Thursday 8 October 2009

if this is the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?

It's James Thurber cartoon caption time. Here's another:
I love the idea of there being two sexes, don't you?
That's the end of that. But not of Thurber. He also wrote 'You can fool too many of the people too much of the time' and 'He who hesitates is sometimes saved' (the latter about a Swallow who, unlike his fellow birds, decides not to scorn a Goldfinch's report that he had flown into some crystallised air).

Some good advice for writers: 'Don't get it right, get it written,' and one of those phrases that is good if it's wise but corny if it isn't, but which is good: 'All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why'. And how about this, which I don't know whether or not I agree with, but I don't mind:
But those rare souls whose spirit gets magically into the hearts of men, leave behind them something more real and warmly personal than bodily presence, an ineffable and eternal thing. It is everlasting life touching us as something more than a vague, recondite concept. The sound of a great name dies like an echo; the splendor of fame fades into nothing; but the grace of a fine spirit pervades the places through which it has passed, like the haunting loveliness of mignonette.

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