Category Archives: inside quotation marks

quotes

the gap

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“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.” Ira Glass

I know I’ve posted this everywhere today — facebook and here at least — and I have to give a shout-out to Anna for showing me this quote. I find it so encouraging that I just wanted to post it here, too, where I could easily find it the next time, anytime, every time, I am ready to quit trying.

“my responsibility as a citizen”

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I haven’t decided who I’m going to vote for [in 2012]. Just as was the case in 2008, I am going to watch the campaign unfold. In the course of my life I have voted for Democrats, I have voted for Republicans, I have changed from one four-year cycle to another, and I’ve always felt it my responsibility as a citizen, to take a look at the issues, examine the candidates, and pick the person that I think is best qualified for the office of the president in that year and not just solely on the basis of party affiliation. Colin Powell in an interview with “Face the Nation” (CBS News)

The former Secretary of State is a Republican who served under George W. Bush, but he voted for President Obama in 2008.

I gotta say, I completely respect what he says in the quote. I think that’s how it oughta be, right? I know I’m definitely not there yet, but one can hope. And I do have to wonder — if enough voters began to vote in this way, how would the political arena be changed? Would the partisan-ism (i made that word up, i think) be as unbearable as it now is? Hard to say, I know. And voting in this way is no easy task, for sure. Takes a lot of voter vigilance, which mostly translates into one thing most voters struggle with a scarcity of: time. #JustWondering #AGirlCanDream

marvelous

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But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! 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! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

 

the bridge builder

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The Bridge Builder

An old man, going a lone highway,
Came, at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.

The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fear for him;
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim, near,
“You are wasting strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again will pass this way;
You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide-
Why build you this bridge at the evening tide?”

The builder lifted his old gray head:
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followeth after me today,
A youth, whose feet must pass this way.

This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.”

— Will Allen Dromgoole

The Bridge Builder

An old man, going a lone highway,
Came, at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.

The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fear for him;
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim, near,
“You are wasting strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again will pass this way;
You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide-
Why build you this bridge at the evening tide?”

The builder lifted his old gray head:
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followeth after me today,
A youth, whose feet must pass this way.

This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.”

— Will Allen Dromgoole,

thirty.

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at 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures — be what he is. and, above all, accept these things.” – albert camus

‘i’m thirty’ i said. ‘i’m five years to old to lie to myself and call it honor.’ – f. scott fitzgerald

time and tide wait for no man, / but time always stands still for a woman of thirty. – robert frost

at twenty years of age the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment. – Benjamin Franklin

everything i know i learned after i was thirty. – georges clemenceau

well… turning thirty has been a lot less traumatic than i thought it would be. it turns out that, as with many things, the anticipation was worse than the injury itself. not that i didn’t feel it, per se, but i seem to have survived just fine. i don’t really feel thirty, but since i never quite felt twenty-nine either, i guess i won’t worry about that too much. it does make me wonder, though, if thirty might be as big a myth as twenty-one… who knew?!?!

day trip to bath

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there are a number of quotations about Bath, particularly in Jane Austen’s novels, but this (from J.B. Priestly) is my favorite — and so very true:

“Then Bath spread herself before us, like a beautiful dowager giving a reception. Bath, like Edinbugh has the rare trick of surprising you all over again. You know very well it is like that, yet somehow your memory must have diminished the wonder of it, for there it is, taking your breath away again.” – J.B. Priestley, English Journey

four friends and i drove down last saturday and though it was mostly cloudy, bath was still a delight.

mighty things

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Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat. – Teddy Roosevelt