Someone in the NaNo forums asked for quotes to use as a starting point. Odd things come to mind.
‘I see great things in baseball. It’s our game – the American game. It will take our people out-of-doors, fill them with oxygen, give them a larger physical stoicism. Tend to relieve us from being a nervous, dyspeptic set. Repair these losses, and be a blessing to us.’
Walt Whitman
Also, annie savoy. You can look it up.
I would walk all the way from Boulder to Birmingham
If I thought I could see, I could see your face.
—-Emmylou Harris “Boulder to Birmingham”
Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette
Puff, puff, puff until you smoke yourself to death.
Tell St. Peter at the Golden Gate
That you hate to make him wait,
But you just gotta have another cigarette.
—”Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette”
Written by Merle Travis for Tex Williams
A father had two sons. The oldest one was clever and intelligent, and knew how to manage everything, but the youngest one was stupid and could neither understand nor learn anything. When people saw him, they said, “He will be a burden on his father!”
—–The Story of a Boy
Who Went Forth to Learn Fear
(The Boy Who Learned to Shudder)
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Of course, the ideal position for reading is something you can never find. In the old days they used to read standing up, at a lectern. People were accustomed to standing on their feet, without moving. They rested like that when they were tired of horseback riding. Nobody ever thought of reading on horseback; and yet now, the idea of sitting in the saddle, the book propped against the horse’s mane, or maybe tied to the horse’s ear with a special harness, seems attractive to you. With your feet in the stirrups, you should feel quite comfortable for reading; having your feet up is the first condition for enjoying a read.
—–from if on a winter’s night a traveller
Italo Calvino
