APRIL


The roofs are shining from the rain,
The sparrows twitter as they fly,
And with a windy April grace
The little clouds go by.


Yet the back yards are bare and brown
With only one unchanging tree - 
I could not be so sure of Spring
Save it sings inside of me.


~ Sara Teasdale, Poems and Rhymes

Literary Quote of the Day

"I do know that there are really just two underlying philosophies of knife fighting: the Realist School, which holds that any time you fight someone who knows what he's doing you are going to be cut, so you should prepare for it (these are the guys you see wrapping their leather jackets around their left forearms before a fight), and the Idealist School, which believes you should devote as much energy as it takes to keeping yourself from being cut at all.  By never, for example, having a nonstriking part of your body be forward of your blade...

On principle - and because I have a tiny hospital gown instead of a leather jacket - I lean toward the Idealist School.  Of course, I also lean toward having a knife, which at the moment I don't."


~ Josh Bazell, Beat the Reaper

Literary Quote of the Day

A series of shorts:

“Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy!” ~ Nora Ephron

“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it!” ~ Mark Twain

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut!" - Ernest Hemmingway

“Those people who tell me that I'm going to hell while they are going to heaven somehow make me very glad that we're going to separate destinations!”  ~ Martin Terman

"The sky was the color of Edgar Allen Poe's pajamas." ~ Tom Robbins

"I won't say she was silly, but I think one of us was silly, and it wasn't me."  ~ Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

‎"You ever notice that hardly anything besides the "Star-Spangled Banner" is spangled? There's no, the Raisin-Spangled Scone, or the Flea-Spangled Beagle."  ~ Christopher Moore

"...who, if he'd been a flavor of ice cream, would have been Gay Linebacker Crunch...Rivera's flavor was Low-fat Spanish Cynic in an Armani Cone..."  ~ Christopher Moore

Ezra Pound on James Joyce in 1923: "nothing short of a divine vision or a new cure for the clap can possibly be worth all the circumambient peripherization"

I will not be just a tourist in the world of images, just watching images passing by which I cannot live in, make love to, possess as permanent sources of joy and ecstasy. ~ Anais Nin

“I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell - you see, I have friends in both places!” ~ Mark Twain

‎"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning!" ~ Calvin & Hobbes

Literary Quote of the Day

"A lot of nonsense has been circulated about how Dorothy left Oz.  There are some who say that she never did; they say as they said of Ozma before her that she is in hiding, in disguise, patient as a maiden, waiting to come back and show herself again.  Others insist she flew up into the sky like a saint ascending to the Other Land, waving her apron giddily and clutching that damn fool dog...


And of the Witch?  In the life of a Witch, there is no after, in the ever after of a Witch, there is no happily; in the story of a Witch, there is no afterword.  Of that part that is beyond the life story, beyond the story of the life, there is - alas, or perhaps thank mercy - no telling.  She was dead, dead and gone, and all that was left of her was the carapace of her reputation for malice."


~ Gregory Maguire, Wicked The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Literary Quote of the Day (x2)

NO DIFFERENCE

Small as a peanut, 

Big as a giant,

We're all the same size

When we turn off the light.

Rich as a sultan,

Poor as a mite,

We're all worth the same 

When we turn off the light

Red, black or orange,

Yellow or white,

We all look the same

When we turn off the light.

So maybe the way

To make everything right

Is for God to just reach out

And turn off the light!

~ Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends

Literary Quote of the Day

ALICE


She drank from a bottle called DRINK ME
And up she grew so tall,
She ate from a plate called TASTE ME
And down she shrank so small.
And so she changed, while other folks
Never tried nothin' at all.


~ Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends

Literary Quote of the Day

"While Dorian was unlocking the shackles with a key he took from over the door, Ignatius said, 'You know, manacles and chains have functions in modern life which their fevered inventors must never have considered in an earlier and simpler age.  If I were a suburban developer, I would attach at least one set to the walls of every new yellow brick ranch style and Cape Cod split level.  When the suburbanites grew tired of television and Ping-Pong or whatever they do in their little homes, they could chain one another up for a while.  Everyone would love it.  Wives would say, 'My husband put me in chains last night.  It was wonderful.  Has your husband done that to you lately?'  And children would hurry eagerly home from school to their mothers who would be waiting to chain them.  It would help the children to cultivate the imagination denied them by television and would appreciably cut down on the incidence of juvenile delinquency.  When father came in from work, the whole family could grab him and chain him for being stupid enough to be working all day long to support them.  Troublesome old relatives would be chained in the carport.  Their hands would be released only once a month so they could sign over their Social Security checks.  Manacles and chains could build a better life for all.  I must give this some space in my notes and jottings.'"


