A Year in Books/Day 73: The Wit and Wisdom of Jane Austen

Posted on March 16, 2012 by maedez

Title: The Wit and Wisdom of Jane Austen
Compiled by: Dominique Enright
Year Published: 2002 (Barnes & Noble, Inc. by arrangement with Michael O’Mara Books Limited)
Year Purchased: 2002-2004
Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
About: Excerpts from her fiction and personal letters are featured in this slim but potent volume.
Motivation: Jane Austen! Quotes!
Times Read: 2
Random Excerpt/Page 63: “Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of the mouths of other people.” (Letter to Anna Austen, 28 September 1814)
Happiness Scale: 10
One Witty Brit-Image via Wikipedia

A Year in Books/Day 72: 1001 Pearls of Wisdom

Posted on March 16, 2012 by maedez

Title: 1001 Pearls of Wisdom Wisdom, wit and insight to enlighten and inspire
Author: David Ross
Year Published: 2006 (Duncan Baird Publishers Ltd)
Year Purchased: 2006
Source: Unknown
About: This is a thick little volume full of colourful illustrations and inspirational quotes that are divided into traditional self-help categories (the good life, finding fulfilment, lighting the dark).
Motivation: Quotes, quotes, quotes! Reading, compiling and dispensing quotes is one of my favourite pastimes (I know, I’m a bit obsessive). Although I have an extremely curious and roving mind, I love anything that gives me, however fleetingly, a sense of order.
Times Read: 1
Random Excerpt/Page 285: “Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.” (Benjamin Franklin)
Happiness Scale: 9 1/2

Posted on March 13, 2012 by maedez

“A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.”-Frank Capra

Posted on March 7, 2012 by maedez

“Writing is both mask and unveiling.”-E.B. White

Posted on March 4, 2012 by maedez

Title: Quotable Women A Celebration
Editor: Molly Jay
Year Published: 2004 (Running Press)
Year Purchased: 2011
Source: A Christmas gift from my baby brother.
About: Quotes by legendary kick ass women are interspersed with vibrant artwork by female artists.
Motivation: I’m also a legend-when it comes to collecting quotes. I have been keeping quote books since I was a teenager. I’m a bit obsessive that way, actually. I find inspiration in strong, creative, intelligent women. My brother knows me well, it seems.
Times Read: 1
Random Excerpt/Page 89: “I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind.”-Emily Bronte
Happiness Scale: 10

Posted on February 28, 2012 by maedez

“Poets are damned but they are not blind, they see with the eyes of the angels.”-William Carlos Williams

Posted on February 22, 2012 by maedez

“All I’m writing is just what I feel, that’s all. I just keep it almost naked. And probably the words are so bland.”-Jimi Hendrix

Posted on February 14, 2012 by maedez

“My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living.”-Anais Nin

Posted on February 11, 2012 by maedez

Edgar Allan Poe was born on 1/19/1809. “All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”
Robinson Jeffers died on 1/20/1962. “Corruption never has been compulsory; when the cities lie at the monster’s feet there are left the mountains.” (Shine, Perishing Republic, 1941)
Lytton Strachey died on 1/21/1932. Strachey revolutionized the genre of biography, finally bringing it out of the Victorian era by infusing his profiles with wit and genuine human emotions.
George A. Moore died on 1/21/1933. “Art must be parochial in the beginning to be cosmopolitan in the end.”
George Orwell died on 1/21/1950. “Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.”
Lord Byron was born on 1/22/1788. “Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon’s verge.”
August Strindberg was born on 1/22/1849. Strindberg was an artistic triple-threat, engaging in painting and photography as well as the writing for which he is known. He also fancied himself an alchemist.
Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle) was born on 1/23/1783. “A novel is a mirror carried along a main road.
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Posted on January 15, 2012 by maedez

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John Dos Passos was born on 1/14/1896. “A man’s got to work for more than himself and his kids to feel right.”
Lewis Carroll died on 1/14/1898. “I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.” (‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’)
Tillie Olsen was born on 1/14/1912. “Women have the right to say: this is surface, this falsifies reality, this degrades.”
Anaïs Nin died on 1/14/1977. “Good things happen to those who hustle.”
Jean-Baptiste Moliere was born on 1/15/1622. “A learned fool is more a fool than an ignorant fool.”
Earl Wilson died on 1/16/1987. “If you wouldn’t write it and sign it, don’t say it.”
Anne Brontë was born on 1/17/1820. Anne was the last-born of the Brontë brood and the author of 2 novels (‘Agnes Grey‘ and ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall‘).
Betty Smith died on 1/17/1972. “Look at everything as though you were seeing it for the first time or the last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.”
Gregory Corso died on 1/17/2001. “The most important of the beat poets…a really true poet with an original voice.”-Nancy Peters.
A.A. Milne was born on 1/18/1882. The A.A. stood for Alan Alexander.
Rudyard Kipling died on 1/18/1936. “Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.”