a deed.
― Etty Hillesum

Sometimes my day is crammed full of people

Sometimes my day is crammed full of people and talk and yet I have the feeling of living in utter peace and quiet. And the tree outside my window, in the evenings, is a greater experience than all those people put together.

― Etty Hillesum

I used to look into a chaotic future

 I used to look into a chaotic future, because I didn't want to experience the moment that was right in front of me. (...) I sometimes had the certain, but very vague feeling that I "could become something" in the future, could do something "great" and then now and then   that chaotic fear that I "would go to the lightning would go". I'm starting to understand why. I refused to do the tasks right in front of me. I refused to climb from step to step for that future.

 I used to always live in a preparatory stage, I had the feeling that everything I did was not the "real" after all, but preparation for something else, something "great", something real. But that's completely lost on me now. Now, today, this minute I live and live to the fullest and life is worth living and if I knew that tomorrow I would die, I would say: I am very sorry, but it has been good, as it has been.

   ― Etty Hillesum, Etty: The Legacy of Etty Hillesum 1941-1943

If an SS man were to kick me to death

If an SS man were to kick me to death, I would still look up at his face and ask myself   with terrified amazement and human interest: My God fellow, what terrible thing has   happened to you in your life, that you comes to such things?

  ― Etty Hillesum, Etty: The Legacy of Etty Hillesum 1941-1943

Each of us must turn inward and destroy

Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others.

 ― Etty Hillesum

Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day

Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths, or the turning inwards in prayer for five short minutes.

― Etty Hillesum

Despite everything

Despite everything, life is full of beauty and meaning.

― Etty Hillesum, Lettres De Westerbork

I really see no other solution than to turn inwards

I really see no other solution than to turn inwards and to root out all the rottenness there. I no longer believe that we can change anything in the world until we first change ourselves. And that seems to me the only lesson to be learned.
― Etty Hillesum, Lettres De Westerbork

Become simple and live simply

Become simple and live simply, not only within yourself but also in your everyday dealings. Don’t make ripples all around you, don’t try to be interesting, keep your distance, be honest, fight the desire to be thought fascinating by the outside world.
― Etty Hillesum

Ultimately, we have just one moral duty

Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.

― Etty Hillesum

Today, from a distance, I saw you

 After Years

Today, from a distance, I saw you
walking away, and without a sound
the glittering face of a glacier
slid into the sea. An ancient oak
fell in the Cumberlands, holding only
a handful of leaves, and an old woman
scattering corn to her chickens looked up
for an instant. At the other side
of the galaxy, a star thirty-five times
the size of our own sun exploded
and vanished, leaving a small green spot
on the astronomer's retina
as he stood on the great open dome
of my heart with no one to tell.
― Ted Kooser, Delights and Shadows

I now know that I was in the presence of the only angels

I now know that I was in the presence of the only angels we are ever likely to make the acquaintance of: teachers blessed with the love of small people who are trying to find their place in the world.

 ― Ted Kooser, Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps

A Happy Birthday

This evening, I sat by an open window
and read till the light was gone and the book
was no more than a part of the darkness. 
I could easily have switched on a lamp, 
but I wanted to ride this day down into night,
to sit alone and smooth the unreadable page 
with the pale gray ghost of my hand.

by Ted Kooser,

from Delights and Shadows, Copper Canyon Press

Considering the ways in which so many of us waste our time

Considering the ways in which so many of us waste our time, what would be wrong with a world in which everybody were writing poems? After all, there’s a significant service to humanity in spending time doing no harm. While you’re writing your poem, there’s one less scoundrel in the world. And I’d like a world, wouldn’t you, in which people actually took time to think about what they were saying? It would be, I’m certain, a more peaceful, more reasonable place. I don’t think there could ever be too many poets. By writing poetry, even those poems that fail and fail miserably, we honor and affirm life. We say ‘We loved the earth but could not stay.
― Ted Kooser, The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets

Behind the screen of the ordinary

 Behind the screen of the ordinary can be found unique and wonderful things.