~ John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces

Literary Quote of the Day

"Grandpa Harris had worked for the electric company as a lineman.  It was a dangerous job, Grigg's father told him.  Grigg had every hope of having a dangerous job himself someday, though more secret agent than crack utility worker.  His own father was a meter reader and had been in the hospital four times with dog bites.  He had two shiny scars on the calf of one leg and another scar somewhere no one saw.  The Harrises had never owned a dog, and as long as his father was alive they never would.  Grigg was five the first time this was explained to him, and he still remembered his reaction, how he thought to himself that his father couldn't live forever."


~ Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

Literary Quote of the Day (x2)

(It felt like a 2 quote day...)

"Argument From Respect for Authority (argumentum ad verecundiam) Fallacy


The argument from respect for authority is one of our boss's favorite arguments.  Citing an authority to support your argument is not a logical fallacy in and of itself; expert opinion is legitimate evidence alongside other evidence.  What is fallacious is using respect for authority as the sole confirmation of your position, despite convincing evidence to the contrary.

Ted meets his friend All and exclaims, 'Al! I heard you died!'
'Hardly,' says Al, laughing.  'As you can see, I'm very much alive.'
'Impossible,' says Ted. 'The man who told me is much more reliable than you.'


~ Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar...Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes

Literary Quote of the Day

"The women oohed and ahed and the men sat slack-jawed as I showed my slides of today's lingerie, from frumpy to latex to thongs to G-strings to fetish undergarments to nasty va-va-voom designs.

'What about men?' a shriveled woman with liver-spotted skin shouted. 'Got something to turn on us ladies?'

'I believe I do,' I said, cutting to a photograph of a bare chested Clark Gable with Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night. 'When Gable took his shirt off in this scene and he was bare-chested, men across America decided, 'Well, if Clark Gable doesn't have to wear an undershirt, neither do I!' Sales of men's undershirts dropped seventy-five percent after that. Of course, later, when James Dean was photographed wearing a cotton undershirt in Rebel Without a Cause, sales zoomed back up. It's really quite astounding how underwear fashion in the movies impacts what people wear in real life.'"


~ Karen Quinn, Holly Would Dream

Literary Quote of the Day

"While Charlie's Beta Male imagination may have often turned him toward timidity and even paranoia, when it came to accepting the unacceptable it served him like Kevlar toilet paper - bulletproof, if a tad disagreeable in application.  The inability to believe the unbelievable would not be his downfall.  Charlie Asher would never be a bug splattered on the smoky windscreen of dull imagination."


~ Christopher Moore, A Dirty Job

Literary Quote of the Day

"As she'd said more than once in regard to painting, 'Having to do it for money is a far cry from having to do it because  you have to do it.'


Which leads to the fourth member of her blues quartet: art-life gloom.  Every other person on the street was the failed consort of one muse or another.  One met them everywhere.  The would-be guitarist who just couldn't find time to practice, the would-be novelist who developed an allergy to solitude, the would-be actress too weak to withstand domestic and maternalistic urges, the would-be poet who found it easier to get drunk on booze than on language, the would-be filmmaker who for lack of pluck ended up in advertising; the singer, the potter, the dancer who for want of that extra volt of verve, that extra enzyme of dedication, that extra candlepower of courage were doomed to paper the walls of their lives with frustrated fantasies and secret dissatisfactions.  Ellen Cherry would breakfast on live cockroaches before she'd turn out like them!  She swore it."

Literary Quote of the Day

"It might make a simple task easier, she had to admit, but only slightly.  The only thing magic was truly good for was great feats of worthless accomplishment.  This castle was a monument to this truth.  Every curse roaming its halls was a masterpiece of grand pointlessness.  True, Margle had possessed incredible power.  Men had trembled at his name, and many admired and envied him.  But not Nessy, because she knew the one thing all great men (and all men who aspire to greatness) never learned.


The fate of the universe didn't rest in the hands of giants.  It could be found in the littlest things.  Anything done well was a worthy accomplishment, whether it be unwrapping arcane secrets or sweeping halls, raising kingdoms from the ocean or washing dishes.  All tasks, great or small, were of equal importance in the end.  Without peasants, there could be no kings.  Without soldiers, there was no army.  Without Nessy, there was a very dusty, cluttered castle.  Though none of her masters would soil themselves to do what needed to be done, she had yet to meet a wizard who liked having dust on his shrunken cities."


