My Small Boat

Don Paterson (writing as François Aussemain)

Crispin — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 12:45:24 +0000

Nothing is ever lost; things only become irretrievable. What is lost, then, is the method of their retrieval, and what we rediscover is not the thing itself, but the overgrown path, the secret staircase, the ancient sewer.

Robert Benchley

Crispin — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 12:10:22 +0000

The freelance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.

Stephen Crane

Crispin — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 07:08:31 +0000

Three little birds in a row
Sat musing.
A man passed near that place.
Then did the little birds nudge each other.

They said, “He thinks he can sing.”
They threw back their heads to laugh.
With quaint countenances
They regarded him.
They were very curious,
Those three little birds in a row.

Alan Turing

Crispin — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 06:47:15 +0000

We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.

Samuel Madden

Crispin — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 16:46:58 +0000

In an orchard there should be enough to eat, enough to lay up, enough to be stolen, and enough to rot on the ground.

Juvenal

Crispin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:05:14 +0000

Honesty is praised and starves.

(Probitas laudatur et alget)

Malcolm Muggeridge

Crispin — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 19:52:02 +0000

On one of my birthdays I was given a toy printing-set with whose rubber letters I was able to print off my first composition. It was a story of a train going along very fast and, to the satisfaction of the passengers, racing through the samll stations along the track without stopping. Their satisfaction, however, turned to dismay, and then to panic fury, as it dawned on them that it was not going to stop at their stations either when it came to them. They raged and shouted and shook their fists, but all to no avail. The train went roaring on. At the time I had no notion what, if anything, the story signified. [...] Yet, as I came to see, and see now more clearly than ever, it is the story I have been writing ever since; the story of our time.

John Henry Newmann

Crispin — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 07:35:09 +0000

The world is content with setting right the surface of things.

Joseph Brodsky

Crispin — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 15:11:56 +0000

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

Robert Penn Warren

Crispin — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 10:42:41 +0000

In separateness only does love learn definition.