Blake, “The Voice of the Devil”

Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place & governs the unwilling.

Mary Oliver, "Wild Geese"

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Lin Manuel Miranda on Twitter

Gmorning to the distance between you and okay The logistics of your morning The call you have to make The work to be done The coffee There are things to be learned while you navigate the distance It'll be okay You'll get to okay

Auden, "The Age of Anxiety"

We would rather be ruined than changed
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.

Anita Loos and John Emerson, How to Write Photoplays (1920)

Above all things the scenario writer should keep alive. Just keep yourself with lively, laughing, thinking people, think about things yourself, and cultivate a respect for new ideas of any kind. Take care of these small ideas and the big plots will take care of themselves.

Derek Walcott, "Love After Love"

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was
your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Warren Buffet

It is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong.

Jeremiah Tower, on being in the spotlight

You got on the tiger. No complaining, no explaining . . . shut up and either get off the tiger or just make it better for you than worse.

Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage.

Gregg Popovich, coach of the San Antonio Spurs

On why charitable contributions matter:

"Because we're rich as hell, and we don't need it all, and other people need it. And you're a jerk if you don't give it."

George Eliot

It's never too late to become what you might have been.

Semi Chellas

                                                                        

                                                                                    He called loudly for the stars to bend

                                                                                                                                    —  Yeats

 

October tastes like pennies on my skin,

    a taste of fingers counting change.  It's in

    these bitter autumn twilights I regret

    the cold too cold to let us out.  Within

    the circle of the lamplight I forget

    the dark outside, which, having lit the lamp,

    I cannot see.  The nights are getting damp,

    and longer, too, and it may snow.  I let

myself be kept inside, inside the circle of the lamp.

 

The window makes a sort of frame for night:

    it's how we know the night, as if we'd hung

    a picture on the farthest wall, of night.

    The stars are scattered as if they'd been flung

    in random patterns, throwing back their light

    into the room, where they are not as bright

    as lamplight is, nor are they bright as stars.          

    The taste of metal lingers on my tongue;

and this is how I know the bitter taste of stars.

 

It's how I lose the darkness, looking out

    from light, at darkness kept within its frame.

    And this is how we make the loss our game,

    it's how we count the stars on nights like these,

    it's how we count them all and leave some out:

    by counting as we count the leaves of trees,

    by counting as if they were all the same.

    The ones we know by name we count by name —

And then we count our fingers by such names as these.

 

And this is how my pen begins to sound

    on paper, just like books against their shelves —

    like ink on ink — like words against themselves —

    like stones in water — leaves upon the ground —

    It's how I see my hands, how they are wound

    about the pen, which, in my hand, grows warm.

    It's how I see the letters start to form: 

    they follow black behind the pen, around

its shadow, only slightly darker than themselves.

 

Flaubert, quoted by Shirley Hazard in Green on Capri

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are the three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.

Phillip Roth, in The New York Times, January 16, 2018

C.M. Looking back, how do you recall your 50-plus years as a writer?

P.R. Exhilaration and groaning. Frustration and freedom. Inspiration and uncertainty. Abundance and emptiness. Blazing forth and muddling through. The day-by-day repertoire of oscillating dualities that any talent withstands — and tremendous solitude, too. And the silence: 50 years in a room silent as the bottom of a pool, eking out, when all went well, my minimum daily allowance of usable prose.

Joanna Klink, New Year

We woke to the darkness before our eyes,

unable to take the measure of the loss.

Who are they. What are we. What have we

   abandoned to arrive with such violence at this hour.

In answer we drew back, covered our ears

with our hands to the heedless victory, or vowed,

   as I did, into the changed air, never to consent.

Wisława Szymborska, “Consolation.”

Darwin.

They say he read novels to relax, 

but only certain kinds:

nothing that ended unhappily. 

If he happened on something like that,

enraged, he flung the book into the fire. 

True or not, 
I'm ready to believe it. 

Elon Musk

My context switching penalty is high and my process isolation is not what it used to be.

General James Mattis, United States Secretary of Defense

Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.

