Question of the Day | 08/16/2009 11:00 pm

What passage or passages from a book, poem, short story or other literary work moved you so much that you've never forgotten it?

Join Liz Smith, Joan Ganz Cooney, Julia Reed and Joni Evans in sharing the words that have moved you.

Liz Smith | 08/16/2009 11:00 pm

Liz Smith: 'For the Last 40 Years, I Introduced My Column With a Quote'

There is so much in so many of the books I’ve read that I feel like a parent with many children trying to say something that I’m sure will make them feel loved equally. I have already given my embrace to the thousands of quotations I have selected to open my column for the past 40 years.

I like E. L. Doctorow on writing: "It’s like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights. But you can make the whole trip that way." This seems to me would apply to any long-term chore.

Or Raymond Chandler: "Technique alone is just an embroidered potholder."

Or William Faulkner: "We will be judged on the splendor of our failures."

Or Emily Dickinson: "The pedigree of honey dost not concern the bee; A clover, anytime, to him is aristocracy."

And then I have loved an anonymous limerick:

"There once was a man from St. Paul, who went to a fancy dressed ball. He said, ‘Yes, I’ll risk it. I’ll go as a biscuit.’ And a dog ate him up in the hall."

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Joni Evans | 08/16/2009 11:00 pm

Joni Evans's Life-Defining Quote

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." —Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

6 Comments

Joan Ganz Cooney | 08/16/2009 11:00 pm

Joan Ganz Cooney Rattled by Two Poets

There are many lines and passages from poems that rattle around in my brain. One of my favorites is from a poem written by Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Hardwick:

"You were in your 20s and I, once, hand on glass and heart in mouth, outdrank the Rahvs in the heat of Greenwich Village, too boiled and shy and poker faced to make a pass." And another, Dylan Thomas’s: "Do not go gentle into that good night but rage, rage against the dying of the light."

2 Comments

Julia Reed | 08/17/2009 9:00 am

Julia Reed and the Discovery of Leonard Cohen

I was an impossibly romantic 16-year-old (wishing I were going on 30) in boarding school, already tragically mourning lost loves when I discovered Leonard Cohen, whose photograph I had plastered to the dorm room ceiling above my bed. I still love his poem "Travel," and hear its lines in my head. "Loving you, flesh to flesh to flesh, I often thought of travelling penniless to some mud throne Where a master might instruct me how to plot My life away from pain, to love alone In the bruiseless embrace of stone and lake. Lost in the fields of your hair I was never lost Enough to lose a way I had to take … Now I know why many men have stopped and wept Halfway between the loves they leave and seek, And wondered if travel leads them anywhere – Horizons keep the soft line of your cheek, The windy sky’s a locket for your hair."

Then, of course, I was wishing someone was feeling that about me. Now I am old enough to have experienced the words from both sides. I am also happy to say that Leonard is still with us, still a hopeless romantic and I still have his picture (though no longer on my ceiling). Right now, I have James Taylor’s new version of Cohen’s "Suzanne" in the CD player in my car (I so love what Taylor does with those lyrics – just listen to him sing the word "China" as in tea – he’s just amazing) and now that I’ve gotten Cohen’s "Selected Poems" off my shelf to answer this post, I am walking down memory lane: Ah, "the mortal ring of flesh on flesh in dark."

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The one poem that has always been in my mind from the first time that I heard it is "Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair" By Langston Hughes

By Nicole Kitt on 08/17/2009 12:51 am

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Most of my own writing is done with a quotation at its beginning or at its end. They - so often - set off a piece so well. My own beliefs? Perhaps it is the Lincoln quotation that I remember:

It is not the years in your life that count. It is the life in your years.

And on my refrigerator I see my strongest belief:

Live life to the fullest.

But tonight I heard once again the Sinatra song that seems to reflect my own life spent in exploring the world’s natural beauty "in each and every byway", and trying my best to live life in the most compassionate way possible:

And now the end is near
And so I face the final curtain,
My friends, I’ll say it clear,
I’ll state my case of which I’m certain.
I’ve lived a life that’s full, I’ve travelled each and evr’y highway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way.