–Ted Kooser, poet, celebrating his 83rd birthday today.

Don’t talk to me about the stars

Don’t talk to me about the stars, about how cold and indifferent they are, about the unimaginable distances. There are millions of stars within us that are just as far, and people like me sometimes burn up a whole life trying to reach them.
― Ted Kooser - The Wheeling Year 

I can't believe what people tell me

"I can't believe what people tell me," she said. "I had a woman just walk in here and tell me of course she'll give money to the child fund. She said she does it every year because she had been abused as a child by her next door neighbor. I didn't know what to say."

"Say, I'm sorry you went through that. You're a captive audience, at the front desk you're a bartender without the drinks. Welcome to the monkey house. Keep a journal so you can let the stories out that haunt you. You might become a story-teller. Either way it will change the way you listen to them. It's hard, I know. I once trained to be a volunteer at the Crisis Center. I didn't last long. It takes a special kind of person to be able to stay present while hearing all of that trauma."

The real hero is always a hero by mistake

The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everyone else.
UMBERTO ECO

Writing is like sex

Writing is like sex. You have to save your love for the love object. If you go around spouting about your idea, there’ll be no “charge” left. You can’t father children that way.

RAY BRADBURY

If you did not write every day, the poisons would accumulate

If you did not write every day, the poisons would accumulate and you would begin to die, or act crazy or both–you must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

 Ray Bradbury

Thinking is the enemy of creativity.

Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things. 

RAY BRADBURY

Tom Nichols Grandmother's Easter Lamb Recipe

 

SPINACH PIE is my favorite food and so simple to make

SPINACH PIE is my favorite food and so simple to make: 

saute in large frying pan fresh chopped garlic 6 cloves, 2 average-sized onions chopped, olive oil,

then add 2 pounds chopped frozen spinach (defrosted) 2 cans large black olives chopped

then add a splash of Chianti, kosher salt, Adobo, red chili pepper, leftover vegetable stock as needed.

Make a simple semolina sourdough pizza dough for stromboli or shape into hand pies calzones. 

optional: add slices of pepper jack cheese and or pepperoni.

UPDATE: recently I learned that a few chopped anchovies add umami and now I do this.

brush top with olive oil or a beaten egg. 

Bake at a preheated 450 degrees for 25 minutes.

ENJOY!  The leftovers are even better.

We shall find peace.

We shall find peace. We shall hear angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.

― Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Medicine is my lawful wife

Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress. When I get fed up with one, I spend the night with the other.

― Anton Chekhov

I fell in love with literature

I fell in love with literature and stayed lovesick all my life.
― Tom Stoppard, The Coast of Utopia

Words are sacred.

Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.
― Tom Stoppard

I promise to be an excellent husband

I promise to be an excellent husband, but give me a wife who, like the moon, will not appear every day in my sky. 

Anton Chekhov

The role of the artist

The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.

― Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

The Curtain

Mildred thought about sewing a dark curtain all week. She needed it to fend off the spring light which hurt her sinuses. Bring back winter, she thought. Enough with the bees, tulips, weeping cherry trees and loud neighbors. I love cold weather and reading under my quilt at three in the afternoon. Perhaps I'll become one of those old ladies that refuses to part the drapes or open the windows.

Like her neighbor Mrs. Ross in Merryville when she was a child. Mrs. Ross' house was always dark. Her shrubs grew to be 12 feet tall and the neighbors opposite said she never put out a bag of trash in the 30 years she lived there. She always called the police when we were playing in the pool in the neighbor's yard. We only saw her on Halloween when she came out with a tray of apples for the neighborhood kids. After she died hundreds of empty wine bottles were discovered in her cellar.

Luckily Mildred had Hector her big drooly bulldog and right now he needed to get out and walk. What's good for Hector is good for me she told herself. They climbed the steep hill for the view across the city. Soak it up while you can. In a few more weeks when the leaves mature the view of houses will be obscured and the acoustics will change.

She wouldn't hear the freight train in the middle of the night again until winter. She loved the sound of the train and it often appeared in her dreams. She'd be holding on to the side her legs flying out with the trains racing speed. Hector nearby somehow right beside her in dream logic.

