Thursday

Aug. 1, 1996

Solitariness

by Sir Philip Sidney

THURSDAY 8/1

Today's Reading: "Solitariness" by Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) from ARCADIA.

The name August comes from Augustus Caesar. Mercury will be the evening star throughout the month, and Venus will be in the morning sky.

Today is Lughnasadh, one of the "Greater Sabbats" of the Wiccan year.

The 49th annual Maine Lobster Festival opens today in Rockland, Maine.

The Savannah Maritime Festival begins today in Savannah, Georgia.

The Mountain Dance and Folk Festival gets underway today in Asheville, North Carolina.

The Pittsburgh Three Rivers Regatta starts today in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The Wisconsin State Fair begins today in Milwaukee.

The first pictures of the planet Mars were sent back to Earth by the US Mariner 6 spacecraft on this day in 1969.

It was on this day in 1944 that Anne Frank wrote the last entry in her diary: "I keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would like to be, and what I could be, if E there weren't any other people living in the world."

The first cable car service began in San Francisco on this day in 1873.

Writer Herman Melville was born on this day in New York City in 1819.

It's the birthday of Francis Scott Key ("The Star Spangled Banner") in Frederick County, Maryland, 1779.

British chemist Sir Joseph Priestly announced his discovery of oxygen on this day in 1774, calling it "a new species of air."

It's the birthday in 1770 in Carolina County, Virginia, of William Andrews Clark, the "Clark" of "Lewis and Clark."


Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®

 

«

»

  • “Writers end up writing stories—or rather, stories' shadows—and they're grateful if they can, but it is not enough. Nothing the writer can do is ever enough” —Joy Williams
  • “I want to live other lives. I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get. Writing is my way of making other chances.” —Anne Tyler
  • “Writing is a performance, like singing an aria or dancing a jig” —Stephen Greenblatt
  • “All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • “Good writing is always about things that are important to you, things that are scary to you, things that eat you up.” —John Edgar Wideman
  • “In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.” —Denise Levertov
  • “Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” —E.L. Doctorow
  • “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” —E.L. Doctorow
  • “Let's face it, writing is hell.” —William Styron
  • “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” —Thomas Mann
  • “Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials.” —Paul Rudnick
  • “Writing is a failure. Writing is not only useless, it's spoiled paper.” —Padget Powell
  • “Writing is very hard work and knowing what you're doing the whole time.” —Shelby Foote
  • “I think all writing is a disease. You can't stop it.” —William Carlos Williams
  • “Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.” —Iris Murdoch
  • “The less conscious one is of being ‘a writer,’ the better the writing.” —Pico Iyer
  • “Writing is…that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.” —Pico Iyer
  • “Writing is my dharma.” —Raja Rao
  • “Writing is a combination of intangible creative fantasy and appallingly hard work.” —Anthony Powell
  • “I think writing is, by definition, an optimistic act.” —Michael Cunningham
Current Faves - Learn more about poets featured frequently on the show