Henry David Thoreau

Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.

Cecil Day-Lewis, "Walking Away"

It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day –
A sunny day with leaves just turning,
The touch-lines new-ruled – since I watched you play
Your first game of football, then, like a satellite
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away

Behind a scatter of boys. I can see
You walking away from me towards the school
With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free
Into a wilderness, the gait of one
Who finds no path where the path should be.

That hesitant figure, eddying away
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,
Has something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature's give-and-take – the small, the scorching
Ordeals which fire one's irresolute clay.

I have had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show –
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.

Frida Kahlo, Paris, France letter to Nickolas Muray, New York, N.Y., 1939 Feb. 16

My adorable Nick. Mi Niño,

I am writing you on my bed in the American Hospital, yesterday it was the first day I didn't have fever and they aloud me to eat a little, so I feel better. Two weeks ago I was so ill that they brought me here in an ambulance because I couldn't even walk. You know that I don't know why or how I got coli-bracilus on the kidneys thru the intestines, and I had such an inflamation and pain that I thought I was going to die. They took several eXrays of the kidneys and it seems that they are infected with those damn colibacilus. Now I am better and next monday I will be out of this rotten hospital. I can't go to the hotel, because I would be all alone, so the wife of Marcel Duchamp invited me to stay with her for a week while I recover a little. Your telegram arrived this morning and I cried very much –of happiness, and because I miss you with all my heart and my blood. Your letter, my sweet, came yesterday, it is so beautiful, so tender, that I have no words to tell you what a joy it gave me. I adore you my love, believe me, like I never loved anyone-only Diego will be in my heart as close as you-always. I haven't tell Diego a word about all this trouble of being ill – because he will worry so much – and I think in few days I will be allright again, so it isn't worthwhile to alarm him.
Don't you think so?

Besides this damn sickness I had the lousiest luck since I arrived. In first place the question of the exibition is all a damn mess. Until I came the paintings were still in the custum house, because the s. of a b. of Breton didn't take the trouble to get them out. The photographs which you sent ages ago, he never received. So he says- the gallery was not arranged for the exibit at all and Breton has no gallery of his own long ago. So I had to wait days and days just like an idiot till I met Marcel Duchamp (a marvelous painter) who is the only one who has his feet on the earth, among all this bunch of coocoo lunatic son of bitches of the surrealists. He immediately got my paintings out and tried to find a gallery. Finally there was a gallery called "Pierre Colle" which accepted the damn exibition. Now Breton wants to exibit together with my paintings, 14 portraits of the XIX century (Mexicans) about 32 photographs of Alvarez Bravo, and lots of popular objects which he bought on the markets of Mexico – all this junk, can you beat that? For the 15th of March the gallery supose to be ready. But…. The 14 oils of the XIX Century must be restored and the damn restoration takes a whole month. I had to lend to Brenton 200 bucks (Dlls) for the restoration because he doesn't have a penny. (I sent a cable to Diego telling him the situation and telling that I lended to Breton that money – he was furious, but now is done and I have nothing to do about it) I still have money to stay here till the beginning of March so I don't have to worry so much.

Well, after things were more or less settled as I told you, few days ago Breton told me that the associated of Pierre Colle, an old bastard and son of a bitch, saw my paintings and found that only two were possible to be shown, because the rest are too "shocking" fir the public!! I could of kill that guy and eat it afterwards, but I am so sick and tired of the whole affair that I have decided to send everything to hell, scram from this rotten Paris before I get nuts myself. You have no idea the kind of bitches these people are. They make me vomit. They are so damn "intelectual" and rotten that I can't stand them any more. It is really too much for my character- I rather sit and sell tortillas, than to have any thing to do with those "Artistic" bitches of Paris. They sit for hours on the "cafés" warming their precious behinds, and talk without stopping about "culture" "art" "revolution" and so on and so forth, thinking themselves the gods of the world, dreaming the most fantastic nonsense, and poisoning the air with theories and theories that never come true. Next morning they don't have anything to eat in their house because none of them work and they live as parasites of the bunch of rich bitches who admire their "genius" of "Artists", Shit and only shit is what they are. I never seen Diego or you wasting their time on stupid gossip and "intelectual" discussions. That is why you are real men and not lousy "artists"- Gee weez! It was worthwhile to come here only to see why Europe is rottening, why all this people - good for nothing - are the cause of all the Hitlers and Mussolinis. I bet you my life I will hate this place and its people as long as I live. There is something so false and unreal about them that they: drive me nuts.

