Thought For The Day

[Paul Whybrow]

Remember that setbacks are only challenges in disguise. Look at them as lessons...don’t waste time beating yourself up. Just get back on track and focus on what you want. It’s up to you, and you will do it.

Jorge Cruise

 

[CageSage]

Am I allowed to indulge in the occasional pleasure of self-flagellation? Not too often, but, you know, sometimes?

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Am I allowed to indulge in the occasional pleasure of self-flagellation? Not too often, but, you know, sometimes?

As long as you don't stain the carpet with your blood!

 

[Paul Whybrow]

It just ain’t possible to explain some things, maybe even most things. It’s interesting to wonder on them and do some speculation, but the main thing is you have to accept it – take it for what it is, and get on with your getting.

Jim Dodge

(from Fup)

 

[Tracey (T)]

It just ain’t possible to explain some things, maybe even most things. It’s interesting to wonder on them and do some speculation, but the main thing is you have to accept it – take it for what it is, and get on with your getting.

Jim Dodge

(from Fup)

Sometimes you can wind yourself up in knots trying to explain them.....

 

[Steve C]

Sometimes you can wind yourself up in knots trying to explain them.....

You are right. I think this goes to the core of the separation of the Arts and the Sciences as they are split in our western education systems. The sciences ambition is to explain events and things to the brain while the arts see them and describe them in a way that resonates with the heart.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

"No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.”

Virginia Woolf

 

[Paul Whybrow]

I like to write when I feel spiteful: it's like having a good sneeze.

D.H.Lawrence
(Letter, 1913)

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Talented writing makes things happen in the reader's mind - vividly, forcefully - that good writing, which stops with clarity and logic, doesn't.'

Samuel R. Delany

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Don't romanticise your ‘vocation.' You can either write good sentences or you can't. There is no ‘writer's lifestyle.' All that matters is what you leave on the page.'

Zadie Smith

 

[Paul Whybrow]

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

Ray Bradbury

 

[Steve C]

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

Not sure about this. I'd rather destroy reality with a few whiskies. That said my typing improves after a few and the words flow. However, in the morning the delete key welcomes me.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

The greatest gift is the passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination.

Elizabeth Hardwick

 

[CageSage]

The greatest gift is the passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination.

Elizabeth Hardwick

I dispute 'cheap'

 

[Paul Whybrow]

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”

George Eliot

 

[Paul Whybrow]

And it’s a human need to be told stories. The more we’re governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible.

Alan Rickman

 

[Paul Whybrow]

“Tell the negative committee that meets inside your head to sit down and shut up.”

Ann B. Davis

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Two Prime ministers were sitting in a room discussing affairs of state. Suddenly a man bursts in, apoplectic with fury, shouting and stamping and banging his fist on the desk. The resident prime minister admonishes him: “Peter,” he says, “kindly remember Rule Number 6,” whereupon Peter is instantly restored to complete calm, apologizes, and withdraws. The politicians return to their conversation, only to be interrupted yet again twenty minutes later by an hysterical woman gesticulating wildly, her hair flying. Again the intruder is greeted with the words: “Marie, please remember Rule Number 6.” Complete calm descends once more, and she too withdraws with a bow and an apology. When the scene is repeated for a third time, the visiting prime minister addresses his colleague: “My dear friend, I’ve seen many things in my life, but never anything as remarkable as this. Would you be willing to share with me the secret of this Rule Number 6?” “Very simple,” replies the resident prime minister. “Rule Number 6 is ‘Don’t take yourself so damn seriously.'” “Ah,” says his visitor, “that is a fine rule.” After a moment of pondering, he inquires, “And what, may I ask, are the other rules?” … “There aren’t any.”

Benjamin Zander

 

[Paul Whybrow]

'Why, after all, should readers never be harrowed? Surely there is enough happiness in life without having to go to books for it.'

Dorothy Parker

 

[E G Logan]

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”

George Eliot

Sadly, I think I might have missed the bus to ballet school..!