~ A. Lee Martinez, Too Many Curses

Literary Quote of the Day

"The Oscar race had been the traditional interstudio contest of marketing budgets, newspaper ads, screenings, lunches and media bombardment.  The lead contenders had emerged as follows:


1. Insider Trade!, a musical set on Wall Street during the boom of the 1980s, in which the heroine, a commodity trader who longs to be a dancer, spends most of the action asleep at her desk, dreaming about dancing with other commodity traders, the said dreams being shared on cue with the breathless movie-goers.
2. The story of Moses, starring Russell Crowe in a big white beard and a nightie.
3. A Tim Burton movie called Jack Tar Bush Land about mini-humans whose bodies are on top of their heads and who live underground in woodland areas.
4. Existential Despair, in which five different characters confront their own mortality during the period of one lunch hour in an upscale retailer.
5. East Meets West, a comedy-drama with a message, featuring Anthony Hopkins as Chairman Mao, who, through an ancient curse, switches bodies with a young Los Angeles student during the Cultural Revolution.


~ Helen Fielding, Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination

Literary Quote of the Day

"'How passionately do you believe in our marriage?'


'How passionately do you believe in our marriage?'


It's a fair question, I suppose, the one I have just angled back to David like a tennis player at the net, using the pace and the spin that he put on the ball to my advantage.  Any marriage counselor would support my right to ask it, but I know it's a cheat.  That's the thing with failing relationships.  You can always refuse to answer any question by repeating it.  'Do you love me?'  'Do you want a divorce?'  'Are you happy?'  Your partner is invariably as ambivalent as you are, and if he or she is human - that is to say, cowardly but at the same time somehow full of moral self-righteousness - then he or she will not commit themselves through any expression of passion or commitment.  After all, the absence of passion or commitment is the reason why the relationship is failing, surely?  So in my experience it is both easy and advisable to reduce any serious discussion to a farcical stalemate almost immediately.  Years can go by before you have to make a decision."


~ Nick Hornby, How To Be Good

Literary Quote of the Day

"Many of us have a recipe passed down to us by our mothers that pretty much sums up our childhood memories in an ingredient list.  In my case, it was 'One chilled glass, two parts Tanqueray, wave at the vermouth bottle, stir clockwise if you're north of the equator, and for God's sake, Agnes, don't bruise the gin.'  Yours was probably a can of cream mushroom soup poured over a can of green beans.  That mother who made baked Alaska from scratch?  She also screamed, 'No wire hangers!'  Those overachievers alway have a dark side."


~ Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer, Agnes and the Hitman

Literary Quote of the Day

"He didn't have a gun, apparently.  That was good.  He could just shoot at bushes until he hit me; no, that would attract too much attention.  Even in the rural South, random shooting will attract a certain amount of notice."

~ Charlaine Harris, An Ice Cold Grave

Literary Quote of the Day

"Holmes and Watson are on a camping trip.  In the middle of the night Holmes wakes up and gives Dr. Watson a nudge.  'Watson,' he says, 'look up in the sky and tell me what you see.'
'I see millions of stars, Holmes,' says Watson.
'And what do you conclude from that, Watson?'
Watson thinks for a moment.  'Well,' he says, 'astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets.  Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo.  Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three.  Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow.  Theologically, I see that God is all-powerful, and we are small and insignificant.  Uh, what does it tell you, Holmes?'
'Watson, you idiot!  Someone has stolen our tent!'"


~ Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar...Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes

Literary Quote of the Day

"So there I'm standing in a pub in the Outback of Australia with a bright red funnel down my shorts, a rock on my forehead, and my hands behind my back."

~ Gary A. Warner, "Passing the Test in Silverton", Not So Funny When It Happened

Coming Soon!

Exposed, the second book in the Eliana Brennan series

Literary Quote of the Day

"You should know right now, that there's no yawning, gentle drift into sleepytime for vampyres.  When the sun breaks the horizon, they drop rag-doll dead on the spot, and you can pose them, paint them, put their hands on their junk and post the pics on the Web, and they won't know a thing until sundown when they come on like a light and they're wondering why their naughty bits are green and their inbox is full of propositions from elfin_love.com."