Mildred's psychoanalyst Dr. Fringe seemed impressed with the way her mind worked but never showed it except he changed the ink color of his pens. She was distracted by the choice of colors he chose when she told her stories. Red when she spoke of her mother, green when she spoke of her dreams.

You expect far too much of a first sentence.

You expect far too much of a first sentence. Think of it as analogous to a good country breakfast: what we want is something simple, but nourishing to the imagination. Hold the philosophy, hold the adjectives, just give us a plain subject and verb and perhaps a wholesome, nonfattening adverb or two.

LARRY McMURTRY

If you want one thing too much it’s likely to be a disappointment

If you want one thing too much it’s likely to be a disappointment. The healthy way is to learn to like the everyday things, like soft beds and buttermilk—and feisty gentlemen.
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

He had known several men who blew their heads off

He had known several men who blew their heads off, and he had pondered it much. It seemed to him it was probably because they could not take enough happiness just from the sky and the moon to carry them over the low feelings that came to all men.
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries,

Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn't carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.
STEPHEN KING

The mere habit of writing

The mere habit of writing, of constantly keeping at it, of never giving up, ultimately teaches you how to write.

Gabriel Fielding   

Writing to me is a voyage

Writing to me is a voyage, an odyssey, a discovery, because I'm never certain of precisely what I will find. 

Gabriel Fielding

You write in order to change the world.

You write  in order to change the world. If you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.
JAMES BALDWIN

Love it when a compelling new character kicks open your mental door

Love it when a compelling new character kicks open your mental door, tracks mud across your brain, and props their feet up on your cerebrum.
DON ROFF

Still, whatever the specific diagnosis, there remains something extraordinary – and yes, valuable – about a mind that works differently. For all the problems that may accompany a condition like bipolar disorder – and I assure you, there are many – there is also an upside. Just as we can experience certain extremes of mood and thought that others do not, we can also see certain solutions where others cannot.

Melody Moezzi

Zadie Smith's Rules for writers

1 When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else.

2 When an adult, try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would.

3 Don't romanticise your "vocation". You can either write good sentences or you can't. There is no "writer's lifestyle". All that matters is what you leave on the page.

4 Avoid your weaknesses. But do this without telling yourself that the things you can't do aren't worth doing. Don't mask self-doubt with contempt.

5 Leave a decent space of time between writing something and editing it.

6 Avoid cliques, gangs, groups. The presence of a crowd won't make your writing any better than it is.

7 Work on a computer that is disconnected from the ­internet.

8 Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

9 Don't confuse honours with achievement.

10 Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand – but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never ­being satisfied.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/feb/22/zadie-smith-rules-for-writer

Walking my dog downtown I noticed the pink trees are now green.

Walking my dog downtown I noticed the pink trees are now green. I watched a woman with a brown Crown Vic and a rumbling muffler turn right. Cigarette in her left hand, sun in her eyes. She looked like her name could be Muriel or Edna. The way she held her cigarette hand poised in the air, nails polished blood red. I envisioned her paneled living room. A teal La-Z-Boy with canary yellow crocheted blanket draped over the back. She'd be parked in front of the TV watching soap operas. Her puzzle pieces of a panda and daffodils on a fold-out card table nearly complete. Overflowing ashtray of Virginia Slim butts nearby. Framed photo of her son age 2 in red overalls drinking grape juice in a sand box.  Her ancient Chihuahua, named Eduardo after her first husband, on the couch. Muriel loved a good pool-side picnic. She always would bring her famous potato salad with the jug of white Gallo wine, some bug repellent, and a case of cigarettes in the trunk.

Act as if you're a writer.

“Act as if you're a writer. Sit down and begin. Act as if you might just create something beautiful, and by beautiful I mean something authentic and universal. Don't wait for anybody to tell you it's okay.”
― Dani Shapiro, Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life

To be fully alive, fully human

 “To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land.”
― Dani Shapiro, Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love 

It would be many years before I began to understand that all of life is practice

“It would be many years before I began to understand that all of life is practice: writing, driving, hiking, brushing teeth, packing lunch boxes, making beds, cooking dinner, making love, walking dogs, even sleeping. We are always practicing. Only practicing.”

