Monday, December 5, 2016

Firepower






- Emma Thompson,
The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries: 
Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film 


Monday, November 21, 2016

The Conscience of the Blogger

The play's the thing 
wherein I'll catch
 the conscience of the king. 

- Shakespeare, Hamlet 





Monday, October 31, 2016

Monday, August 22, 2016

Crying in the Chapel

If you cannot teach me to fly,
teach me to sing.

J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan




Monday, August 8, 2016

Choice of Attention

Choice of attention - to pay attention to this and ignore that - 
is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. 
In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice 
and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be.

-W.H. Auden



Monday, June 27, 2016

The Politicization of Plagiarism



Private property began the instant somebody had a mind of his own. 

- E.E. Cummings 



Monday, June 20, 2016

Ursula's Demand

Do not consider me now 
as an elegant female intending to plague you, 
but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart. 

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice 


Monday, June 13, 2016

Marching Orders

What does reason know?
Reason only knows what it has succeeded in learning.

- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Monday, May 23, 2016

Rage

I liked being a person.
I wanted to keep at it.

John Green, The Fault in Our Stars




Monday, May 16, 2016

Round & Round

All go to one place: 
all are from the dust, 
and all return to dust.

Ecclesiastes 3:20  


Monday, April 18, 2016

Quiet Assertion


Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves?
Even while we're still alive?
We wish to assert our existence, 
like dogs peeing on fire hydrants.


- Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin  


Monday, March 14, 2016

The Wide World

The universe is wider than our views of it.

-Henry David Thoreau 

Monday, March 7, 2016

The Chain We Forge



"You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling.
"Tell me why?"
"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost.
"I made it link by link, and yard by yard, 
I girded it on of my own free will, 
and of my own free will I wore it."

-Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol 

Monday, February 29, 2016

Jealousy

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-ey'd monster,
which doth mock the meat it feeds on.

-Shakespeare, Othello


Monday, February 15, 2016

Backdraft



I took a deep breath 
and listened to the old brag of my heart.

I am, I am, I am.

Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar


Monday, February 8, 2016

The Next Act


 It all seemed to him to have disappeared 
as if behind a curtain at a theater. 
There are such curtains that drop in life. 
God is moving on to the next act.

- Victor Hugo, Les Miserables 


Monday, February 1, 2016

My People


We shape our buildings; 
thereafter they shape us.

-Winston Churchill 


Monday, January 25, 2016

Monday, January 18, 2016

In Another's Eyes

Our Creator would never have made such lovely days, 
and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them,
above and beyond all thought, 
unless we were meant to be immortal. 

- Nathaniel Hawthorne 


Monday, January 11, 2016

Pleasures


One half of the world 
cannot understand 
the pleasures of the other. 

 - Jane Austen

Monday, January 4, 2016

Origins


Consider your origins:
you were not made to live as brutes, 
but to follow virtue and knowledge. 

- Dante Alighieri