Author Quotes

  • "I have great faith in fools; self-confidence, my friends call it." Edgar Allan Poe
  • "The love of knowledge is a kind of madness." C.S. Lewis, "Out of the Silent Planet" (1/8/10)
  • "...my private opinion is that after the words 'In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou earn thy bread; another clause has dropped out from the original text, running 'In the exasperation of thy souls shalt thou attend social functions.'" C.S. Lewis, "Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis Vol. 1" (9/17/09)
  • "If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown." Ralph Waldo Emerson (9/16/09)
  • (Description of Charlotte Lucas) "Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be the pleasantest preservative from want." Jane Austen, "Pride and Prejudice" (8/4/09)
  • "Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to noone, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But, in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless-it will change. It will not be broken, it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredemable. To love is to be vulnerable." C.S. Lewis (5/13/09)
  • (Elizabeth to Jane) "Do not be afraid of my running into any excess, of my encroaching on your privilege of universal good will. You need not. There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of either merit or sense." Jane Austen, "Pride and Prejudice" (3/21/09)
  • "If He who in Himself can lack nothing chooses to need us, it is because we need to be needed." C.S. Lewis, "The Problem of Pain" (3/15/09)
  • "Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute." Mark Twain (3/14/09)
  • "How frequently in the course of our lives, the evil which in itself we seek most to shun, and which when we are fallen into it, is the most dreadful to us, is oftentimes the very means or door of our deliverance, by which alone we can be rais'd again from the affliction we are fallen into." Daniel Defoe, "Robinson Crusoe" (2/12/09)
  • "I did avoid a critical personal examination...I referred to all the people of high standing I could think of in the community who would be least likely to know anything about me." Mark Twain, "The Innocents Abroad" (1/10/09)
  • "When we want to be something other than the thing God wants us to be, we must be wanting what, in fact, will not make us happy. We are bidden to 'put on Christ', to become like God. That is, whether we like it or not, God intends to give us what we need, not what we now think we want." C.S. Lewis, "The Problem of Pain" (12/23/08)
  • "Let us never forget what the poor widow did, when we think we are charitable." Charles Dickens, "The Life of Our Lord" (11/30/08)
  • (Writing of champion boxer, Max Baer, in comparison to James J. Braddock) "Everything was so easy for him-but great champions usually are fashioned by adversity." Jeremy Schaap, "Cinderella Man" (11/27/08)
  • Dorian Gray to Lord Henry, "'I don't want to see him alone. He says things that annoy me. He gives me good advice.' Lord Henry smiled. 'People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity.'" Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (11/18/08)
  • "Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the caveman had known how to laugh, History would have been different." Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (11/17/08)
  • "In the same way, it is natural for us to wish that God had designed for us a less glorious and less arduous destiny; but then we are wishing not for more love but for less." C.S. Lewis, "The Problem of Pain" (11/14/08)
  • "Christians have often disputed as to whether what leads the Christian home is good actions, or Faith in Christ. I have no right really to speak on such a difficult question, but it does seem to me like asking which blade in a pair of scissors is most necessary." C.S. Lewis, "Mere Christianity" (11/5/08)
  • "A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it." Charles Dickens, "A Tale of Two Cities" (11/1/08)
  • "Many of us probably would be better fishermen if we did not spend so much time watching and waiting for the world to become perfect." Norman Maclean, "A River Runs Through It" (10/27/08)
  • "'Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. 'Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!'" Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol" (10/26/08)
  • "The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use for oneself." Oscar Wilde (10/25/08)
  • "I have been cautioned to talk but be careful not to say anything. I do not consider this a difficult task." Mark Twain, "Nineteenth Century Progress" (10/24/08)
  • "Only keep your ears open and your mouth shut and everything will lead you to everything else in the end." C.S. Lewis, "Surprised by Joy" (10/23/08)
  • "I think that all things, in their way, reflect heavenly truth, the imagination not least." C.S. Lewis, "Surprised by Joy" (10/22/08)
  • "Shasta's heart fainted at these words for he felt he had no strength left. And he writhed inside at what seemed the cruelty and unfairness of the demand. He had not yet learned that if you do one good deed your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one. But all he said out loud was: 'Where is the King?'" C.S. Lewis, "The Horse and His Boy" (10/21/08)
  • "Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself." C.S. Lewis, "The Problem of Pain" (10/20/08)
  • "If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning..." C.S. Lewis, "Mere Christianity" (10/19/08)

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Saturday, November 1, 2008







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Emily assisted me in writing this post. I think I may have discovered the next Harper Lee, Winner of the Nobel for Literature.

