Words

Feb. 19th, 2024 05:18 pm
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)
Random quote of the day:

“I wonder whether words out of a mouth
are less than silence, or if silences
tell more than declarations make obscure.”

—Martin Carter, “All to Endure,” Poems of Succession

words4WP@@@


Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Bert and Ernie, Celine Dion, or the Band of the Coldstream Guards. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Change

Apr. 4th, 2023 03:40 pm
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)
Random quote of the day:

“The key is to change the person. And we change people through conversation, not through censorship. That's why I want people to understand what the words we use—and the stories we tell—are really about.

—Jay-Z, Decoded



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Bert and Ernie, Celine Dion, or the Band of the Coldstream Guards. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Quixotic

Nov. 18th, 2022 02:29 pm
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)
Random quote of the day:

“QUIXOTIC, adj. Absurdly chivalric, like Don Quixote. An insight into the beauty and excellence of this incomparable adjective is unhappily denied to him who has the misfortune to know that the gentleman's name is pronounced Ke-ho-tay.

—Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary




Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Bert and Ernie, Celine Dion, or the Band of the Coldstream Guards. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Books

Sep. 2nd, 2022 03:27 pm
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)
Random quote of the day:

“All books are either dreams or swords,
You can cut, or you can drug, with words.”

—Amy Lowell, “Sword Blades and Poppy Seed”




Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Bert and Ernie, Celine Dion, or the Band of the Coldstream Guards. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Right

Jun. 27th, 2022 04:11 pm
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)
 Random quote of the day:

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is really a large matter—’tis the difference between lightning-bug and lightning.”

—Mark Twain, “The Art of Authorship”

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Desus and Mero, Beyoncé, or the Marine Corps Marching Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

The best

Jan. 12th, 2022 02:42 pm
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)
Random quote of the day:

“In a revolutionary period it is always the best who die. The law of sacrifice leaves the last word to the cowards and the timorous since the others have lost it by giving the best of themselves.”

—Albert Camus, Notebooks 1942-1951 (tr. Justin O’Brien)



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Desus and Mero, Beyoncé, or the Marine Corps Marching Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

 

Shadow

Nov. 5th, 2021 01:59 pm
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)
Random quote of the day:

“The thought manifests as the word,
The word manifests as the deed,
The deed develops into a habit,
And habit hardens in character,

So watch the thought and it’s ways with care,
And let it spring from love,
Born out of concern for all beings…

As the shadow follows the body,
As we think so we become.

—Buddha, The Dhammapada



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Desus and Mero, Beyoncé, or the Marine Corps Marching Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

 

Thought

Jun. 17th, 2021 01:52 pm
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)
Random quote of the day:

“The untranslatable thought must be the most precise.
Yet words are not the end of thought, they are where it begins.”

—Jane Hirshfield, “After Long Silence”



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Desus and Mero, Beyoncé, or the Marine Corps Marching Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Gold

Mar. 3rd, 2021 01:00 pm
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)
Random quote of the day:

“Words are the small change of thought. Certain talkers pay us in ten-sou bits. Others, on the other hand, give out only gold pieces.”

—Jules Renard, The Journal of Jules Renard, October 1888 (tr. Bogan/Roget)



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Desus and Mero, Beyoncé, or the Marine Corps Marching Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Musings

Jan. 23rd, 2020 01:43 pm
pjthompson: (musings)
RIP Mr. Terry Jones, one of the pillars of my faith.



*
After two weeks and holding of fighting with my drug plan insurance over a medicine which keeps me alive that I was running out of I finally used GoodRx to buy it out of pocket. It wasn’t cheap but it gives me a three month grace period to sort things out with the insurance. Insurance is nothing but legal extortion. But even with the hassle I know how incredibly lucky I am to have such a plan. I won’t get back that out of pocket expense, but I do expect things will get sorted eventually and I will get help paying for this medicine. I know many people are not that fortunate.

Not only that, my milk went bad before the pull date.

*
Life is never going to be exactly as you want it to be. There's always going to be some little zit on the end of your nose that makes you look at life cross-eyed.

*
I really need to get some new cats. It's been a year and clearly my brain has rotted with Kitty Need because when Betty White came on TV on her birthday I said in kitty voice, "Is da Betty White girl."

*
When it rains at night I like to turn off all media and just sit there reading while listening to the rain.

*
Sometimes my life seems like the bumbling slapstick sitcom dads of the 60s.

Pick something up from the floor, lose control of it, have it fly across the room, walk across the room to fetch, it kick something else, stub my toe and send that flying, bend over to retrieve the other thing and have it fall out of my hand again. You know, the usual.

Sometimes I even hear an opening theme soundtrack while I'm doing it.



(Which is way before the time of many of you and very American teevee sitcom.)

*
Next time you think corporations or billionaires care about you as an individual human being remember that soylant green is people.

*
Well that's embarrassing. For quite some time I've had a tag for my blog of "aesthetcism" when what I truly meant was "asceticism." Hoist on my own Picard.

*
Public service announcement: don't get the shingles shot unless you've got a couple of days to spare for feeling like crap.

(You should definitely get the shingles shot if you are of a certain age because a couple of days of feeling like crap is way better than the shingles.)

I've had three friends who were "taken by surprise" and it was a very unpleasant experience. Months of misery. One of them had what they call internal shingles, which means her nerve endings were on fire for months. Horrible.

*
When you know you've used VRS too much: you are leaving a voicemail for a friend and at the end of the sentence you say, "Period."

*
Writing is the thing I most want to do in the world and yet every day I reach a certain point where I say to myself, "Have I written enough that I can stop now?" Sometimes I push beyond that point if I think there's still water in the well. Other times I know the well is dry and I'll have to wait until it fills up again overnight. The urge to quit is always there, sometimes more insistent than at other times, but always whispering to stop.

