Saturday, December 09, 2006

"Creative Non-Fiction" Lee Gutkind

As indicated in an earlier chapter, the truth is often larger than any single fact, not a cut-and-dried positive or negative value. It is quite elusive and, like beauty, in the eye of the beholder.

Page 123

A sample Gutkind includes:

I am not one of those gardeners. For one thing, I don’t grow vegetables, only flowers. Secondly, I enjoy the change of seasons too much to want to tussle with them and try to make them behave my way. Generally, I have always found that it is more fun to ride the winds of change than to do battle with them. And anyway, I believe that the most delightful winter garden is the one you have in your head.

Page 178



“A Garden in Winter” Jeanne Marie Laskas
Allegedly published in the Washington Post Magazine December 13, 1900
Repreintd by permission of the author in "Creative Non-Fiction" by Lee Gutkind in 1997.
Other references in the material make me doubt the 1900 publications date.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Some More Random Quote From my Hard Drive

“A few honest men are better than number.” – Oliver Cromwell




“All we ask is to be let alone.” – Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America




“Change is inevitable. In a progressive country, change is constant.” – Benjamin Disraeli





“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” F. Scott Fitzgerald





“Sometimes I feel as though I’m running on ice.” – Billy Joel





“And rain will make the flowers grow.” Les Miserables





“The prettier the flower, the farther the path.” Into the Woods





“You’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.” – Tim McGraw

Some Misc Quotes I Found on my Hard Drive

"The greatest thing in life is to take a hint when intended and not to take a hint when not intended."
-- Robert Frost

"The problem with looking backwards is your back is to the future."
-

"Power corrupts; Absolute power is kind of neat."
-- ?

"The greatest thing in life is to take a hint when intended and not to take a hint when not intended."
-- Robert Frost

"The problem with looking backwards is your back is to the future."
-- Pam Popper

When they took the 4th Amendment, I was quiet because I didn't deal drugs.
When they took the 6th Amendment, I was quiet because I am innocent.
When they took the 2nd Amendment, I was quiet because I don't own a gun.
Now they have taken the 1st Amendment, and I can only be quiet.
--"myhr.lyle"

"Security is like liberty in that many are the crimes committed in its name."
--Justice Robert H. Jackson, 1950

"If you say to people that they, as a matter of fact, can't protect their
conversations, in particular their political conversations, I think you
take a long step toward making a transition from a free society to a
totalitarian society."
-- Whitfield Diffie of Sun Microsystems, world renowned cryptographer,
MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour, Thursday, 4/7/94


Gasp! - I actually maintain the fantesy that the body politic, given
adequate information on which to base reasoned deliberation, adequate time
for sound decisions, and adequately connected to empower and coordinate
irresistable citizen action, will - in fact - act responsibly.

It is the fundamental assumption of democracy. I don't know that it's
true, but the only alternative is a dictatorship to guide and direct
otherwise-incompetent peasant/citizens, and I distrust dictatorial
benovalence more than I distrust the People.

--jim

"They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary
safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." [via wes_psd@ix.netcom.com]
--Ben Franklin, Motto of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, 1759

"1. Freedom of assembly and association as well as speech, press and all other
forms of expression are guaranteed. 2. No censorship shall be maintained,
nor shall the secrecy of any means of communication be violated."
-- Article 21, Constitution of Japan

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus
handicapped.
-- Elbert Hubbard

"Today's yo' lucky day, suckah -- you an' me is goin' trollin' fo some surf Nazis."
-- Marma Washington, Surf Nazis Must Die

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
--Ben Franklin, ~1784 [via farber@linc.cis.upenn.edu]

No, my life's not perfect. I don't like my friends.
---Heathers

My teen angst bull shit has a body count.
---Heathers

Are we going to the prom or are we going to hell?
---Heathers

Why can't you just be a friend? Why do you have to be such a mega-bitch?
Because I can.
---Heathers

Whether to kill yourself or not is one of the most important decisions a teenager can make.
---Heathers


"Beware the fury of a patient man."
---John Dryden

Men often make up in wrath what they want in reason.
---William Alger

All history is a lie.
---Sir Robert Walpole

Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.
---Benjamin Disraeli

The greatest affliction of life is never to be afflicted.
---Anon

Nothing is less sincere than our modes of asking and giving advice.
---Francis Rochefoucauld

Nothing is harder to stop than a freely and fully united band of human beings.
---Milton Mayer

Rules are made for people whop aren't willing to make up their own.
---Chuck Yeager

Nothing makes us more vulnerable than lonliness, except gree.
---Thomas Harris

There is properly no history, only biography.
---Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whoeever blushes is already guilty; true innocence is ashamed of nothing.
---Rousseau

Some books, like the City of London, fare the better for being burned.
---Tom Brown

If Abu Nifdal is a terrorist, so is George Washington.
---Muammar Qaddifi

Peace is a journey of a thousand miles, and must be taken one step at a time.
--- LBJ

You are never too bad to win.
---Tom McElligott

Ability is the art of getting credit for all the home runs somebody else hit.
--- Casey Stengel

The worst vice of the fanatic is his/her sincereity.
---Oscar Wilde

War would end if the dead could return.
---Stanley Baldwin

He that lives upon hope will die fasting.
---Ben Franklin

The great masses of people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.
---Adolf Hitler

Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is.
---Vince Lombardi

The most terrible of lies is not that which is uttered, but that which is lived.
--- W G Clarke

Putting oneself to the fullest possible use is all, I think, any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
---HAL 9000

Childhood is frequently as solemn business for those inside it.
---George Will

The guest is always right. . . even if you have to throw him out.
---Charles Ritz

If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
---MLK

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
---Gen. George S. Patton

No one can make you feel inferior with out your consent.
---Eleanor Roosevelt

Take the time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.
---Andrew Jackson

He who does not tire, tires adversity.
--Tuper (1810-1889)

Neither great poverty, nor great riches, will hear reason.
---Fielding

The perfect bureaucrat everywhere ist he man who manages to make no decision and escape all responsibility.
---Brooks Atkinson

We think that love and benevolence will cure anything. Whereas love and benevolence are our poison, poisn to the giver, and still more poison to the receiver.
---D H Lawrence

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

From "Snow Crash"

Then there are collections from delinquent borrowers and from franchisees who depend on Nova Sicilia for their plant security. If it’s a first notice, Jason likes to drop by in person, just to show the flag, to emphasize that his organization takes a personal, one-to-one, hands-on, micromanaged approach to debt related issues. If it’s a second or third notice, he usually writes a contract with Deadbeaters International, a high impact collection agency with whose work he has always been very happy. Then there is the occasional Code H. Jason hates to deal with Code Hs, views them as symptoms of a breakdown in the system of mutual trust that makes society work.

Page 143



Y. T. Opens the glove compartment…and finds a thick bundle of worn-out, dirty, trillion-dollar bills. Ed Meeses.

“Jeez, couldn’t you get any Gippers?”

Page 241

Thursday, November 16, 2006

That Actor's Studio James Lipton During Conan

"The difference between William Shatner and me, is that when I pause, I'm thinking of something."
--James Lipton