A Bend in the Road

Some deeper thoughts, and a few things that really get my goat:

 

Writing

The words we write must be the very best we have to offer.   When my words fail to make me tingle, I throw them out.

 

Homecoming

The finest thing about old friends is that they always look the same, over the years and then between your forever memories.

 

College

It never occurred to me that the remarkable, intrinsic people who surrounded me would one day be gone.

 

Genius

I don’t borrow other people’s work.  If it’s not good enough to be my own, why bother?

 

Love

If there were not love—if it didn’t surprise us, electrify us, take our breath away and make us cry—we need not live.

 

Authoring

Have no fear; I’m fairly certain anyone with a fifth-grade education can write a book.  (observed while strolling through Barnes & Noble)

 

Civility

There is no excuse for being rude, no exception for being crass, no explanation for being uncivilized.  We didn’t waste a thousand years just so you can yell, snort, and laugh like an idiot.

 

Life

The only way by which we can possibly make sense of the inevitable cycle called life is to distinguish ourselves as having mattered —– that we grew with gusto, matured with style, aged with grace, and died with dignity.

 

Success

Success is entirely in your state of mind.  It is not doled out by some invisible measure which determines the fates of man or the outcome of deeds.

 

Outlook

The only key to sanity is irrational optimism.

 

Maturity

I would not care to be twenty again.  I have been twenty, and, all things considered, am thrilled to be thirty-one.

 

Common Courtesy

There really are certain things which ought not to be allowed when using public spaces.  Thank the lord we live in a democracy, where such nuisances are zealously protected.

 

Expression

People who cannot write annoy me when they try.

“The most enthralling artist is not the celebrated poet, but the voice of the common man which, without commanding a particular power over language, necessarily exalts the beauty of life.”

(with thanks to R.M.)

 

Trivia

I find it ironic, that I am so knowledgeable about such unimportant things.

 

Storytelling

“Whenever someone is telling me a story, all I can think of is how I can’t wait for them to finish so I can tell my own story—which is not only better, but also more directly involves me.”

 

Music

“We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dream.  Wandering by lone sea breakers, and sitting by desolate streams.  World losers and world forsakers, for whom the pale moon gleams.  Yet we are movers and the shakers of the world forever it seems.”

—Arthur William Edgar O’Shaughnessy (1844-1881)

 

Self

The tragedy is not in being who you are.  The tragedy is in being the person others think you ought to be.