Welcome

Welcome
John William Tuohy lives in Washington DC

Great writing in short doses





The price


Happiness


There are far better



Courage


Close to the edge........


Art is




“Art is an experience, not an object.”


The earth laughs



 “Earth laughs in flowers.” 
                              Ralph Waldo Emerson


Helen Keller



“Never bend your head. Hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.” Helen Keller

C.S. Lewis


“Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.”  C.S. Lewis

“If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more; and if they are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them.” C.S. Lewis


“As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.” C.S. Lewis

“You are never too old to set another goal or dream another dream.” C.S. Lewis


“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.” C.S. Lewis


Buckminster Fuller



“Dare to be naïve.” R. Buckminster Fuller

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” Buckminister Fuller


“I am convinced all of humanity is born with more gifts than we know. Most are born geniuses and just get degeniused rapidly.” Buckminister Fuller


And now a word from Charles Bukowski

 “Long ago, among other lies they were taught that silence was bravery.” Charles Bukowski

“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line.”   Charles Bukowski

“What matters most is how well you walk through the fire” Charles Bukowski


“There is only one lesson life is trying to teach us – shut the fuck up and enjoy the view.” Charles Bukowski

“We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.” - Charles Bukowski



Good words to have


Coherent, ultimately from the Latin co- ("together") and haerēre ("to stick or cling")

Catercorner: Cater derives from the Middle French noun quatre (or catre), which means "four." English speakers adopted the word to refer to the four-dotted side of a die—a side important in several winning combinations in dice games. Perhaps because the four spots on a die can suggest an X, cater eventually came to be used dialectically with the meaning "diagonal" or "diagonally." This cater was combined with corner to form catercorner.


I cannot remember the books I’ve read



“I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.” Ralph Waldo Emerson


In a library



“In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends imprisoned by an enchanter in paper and leathern boxes” Ralph Waldo Emerson


I live on Earth at present,



“I live on Earth at present, and I don’t know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing—a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process—an integral function of the universe.” R. Buckminster Fuller


For what it’s worth



“For what it’s worth: It’s never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start over.” F. Scott Fitzgerald 



Richard Brautigan

When
you wake up
from death,
you will find yourself
in my arms,
and
I will be
kissing you,
and
I

will be crying.

Richard Brautigan,


“1. Get enough food to eat,
and eat it.
2. Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,
and sleep there.
3. Reduce intellectual and emotional noise
until you arrive at the silence of yourself,
and listen to it.


 Karma Repair Kit: Items 1-4 (1967)



Richard Brautigan

“I feel as if I am an ad
for the sale of a haunted house:

18 rooms
$37,000
I’m yours
ghosts and all.”




Advice for writers and everyone else

If you ever find yourself in the wrong story...............leave.





Fear



Good words to have

Adumbrate (AD-um-brayt ) 1: to foreshadow vaguely : intimate 2: to suggest, disclose, or outline partially 3: overshadow, obscure.  Adumbrate tends to show up most often in academic or political writing. Adumbrate developed from the Latin verb adumbrare, which in turn comes from umbra, the Latin word for "shadow." To adumbrate, then, is to offer a shadowy view of something.

Redoubt (rih-DOUT) a: a small usually temporary enclosed defensive work b: a defended position: protective barrier 2:       a secure retreat: stronghold.  Redoubt derives via the French redoute and the Italian ridotto from a different Latin verb—reducere, meaning "to lead back," the same root that gives us reduce.


(Latin) Acquirere: to gain, to acquire.


Plot twist


Let us dedicate ourselves



“Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.” Robert F. Kennedy


When great writers draw pictures with words



“I saw thousands of pumpkins last night
come floating in on the tide,
bumping up against the rocks and
rolling up on the beaches;
it must be Halloween in the sea”
Richard Brautigan


But why think about that



“But why think about that when all the golden lands ahead of you and all kinds of unforseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you’re alive to see?” Jack Kerouac, On the Road


One day



“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.” Jack Kerouac


“First Servant.”


In King Lear (III:vii) there is a man who is such a minor character that Shakespeare has not given him even a name: he is merely “First Servant.”

All the characters around him – Regan, Cornwall, and Edmund – have fine long-term plans. They think they know how the story is going to end, and they are quite wrong. The servant has no such delusions. He has no notion of how the play is going to go. But he understands the present scene. He sees an abomination (the blinding of old Gloucester) taking place. He will not stand it.


His sword is out and pointed at his master’s breast in a moment: then Regan stabs him dead from behind. That is his whole part: eight lines all told. But if it were real life and not a play,  that is the part it would be best to have acted. – C.S. Lewis, “The World’s Last Night”