---- from Chapter XI of Ayn Rand's Anthem
I am. I think. I will.
My hands... My spirit... My sky... My forest... This earth of mine...
What must I say besides? These are the words. This is the answer.
I stand here on the summit of the mountain. I lift my head and I spread my arms. This, my body and spirit, this is the end of the quest. I wished to know the meaning of things. I am the meaning. I wished to find a warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.
It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty to the earth. It is my ears which hear, and the hearing of my ears gives its song to the world. It is my mind which thinks, and the judgment of my mind is the only searchlight that can find the truth. It is my will which chooses, and the choice of my will is the only edict I must respect.
----Diary of Howard Carter, November 26, 1923
This was the day of days, the most wonderful that I have ever lived through. Lord Carnarvon, his daughter, and my assistant stood beside me as I drilled a small hole in the upper left-hand corner of the door.
Darkness and blank space, as far as an iron testing-rod could reach, showed that whatever lay beyond was empty. Widening the hole a little, I inserted the candle and peered in. At first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping from the chamber causing the candle flame to flicker, but presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues of gold - everywhere the glint of gold.
For a moment - an eternity it must have seemed for the others standing by - I was struck dumb with amazement and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously, "Can you see anything?" it was all I could do to get out the words, "Yes, wonderful things..."
---The Gladitorial Games - written by Seneca, 50 CE
"The other day, I chanced to drop in at the midday games, expecting sport and wit and some relaxation to rest men's eyes from the sight of human blood. Just the opposite was the case... it was plain butchery. The men had nothing with which to protect themselves... every thrust told. The common people prefer this to matches on level terms or requiest performances. Of course they do. The blade is not panied by helmet or shield, and what use is skill or defence? All these merely postpone death. In the morning men are thrown to bears or lions, at midday to those who were previously watching them. The crowd cries for the killers to be pained with those who will kill them, and reserves the victor for yet another death...
"But he was a robber." What of it; did he kill anyone? "Yes, he did." Well, just because he committed murder, did he deserve to suffer this? And you, poor man, what have you done to deserve to have to watch it? "Kill him, lash him, brand him! Why is he so frightened of running against cold steel? Why does he die so feebly? Why is he so reluctant to die or to be driven to his death by the lash? They must both inflict wounds on each other's bare chests. Ah, now there's an interval. Let's have some men strangled to fill the time."
--- The second wave of tourists arrived just before five. Latisha got off the stool and took a deep breath. Dinner was the toughest shift. At lunch, everyone was still energetic, looking forward to what lay ahead. After five, tourists tended to sag, get grouchy. Food was never quite right. Service was always too slow. The adventure of the day had floated away, and all they had to look forward to was a strange bed in a strange motel.
"Bus in," Latisha shouted into the kitchen.
"What flavor?" Billy shouted back.
The bottom half of the bus was crusted with dirt, as if it had spent part of the morning wallowing in a mud hole. Latisha couldn't see the license plates.
Billy leaned around the doorway. "Not Canadian, I hope."
As the people got off the bus, Latisha could see that they all had name tags neatly pasted to their chests. They filed off the bus in an orderly line and stood in front of the restaurant and waited until they were all together. Then, in unison, they walked two abreast to the front door, each couple keeping pace with the couple in front of them.
"Canadian," Latisha shouted.
--- "To explain the creative musician's basic objective in elementary terms, I would say that a composer writes music to express and communicate and put down in permanent form certain thoughts, emotions and states of being. These thoughts and emotions are gradually formed by the contact of the composer's personality with the world in which he lives. He expresses these thoughts (musical ones...) in the musical language of his own time. The resultant work of art should speak to men and women of the artist's own time with a directness and immediacy of communicative power that no previous art expression can give."
- Aaron Copland
--- Elmore Leonard’s rules of fiction writing, adapted from a column he wrote last year for the New York Times:
-- "He smiled understandingly - much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced - or seemed to face - the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favour. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey."
-F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
-- Estella: "You will get me out of your thoughts in a week."
Pip: "Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read...You have been in every prospect I have ever seen...on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil."
- Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
-- "when the familiar music filled her head, the past was conquered for a brief while, and she felt herself ache with the ecstasy of completion, as though a missing limb had been recovered."
-Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance
e-mail me (jane): canadiansuperstar000@yahoo.com
