January 2, 2013 Quote Unquote Happy 2013, From Mark Twain By Sadie Stein “Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink, and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever. We shall also reflect pleasantly upon how we did the same old thing last year about this time. However, go in, community. New Year’s is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls, and humbug resolutions, and we wish you to enjoy it with a looseness suited to the greatness of the occasion.” —Mark Twain, letter to Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, January 1863
November 29, 2012 Quote Unquote Happy Birthday, C. S. Lewis By Sadie Stein “Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.” —C. S. Lewis [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
November 19, 2012 Quote Unquote Happy Birthday, Sharon Olds! By Sadie Stein “Writing or making anything—a poem, a bird feeder, a chocolate cake—has self-respect in it. You’re working. You’re trying. You’re not lying down on the ground, having given up.” —Sharon Olds, 2004
November 5, 2012 Quote Unquote Bonfire Night By Sadie Stein Remember, remember the fifth of November Gunpowder, treason and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot. Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, ‘Twas his intent To blow up the King and the Parliament. Three score barrels of powder below, Poor old England to overthrow. By God’s providence he was catched With a dark lantern and burning match. Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King! Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! A penny loaf to feed ol’ Pope. A farthing cheese to choke him. A pint of beer to rinse it down. A faggot of sticks to burn him. Burn him in a tub of tar. Burn him like a blazing star. Burn his body from his head. Then we’ll say ol’ Pope is dead. Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
November 1, 2012 Quote Unquote Happy November! By Sadie Stein “November always seemed to me the Norway of the year.” —Emily Dickinson
October 30, 2012 Quote Unquote Singular, Difficult, Shadowed, Brilliant By Sadie Stein The ancients are right: the dear old human experience is a singular, difficult, shadowed, brilliant experience that does not resolve into being comfortable in the world. The valley of the shadow is part of that, and you are depriving yourself if you do not experience what humankind has experienced, including doubt and sorrow. We experience pain and difficulty as failure instead of saying, I will pass through this, everyone I have ever admired has passed through this, music has come out of this, literature has come out of it. We should think of our humanity as a privilege. —Marilynne Robinson, The Art of Fiction No. 198 [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]