I am hoping to get well soon and scram from here. My ticket will last for a long time but I already have acommodations for the "Isle de France" on the 8 of March. I hope I can take this boat. In any case I won't stay here longer than the 15th of March. To hell with the exhibition in London. To hell with everything concerning Breton and all this lousy place. I want to go back to you. I miss every movement of your being, your voice, your eyes, your hands, your beautiful mouth, your laugh so clear and honest. YOU. I love you my Nick. I am so happy to think I love you – to think you wait for me – you love me.

My darling give many kisses to Mam on my name, I never forget her. Kiss also Aria and Lea. For you my heart full of tenderness and caring. One special kiss on your neck your give my love to Mary Skear if you see her and to Ruzzy

xochite.-

Russian proverb

Besplatniy sir biyvaet tol'ko v mishelovke: "Free cheese can be found only in a mousetrap."

Dolly Parton

Find out who you are, and do it on purpose.

Joan Didion, Notes on the South

As it happens I was taught to cook by someone from Louisiana, where an avid preoccupation with recipes and food among men was not unfamiliar to me. We lived together for some years, and I think we most fully understood each other when once I tried to kill him with a kitchen knife.

Susan Sontag

The likelihood that your acts of resistance cannot stop the injustice does not exempt you from acting in what you sincerely and reflectively hold to be the best interests of your community.

"The Change"

To truly cherish the things that are important to you, 

you must first discard those that have outlived their purpose.

—Marie Kondo, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

So this is how you change a life

A little more than half way through.

I must be grateful not for my socks

But to my socks. They work so hard

At carrying me.

And really don’t we all deserve

To be rolled, then gently stood up straight?

From when I was a girl in pilly polyester tights

Choking on my turtleneck

I reached just like they tell you to do

For the stars within reason. But now

I’m half of the time on my knees

Collecting Lego, each one a snowflake.

Not like the Lego of my youth that was all bricks

Three colors like the French flag.

Like the movies I saw Rouge Blanc and Bleu

That called me: Make a movie like this where

the light moves across the frame

across the frame and across the face of a beautiful woman

and that is enough! I wanted to.

Half the time on my knees.

Oh, Karl Ove Knausgaard! Come sit by me and tell me how

You can change a diaper but my representation

Counciled me, cautioned me,

Never say family. Family means missing

Deadlines and unavailable for shooting.

You didn’t have to tell me that: I knew. Till I turned forty

And spread my legs for a syringe and a quiet bald man.

He knocked me up in under a minute

After all those years of hoping no one would.

In under a minute

I returned to the arms of the man I love. All hair.

Emerging from the cupboard with the Barely Legal magazines

He swore he didn’t touch.

Twice we did this.

Twice.

For the king’s family.

Take them from me, don’t take them.

I would die without them.

Declutter my soul! Marie Kondo, I implore you!

I am unavailable for shooting!

I am too full of lyrics and resentment

I am too full of slogans and bad habits

Too full of small exclusions

Too full of wild assumptions

Of scrambled eggs and Power Rangers

Too, too full of parking tickets.

Are these hot flashes sparks of joy?

Move the fan to where it blows on me Marie

And oh Marie

These socks have carried us down the street

Down to the freeway and the front door’s standing open.

Joanna Klink, "New Year"

We woke to the darkness before our eyes,

unable to take the measure of the loss.

Who are they. What are we. What have we

   abandoned to arrive with such violence at this hour.

In answer we drew back, covered our ears

with our hands to the heedless victory, or vowed,

   as I did, into the changed air, never to consent.