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

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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."

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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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Dear God,

"So far today God, I’ve done all right. I haven’t gossiped and haven’t lost my temper, haven’t been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish or over indulgent.

I’m really glad about that, but in a few minutes I’m going to get out of bed and from then on I’m probably going to need a lot more HELP!"

By canuck canuck on 08/21/2009 1:53 pm

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Bilbo Baggins: It’s a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no telling where you might be swept off to.

By MT C-Douglas on 08/21/2009 9:49 pm

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Thank you all so much for the beautiful words here. I can never seem to remember any all the way thru. Do forgive me for this, but I had a class assignment many,many years ago that had us to read a book, and to write a imagery passage for it. Mine was a fantasy novel, which I can’t remember. I do know it had issues of abuse, but I do recall what I wrote somewhat.

She walked deeper into the wood, the hour past supper. Down the trail till it wandered off into unknown places. Sitting down on a bit of grass,she closed her eyes and brought the wood within her. She sat and waited, till it was time. Slowly opening her sight to the other time, the twilight place before pain,sorrow and her reality came to be. Pale dappled light shimmered on the shadowed forest floor,reminding the darkness that it will always BE. And it came to her the thought that she needed that reassurance of light,because if she sat in the dark all the time, how would she know if she was lost? -Me,age 12

My teacher at the time said he closed his eyes after reading it and could see it. It was one of the greatest things ever said to me. I wish I could say I improved with age, but I have never been compared with cheese or wine. Oh,and I think I got a B for it.

By Deborah Duty on 08/22/2009 8:17 am

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Deborah,

I loved your own words. You should be so proud. And I am sure you are even better with age, but so often we are accepted and not complimented … and that is how it is. Often people are jealous. You know that. And if I were to guess, people might be jealous of you. Keep up your good thinking, your good writing, and stay on wow where people do give you credit.

By joan larsen on 08/23/2009 7:09 pm

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Deborah Duty - How can it be that I missed this posting until to-day? Three days… I’m so thankful to have found it to-day. It would have been a pity to have it pass. It is beautiful; and beautifully written. I too closed my eyes and know what your teacher meant.

By Lauriate Roly on 08/25/2009 3:51 pm

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who am i

i don’t fit in with the black people, why should i I’m only one-third black,

my Asian sister and brothers looked at me like what I’m doing here,

and the Indian folks say who are you, and look at me as if I’m from another world, and the land i live in they ask what’s your name and were you come from, but when i look in the mirror, i see what God had in mind when he taught of making woman, a face with nation on it, he make my fingers Strong to care for the fruit i bore, and shoulders to carry the troubles of the world, the beauty of heaven and earth put together and the love that only he can give his special child to share, red, yellow, black or white i don’t know, but this i can say, that I’m a gorgeous, beautiful loving woman of the world,

hope you like my poem, it’s about me Dawna

By Dawna Savitri on 08/22/2009 11:16 am

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"i don’t fit in with the black people, why should i, I’m only one-third black

Dawna Savitri, living ones life is not about trying to "fit in". It’s embracing all the beauty God has created. It’s about meeting people as individuals and sharing who you are as a person. It’s not forming relationships based on ones ethnicity but embracing positive loving individuals. Persons who look pass ones ethnicity and sees the heart. It’s not living in denial. You are one-third black part of a beautiful and powerful culture with a rich history.

Your mixture should give you a mature insight and make you more embracing and more open to a rich cultural diverse community, which America is.

By L. C. on 09/04/2009 4:12 am

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When I was a child, my Irish grandfather would have me ‘give’ him poems instead of birthday and Christmas presents. First, this meant memorizing the likes of Yeats and other greats—and later, actually taking stabs at penning poetry of my own. Hence, my recipes for life tend to be poems, and poems are like children: you don’t have favorites. So it’s hard to choose just one passage that inspired me. That’s one reason —among others— why, sitting here thinking about it in the complicated year of 2009, my mind is not going for the likes of Yeats and other greats. Instead, it’s coming up with simpler things, that are less like recipes for life and more like essential utensils, like can openers or knives and forks. The first thing that comes to mind I read when I was maybe fourteen: “having is giving and giving is living” —e.e. cummings The second thing that comes to mind is on a magnet I bought a few years ago to stick on my refrigerator: “when the going gets tough, keep going.” —Winston Churchill The third thing that comes to mind I just discovered this morning, it’s Joni Evans’ gorgeous quote from Teilhard de Chardin, which I thank her for. The last but not least thing that comes to mind is Liz Smith’s quote about writing, which could also be about life, which I’ve already copy and pasted into an email and sent to my daughter! The pen is mightier than the sword, and some pens are mightier than others! —that’s also a quote, from a Parker Pen ad.

By joann mackenzie on 08/23/2009 10:29 am

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“I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life — and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.”

Georgia O’Keefe

By Eileen McSherry on 08/23/2009 10:34 am

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“If I can’t dance - I don’t want to be part of your revolution”

Emma Goldman

By Eileen McSherry on 08/23/2009 10:35 am

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"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 of far away."

Henry David Thoreau

By Eileen McSherry on 08/23/2009 10:45 am

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By Lydia Kuramoto on 08/23/2009 1:04 pm

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A little far a field, are the books or quotes you had 20 years ago that you look back on and say, that certainly isn’t me anymore? My is Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. 20-30 years ago I read both of those are least every six months. I thought I had found a pattern for my like. Boy was I wrong. I think back on that and wonder if I found time to read them one more time would I fell the same. I sincerely doubt it.

By Kay Holmes on 08/24/2009 9:49 am

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This is it for me - also love "The Road Less Traveled" -

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Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there’s some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

By Pdr de on 08/24/2009 11:51 am