*
You know the worst thing about Hellier? I have hundreds and hundreds of books and I'm at a stage in my life where I'm trying to slim down the library because I don't have room for all this and Hellier is forcing me—forcing I say—to buy more books! So many damned books!

*
I was reading a recap of Whitley Streiber's new book, A New World, at http://radiomisterioso.com/2019/12/10/whitley-strieber-a-new-world/
and something reminded me of the God helmet/Estes method session with Dana and Connor in Hellier S2 :

"He said that they 'communicate completely differently than us' without 'an evolved language.' Strieber’s experiences led him to conclude that they lead an existence that is nearly unfathomable to us..."

Words

Aug. 14th, 2019 01:58 pm
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)
Random quote of the day:

“How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.”

—David Foster Wallace, The Pale King



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Jewels

Jun. 3rd, 2019 12:58 pm
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)
Random quote of the day:

“I don’t know what it means and I don’t care because it’s Shakespeare and it’s like having jewels in my mouth when I say the words.”

—Frank McCourt, Angela’s Ashes



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Laurel and Hardy, Ariana Grande, or the Salvation Army Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
pjthompson: parker writing (dorothy)

I’ve got just over 42k done on a new novel. That’s not as impressive as it sounds because much of that was prewritten long ago and I’m getting back to it. But I have written over 4300 new words in the last two weeks. I’ve never written at a blistering pace. If I can write 700-750 words on a given day, that’s an impressive word count for me. So, I am unreasonably pleased by that 4300 words, enough so that I feel comfortable about talking about it now.

But not too much. Talking about what I’m writing is a sure way of killing that thing for me.

I’ve been flailing for so long, trying to get things back online, trying old ideas and new ones, and, apparently, I finally landed on the right piece of writing at the time that was right for me. I have been able to put in an almost daily writing habit, something that has eluded me for a very long time.

I won’t say it’s always been easy. The forces of procrastination are still there—but they are the normal forces of procrastination, the ones I’ve been used to dealing with my entire writing life. Not the procrastination of the soul that has been plaguing me for so long.

And the forces of sabotage are still there. As I said recently on Twitter, “I love how when you finally start to make substantial progress on a piece of writing and it’s feeling good the inner critic has got to find new and more extravagant ways of sabotaging things.” But I recognize that voice for what it is and I can tell it to shut up and move on with what I’m doing. It’s been nagging me all my life, it’s part of the artist’s way, all artists everywhere (or most I know), and part of the deal we make with the Universe. For some Universe-only-knows reason.

But unlike the last few years, I recognize that now, too, and can shove it roughly out of the way and get back to what I need to be doing.

So, wish me luck. I’m on that bumpy and thrilling road again and hope to keep on traveling.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

pjthompson: parker writing (dorothy)

 

 

I’ve got just over 42k done on a new novel. That’s not as impressive as it sounds because much of that was prewritten long ago and I’m getting back to it. But I have written over 4300 new words in the last two weeks. I’ve never written at a blistering pace. If I can write 700-750 words on a given day, that’s an impressive word count for me. So, I am unreasonably pleased by that 4300 words, enough so that I feel comfortable about talking about it now.

But not too much. Talking about what I’m writing is a sure way of killing that thing for me.

I’ve been flailing for so long, trying to get things back online, trying old ideas and new ones, and, apparently, I finally landed on the right piece of writing at the time that was right for me. I have been able to put in an almost daily writing habit, something that has eluded me for a very long time.

I won’t say it’s always been easy. The forces of procrastination are still there—but they are the normal forces of procrastination, the ones I’ve been used to dealing with my entire writing life. Not the procrastination of the soul that has been plaguing me for so long.

And the forces of sabotage are still there. As I said recently on Twitter, “I love how when you finally start to make substantial progress on a piece of writing and it’s feeling good the inner critic has got to find new and more extravagant ways of sabotaging things.” But I recognize that voice for what it is and I can tell it to shut up and move on with what I’m doing. It’s been nagging me all my life, it’s part of the artist’s way, all artists everywhere (or most I know), and part of the deal we make with the Universe. For some Universe-only-knows reason.

But unlike the last few years, I recognize that now, too, and can shove it roughly out of the way and get back to what I need to be doing.

So, wish me luck. I’m on that bumpy and thrilling road again and hope to keep on traveling.

pjthompson: quotes (quotei)

Random quote of the day:

“Inside us there is a word we cannot pronounce and that is who we are.”

—Anthony Marra, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Orville and Wilbur, Katy Perry, or the Avengers. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

pjthompson: quotes (quotei)

Random quote of the day:

“A bird that you set free may be caught again, but a word that escapes your lips will not returns.”

—Jewish proverb

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Lucy and Ethel, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashian Klan. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Good words

Jan. 10th, 2018 10:32 am
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)
Random quote of the day:

“I photograph because I must elude the part of myself that thinks there are words for everything.”

—Teju Cole, Twitterfeed, June 20, 2013



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Lucy and Ethel, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashian Klan. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)

Random quote of the day:

“I suppose I think of the notebook as a house for words, as a secret place for thought and self-examination.

—Paul Auster, The Paris Review, No. 167, Fall 2003

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Lucy and Ethel, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashian Klan. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Sacred

Jul. 11th, 2017 10:58 am
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)

Random quote of the day:

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you might nudge the world a little or make a poem that children will speak for you when you are dead.”

—Tom Stoppard, The Real Thing

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Lucy and Ethel, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashian Klan. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Everything

May. 22nd, 2017 10:22 am
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)

Random quote of the day:

“When I first read the dictionary, I thought it was a long poem about everything.”

—Steven Wright, I Have A Pony

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Lucy and Ethel, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashian Klan. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

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