purple passages – Page 2 – Plain and Fancy

Quote from Bartlett himself — Quote from John Bartlett, who compiled over 11,00 quotations in the 10th edition of Quotations, 1919

Writing & Stories

4.10.99 Why stories are so effective:

The best stories begin as mental pictures which turn into personal mirrors before they become insightful windows through which we’re able to view life with greater clarity and understanding. Anonymous

12.15.95 I like everything about writing except the paperwork! Novelist Peter de Vries

9.9.00 I feel 10 times smarter writing on the computer. My student, ENC 1101

Travel

There’s no cure like travel

To help you unravel

The worries of living today.

When the poor brain is cracking

There’s nothing like packing

A suitcase and sailing away.

Cole Porter – Anything Goes.

7.15.13 The only real voyage of self-discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in seeing it with new eyes. Marcel Proust

8.14.99 Distance lends enchantment to the view . . . . Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House in the Ozarks

10.22.96 I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. Thoreau

7.28.90 The trip to heaven will be easy because I have sent my heart on ahead. Loretta Lynn

White-Water Rafting

Ocoee Rafting - Ducktown, TN — Ocoee Rafting – Ducktown, TN

White water rafting, especially level 3 or 4, is a grand metaphor for life:

1. Trust your Guide.

2. Stay IN the boat.

3. Have fun!

Dancing with the Stars

4.16.99 I don’t try to be better than anyone else. I try to be better than myself. Mikhael Baryshnikov, dancer

5.13.90 If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. Thoreau

5.10.99 And frame your mind to mirth and merriment / Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life. Wm. Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew

A merry heart doeth good like medicine. Proverbs 17:22.

Time and Happiness

3.17.00 Human time does not turn in a circle. It runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy; happiness is the longing for repetition. Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

12.28.89 How plotless real life was [is]! Anne Tyler, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant

5.9.90 Don’t worry about the meaning of life; pursue meaning in life every day. Robert Fulghum

12.19.99 You are only one thought away from a good feeling! Sheil Krystal quoted in Rick Carlson’s Happiness

9.10.13 Sybil, in my book says, “Sometimes, the greatest gift you can give someone is the freedom to pursue their own happiness.” Red Clay and Roses SK Nicholls

Which quotes do you agree with?

Disagree?

Your turn: Share one you would add to the themes.

Purple Passages made its debut on July 10. Here is the August 10, 2013 installment.

My stack of journals minus the fatter one on my nightstand

Why people read

1.7.94 We read books to know we are not alone. William Nicholson

Love to children

4.2.89 The love you give your children is like black paper: it absorbs and you can’t see it, but you know it’s there. Mary Kalegis

Patio pose, little readers frozen in time

My Hometown

7.27.91 Jacksonville . . . an Oz of blue-green skyscrapers, a city of dreams at the end of the pine-green tunnel . . . shines from a number of angles like a jewel being turned in your hand. John Updike, Rabbit at Rest

On Relationships

10.21.91 Relationships with the opposite sex reflect our efforts to find answers for problems with our parents. Relationships with our friends represent our efforts to find solutions for problems with our siblings. (Quoted by Shirley McLaine, who undoubtedly quoted from someone else.)

On Sanity

7.19.92 It occurred to her that her sanity was becoming intermittent, like a sudden stretch of intact road in an abandoned region. Or radio music, blatant after months of static. K. Braverman, Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta

On Birthdays

2.10.96 The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose the other ages you’ve been. Madeleine L’Engle

On Angels

5.8.97 Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly. G. K. Chesterton

On Hope

7.11.95 As long as matters are hopeful, hope is a mere . . . platitude; it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength. Like all Christian virtues, it is as unreasonable as it is indispensable. G. K. Chesterton, Heretics

Make one of your own!

Well, you can coin a new quote, but you could also begin or continue your own journal of purple passages:

White pages would be easier, or computer pages with a pale purple background. How about it?

Tag: purple passages

Purple Passages iii with Pictures

Purple Passages II with Pictures

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