Winnie the Pooh 05: The White House Budget Process

   "I just like to know," said Pooh humbly. "So as I can say to myself: 'I've got fourteen pots of honey left.' Or fifteen, as the case may be. It's sort of comforting."
   "Well, let's call it sixteen," said Rabbit.

-- A. A. Milne

Winnie the Pooh 04

   "When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
   "What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"
   "I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today? said Piglet.
   Pooh nodded thoughtfully.
   "It's the same thing," he said.

-- A. A. Milne

Winnie the Pooh 03

And all Rabbit's friends-and-relations spread themselves about on the grass, and waited hopefully in case anybody spoke to them, or dropped anything, or asked them the time.

-- A. A. Milne

Colloquy, Pogo style

Owl: Let's start at the beginnin' again an' let's keep our fierce
an' indomidouble tempers under con-trol.
Churchy: Alright--Let's be gentlemens an' considerant of each other's
frailities an' foibobbles.
Owl: Hee hee--How you do go on--I allus was considerant
of yo' faults an' unspeakable habits.
Churchy: An' I is ever been forbearin' 'bout yo' snoopy ways an' turpitoods.
Owl: [taking off his glasses] Long as we's bein' such gent'mens
we kin insult each other freely without fear of hurtin' the other's feelin's.
Churchy: [poking Owl in the chest] Yes an' you is a ball-eyed bull bat.


-- Walt Kelly
Positively Pogo
(c) 1955, -56, -57

Wishing to be...

The human species was given dominion over the earth and took the oportunity to exterminate other species and warm the atmosphere and generally ruin things in its own image, but it paid this price for its privileges: that the finite and specific animal body of this species contained a brain capable of conceiving the infinite and wishing to be infinite itself.

--Jonathan Franzen
The Corrections (2001)
(hardback, p. 465)

Walt Kelly on first tries

"If you're a professional, writer or artist, you can get anywhere from 75 to 85 percent of what you're aiming at in your first try. A lot of artists spend most of their time trying to get the other 15 to 25 percent. I don't. I'd rather go for another 75 to 85 percent."

Walt Kelly
quoted in Phi Beta Pogo, page 25

Theater: the director's role

"My idea of a director is a chap who puts me in the middle of a stage and shines a bright light on me."

-- Sir Ralph Richardson

According to Chekhov...

When you're thirsty, and it seems that you could drink the entire ocean, that's faith. When you start to drink and finish only a glass or two, that's science.
-- Anton Chekhov

Verbing

I seem to be a verb.
-- Buckminster Fuller

This sentence no verb.
-- Douglas Hofstadter

Verbing weirds language.
-- Calvin & Hobbes, by Bill Watterson

Winnie the Pooh 02

Pooh enquires into metaphysics:

"Hallo, Rabbit," he said, "is that you?"
"Let's pretend it isn't," said Rabbit, "and see what happens."

-- A. A. Milne

Winnie the Pooh 01

In which Pooh explains:

Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie,
A fly can't bird, but a bird can fly.
Ask me a riddle and I reply
Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie.

Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie,
Why does a chicken? I don't know why.
Ask me a riddle and I reply
Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie.

Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie,
A fish can't whistle and neither can I.
Ask me a riddle and I reply
Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie.

-- A. A. Milne