Quotations Weblog

I was checking a quotation from Albert Einstein, when I noticed these two from him. It seems like these two quotations contradict each other.

Maybe we can conclude from this that success is not an important thing, or even THE important thing.

Ten years ago, I was still reeling from the realization that I had wasted four years of my life getting a degree and training for a job I didn’t want. It had been three years since I got my BA in Mathematics and Teaching. I wasn’t teaching. I was working at a health insurance company. The work was simple enough and they didn’t mind if I listened to books on tape while I processed claims. Eventually, I ran out of music and books and I became bored.

I was such a different person back then. I still believed that I had to do everything with my husband to be a good wife. I still believed that I needed to work for someone else in order to be a contributing member of society. I even believed that I had to sacrifice my dreams for security. It was a long and scary road, but all of those beliefs have been tossed out the window within the span of these ten years.

If I saw the Laura Moncur from 1996, what would I tell her?

You can have private time and still be a good wife.

You can be self-employed and still be a good citizen.

You can be a writer and still be secure.

It’s all possible, you just need to work dilligently toward it every day and don’t get distracted by worries about money or whether other people will be proud of you.

Would I have listened? I don’t know.

Last week I linked to American Book Review’s list of 100 best first lines from novels. While I’m not fond of (or even familiar with) all of the books listed, they do have some excellent examples of first lines.

Then again, the first line from Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s Paul Clifford also made the list:

Yes, this is the same “It was a dark and stormy night” that inspired Snoopy’s many attempts at writing the great American novel. It also inspired the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, in which contestants try to write the worst possible opening sentence to an imaginary novel.

The contest is held yearly, and the deadline is usually April 15th. If you have the stomach for it, you can read last year’s winning entries or the entire list of grand prize winners. My favorite was this one from 1986.

American Book Review has published their list of 100 best first lines from novels. There’s something about a good first line–if it’s done right, it draws you into the novel, setting the scene and giving you an idea of what to expect from the rest of the book. Some of them, like my favorite from Anna Karenina above, do that amazingly well in a short sentence or two. Here are a few more:

• See the complete list at American Book Review

Mike and I had planned a hike in Little Cottonwood Canyon last March. We were having an unseasonable warm spell and we looked forward to playing in the mountains. That morning, we woke up to a blanket of snow. Instead of hiding in the house, we went up to the mountains anyway. Bundled up for warmth, we spent the hike clicking pictures and slushing through the moist snow.

Carl Reiner is right. Most of the time snow is just an unnecessary freezing of water, but that day, I was happy to shiver in it.