#gr

The 60s passed and faded and I grew older, and in 1987 bought a house in upstate New York, and it turned out that John Brown was buried down the road from my house and that he had lived there longer than anywhere else and his house was still standing. ↗

— Russell Banks

#bought #brown #buried #down #down the road

In ways that certain of us are uncomfortable about, SNOOTs’ attitudes about contemporary usage resemble religious/political conservatives’ attitudes about contemporary culture. We combine a missionary zeal and a near-neural faith in our beliefs’ importance with a curmudgeonly hell-in-a-handbasket despair at the way English is routinely manhandled and corrupted by supposedly educated people. The Evil is all around us: boners and clunkers and solecistic howlers and bursts of voguish linguistic methane that make any SNOOT’s cheek twitch and forehead darken. A fellow SNOOT I know likes to say that listening to most people’s English feels like watching somebody use a Stradivarius to pound nails: We are the Few, the Proud, the Appalled at Everyone Else. ↗

— David Foster Wallace

#grammar #snoot #attitude

My friend Madea has "attitude" that comes with wisdom. Back in our teens and twenties, we thought we knew everything and made all those foolish mistakes. Then, when we got a little older, at thirty, we started getting these flashes of light, revelations of what a great and lucky thing it is that we didn't get caught doing those stupid things back then. Around forty, if we are lucky, we stop lying to ourselves. Fifty and above, we've run out of patience for foolishness. Take me to the bottom line. ↗

— Tyler Perry

#humor #wisdom #attitude

The poet will only be recited until the death of his language. The violinist will only give recitals until the bowing of nose hairs. ↗

— Bauvard

#greatness #humor #music #noses #poetry

In a sense, the better you adapt to school the less your chances are of later adapting to the actual world. So I figure, the worse you adapt to school, the better you will be able to handle reality when you finally manage to get loose at last from school, if that ever happens. But I guess I have what in the military they call a 'poor attitude,' which means 'shape up or ship out.' I always elected to ship out. ↗

— Philip K. Dick

#attitude

And this evening when I close my eyes against the darkness and think about her, I'll imagine iridescent wings fluttering, if only for a moment, against cloudless blue skies. ↗

— Nancy Stephan

#grief #death

What can you do how much can you give to bring grace and salvation unto even one soul ↗

— Bree Despain

#grace #hope #mercy #principal-conway #salvation

…the neurotic torture of being seductive regularly—by the night: the more that perchance the struggle always is unconscious. ↗

— Mary MacLane

#biography

- Why are you drinking? - the little prince asked. - In order to forget - replied the drunkard. - To forget what? - enquired the little prince, who was already feeling sorry for him. - To forget that I am ashamed - the drunkard confessed, hanging his head. - Ashamed of what? - asked the little prince who wanted to help him. - Ashamed of drinking! - concluded the drunkard, withdrawing into total silence. And the little prince went away, puzzled. 'Grown-ups really are very, very odd', he said to himself as he continued his journey. ↗

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

#grown-ups #problem-solving #self-respect #faith

I'd watch her, amazed at just how much a person could accomplish fueled by tea and regret. ↗

— Katja Millay

#tea #tea