Richard Allan Baruz: Commonplaces

Sun, 10 Nov 2002 04:02:52 GMT

How to write when one knows one is going to be censored by one’s government (South Africa, in this case).

“One must write as if one were already dead.”
—Nadine Gordimer
in an interview on NPR,
as quoted by Stephen Dobyns, “Voices One Listens To,”
Best Words, Best Order

Fri, 08 Nov 2002 04:42:37 GMT

Approximately:

“Big win for the Republicans. They say that the Democrats lost because they could not articulate a message. ‘Could not articulate a message.’ You know you’re in trouble if you’ve been out-articulated by George W. Bush.”
—David Letterman

Wed, 30 Oct 2002 02:15:23 GMT

“BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.”

—dollargonzo
Slashdot

Thu, 17 Oct 2002 00:27:17 GMT

Pablo Picasso. "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]

Tue, 15 Oct 2002 16:19:16 GMT

Cato the Elder. "Grasp the subject, the words will follow." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]

Tue, 15 Oct 2002 16:18:16 GMT

Harriet Martineau. "Readers are plentiful; thinkers are rare." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]

Tue, 15 Oct 2002 00:02:51 GMT

“We are again developing communities, but these are not communities based on geography. My neighbor is not the guy next to me. It’s the person that shares the same interests as I do.”

—Joshua Halberstam
[by way of CNN, 17 Sep 1995 1:45 p.m. EDT]

Wed, 09 Oct 2002 22:49:04 GMT

Kathleen Norias. "Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]

Sat, 05 Oct 2002 22:47:13 GMT

I freely admit to preferring Star Trek to the “West Wing,” and if you think that makes me a dork, well, it is entirely possible that one day Mankind will develop some sort of interstellar drive, but there isn’t a chance in hell Martin Sheen will ever become President. Who’s the realist now, eh?

—Andrew Lileks, Daily Bleat, 4 October 2002

Tue, 01 Oct 2002 03:13:13 GMT

Kenneth Tynan epitomised radical chic avant la phrase, forever extolling the achievements of Soviet communism when he wasn't drooling over the latest three-star restaurants in France. At a party in New York in the late 1950s, Tynan was holding forth about politics when Phillips silenced him with the words: "Your arguments are so old that I've forgotten the answers." from “It's yesterday all over again” in Guardian Unlimited.

Fri, 20 Sep 2002 15:18:48 GMT

Near Dark, one of my favorites, and really up there in the vampire genre, is finally out on DVD. [by way of Entertainment Weekly, 20 Sep 2002, 79] This means I can get rid of the record-by-title word "NEAR DARK" + Movie, Horror category in TiVo. “Caleb, those people back there, they wasn’t normal. Normal folks, they don’t spit out bullets when you shoot ’em, no sir.”

—Loy Colton, Near Dark

Fri, 20 Sep 2002 14:34:02 GMT

Mahatma Gandhi. "It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err." [by way of Motivational Quotes of the Day] I wish these quotation servers would have more in the line of provenance. Where or when did he say this?

Thu, 19 Sep 2002 04:04:53 GMT

David Brin paraphrases George Orwell:

Oh, some people have been saying, "Look, it's just a movie." George Orwell had a reply to claims that political considerations have no place in art or entertainment critiques. He said (paraphrase) "To critique the aesthetics of a brick building and ignore the fact that it is being used as a gas chamber in a concentration camp is to defeat the whole point of aesthetics."

Sat, 14 Sep 2002 13:08:59 GMT

“Asked this week about the policy’s prospects in the Vatican, Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said: ‘I’m hearing that they’re looking favorably upon it. Of course, the urge to edit is a basic human need, up there with the urge to eat and breathe, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they make changes.’” [in NYT]

Thu, 12 Sep 2002 14:03:04 GMT

Henri F. Amiel. "Work while you have the light. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]

Mon, 09 Sep 2002 21:34:42 GMT

A warning to my blogging friends: “The irony of the Information Age is that it has given new respectability to uninformed opinion.”

—Veteran reporter John Lawton
speaking to the American Association of Broadcast Journalists, 1995

Which is not to say that the trust that was once given to authority (whether imperator, prince, or king) does not now go to corporate media sources with undisclosed if barely disguised interests.

Thu, 05 Sep 2002 22:54:48 GMT

John Locke. "I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts" [Motivational Quotes of the Day]

Wed, 04 Sep 2002 06:34:14 GMT

Margaret Fuller. "If you have knowledge, let others light their candles at it." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]

Wed, 04 Sep 2002 06:32:53 GMT

Clementine Paddleford. "Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]

Tue, 03 Sep 2002 03:31:32 GMT

...something human is working all by itself, sprung free of the original context, perhaps even purified of any of its author’s preoccupation at the time of writing. And yet one knows that, while this purely human spectacle is the ultimate fruit of any work, one will, nevertheless, sit down to write again at a particular hour pressed by the unique weight of a particular day, addressing that day and that hour whose consequences will not even appear to the audience a year or two hence, to say nothing of a decade or in another country. It is the kind of lesson one must remember and forget at the same time.

—Arthur Miller, “What Makes Plays Endure?”
The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller

Thu, 29 Aug 2002 23:22:50 GMT

“One by one the penguins steal my sanity.” Does anyone know the provenance of this?

Wed, 28 Aug 2002 21:50:32 GMT

William Feather. "Beware of the man who won't be bothered with details." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]

Wed, 28 Aug 2002 21:50:16 GMT

Publilius Syrus. "It is no profit to have learned well, if you neglect to do well." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]

Mon, 19 Aug 2002 23:28:20 GMT

Albert Einstein. "If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]

Mon, 19 Aug 2002 22:59:09 GMT

Maxine Hong Kingston. "The sweat of hard work is not to be displayed. It is much more graceful to appear favored by the gods." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]