― Dani Shapiro, Still Writing: The Pleasures and Perils of a Creative Life

I believe that we don't choose our stories

“I believe that we don't choose our stories," she began, leaning forward. "Our stories choose us." She paused and took a sip of water. Her hand, I noticed was steady.. "And if we don't tell them, then we are somehow diminished.”

― Dani Shapiro, Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life

When I think of the wisest people I know, they share one defining trait: curiosity.

“When I think of the wisest people I know, they share one defining trait: curiosity. They turn away from the minutiae of their lives-and focus on the world around them. They are motivated by the desire to explore the unfamiliar. They are drawn toward what they don't understand.”

― Dani Shapiro, Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life

It wasn't getting easier because it isn't supposed to get easier.

“It wasn't getting easier because it isn't supposed to get easier. Midlife was a bitch, and my educated guess was that the climb only got steeper from here. Carl Jung put it perfectly: "Thoroughly unprepared we take the step into the afternoon of life," he wrote. "Worse still, we take this step with the false assumption that our truths and ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life's morning; for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will by evening have become a lie."
... I was writing a new program for the afternoon of life. The scales tipped away from suffering and toward openheartedness and love. [p. 182]”
― Dani Shapiro, Devotion: A Memoir

“Still writing?"

“Still writing?" I usually nod and smile, then quickly change the subject. But here is what I would like to put down my fork and say: Yes, yes, I am. I will write until the day I die, or until I am robbed of my capacity to reason. Even if my fingers were to clench and wither, even if I were to grow deaf or blind, even if I were unable to move a muscle in my body save for the blink of one eye, I would still write. Writing saved my life. Writing has been my window -- flung wide open to this magnificent, chaotic existence -- my way of interpreting everything within my grasp. Writing has extended that grasp by pushing me beyond comfort, beyond safety, past my self-perceived limits. It has softened my heart and hardened my intellect. It has been a privilege. It has whipped my ass. It has burned into me a valuable clarity. It has made me think about suffering, randomness, good will, luck, memory responsibility, and kindness, on a daily basis -- whether I feel like it or not. It has insisted that I grow up. That I evolve. It has pushed me to get better, to be better. It is my disease and my cure. It has allowed me not only to withstand the losses in my life but to alter those losses -- to chip away at my own bewilderment until I find the pattern in it. Once in a great while, I look up at the sky and think that, if my father were alive, maybe he would be proud of me. That if my mother were alive, I might have come up with the words to make her understand. That I am changing what I can. I am reaching a hand out to the dead and to the living and the not yet born. So yes. Yes. Still writing.”
― Dani Shapiro, Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life

I do believe…that everything you need to know

 I do believe…that everything you need to know about life can be learned from a genuine and ongoing attempt to write.
― Dani Shapiro, Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life 

I'll bet the Catholic Church lost out on a lot

I'll bet the Catholic Church lost out on a lot of would-be nuns when they started dressing like ordinary meter maids.

 ― Lucia Berlin, A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories

I've never understood how so many barely literate people read

I've never understood how so many barely literate people read the Bible so much. It's hard. In the same way it surprises me that uneducated seamstresses all over the world can figure out how to put in sleeves and zippers.
― Lucia Berlin, A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories

What if our bodies were transparent

What if our bodies were transparent, like a washing machine window? How wondrous to watch ourselves. Joggers would jog even harder, blood pumping away. Lovers would love more. God damn! Look at that old semen go! Diets would improve-- kiwi fruit and strawberries, borscht with sour cream.
― Lucia Berlin, A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories

Some lady at a bridge party somewhere started the rumor

Some lady at a bridge party somewhere started the rumor that to test the honesty of a cleaning woman you leave little rosebud ashtrays around with loose change in them, here and there. My solution to this is to always add a few pennies, even a dime.

