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