Quotations Weblog

This time of year, there is a lot of talk about peace and hope. All of it seems so external. The baby Jesus was born and suddenly, mankind has reason to hope. Maybe it was like that two thousand years ago, but now, I’m really feeling like hope is an internal thing.

Hope is simply a choice to take action. Maybe that’s what happened to so many people so long ago. The Savior was born and they made the decision to act with hope. It wasn’t the birth of the baby so much as the decision to take action.

What do you feel hopeless about right now? Money? The Future? War? Genetically Altered Food? Whatever it is, take a moment right now to take action. Decide to do something about it. Spend less money this holiday. Plan for the future. Protest or support the war. Buy organic and heirloom. Whatever it is that has taken hope from you, resolve today to do one small thing about it.

Hope isn’t about big actions. It’s about the small choices we make every day to make the world a better place. You have the power within your able hands to restore hope. Do it today!

I was surprised at how many quotations I’ve collected from For Better or For Worse. It’s a comic that has been around for as long as I have been reading a newspaper. Now, of course, I read Lynn Johnston’s comics online:

• For Better or For Worse Comics

Lynn has done a phenomenal job building up a body of work and I really feel that she deserves a lot more attention than she gets. (Why don’t they televise an award show for comic strips? I might actually watch that just to see what the authors look like.) She has been working on For Better or For Worse since 1978. Every time web comic authors fail to up date like clockwork, I remember the greats like Lynn Johnston who has been updating every day for almost thirty years.

Here are some quotes I’ve gathered from For Better or For Worse:

All the quotes from Lynn Johnston:

• Lynn Johnston Quotes – The Quotations Page

I just finished reading Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell Sunday night. It was a really interesting book about the power of our minds to make very accurate snap decisions. Some call it intuition or others call it a gut reaction. No matter what you call it, the power of “blink” is a powerful tool.

I was hoping he would give us nice, neat little lists on how to make our instincts better. How to avoid prejudice and how to harness the power of “blink.” Instead, it’s a narrative story about this power with no helpful hints. Malcolm tries to explain why our intuition fails us sometimes and why, in high stress situations, it abandons us completely. It was a very interesting read and here are my favorite quotations from the book.

Read all of the quotations from Malcolm Gladwell here:

• Malcolm Gladwell Quotes – The Quotations Page

This was a really enjoyable book and a quick read. Give yourself a weekend with the power of your subconscious.

I remember reading The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe when I was a kid. My friend, Suzanne Clark, read the entire series when we were in junior high. I was barely able to get through the first book, so I didn’t try any of the others. I’m wondering if I should go back and read it to see if I missed anything important.

The movie based on this book is being heavily marketed to the Christian population. There are lots of other books talking about the Christian symbolism of C. S. Lewis’ work. I never saw any Christian symbolism when I was reading it as a child. All I knew is that I didn’t like their little brother, Edmund, very much. If I don’t like the characters, even the evil ones, I have a hard time reading a book.

Have no doubt, C. S. Lewis does have Christian leanings, but I wonder if he would like to see his work used as a way to profit off of Christians. All I can do is imagine Jesus walking in on the movie premiere. Even if they knew who he is, would he even be allowed on the red carpet without a makeover? It makes me wonder. I don’t know if I’ll go see the movie. Maybe I’ll just enjoy my favorite quotations from C. S. Lewis in the privacy of my own home.

See all of C. S. Lewis’ Quotations Here:

• C. S. Lewis Quotes – The Quotations Page

On this day in 1964, Edith Sitwell died at the age of 77. She had been “an unpopular electric eel” among the boring pool of “catfish” poets. Wikipedia has a biography of her life.

• Wikipedia – Edith Sitwell

Some of my favorite quotes are from Edith Sitwell:

And of course, the inventive self-classification:

You can read all of Edith Sitwell’s Quotations here:

• Edith Sitwell Quotes – The Quotations Page