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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)
There's something about those middle years between being young enough that you actually look forward to being a year older and being old enough that you're impressed with how far you've made it. During those in-between years birthdays become a trial of patience which you try to endure well but generally just try to ignore altogether. I reached that stage when I turned seven or somewhere thereabouts. (It's kind of like Woody Allen said, "My mother always said I was a cheerful kid until I was five years old, and then I turned gloomy." Even though I'm no fan of Woody Allen, that's still funny.....) Anyway, this yearly trial has recently rolled around again even though I could swear up and down it just happened six months ago.....But this time was a little different. I received one of the best birthday gifts of all time. Now, my mom is the master at coming up with great gifts so I've always gotten really good loot, but this year my niece outdid everyone. She gave me a Barbie. Belle from Beauty and the Beast, to be exact. My sister and I did play with barbies as kids, but we never got into the obsessive collector's mindset about them that some kids do, it was more of an occasional past-time. My Belle barbie, however, sits proudly on display in my room because it was bought with the hard earned money of a five year old who saw it in the store and remembered our conversation about Disney princesses when I said that Belle was my favorite because she liked to read. You can't beat that. It made me think of another birthday present I'll never forget. I was in about second or third grade and my birthday fell on a weekday. We were on the playground, I was on the monkey bars, when another student came running up and told me Mr. Jones wanted to see me. Mr. Jones was one of the janitors at the school that both my sister and I attended, and where my mom worked as a teacher's assistant. I couldn't imagine why he wanted to see me, and felt a little anxious as I couldn't help but think that I might be in trouble, even though I couldn't imagine what I'd done. (Apparently I've always had some anxiety about being summoned before any sort of authority figure....) I still remember what the empty gym looked like as it came into focus as my eyes adjusted after being out in the bright sun for so long. Mr. Jones was standing by the stage with one of those long push-brooms in one hand. I didn't really know what to say as I walked up since I still didn't really know why I was there and "Hey, Mr. Jones" didn't seem very respectful or appropriate, and I was even less chatty then than I am now, believe it or not. As I walked up, he said, "I heard today was your birthday." I kind of did a half shrug and nod, a little embarrassed by the flush of pride I felt that, at least today, something made me different and maybe a little bit special, and wondering how he even knew it was my birthday. He reached into his pocket and took out two dollar bills, "I guess you need something for that, then," and handed over the two bills that I knew, even then somehow, that he worked very hard for. "Alright, go on back out and play, but just don't tell everybody where you got that," he grinned. Knowing that this wasn't a privilege everyone got made it even more special, and suddenly I felt even more shy. I think I mumbled something along the lines of a thank you and smiled at the floor before running back out to the playground. But even all these years later, I still remember those two dollars, not because it was flashy or expensive, but because of the effort that went into earning them and the kindness they represented. I have a feeling that, years down the road, I'll remember this barbie for the same reasons.
Okay, this was kinda rough on me first thing in the morning. And now, I can't see, I can't see.
ReplyDeleteBut you're right. I think those are the 2 best birthday presents ever given.
Happy Birthday Kiddo. Love you!
I was thinking about Mr. Jones just last week. He was one of the best people I've ever known. I don't think there was a child at that school who didn't know who Mr. Jones was & loved him.
ReplyDeleteGlad you like your Belle. She was very adamant that She was going to buy that with Her money.
Happy to you! Love you!!
Hey, many happy returns. I don't care what anyone says, you're still fresh.
ReplyDeleteWhat a cool post. Age is a funny thing. It's elusive. It's magic. You can't do anything about it. Most people long for a different one, either longing to be older or wishing they were younger. You can never go back to the age you were. There is this unending march toward old age, but even that is ever changing. I used to think the age I am now was really old. Now I think people my mom's age are old. People my age are just kind of old.
There is this great John Gorka song called "People My Age". It's is simultaneously funny or sad (depending on your age I suppose).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar1e7-pupXI
Anyway, I hope that you don't consider yourself too old. My look at it is that we are all just exactly the age we are supposed to be. It's not what you've done that matters all that much, but what you are yet to do. And you have a lot left to do. Hooplah!