 ― Lucia Berlin, A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories

I love houses

“I love houses, all the things they tell me, so that's one reason. I don't mind working as a cleaning woman. It's just like reading a book.”

― Lucia Berlin

Time stops when someone dies.

Time stops when someone dies. Of course it stops for them, maybe, but for the mourners time runs amok. Death comes too soon. It forgets the tides, the days growing longer and shorter, the moon. It rips up the calendar. You aren't at your desk or on the subway or fixing dinner for the children. You're reading People in a surgery waiting room, or shivering outside on a balcony smoking all night long. you stare into space, sitting in your childhood bedroom with the lobe on the desk... The bad part is that when you return to your ordinary life all the routines, the marks of the day, seem like senseless lies. all is suspect, a trick to lull us, rock us back into the placid relentlessness of time.
― Lucia Berlin, A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories

The Campus laundry has a sign

The Campus laundry has a sign, like most laundries do, POSITIVELY NO DYEING. I drove all over town with a green bedspread until I came to Angel’s with his yellow sign, YOU CAN DIE HERE ANYTIME.
― Lucia Berlin, A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories

The world just goes along. Nothing much matters, you know? I mean really matters. but then sometimes, just for a second, you get this grace, this belief that it does matter, a whole lot.

 ― Lucia Berlin, A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories

The only reason I have lived so long is that I let go of my past. Shut the door on grief on regret on remorse. If I let them in, just one self-indulgent crack, whap, the door will fling open gales of pain ripping through my heart blinding my eyes with shame breaking cups and bottles knocking down jars shattering windows stumbling bloody on spilled sugar and broken glass terrified gagging until with a final shudder and sob I shut the heavy door. Pick up the pieces one more time.
― Lucia Berlin, A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories

I’m having a hard time writing about Sunday. Getting the long hollow feeling of Sundays. No mail and faraway lawn mowers, the hopelessness.
― Lucia Berlin, A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories

I just write what seems to me to feel true. To feel emotionally true. When there’s emotional truth, there follows a rhythm, and I think a beauty of image, because you’re seeing clearly. Because of the simplicity of what you see.
LUCIA BERLIN

You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all.
JAMES BALDWIN

First you have nothing, and then, astonishingly, after ripping out your brain and your heart and betraying your friends and ex-lovers and dreaming like a zombie over the page till you can’t see or hear or smell or taste, you have something. 

T.C. BOYLE

The way to get over creative block is to simply place some constraints on yourself. It seems contradictory, but when it comes to creative work, limitations mean freedom. Write a song on your lunch break. Paint a painting with only one color. Start a business without any start-up capital. Shoot a movie with your iPhone and a few of your friends. Build a machine out of spare parts. Don't make excuses for not working -- make things with the time, space, and materials you have, right now.

AUSTIN KLEON

 Melody Moezzi article

 “To avoid pain, they avoid pleasure. To avoid death, they avoid life.”
― Osho, Being in Love: How to Love with Awareness and Relate Without Fear

Sadness is silent, it is yours. It is coming because you are alone. It is giving you a chance to go deeper into your aloneness. Rather than jumping from one shallow happiness to another shallow happiness and wasting your life, it is better to use sadness as a means for meditation. Witness it. It is a friend! It opens the door of your eternal aloneness.
― Osho Rajneesh 

“Your whole idea about yourself is borrowed-- borrowed from those who have no idea of who they are themselves.”

― Osho

Immature people falling in love destroy each other’s freedom, create a bondage, make a prison. Mature persons in love help each other to be free; they help each other to destroy all sorts of bondages. And when love flows with freedom there is beauty. When love flows with dependence there is ugliness.

A mature person does not fall in love, he or she rises in love. Only immature people fall; they stumble and fall down in love. Somehow they were managing and standing. Now they cannot manage and they cannot stand. They were always ready to fall on the ground and to creep. They don’t have the backbone, the spine; they don’t have the integrity to stand alone.

