Saturday

Aug. 9, 1997

Still Waters

by Dick Allen

SATURDAY 8/9

Today's Reading:"Still Waters" by Dick Allen from ODE TO THE COLD WAR, published by Sarabande Books.

It's Soap Box Derby Day in Akron, Ohio, featuring home- made, gravity-powered cars.

In Columbus, Nebraska, the annual Columbus Days celebration begins today.

It's Elvis Week beginning today in Memphis, Tennessee.

The nine-day Intertribal Indian Ceremonial begins today in Gallup, New Mexico.

The Leitersburg Peach Festival begins today in Leitersburg, Maryland.

On this day in 1945, three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, an American B-29 named BOCK'S CAR dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, killing between 40,000 and 70,000 residents.

It's the birthday of actor and novelist Robert Shaw (THE MAN IN THE GLASS BOOTH), born in Lancashire, England, in 1927.

Writer P.L. Travers, author of the Mary Poppins books, was born on this day in Maryborough, Queensland, Australia, in 1899.

It's the birthday of Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, born in Neuchatal, Switzerland, in 1896.

It's the birthday of Izaak Walton, author of the classic work THE COMPLEAT ANGLER, born in Stafford, England, in 1633.

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

 

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  • “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
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