By joan larsen on 08/17/2009 1:01 am

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Joan, as a lifelong Sinatra fan, I have to say that some of my inspiring life-quotes are from his interpretations of the classics from the Great American Songbook. My favorite of all is Willow Weep for Me, which can stand as one of the greatest poems I’ve ever read as well. There is an entire world of life and experience in that one song as sung by that matchless voice.

BTW, I understand that Scorsese is in the pre-production phase of a bio of Sinatra. I can’t think of a better director to make a film about this charismatic man, can you? Sinatra was tough and tender; rough and righteous; and is there anyone who could wrap a voice around a lyric of regret and loss like him? Several actors’ names are being bandied about to play Sinatra, and one of them is Johnny Depp. That would be my choice! Apparently Tina Sinatra is worried that the film will depict her dad during the "ring-a-ding" Rat Pack years as a little TOO rough, but I think Scorsese will add the requisite depth. (And all the songs will be lip-synced, since NO-ONE could ever reach what Sinatra did.)

By Susan Crawford on 08/17/2009 8:36 am

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As I wrote those Sinatra lyrics, I knew this was not great literature as asked, but at the moment it was Sinatra that I had under my skin. You are right. NO one has ever been able to sing the lyrics as he did - or cause the emotions as he did, catching us up in the song long after it is over. And IF the upcoming movie isn’t perfection, I will pass it up as it would spoil everything for me. Another coincidence, right?

By joan larsen on 08/17/2009 9:18 am

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Joan, I had to laugh when I read your Sinatra quote. As my husband and I knelt at the altar to be married he leaned over and sang ‘And now the end is near….’ into my ear - he’s definitely a keeper!

By Green Tears on 08/17/2009 11:07 am

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Green Tears … he IS a keeper and that made me really laugh. In my home, more often than not, I am caught in stitches (do they still use that term?) by the things whispered in my ear. Laughing resounds so often that we must seem like silly kids. Is it like that for you also ?? How about this:

Laughter is the best medicine.

By joan larsen on 08/17/2009 11:16 am

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Yesterday afternoon my husband and I had a lovely boat ride in outer Boston Harbor. When we returned to the yacht club, we sat out on the deck of the boat enjoying a beer and cheese and crackers. As so often happens, during our relaxed conversation we started with the ‘giggles’. I truly believe that laughter and silliness are components of the ‘glue’ that bonds us as a couple.

That brings me to something my mother has frequently said to me: "It’s best to laugh, because if you don’t, you’ll just cry."

By Green Tears on 08/17/2009 12:04 pm

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In my childhood home, I remember laughter more than anything else. I remember fun and good times, not knowing my experience was not universal. How about this:

When you smiled you had my undivided attention. When you laughed you had my urge to laugh with you. When you cried you had my urge to hold you. When you said you loved me, you had my heart forever.

So wonderful, so true.

By joan larsen on 08/17/2009 12:19 pm

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Joan —-OK you just made me cry with this one. I also remember the laughter, the closeness, the hugs. So full of warmth and love - I thought I would never want to leave until———————

One day a beautiful blue-eyed "flyboy" came along and he gave me a card -

"Once upon a time, on a day that looked like any other day, someone like no one else came along and made life into something that would never be the same. That’s you. That’s my life. That’s why I love you."

Oh Lord, I’m welling up with tears!

