Rage:
Sing Goddess, Achilles' rage
Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks
Incalculable pain, pitched countless souls
Of heros into Hade's dark,
And left their bodies to rot as feasts
For dogs and birds, as Zues' will was done.
Began with the clash between Agamemnon
The Greek Warlord - and godlinke Achilles.

Homer I - 1-8 Stanley Lombardo translation

This quote is the hook and powerful beginning to the most popular tale ever told. This passage just underlines how important it is for an author to hook the reader but more importantly set a tone for the tale to come.

Granted, Homer has been dead for a long time, but Stanley Lombardo's translation has its own copyright, and that may still be in force.

Bone, I think your quotation falls within "fair use" because it is a very short segment of the whole.

Ernest Hemingway, from Ernest Hemingway on Writing, p. 8.

-Miyamoto Mushashi, "The Book of Five Rings."

me

"The worst thing an author can do is think too much"

Stephen King - Bag of Bones

I really thought this was insightful and sometimes an author can over think things when you are not writing. When you are not writing sometimes you just need to walk or do something without thinking too much about your story or much else for that matter and to just clear your head. This is what the author in the story, I forget his name, was doing. Just walking and trying to clear his head and thinking back on advice his publisher gave him.

"I am not the world's greatest writer. I am the world's greatest rewriter."

---

I didn't want to write this, but I can't let it go. I have to ask you, what does you're quote mean exactly?

To me, it seems to be pseudo-poetic, ineffectual phrasemaking, if not simply empty babble and self-deception. The only way we can expand our perception is by asking honest questions. I don't understand how asking questions can lead to deception or limit or thought. Questions are percisely what expands our vision.

[This message has been edited by Augustine (edited November 02, 2001).]

Just a thought.

Yes, I agree with you. That's what it says. But what I want to know is, Is the limerick right?

It's one thing to state the obvious, which the limerick does. But it's another thing to say something meaningful. For example, the Roman poet, Ovid, wrote something to the effect that death is when soil is put over your body. Great, but it doesn't shine a ray of light on just what death is. The limerick seems to do the same thing: being human=lack of vision=limited questions. Okay, great. But what's it trying to say besides giving us the facts of life.

My problem with the limerick is its negative connotation. It states the obvious--we are limited creatures--and then says that because of this limitation, we are deceived. It places a dichotomy between human knowledge and truth. It suggests that because we are human, we can't know the truth of a matter. And that's nonsense. If that were the case, we'd have no ground to stand on when we call something right and another thing wrong, something good and another thing bad, something holy and another thing evil. It's not our limitation that deceives us, it's that we are very often not open to the answers.

But now I've answered my own question.

"Gods have no one to pray to" - Small Gods

Kelvin

I agree that it means we deceive ourselves by being limited in thought and asking questions, but instead of the negative connotations you guys have suggested, could we not say that it's pressing ourselves to ask more questons and continue searching because what we are posing now might not be our full extent? Or something. Perhaps it means nothing it all, as I said earlier, I really just like the rhythm of it. I like lots of senseless things, here's another--

"Real knowledge is to know the extent of ones ignorance"
--Confucius

"An idea is salvation by imagination."
--Frank Lloyd Wright

"Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack."
--Gen. George S. Patton

"A note of music gains significance from the silence on either side."
--Anne Morrow Lindbergh

"Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life."
--Eric Hoffer

"When you do the common things in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world."
--George Washington Carver

"Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens."
--Jimi Hendrix

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."
--Albert Einstein

"I am not young enough to know everything."
--Oscar Wilde

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
--Alan Kay

"It is the mark of an educated man to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
--Aristotle

did i overdo it? sorry, i collect quotes. you don't have to agree with all of them, i don't, but maybe they'll get you thinking. (and i realize some of them are rather obvious, but sometimes a reminder doesn't hurt. )

TTFN & lol

Cosmi

This rings so true and is only possible in parts or the world. North America, Austrilla and Europe being the most shining examples. It also should remind that we should never be afraid to think different or outside the box of everyone else. You are free to be your own man your own woman and if you relinquish that you lose a piece of yourself.

Orson Welles

I recently found this one and have loved it ever since. (btw hello Hatrack, havent been here in a LONG TIME)

EDIT: Cosmi, it turns out about half that you posted there are in this daily planner I had a while ago with quotes at the start of each week. How strange...

Stairway to Heaven

salaam

Remember my post about copyright infringement? Well, that was for stuff written down, in books.

Song lyrics are an entirely different can of worms when it comes to quoting. You have to pay money to the big record companys--often lots of money--to quote song lyrics in a story, even if the songwriter thinks it would be cool to have his or her lyrics in your story. Songwriters don't decide these things.

So, please, don't quote song lyrics here.

I don't believe we're able to delete our own posts; I seem to recall trying that once and getting a message that only the person running the forum had that ability.

If that's not the case, though, you won't read this message, because I will have deleted it.

really? i get most of mine from calendars and "inspirational" sorts of books. what was the name of the daily planner? i should get one.

