Category Archives: Quotations

“Letters of Note” Thank you to my friend, Mary

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As I was trying to dig through mountains of paper from being gone the last week, kicking myself for not blogging while I was gone, even though I barely had any internet access, and  pondering what to put in a Monday blog spot that is supposed to be based on quotations, I ran into an e-mail from my friend, Mary.

Mary is a thinking gurl, a quietly stand beside you and support you gurl and she’s partnered with another beautiful soul, a funner dynamic duo you haven’t met.

She sent me a link to a blog spot called “Letter’s of Note” and, specifically, to a letter written to Edith Mirrielee by John Steinbeck when he was a young man and she was his professor of creative writing at Stanford.

It is a real eye opener, especially for those (of us???) that think “I can write a book” and start studying the mechanics of how to write a best seller while, potentially, forgetting the part about whether we can write a book anyone might be interested in reading.

If you are a writer, or maybe even more importantly, a wanna be writer, read this…and consider moving to Europe.

“Letters of Note” letter by John Steinbeck.

A quote from upcoming novel “Alexander’s Tale” by R. Scott Tyler

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The stare must have burned into the artist’s consciousness, because he looked up and smiled right at Nico.

Gilbert then glanced over and stood up, wagging his tail at Nico. That was the precise moment that Nico realized Gilbert was not in his truck and that the artist was laying on one of his packing quilts. Neither one of these things was a big issue, but it did mean that this amply bottomed artist had been inside his truck.

“Stay” he said loudly to Gilbert as he held out his hand in the universal halt signal. There was really no need to do this, as Gilbert knew the rules, no running to Nico unless called. Gilbert decided to make it clear Nico was over-communicating, so he sat down.

Nico strode over to the side of his truck and Alexander moved to sit back on his haunches. He stuck his hand out, saying “I’m Nico, you must be…?” he wasn’t going to make any assumptions here.

Laughing, the young man grabbed his hand and hauled himself to his feet. “I’m Alexander, dude, really cool to meet you!”

Nico leaned down and picked up the abandoned sketch pad. “I see you’ve been sketching my dog…”

“Yeah, he is so cool and he has the best eyes…”

Nico interrupted with his continued statement “…who used to be in my truck…on my packing quilt, which also used to be in my truck.”

“Oops, first mistake?”

“The Painting of Porcupine City: A Novel” by Ben Monopoli

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“The Facts?”

She leaned forward. “Is that what you call them?” Her breath moved the smoke.

“That’s what Fletcher calls them. What makes you think those are mine?”

“Oh, because there’s so much Brazilian influence in them. It’s more, I don’t know, grand than the dumb tags you see around here. It’s more than just tags. Tags are about the person doing the tagging. They say, I was here. This is me. I exist. Pay attention to me. Yours are about the reader and writer coming together. Yours are about community. Typical of what you see on a lot of streets in cities in Brazil. Hey, come on, don’t look so surprised!”

Monopoli, Ben (2011-08-29). The Painting of Porcupine City: A Novel (Kindle Locations 7135-7142). Ben Monopoli. Kindle Edition.

Andrew Ashling, “The Invisible Chains – Part 1: Bonds of Hate” …Abyss

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“Deal with all this, live with myself, you mean? I honestly don’t know. I stand often enough at the abyss of my soul, asking that same question, looking down in the dark crevices where the black monsters dwell on the bottom. They gaze up at me, and I look them in the eyes. “This also you are,” they say, and I almost fall into the void.”
“And then?”
Anaxantis shrugged.
“And then? I turn around and go do what needs to be done. What else is there?”

― Andrew Ashling, The Invisible Chains – Part 1: Bonds of Hate

Motives – Albert Einstein

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“…one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one’s own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought.”

— Albert Einstein