~ Christopher Moore, Bite Me

Literary Quote of the Day

"And the beauty of the pearl, winking and glimmering in the light of the little candle, cozened his brain with its beauty.  So lovely it was, so soft, and its own music came from it - its music of promise and delight, its guarantee of the future, of comfort, of security.  Its warm lucence promised a poultice against illness and a wall against insult.  It closed a door on hunger.  And as he stared at it Kino's eyes softened and his face relaxed.  He could see the little image of the consecrated candle reflected in the soft surface of the pearl, and he heard again in his ears the lovely music of the undersea, the tone of the diffused green light of the sea bottom.  Juana, glancing secretly at him, saw him smile.  And because they were in some way one thing and one purpose, she smiled with him.


And they began this day with hope."


~ John Steinbeck, The Pearl

Literary Quote of the Day

"I love books, by the way, way more than movies.  Movies tell you what to think.  A good book lets you choose a few thoughts for yourself.  Movies show you the pink house.  A good book tells you there's a pink house and lets you paint some of the finishing touches, maybe choose the roof style, park your own car out front.  My imagination has always topped anything a movie could come up with.  Case in point, those darned Harry Potter movies.  That was so not what that part-Veela-chick, Fleur Delacour, looked like."


~ Karen Marie Moning, Darkfever

Literary Quote of the Day

"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.  Orr was crazy and could be grounded.  All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions.  Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them.  If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if didn't want to he was sane and had to.  Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.


'That's some catch, that Catch-22,' he observed.


'It's the best there is,' Doc Daneeka agreed."


~ Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Literary Quote of the Day

"She understands all at once, with a small shock, exactly what it is she always needed to tell Harland: being there in person is not the same as watching.  You might see things better on television, but you'll never know if you were alive or dead while you watched."


~ Barbara Kingsolver, Pigs In Heaven

Literary Quote of the Day

"I have to start by telling you that my entire existence could be summed up in one phrase.  And that is: If my life wasn't funny it would just be true, and that is unacceptable."


~ Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking

I shall choose friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire. 

~ Ayn Rand, Anthem

Literary Quote of the Day

"And where there is something which is not dealt with properly in your world," the old lady prattled on, "as like as not it will emerge in ours.  Nothing disappears.  No guilty secret.  No unspoken thought.  It may be a new and mighty god in our world, or it may be just a gnat, but it will be here.  I might add that these days it is more often a gnat than a new and mighty god.  Oh, there are so many more gnats and fewer immortal gods than once there were."


~ Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Literary Quote of the Day

PUT SOMETHING IN


Draw a crazy picture,
Write a nutty poem,
Sing a mumble-gumble song,
Whistle through your comb.
Do a loony-goony dance
'Cross the kitchen floor,
Put something silly in the world
That ain't been there before.


~ Shel Silverstein, A Light in the Attic

Literary Quote of the Day

"The Catfish Parlour boasts the 'best fried catfish in five states' but doesn't specify which five states.  For instance, it might not even be the best fried catfish in Arkansas; maybe it's only the best in Montana, Idaho, North Dakota, Utah and Connecticut."


~ Cara Lockwood, Dixieland Sushi

Literary Quote of the Day

"The devil, who was getting a little tired of explaining himself (this was his fifth try), shook his head slowly and tried to be patient.  Although patience certainly wasn't his strong suit.


Why did he always go for the dumb ones?  Granted, he always thought they'd be easier, but they never were.  Next time, he vowed, he'd seduce a Rhodes scholar.  Or at least a woman who knew the difference between Satan and satin, which Dante London didn't.  That had been a fifteen-minute conversation in and of itself."


~ Cara Lockwood, Every Demon Has His Day

Literary Quote of the Day

The Savage nodded, frowning.  "You got rid of them.  Yes, that's just like you.  Getting rid of everything unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it.  Whether 'tis better  in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them...But you don't do either.  Neither suffer nor oppose.  You just abolish the slings and arrows.  It's too easy...I like the inconveniences."
"We don't," said the Controller.  "We prefer to do things comfortably."
"But I don't want comfort.  I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness.  I want sin."
"In fact," said Mustapha Mond, "you're claiming the right to be unhappy."
"All right then," said the Savage defiantly, "I'm claiming the right to be unhappy."
"Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind."  There was a long silence.
"I claim them all," said the Savage at last.


~ Aldous Huxley, A Brave New World

Literary Quote of the Day

"Why wasn't Mr. Banion allowed to inform the jury that the former president is himself about to be tried for conspiracy to commit reckless endagerment in the Celeste case?"


"Under American law, Peter, juries are not allowed to have relevant information like that.  That's why, for instance, if you're being tried for murder, it's not relevant that you've previously killed twenty people.  Under our system, the more ignorant the jury, the better.  This is either the great strength of our system or a mind-boggling defect, depending on your point of view."


~ Christopher Buckley, Little Green Men