By Lady Gator on 08/17/2009 8:32 pm

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Lady Gator …

Somehow, somehow I just knew you would find me … and offer me romance to fill the night skies with fireworks. What a lover, what a writer, what a LIFE!!!! It IS like a dream, isn’t it, a dream no one would ever believe as they don’t believe that true love at its zenith could ever be. And we don’t want to say "too much" as there are only 4 of us who share this - of all the people I know. And when I think of Sinatra tonight, it makes me want to dance in the kitchen … romance and make the world a dream world in a way I think we have patented — what do you think???? We can make up our own poetry and melt the site I think … and you know I am smiling. Joan

By joan larsen on 08/17/2009 9:57 pm

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Joan…..I come by my love of romance, and all things romantic, from my father. He was the biggest romantic I’ve ever seen. He and my mom were married for 67 years. He once told me that when he died that the one song he wanted played at his funeral was "I’ll be seeing you". It seems that when he was in the army my mother had been to Waco, Texas to see him before he shipped out for San Francisco and the Phillipine Islands. When he put her on the train for her return trip home, he said they both didn’t want to say "goodbye" because they were both afraid it would be their final goodbye. So they both agreed that since "I’ll be seeing you" was their love song they would both just say "I’ll Be Seeing You". My mom died two years before my dad. He was never the same after she left him.

So, when he died I requested that "their" song be played. After the service ended and we were preparing to join the procession out of church, the organist played "Ill be seeing you" on the piano. It sounded like an old piano tinkling in the background. So poignant - a tribute to their lives - a tribute to their love. When we got to the vestibule of the church my husband and I danced to the tune - as my husband said - "Somehow, I feel both of them at this moment, they must both be smiling, they know that their love has been passed along to us".

It is like a dream. You and I have both been fortunate to find someone to love so deeply. Now, I always think of the saying, "Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be". And, you and I know it will be.

By Lady Gator on 08/18/2009 11:50 am

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Well, Lady Gator, that was my tear-jerker for the week … and that you two danced right then with all the meaning involved is the most beautiful story. We don’t quite know if parents - the few that did - imprinted us in the many elements of their own good marriages. At that earlier time in their marriage, I am not sure that we would even think of "good marriages" as we were mostly living for the day - and our days were pretty crowded for deep thinking. But not that that insures a better chance at a better marriage, but in our cases, the parents’ marriages were pretty solid and "nice". Or was it the luck of the draw - as we were too young to make the analogy as we were thinking about things romantic.

Loved this!

By joan larsen on 08/18/2009 12:17 pm

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Lady G, I am sitting here with tears rolling down my cheeks - lovely story!

By Green Tears on 08/20/2009 7:29 pm

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Green Tears — Just as I had a huge smile on my face when I read your story about laughter! Where does it say that we must be children to giggle? And your story about your husband, at your wedding, "And now the end is near". It was priceless. Reminds me — On our wedding day, as I was approaching the altar on the arm of my father, I looked at my hubby to be and there were tears in his eyes. Broke me up, broke my father up and the entire wedding party! He tried to brush it off by saying "I was so scared I cried". Of course I knew better.

Isn’t it wonderful when the man in your life can make you giggle and, even better, isn’t it wonderful when they can cry about the beginning of a new life. Whether it’s a marriage or a newborn baby. Or the end of life for a favorite pet. Didn’t you always hear that "boys" don’t cry. Well maybe "boys" don’t cry but I’m certainly delighted that men can. I’ve always said that tears are the water that washes the soul.

By Lady Gator on 08/21/2009 11:27 am

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Yes, tears are good and healthy for men. I remember my husband cried openly and frequently during his father’s wake and funeral while his brother remained emotionless. One of his very good (???) friends told me that he thought my husband was ‘a mess’. I told him that he might rethink that comment when it was his turn.

I feel so blessed to have the relationship I have with my husband. We have always had a lot of laughs and we have supported each other with hugs when nothing was funny. I remember feeling completely out of control when my parents first showed signs of decline. My husband sat me down, put his hands on my shoulders, looked me straight in the eye and said ‘Now is not the time for you to panic. When that time comes, I will let you know and then you can go into a full-blown panic’. That made me smile because I knew that he realized that by the time things get really bad then my frame of mind will be better equipped to endure without any need for panic. I appreciate his belief in me.

My husband…. I think I’ll keep him! ;)

By Green Tears on 08/21/2009 12:44 pm