quotations

from The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

/ zdunno03 / 17 Comments

When you write, you lay out a line of words. The line of words is a miner’s pick, a woodcarver’s gouge, a surgeon’s probe. You wield it, and it digs a path you follow. Soon you find yourself deep in new territory. Is it a dead end, or have you located the real subject? You will know tomorrow, or this time next year.

from Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry: 2

/ zdunno03 / 12 Comments

Bolivar was resting comfortably against a wagon wheel and ignored the sally. He was wavering in his mind whether to stay or go. He did not like travel–the thought of it made him unhappy. And yet, when he went home to Mexico he felt unhappy too, for his wife was disappointed in him and let him know it every day. He had never been sure what she wanted–after all, their children were beautiful–but whatever it was, he had not been able to give it to her. His daughters were his delight, but they would soon all marry and be gone, leaving him no protection from his wife. Probably he would shoot his wife if he went home. He had shot an irritating horse, right out from under himself. A man’s patience sometimes simply snapped. He had shot the horse right between the ears and then found it difficult to get the saddle off, once the horse fell. Probably he would shoot his wife in the same way, if he went home. Many times he had been tempted to shoot one or another of the members of the Hat Creek outfit, but of course if he did that he would be immediately shot in return. Every day he thought he might go home, but he didn’t. It was easier to stay and cut up a few snakes into the cook pot than to listen to his wife complain.

So he stayed, day by day, paying no attention to what anyone said. That in itself was a luxury he wouldn’t have at home, for a disappointed woman was not easy to ignore.

from Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

/ zdunno03 / 6 Comments

There was something different about her, Jake had to admit. She had a beautiful face, a beautiful body, but also a distance in her such as he had never met in a woman. Certain mountains were that way, like the Bighorns. The air around them was so clear you could ride toward them for days without seeming to get any closer. And yet, if you kept riding, you would get to the mountains. He was not sure he would ever get to Lorie. Even when she took him, there was a distance between them. And yet she would not let him leave.

3 Day 3 Quote Challenge

/ zdunno03 / 18 Comments

First, let me make it very clear that I don’t usually accept challenges or follow prompts. My internal system just doesn’t operate that way. I don’t know why it does or doesn’t do things, but have long since stopped trying to understand my internal logic and just accept it.

That being said, Doug Branson of Elusive Trope nominated me for this 3 Day, 3 Quote challenge and because I do post quotes on occasion I thought it was within reason that I could comply. Besides, I like his site, as I like many sites, and thought why not? Now I had posted a quote very recently from the Martin Ritt film The Front which is a really good film about the McCarthy witch hunts, a dark period of American history, and one somewhat appropriate to revisit now that the climate of the US is filled with fear and finger pointing. So I wasn’t going to start today.

BUT since November 22nd is also a day with strong resonance for us born long ago enough to remember who I consider the last great president of the United States, whose life was cut short this day and thus robbed us in the States of a chance of a different future. His name is, of course, John F. Kennedy. And I still get choked up thinking of him and my other political hero, his brother Bobby. Those were the days I had real hope for my country. And unfortunately what followed has been a very mixed bag of leaders and one wrong-headed decision after another.

SO my first quote on this first day of attempting to fulfill this challenge is by him.

“Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.” John Fitzgerald Kennedy