A mature person has the integrity to stand alone. And when a mature person gives love, he or she gives without any strings attached to it. When two mature persons are in love, one of the great paradoxes of life happens, one of the most beautiful phenomena: they are together and yet tremendously alone. They are together so much that they are almost one. Two mature persons in love help each other to become more free. There is no politics involved, no diplomacy, no effort to dominate. Only freedom and love.
― Osho

That is the simple secret of happiness. Whatever you are doing, don’t let past move your mind; don’t let future disturb you. Because the past is no more, and the future is not yet. To live in the memories, to live in the imagination, is to live in the non-existential. And when you are living in the non-existential, you are missing that which is existential. Naturally you will be miserable, because you will miss your whole life. 

― Osho

With me, illusions are bound to be shattered. I am here to shatter all illusions. Yes, it will irritate you, it will annoy you - that's my way of functioning and working. I will sabotage you from your very roots! Unless you are totally destroyed as a mind, there is no hope for you.

― Osho

I love this world because it is imperfect. It is imperfect, and that's why it is growing; if it was perfect it would have been dead. Growth is possible only if there is imperfection. I would like you to remember again and again, I am imperfect, the whole universe is imperfect, and to love this imperfection, to rejoice in this imperfection is my whole message.

― Osho

 Courage Is a Love Affair with the Unknown.
― Osho

The capacity to be alone is the capacity to love. It may look paradoxical to you, but it's not. It is an existential truth: only those people who are capable of being alone are capable of love, of sharing, of going into the deepest core of another person--without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, without reducing the other to a thing, and without becoming addicted to the other. They allow the other absolute freedom, because they know that if the other leaves, they will be as happy as they are now. Their happiness cannot be taken by the other, because it is not given by the other.

― Osho

Creativity is the greatest rebellion in existence.
― Osho, Creativity: Unleashing the Forces Within

You feel good, you feel bad, and these feelings are bubbling from your own unconsciousness, from your own past. Nobody is responsible except you. Nobody can make you angry, and nobody can make you happy.

― Osho

Truth is not something outside to be discovered, it is something inside to be realized.
― Osho, The Buddha Said...: Meeting the Challenge of Life's Difficulties

“Nobody can say anything about you. Whatsoever people say is about themselves. But you become very shaky, because you are still clinging to a false center. That false center depends on others, so you are always looking to what people are saying about you. And you are always following other people, you are always trying to satisfy them. You are always trying to be respectable, you are always trying to decorate your ego. This is suicidal. Rather than being disturbed by what others say, you should start looking inside yourself…

Whenever you are self-conscious you are simply showing that you are not conscious of the self at all. You don’t know who you are. If you had known, then there would have been no problem— then you are not seeking opinions. Then you are not worried what others say about you— it is irrelevant!

When you are self-conscious you are in trouble. When you are self-conscious you are really showing symptoms that you don’t know who you are. Your very self-consciousness indicates that you have not come home yet.”
― Osho

“Listen to your being. It is continuously giving you hints; it is a still, small voice. It does not shout at you, that is true. And if you are a little silent you will start feeling your way. Be the person you are. Never try to be another, and you will become mature. Maturity is accepting the responsibility of being oneself, whatsoever the cost. Risking all to be oneself, that's what maturity is all about.”
― Osho

“Drop the idea of becoming someone, because you are already a masterpiece. You cannot be improved. You have only to come to it, to know it, to realize it.”
― Osho

“Each person comes into this world with a specific destiny--he has something to fulfill, some message has to be delivered, some work has to be completed. You are not here accidentally--you are here meaningfully. There is a purpose behind you. The whole intends to do something through you.”
― Osho

Be realistic: Plan for a miracle.

― Osho

One thing: you have to walk, and create the way by your walking; you will not find a ready-made path. It is not so cheap, to reach to the ultimate realization of truth. You will have to create the path by walking yourself; the path is not ready-made, lying there and waiting for you. It is just like the sky: the birds fly, but they don't leave any footprints. You cannot follow them; there are no footprints left behind. 