TTFN & lol

I will just say this, because I had this thought today while coming home from a day of hard work and schooling: Why should I not be happy, is there really anything in my life that is worth stressing over and so important as to make my day horrible? I dont think so. Today, tomorrow...whenever, I think its going to turn out ok.

(and now it occurs to me that you could have been sharing a quote? i hope not, but either way it was nice to read)

"On a pistachio day, Delirium and Barnabas went out wandering. They sniffed the music and tasted the words that were particularly crispy on the tongue, like twinkle and citrus."

Jill Thompson
"The Little Endless Storybook"

If you've never read a comic book before, this one is a real treat and would be a super introduction to comic books. If you have read a comic book lately, but not this one, you're missing a great read.

What do you think college students do when they write papers? They are required to quote sources, but they also have to give proper credit. Since we are not in college I doubt we need to follow any particular formate such as MLA, APA, etc. Basically, as long as you give credit to the item (in cases of songs most likely you'd need to credit both the singer and the song writer to be perfectly legal).

Just thought I'd mention that little bit of quotable info.

As for insperational quotes...

"Writing is all about grabbing a bag of cheetos and turning the keyboard orange" - A friend of mine who would rather remain nameless

Just a quotable

I am getting really bugged out and I doubt I will have much time to rest till after work on Thursday...but then I go back Saturday for a 8.5 hour shift. I am going to ask if I can cut down my days though, this is too hard with full time school. After all, its only a PART time job

"NUTS!!!"

granted I might be paraphrasing.

For those of you that don't know your history, we won that battle.

"Move zig for great justice!"

Chuck Palahniuk from the book Fight Club.

Senator Richard Colin Campbell Ames etc to Mistress Gwen Sadie Hazel Novak Lipschitz Long etc

"Gwen, I have this one nasty habit. Makes me hard to live with. I write."
The dear girl looked puzzled. "So you've told me. But why do you call it a nasty habit?"
"Uh...Gwen my love, I am not going to apologize for writing...anymore than I would apologize for this missing foot...and in truth the one led to the other. When I could no longer follow the profession of arms, I had to do something to eat. I wasn't trained for anything else and back home some other kid had my paper route. But writing is a legal way of avoiding work without actually stealing and one that doesn't take any talent or training.
"But writing is antisocial. It's as solitary as masturbation. Disturb a writer when he is in the throes of creation and he is likely to turn and bite right to the bone...and not even know that he's doing it. As writers' wives and husbands often learn to their horror.
"And--attend me carefully, Gwen!--there is NO way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized. Or even cured. In a household with more than one person, of which one is a writer, the only solution known to science is to provide the patient with an isolation room, where he can endure the acute stages in private, and where food can be poked in to him with a stick. Because, if you disturb the patient at such times, he may break into tears or become violent. Or he may not hear you at all...and, if you shake him at this stage, he bites."
I smiled my best smile. "Don't worry, darling. At present I am not working on a story and I will avoid starting one until we prearrange such an isolation chamber for me to work in. This place isn't big enough and neither is yours. Mmm, even before we go to the hub, I want to call the Manager's office and see what larger compartments are available. We'll need two terminals also."
"Why two, dear? I don't use a terminal much."
"But when you do, you need it. When I'm using this one in word-processing mode, it can't be used for anything else--no newspaper, no mail, no shopping, no programs, no personal calls, nothing. Believe me, darling; I've had this disease for years, I know how to manage it. Let me have a small room and a terminal, let me go into it and seal the door behind me, and it will be just like having a normal, healthy husband who goes to the office every morning and does whatever it is men do in offices--I've never known and have never been much interested in finding out."
"Yes, dear. Richard, do you enjoy writing?"
"No one enjoys writing."
"I wondered. Then I must tell you that I didn't quite tell you the truth when I said that I had married you for your money."
"And I didn't quite believe you. We're even."
"Yes, dear. I really can afford to keep you as a pet. Oh, I can't buy you yachts. But we can live in reasonable comfort here in Golden Rule--not the cheapest place in the Solar System. You won't have to write."
I stopped to kiss her, thoroughly and carefully. "I'm glad I married you. But I will indeed have to write."
"But you don't enjoy it and we don't need the money. Truly we don't!"
"Thank you, my love. But I did not explain to you the other insidious aspect of writing. There is no way to stop. Writers go on writing long after it becomes financially unnecessary...because it hurts less to write than it does not to write."
"I don't understand."
"I didn't either, when I took that first fatal step--a short story, it was, and I honestly thought I could quit anytime. Never mind, dear. In another ten years you will understand. Just pay no attention to me when I whimper. Doesn't mean anything--just the monkey on my back."
"Richard? Would psychoanalysis help?"
"Can't risk it. I once knew a writer who tried that route. Cured him of writing all right. But did not cure him of the need to write. The last I saw of him he was crouching in a corner, trembling. That was his good phase. But the mere sight of a word processor would throw him into a fit."

How many people here have felt like that?

Yeah, it's a tad long, but I think I'll let it stand because it's all of a piece, and it's pertinent, and it's from a good-sized book, so it can be argued to be a small enough percentage of the total wordage.

"Forces of Destruction: grades in school, merit system, incentive pay, business plans, quotas."

- W Edwards Deming