Thursday

Jan. 7, 1999

The Sleepers

by William Henry Davies

THURSDAY 1/7

Poem: "The Sleepers," by William Henry Davies (1870-1940).

It's the birthday of writer ZORA NEALE HURSTON, born in Eatonville, Florida, 1901, best known for her second novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), about the life and marriages of Janie Crawford, and other books that celebrate rural black culture of the South.

It's the birthday of SAINT BERNADETTE OF LOURDES, born Marie-Bernarde Soubirous in Lourdes, France in 1844. In early 1858 at the age of 14 she had a series of visions of the Virgin Mary. In her visions she was led to a spring of healing water, and thousands of sick people travel annually to Lourdes to be blessed at her shrine.

It's the birthday in 1800 of MILLARD FILLMORE, 13th President (1850-53), born in Cayuga County, central New York. In 1849 ran as Zachary Taylor's vice-president. When Taylor died in office the next year Fillmore became president. Even though he was from the North and personally opposed slavery, Fillmore argued for its continuation, saying that to end it would be to disrupt the nation.

It's the birthday in 1718, Salem (now Danvers), Massachusetts, of ISRAEL PUTNAM, the American Revolutionary War hero and one of the leaders at the Battle of Bunker Hill outside Boston. He told his men, "Don't one of you fire until you see the whites of their eyes."

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