― Osho

Experience life in all possible ways --
good-bad, bitter-sweet, dark-light,
summer-winter. Experience all the dualities.
Don't be afraid of experience, because
the more experience you have, the more
mature you become.
― Osho

Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That's its balance.
― Osho Rajneesh, Everyday Osho: 365 Daily Meditations for the Here and Now

To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.

― Osho

Life begins where fear ends.

― Osho Bhagwam Shree Rajneesh

 I'm simply saying that there is a way to be sane. I'm saying that you can get rid of all this insanity created by the past in you. Just by being a simple witness of your thought processes.

It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts, passing before you. Just witnessing, not interfering not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say “this is good, this is bad,” you have already jumped onto the thought process.

It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great surprise, that you are not the mind, that you are the witness, a watcher.

And this process of watching is the very alchemy of real religion. Because as you become more and more deeply rooted in witnessing, thoughts start disappearing. You are, but the mind is utterly empty.

That’s the moment of enlightenment. That is the moment that you become for the first time an unconditioned, sane, really free human being.
― Osho

Leftovers casserole: Preheat the oven to 375. Grease a square ovenproof dish. Add cooked leftover brown rice for the the bottom layer, then add sauteed onion garlic and spinach layer sprinkled with Adobo, then add about six beaten eggs and some leftover cooked kidney beans and leftover tomato sauce on top. Bake for 30 minutes. Enjoy. I might call them savory brownies.

also good with chipotles in Adobo sauce

As I wrote A Wild Sheep Chase, I came to feel strongly that a story, a monogatari, is not something you create. It is something that you pull out of yourself. The story is already there, inside you. You can’t make it, you can only bring it out. This is true for me, at least: it is the story’s spontaneity. For me, a story is a vehicle that takes the reader somewhere. Whatever information you may try to convey, whatever you may try to open the reader’s emotions to, the first thing you have to do is get that reader into the vehicle. And the vehicle–the story–the monogatari–must have the power to make people believe. These above all are the conditions that a story must fulfill.

HARUKI MURAKAMI

Without magic, there is no art. Without art, there is no idealism. Without idealism, there is no integrity. Without integrity, there is nothing but production.
― Raymond Chandler

It seemed like a nice neighborhood to have bad habits in.
― Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

 Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

1. “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.”

2. “Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.”

3. “Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.”

4. “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”

5. “Life is a journey, not a destination.”

6. “It is not the length of life, but the depth.”

7. “When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.”

8. “Make the most of yourself….for that is all there is of you.”

9. “I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”

10. “Be silly. Be honest. Be kind.”

11. “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”

12. “You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.”

13. “The only way to have a friend is to be one.”

14. “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”

15. “Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”

16. “The earth laughs in flowers.”

17. “A great man is always willing to be little.”

18. “Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.”

19. “To be great is to be misunderstood.”

20. “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”

21. “Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.”

22. “People do not seem to realise that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.”

23. “When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost work, but the solidest things we can know.”

24. “You become what you think about all day long.”

25. “Character is higher than intellect… A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think.”

26. “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

27. “Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.”

28. “To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

29. “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

30. “Self-trust is the first secret of success.”

31. “Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.”

32. “The ancestor of every action is a thought.”

33. “The good news is that the moment you decide that what you know is more important than what you have been taught to believe, you will have shifted gears in your quest for abundance. Success comes from within, not from without.”

34. “Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine.”

35. “What you are comes to you.”

36. “The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.”

37. “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.”

38. “The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.”

39. “This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.”

40. “Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.”

41. “Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.”

42. “Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.”

43. “People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.”

44. “How much of human life is lost in waiting.”

45. “The secret in education lies in respecting the student.”

46. “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”

47. “People destined to meet will do so, apparently by chance, at precisely the right moment.”

48. “One of the most beautiful compensations in life is that no person can help another without helping themselves.”

49. “Imagination is a very high sort of seeing.”

50. “Throw a stone into the stream and the ripples that propagate themselves are the beautiful type of all influence.”

51. “Happy will the house be in which the relationships are formed from character.”

52. “Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.”

53. “We are always getting ready to live but never living.”

