Here's a story about Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), US lawyer, statesman and 16th US President. On hearing the anguished cries of children in the street, one of Lincoln's neighbours in Springfield rushed out of his house in alarm. There he found Lincoln with two of his sons, both of whom were sobbing uncontrollably. "What's the matter with the boys, Mr. Lincoln?" he asked. "Just what the matter is with the whole world," replied Lincoln in resigned tones. "I've got three walnuts, and both of my boys want two!"
"I'd like to know if I could compare you to a summer's day. Because ― well, June 12th was quite nice, and..." ― The Fool trying to woo Magrat Garlick, Wyrd Sisters (by Sir Terry Pratchett)
"Every hour that I live beyond what I anticipated my life to be feels like I'm just stealing time" -- Hanif Abdurraqib
My dad, who lived to be 78, often said, after his 70th birthday, that every day was a bonus because he'd had his Biblically-promised "3 score and 10."
When I was seventeen, I was almost killed in an auto accident. So I've seen every day since then as a bonus. There was a Miss Marple episode I saw where she said, "We are allotted three score years and ten, and I fear that my account is overdrawn."
I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel (Maya Angelou)
"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." --William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)
His response was something like, "Poor Faulkner. He doesn't understand that big emotions don't come from big words." I like to think that if they ran into each other at the bar the throw down on sight. No preamble, no posturing, just right to beating the shit out of each other.
Hemingway (Homingway?) would be spitting out a string of four-letter words while Faulkner is making everybody open thesauri and dictionaries to understand what he's going on about.
“May I write words more naked than flesh, stronger than bone, more resilient than sinew, sensitive than nerve.” ― Sappho
Elliot Rosewater's benediction to newborn babies: "Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies --- "'God damn it, you've got to be kind.'" ---Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
I've been thinking about this a lot lately: Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices That, if I then had waked after long sleep Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked I cried to dream again (THE TEMPEST III.ii.130–138).
“If, then, I were asked for the most important advice I could give, that which I considered to be the most useful to the men of our century, I should simply say: in the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.” ― Leo Tolstoy, Essays, Letters and Miscellanies
This is one from Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson (1824-63), American Confederate general. Jackson was much amused by the pompous proclamations issued by General John Pope under the title "Headquarters in the Saddle." He noted that Pope seemed unable to distinguish "his hindquarters from his headquarters".
