“
There has never been another you. With no effort on your part you were born to be something very special and set apart. What you are going to do in appreciation of that gift is a decision only you can make.”
– Dan Zadra
Tag: inspiration
We Do To Others
“The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.” – Eric Hoffer
Writer’s Quote Wednesday – Intellect
Today’s Writer’s Quote Wednesday is from Anne Sexton:
“Watch out for intellect, because it knows so much it knows nothing and leaves you hanging upside down… .”
We must not assume that prominence only comes from the intelligent of the world because it is not always about intellect as we may define it. Not always about the knowledgeable, the College graduate, the well-educated, or the well-spoken. Most of the people, who become great historical figures, entrepreneurs, etc., are actually those who are deemed least intelligent by the world status. They are people who have a much more simplicity of character than the general population of their peers. They may be the High School drop-out, the ill, the down trodden, the specially educated, or the lowly in spirit.
Take Anne Sexton for example. Born Ann Grey Harvey, Anne suffered from mental illness for most of her life, breaking down twice following the birth of her children per postpartum depression. As a result, her doctor encouraged her to write poetry which some say helped her to endure life for as long as she did. Her style of poetry has been attributed to Confessional Poetry, defined as:
“Confessional poetry or ‘Confessionalism’ is a style of poetry that emerged in the United States during the 1950s. It has been described as poetry “of the personal,” focusing on extreme moments of individual experience, the psyche, and personal trauma, including previously taboo matters such as mental illness, sexuality, and suicide, often set in relation to broader social themes. It is sometimes also classified as Postmodernism.” – (Internet)
“…mouthing knowledge as your heart falls out of your mouth.”
A man’s speech is always dictated by his heart. A man can proclaim to know all, yet his foolishness can be easily uncovered by the very words he speaks; by the very knowledge he tosses into the air.
In closing, Anne studied with Robert Lowell at Boston University alongside distinguished poets Sylvia Plath and George Starbuck.
Be sure to check out the link for your chance to drink of Silver Threadings Weekly cup of inspirations:
http://silverthreading.com/2015/01/28/writers-quote-wednesday-theodore-roosevelt-2015-5/
Epiphany
“Whatever our struggles and triumphs, however we may suffer them, all too soon they bleed into a wash, just like watery ink on paper.”
– Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
To Listen
“Do not listen with the intent to reply. Listen with the intent to understand.”
To Feel
“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.”
– Helen Keller
Writer’s Quote Wednesday – Love, Hatred, Fear
It’s Your Favorite Day of the week again….Silver Threadings Writers Quote Wednesday.
http://silverthreading.com/2015/01/14/writers-quote-wednesday-dream-writing-2015-3/
Today, I quote Walter Mosley:
Mosely just described three of mankind’s strongest emotions. Together they have the capacity to build up, tear down, and cease movement. They can cause either direction or inaction. Fear is a literal stop sign. It comes with a sickle that can literally wipe out any chance of movement. It is the opposite of courage and nothing can be done without a certain level of courage. Fear also leads to Hatred. It takes a lot of energy to hate someone, and hate will eventually destroy the hater. It will eat you inside out; claw its way out of your mouth until you are nothing more than the jealousy that has consumed you. And Love. Love is a language understood by all of mankind. And as such it is stronger than hatred. Pure love is the answer to every question, the solution to every problem, and the result of every success story. Love overcomes everything because love is everything. It is for these reasons that Love, Hatred, and Fear will always have our attention in one way or the other.
About the Author:
An only child, Mosley ascribes his writing imagination to “an emptiness in my childhood that I filled up with fantasies”. For $9.50 a week, Walter Mosley attended a private African-American elementary school that held pioneering classes in black history. When he was 12, his parents moved from South Central to a comfortable working-class west LA. He graduated from Alexander Hamilton High School in 1970.
Mosley describes his father as a deep thinker and storyteller, a “black Socrates”. His mother encouraged him to read European classics from Dickens and Zola to Camus. He also loves Langston Hughes and Gabriel García Márquez.
Mosley started writing at 34 and has written every day since, penning more than forty books and often publishing two books a year. He has written in a variety of fiction categories, including mystery and afrofuturist science fiction, as well as non-fiction politics. His work has been translated into 21 languages.
Mosley’s fame increased in 1992 when then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton, a fan of murder mysteries, named Mosley as one of his favorite authors. But Mosley made publishing history in 1997 by foregoing an advance to give the manuscript of Gone Fishin’ to a small, independent publisher, Black Classic Press in Baltimore, run by former Black Panther Paul Coates.
His first published book, Devil in a Blue Dress, was the basis of a 1995 movie starring Denzel Washington.
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