54. “We are by nature observers, and thereby learners. That is our permanent state.”

55. “I do not wish more external goods—neither possessions, nor honors, nor powers, nor persons. The gain is apparent; the tax is certain.”

56. “Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting.”

57. “What your heart thinks is great, is great. The soul’s emphasis is always right.”

58. “Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.”

59. “What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.”

60. “God enters by a private door into every individual.”

61. “Nature is reckless of the individual. When she has points to carry, she carries them.”

61. “Knowledge is the antidote to fear.”

62. “Economy does not consist in saving the coal, but in using the time while it burns.”

63. “We must be our own before we can be another’s.”

64. “Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.”

65. “We cannot overstate our debt to the past, but the moment has the supreme claim.”

66. “Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.”

67. “The love that you withhold is the pain that you carry.”

68. “Good men must not obey the laws too well.”

69. “All mankind love a lover.”

70. “Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances.”

71. “Science does not know its debt to imagination.”

72. “Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.”

73. “If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.”

74. “The years teach much which the days never know.”

75. “Men love to wonder; that is the seed of science.”

76. “Concentration is the secret of strength in politics, in war, in trade, in short in all management of human affairs.”

77. “Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.”

78. “The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.”

79. “There is creative reading as well as creative writing.”

80. “A good indignation brings out all one’s powers.”

81. “He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.”

82. “Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.”

83. “The age of a woman doesn’t mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.”

84. “He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.”

85. “Manners require time and nothing is more vulgar than haste.”

86. “We are a puny and fickle folk. Avarice, hesitation, and following are our diseases.”

87. “We aim above the mark to hit the mark.”

88. “People only see what they are prepared to see.”

89. “Every artist was first an amateur.”

90. “Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed.”

91. “The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.”

92. “Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.”

93. “Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.”

94. “A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.”

95. “A man’s years should not be counted until he has something else to count.”

96. “As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.”

97. “Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”

98. “All is riddle and the key to a riddle is another riddle.”

99. “All the good of nature is the soul’s, and may be had, if paid for in nature’s lawful coin, that is, by labor which the heart and the head allow.”

100. “The real and lasting victories are those of peace and not of war.”

101. “Who you are speaks so loudly, I can’t hear what you’re saying.”

102. “Flowers… are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.”

103. “Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.”

104. “It is one of the blessings of old friends is that you can afford to be stupid with them.”

105. “A man’s growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.”

106. “No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.”

107. “The first wealth is health.”

108. “Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one’s self?”

109. “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.”

110. “The last change in our point of view gives the whole world a pictorial air.”

111. “Hitch your wagon to a star.”

112. “The reward of a thing well done is having done it.”

113. “Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.”

114. “Beauty without expression is boring.”

115. “In the morning, a man walks with his whole body; in the evening, only in his legs.”

116. “We are rich through only what we give and poor only through what we refuse.”

117. “The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.”

118. “With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.”

119. “All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.”

120. “The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude and into freedom.”

121. “The desire for gold is not gold. It is for the means for freedom and benefit.”

122. “A man is usually more careful of his money than he his is principles.”

123. “An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.”

124. “Beauty is an outward gift, which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it is refused.”

125. “Win as if you were used to it; lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.”

126. “The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best of all.”

127. “Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.”

128. “All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”

129. “What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.”

130. “Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learned would not miss.”

131. “The older you get, the older you want to get.”

132. “Character is higher than intellect.”

133. “Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.”

134. “Doing well is the result of doing good. That’s what capitalism is all about.”

 135. “As soon as there is life, there is danger.”

136. “People with great gifts are easy to find, but symmetrical and balanced ones never.”

137. “Make yourself necessary to somebody.”

138. “In skating over thin ice, our safety is speed.”

139. “Every man I meet is in some way my superior.”

140. “Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.”

141. “Some books leave us free and some books make us free.”

142. “Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”

143. “People that seem so glorious are all show; underneath, they are like everyone else.”

144. “There is a tendency for things to right themselves.”

145. “Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.”

146. “He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.”

147. “What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.”

148. “For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.”

149. “A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.”

150. “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”