"The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck.

" Ralph Waldo Emerson

God gives every bird its food, but does not always drop it into the nest. (Danish Proverb)
Thich Nhat Hanh once said in an interview that you must regard your own angers, fears, or frustrations as a mother would regard a baby cradled
in her arms.
"A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper. -E.B. White
"The more you write, the better you get. Drafts--our kids are learning the first draft means nothing. You're going to do seven, 10 drafts. That's
writing, it's not failure, it's not the teacher not liking you because it's all marked up in red. When you get to be a good writer, you mark your own
stuff in red, and you rewrite, and you rewrite, and you rewrite. That's what writing is." --Michelle Obama
Lllen 8ryanL vogL (or ls lL volghL) would say lLs all a drafL unLll you dle
"Notice what you notice." ~ Allen Ginsberg
~...the image of the Lord had been replaced by a mirror. (on the arrogant) 1orge Luis Borges
no good book has ever been wrlLLen LhaL has ln lL symbols arrlved aL beforehand and sLuck ln l Lrled
Lo make a real old man a real boy a real sea and a real flsh and real sharks 8uL lf l made Lhem good and
Lrue enough Lhey would mean many Lhlngs Pemlngway
we are conLlnually faced wlLh a serles of greaL opporLunlLles brllllanLly dlsgulsed as lnsoluble problems
[ohn gardner
"f you use crummy words, people'll think you're a creep." --Wally Cleaver, Leave It to Beaver
NVENTON and discovery emanate from the ability to try seemingly wild possibilities; to feel comfortable being wrong before being right; to live
in the world as a careful observer, open to different experiences; to play with ideas without prematurely judging oneself or others; to persist
through difficulties; and to have a willingness to be misunderstood, sometimes for long periods, despite the conventional wisdom." --Peter Sims,
We are Lhe bankrupL arlsLrocracy of leLLers We wear our coaL of arms wlLh a shabby haughLlness LhaL
someLlmes lands us ln Lhe company we Lhlnk ls our blrLhrlghL buL usually leaves us Lo slmply look down
upon one anoLher whlch we manage Lo do wlLh a vengeance Pow dreary LhaL lL should come Lo Lhls
and whaL fun lL was Lo be broke ln our youLh Pow ls lL LhaL you llve and whaL ls lL you do?
WordsworLh asked Lhe leech gaLherer who was noL Lhe one complalnlng
My 260 class is answering the question: "what is rhetoric?"
"Reading and writing train our people for logic, grace and precision of thought, and begin a lifelong study of the exceptional in human existence.
think literature is the history of the soul. Writing should be a journey into worthy perception." Barry Hannah.
8e klnd everyone you meeL ls engaged ln a dlfflculL sLruggle hllo of Alexandrla

1here are Llmes however and Lhls ls one of Lhem when even belng rlghL feels wrong WhaL do you say
for lnsLance abouL a generaLlon LhaL has been LaughL LhaL raln ls polson and sex ls deaLh? lf maklng love
mlghL be faLal and lf a cool sprlng breeze on any summer afLernoon can Lurn a crysLal blue lake lnLo a
puddle of black polson rlghL ln fronL of your eyes Lhere ls noL much lefL excepL 1v and relenLless
masLurbaLlon lLs a sLrange world Some people geL rlch and oLhers eaL shlL and dle Who knows? lf
Lhere ls ln facL a heaven and a hell all we know for sure ls LhaL hell wlll be a vlclously overcrowded
verslon of hoenlx a clean well llghLed place full of sunshlne and bromldes and fasL cars where almosL
everybody seems vaguely happy excepL Lhose who know ln Lhelr hearLs whaL ls mlsslng And belng
drlven slowly and quleLly lnLo Lhe klnd of Lermlnal crazlness LhaL comes wlLh flnally undersLandlng LhaL
Lhe one Lhlng you wanL ls noL Lhere Mlsslng 8ackordered no Lengo vaya con dlos Crow up! Small ls
beLLer 1ake whaL you can geL
PunLer S 1hompson Conzo apers vol 2 (1988)
The cure for anything is salt water: tears, sweat or the sea. --sak Dinesen
"It's that the world changes beneath your Ieet. Things go slow at Iirst and the change is so small
that it's almost imperceptible, and you pay it no mind. And then later, years later, the change
seems huge and it seems to have occurred overnight. Suddenly you aren't the person you were.
And then, where once you thought not wanting what you used to want was punishment, suddenly
you think it may be a blessing.
And things stand still.
You watch the moon reIlected on the swarming gulI water and you think, That's enough, That's
all i want. I just want to sit on this broken-down deck on this night in this cool weather with this
breeze blowing over me and watch this moon liIt into the sky--remarkably oval, remarkably
pearly, remarkably aloIt. And you want to think this in just these words, and you know the words
aren't right, they aren't even close, and that doesn't matter. The deal is that it's just the moon in
the sky reIlected on the gulI, the water hissing and receding, and you're in the middle oI it, and
you're just a small part, an unimportant part, but a part nonetheless. Your job is to be there so the
moon can hit something when it shines at the earth. You are something to hit. And that's the way
it is Ior the rest oI the world, too. What people say and what they think, who they are, what they
think about you, what they ask oI you, what you want, what you give them does not matter. It's
that way Ior everything--the sounds oI the night, the breeze on the back oI your hand, on your
knee, the shoe hanging oII your Ioot, the pressure oI the plastic chair against your elbow or your
Iorearm, the sound oI the light waves Ialling on the beach, the twinkle oI lights on the oil
platIorms oIIshore, the smells, and all the stars in the sky, the shadows that crawl past--you're
something to hit. You're a receiver. You're an antenna." Waveland: a novel by Frederick
Barthelme
~Small disconnected facts, if you take note of them, have a way of becoming connected.
Walker Percy