Well, I have a confession. I have fought, all my life (and apparently in vain) to prevail against the stereotypical "Southern" behaviour (or at least the less admirable facets of its composite). Alas, "Nature vs. Nurture?" Are rednecks born, or are they made? Apparently, they are born and simply compounded upon. Now, give this said Southern History major individual a camera, a beautiful fall day, and a re-enactment of the failure which still rankles inhabitants of the vast lands south of the Mason-Dixon line, and you have Frankenstein's monster, released upon the unsuspecting world. Yes, my friends, I not only "ran across," I sought out a re-enactment today. A small place, called Fort Branch, near Hamilton, has a yearly re-enactment of a battle which was waged there. Maybe it is just me, an anomaly among the 'typical' Southerner, but it does seem a bit unhealthy that there is a fascination with re-creating the Pyhrric victories of something (a civil war) which nearly every other country on the face of the earth struggles to forget and move away from. And we still lose the war...every time. Let's continually underscore that fact "welostwelostwelostwelostwelost." Just give me a paper-cut and pour lemon juice on it. It is a good thing, however, that we did lose. Can you imagine "Dueling Banjos" being the new national anthem? (I can say that because I'm southern. It's kind of a "Bless your heart...." thing.)

I have to admit, this was ridiculously fun. They had the two camps set up, furnished with tents, which housed cots covered with handmade quilts, tin utensils, camp-stools, tallow candles, etc. There was even a "calvary." Kid you not. These people take their fun very seriously. I wandered around for nearly three and a half hours, snapping like a mad-man. The most "excitement" occurred when I inadvertently made some new "friends." I was wandering around, trying to catch the re-enactors at ease, un-posed, and wandered into one area of the "Confederate" side of camp. I incorrectly assumed that everyone would be ready for wanderers such as myself, but, quite regrettably, I was wroooooong. I wandered into one camp area, and was stunned into a state of utmost alarm by the shriek "LADY IN CAMP!!!!!!" in a tone which could suitably be followed by a revolving red light and a shrill siren blaring "ah-wuhhaahh, ah-wuhhaahh." I don't know who was the most surprised, them or me ("And we have a tie!"). Apparently, I'd caught them in the midst of their morning toilet (a.k.a-"getting ready," not...well, you know...something else...). How do you gracefully get out of a situation like that? Answer: you don't. You suck it up, ask permission to snap a few shots (when they get ready), and run like a jack-rabbit. I posted a couple or three examples of the, no exaggeration, three hundred, shots I took (heaven bless digital). The child in the top, "Curtis," has been the salvation of my parents' grandchildren from my side. I like children, love them, really, but after the summer reading program ends at work each year, I am thoroughly convinced they belong behind a strong plexiglass wall. Like monkeys at the zoo. We are protected from them, and they are protected from us. It is win-win. So, in the hypothetical situation that I hypothetically have hypothetical children, they are replaced at the end of those three months by hypothetical goldfish. Twenty-five cents and you feed them once a week. However, Curtis saved my hypothetical children. Curtis was the cutest freakin' dang thing I have ever seen. I was seriously considering beginning my kidnapping career, he was that cute. Then there were the "sentries" on the bridge who demanded a password. A password, which I was informed, began with "V" and sounded like "Virginia." Imagine my shock when my first guess, "Virginia," proved to be correct. That college education is proving to be worth every penny. I have to say, I loved this one, with the back-lighting and everything. The weather was absolutely beautiful today, and the lighting was (almost) perfect. I know it sound s a bit unbalanced to get so excited over light particles, but lighting can make or break the best of shots; so, good lighting is always a blessing. Anyway, if these samples are well-received, I might post some more, but right now, it is late, and you get serious jet-lag with time travel.



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2 comments:

  1. EmNovember 3, 2008 at 6:07 PM

    Ha ha ha!! So how many shots did you get after they finished with their "toilet" time? Ha ha ha!!! That is hilarious!! The pictures are awesome by the way!!

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  2. The Smith TrioNovember 6, 2008 at 4:47 PM

    These are absolutely beautiful. Man I wish I had about an ounce of your talent! At least I will be able to know someone famous one day. Ill be walking around a gallery (one of my favorite past times) and see one or your shots. It will be like the movie a lot like love only without the nakedness. Maybe the toilet incident could substitute. haha

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