My Small Boat

I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you might nudge the world a little or make a poem that children will speak for you when you are dead.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

To My Valentine
More than a catbird hates a cat,
Or a criminal hates a clue,
Or the Axis hates the United States,
That’s how much I love you.
I love you more than a duck can swim,
And more than a grapefruit squirts,
I love you more than a gin rummy is a bore,
And more than a toothache hurts.
As a shipwrecked […]

The second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half.

The original Football Association Laws of 1863:
1. The maximum length of the ground shall be 200 yards, the maximum breadth shall be 100 yards, the length and breadth shall be marked off with flags; and the goal shall be defined by two upright posts, eight yards apart, without any tape or bar […]

The only substance properly so called is the soul.

14 variations on 14 words
“I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry.” John Cage

I have to say poetry and is that nothing and I am saying it
I am and I have poetry to say and is that nothing saying it
I am nothing and I have poetry to say and […]

Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.

In some ways, I never outgrew my adolescence. I wake up in the morning and think, ‘Oh my God, I’m late for a math test!’ But then I say, ‘Wait a minute. I’m 40.’

Before the endgame, the Gods have placed the middle game.

A small garden, figs, a little cheese, and, along with this, three or four good friends; such was luxury to Epicurus.

Have patience. All things are difficult before they become easy.