I love words. Without words, no stories. As much as we rely on body language it can only bridge a narrow rift. From rift to saga, we need words, lots and lots of words. I tell Story, I write and I read. For me in every case, things move ahead slowly with re-thinks, go-backs, re-dos and do-overs. Someone strings their story-words together on a page, from another generation, another continent, another century and you get their words exactly, not some other-one telling you about their words. Before the ink there was a pen or a keyboard and beyond that were hands and fingers, a working mind. Who ever might have imagined, I can close that switch and access their mind. From Marcus Aurelius to Charles Schultz, we can share the same page, in the same moment. Language framed far away or long ago, something clicks and it's magic. So I collect sound bites from many sources, quotes for any situation, words so right I wish they were mine.
With pandemic still unchecked, stay-at-home has made YouTube a good place to dig. The longer this plague lasts, the more I have to contend with spam and propaganda. It calls for a new skill set, avoiding scam and deception without sampling the bait. But this morning I clicked on a link, “Greatest Quotes Of All Time” and it was irresistible. Would the cyber-quote-collector and the storyteller agree on what needed to be shared? Will any of my favorites be on the list and will others beg grace with appeals for faith and obedience?
Straight off, an Amelia Earhart quote caught my attention with decisions and the path you follow. It was too long to be profound, more like a lawyer’s argument, . . . you can do anything you want to do, sort of a precursor to Nike’s, “Just do it!” shoe commercial. I agreed in principle but with a dangling caveat. Life is so interactive, so integrated, so vulnerable to random chance, nothing boils down to a single string of choices; to be or not to be. But this life, with all of its myth and protocol requires of us to live as if that were true.
How about Leonardo da Vinci, not a bad source: “Learning never exhausts the mind.” Wow! New to me and that by itself is worth the read. Then, finding Will Rogers on the list was no surprise but the quote was unfamiliar. He said,“Good judgment comes from experience, and lots of that comes from bad judgment.” OMG, wonderful. How many times have I needed that advice and not been privy to it! There were ‘Ho-Hum’ offerings, mostly spoon fed, condescending, wannabe wisdom. On the other hand, George Washington was a lot of things, some good, some not but he was a good judge of character, able to match the person to the task. His quote would be good for all seasons, all reasons. “Better to be alone than to be in bad company.” I think every young person should have that tattooed on the back of their hand. Monkey see, monkey do; you don’t need a compass to get George’s drift.
Samuel Beckket was born Irish, died French; a writer but otherwise unknown to me. Stumbling onto his quote I imagined a soft Irish accent that belied his words. “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again, Fail better.” A good carpenter can drive a 10 Penny nail with three strokes of the hammer. Beckket here took six to make his point and it works; really powerful. The fact that I already hang my hat on the “Fall down, get back up” hook suggests we were likeminded.
Certainly, by now, the YouTube, quote-collector has satisfied my reservations. Passing over lots of great offerings without second thoughts, being great wasn’t enough with this exercise. It needed to light me up. Notably, Helen Keller spoke of, . . . one door closes, another door opens: and Margaret Mead, another of my heroes commented, . . . never forget that you are unique, just like everyone else.
I have a computer file, page after page of compelling quotes that I default to, reread, rethink, trying to gauge my measure. I never feel able to raise the bar but then everybody falls down and even if they all forget my falling down, I remember. Somewhere between irony and fantasy I pause to think maybe someday, someone will remember something I said and if it doesn’t light them up it might glimmer just a little. Sometimes I throw something up against the wall and it sticks. There is one line that keeps coming out of me. I haven’t been able to reference it and I’ve tried, wanting to know who to give the credit. Nothing new about ‘Journey’ being a metaphor for life or the idea that struggle supercedes success. But in that conversation I often end with; “Sometimes you have life and sometimes it has you.” It feels better every time and if I’m not the source, I want to know how it found me.
Once you get started with quotes it’s hard to stop. Just when you think you have the right closer, a better one turns up. I should have rediscovered this straight off, could have used it for the opener. He uses the absurd to say one thing and leaves us to reason for ourselves, what be the case and what is not. Lots of famous, savvy, cool people could have sent this message but none better than Bob Marley; “Some people are so poor, all they have is money.”
With pandemic still unchecked, stay-at-home has made YouTube a good place to dig. The longer this plague lasts, the more I have to contend with spam and propaganda. It calls for a new skill set, avoiding scam and deception without sampling the bait. But this morning I clicked on a link, “Greatest Quotes Of All Time” and it was irresistible. Would the cyber-quote-collector and the storyteller agree on what needed to be shared? Will any of my favorites be on the list and will others beg grace with appeals for faith and obedience?
Straight off, an Amelia Earhart quote caught my attention with decisions and the path you follow. It was too long to be profound, more like a lawyer’s argument, . . . you can do anything you want to do, sort of a precursor to Nike’s, “Just do it!” shoe commercial. I agreed in principle but with a dangling caveat. Life is so interactive, so integrated, so vulnerable to random chance, nothing boils down to a single string of choices; to be or not to be. But this life, with all of its myth and protocol requires of us to live as if that were true.
How about Leonardo da Vinci, not a bad source: “Learning never exhausts the mind.” Wow! New to me and that by itself is worth the read. Then, finding Will Rogers on the list was no surprise but the quote was unfamiliar. He said,“Good judgment comes from experience, and lots of that comes from bad judgment.” OMG, wonderful. How many times have I needed that advice and not been privy to it! There were ‘Ho-Hum’ offerings, mostly spoon fed, condescending, wannabe wisdom. On the other hand, George Washington was a lot of things, some good, some not but he was a good judge of character, able to match the person to the task. His quote would be good for all seasons, all reasons. “Better to be alone than to be in bad company.” I think every young person should have that tattooed on the back of their hand. Monkey see, monkey do; you don’t need a compass to get George’s drift.
Samuel Beckket was born Irish, died French; a writer but otherwise unknown to me. Stumbling onto his quote I imagined a soft Irish accent that belied his words. “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again, Fail better.” A good carpenter can drive a 10 Penny nail with three strokes of the hammer. Beckket here took six to make his point and it works; really powerful. The fact that I already hang my hat on the “Fall down, get back up” hook suggests we were likeminded.
Certainly, by now, the YouTube, quote-collector has satisfied my reservations. Passing over lots of great offerings without second thoughts, being great wasn’t enough with this exercise. It needed to light me up. Notably, Helen Keller spoke of, . . . one door closes, another door opens: and Margaret Mead, another of my heroes commented, . . . never forget that you are unique, just like everyone else.
I have a computer file, page after page of compelling quotes that I default to, reread, rethink, trying to gauge my measure. I never feel able to raise the bar but then everybody falls down and even if they all forget my falling down, I remember. Somewhere between irony and fantasy I pause to think maybe someday, someone will remember something I said and if it doesn’t light them up it might glimmer just a little. Sometimes I throw something up against the wall and it sticks. There is one line that keeps coming out of me. I haven’t been able to reference it and I’ve tried, wanting to know who to give the credit. Nothing new about ‘Journey’ being a metaphor for life or the idea that struggle supercedes success. But in that conversation I often end with; “Sometimes you have life and sometimes it has you.” It feels better every time and if I’m not the source, I want to know how it found me.
Once you get started with quotes it’s hard to stop. Just when you think you have the right closer, a better one turns up. I should have rediscovered this straight off, could have used it for the opener. He uses the absurd to say one thing and leaves us to reason for ourselves, what be the case and what is not. Lots of famous, savvy, cool people could have sent this message but none better than Bob Marley; “Some people are so poor, all they have is money.”
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