Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Gathered from the foolishness of late night thought

From William Golding's essay "Thinking As a Hobby"
-It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.
-If you set out to climb a mountain, no matter how far you climb you have failed if you cannot reach the top.

Tomorrow in class my English professor will likely ask us to write a brief reaction paper to this essay. These were my two favorite quotes from my first reading of the essay.

Ah, now I remember the other quote I found so interesting tonight. It is attributed to Harry S Truman in the email my mother sent. I'm too tired and lazy to verify.
-My choices early in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

hmmm- i love the last quote, too. i would imagine we are probably both at some juncture in our lives. the real similarity between the two, though, is us. the person who is filling both roles....

did you get some snow??

and do you know edith childs? she seems a hoot. perhaps i missed it on ur earlier posting this year.

Ultra Dave said...

I like them all. I always did good in creative writing classes. I always felt unfettered.

sageweb said...

I love the climbing mountain quote..so true.

Anonymous said...

I had a great English Teacher my senior year of high school; she is the one I attribute with saving my back side through university! She forced us to write descriptively and aggressively. I wish we had more people teaching like her these days.

As fr the quotes, I like the one by Truman; it fits so very nicely these past few weeks/months/years...

-C

Peter said...

Happy Birthday Java, hope you have a great day today.

Patrick said...

I love those quotations too... and am thinking I might look for a few of those plaster models. Couldn't hurt. Mmmmmm.... reading and analyzing texts. I'm jealous.

It's your birthday???? Many happy returns, my dear. I hope it's a fun festive day in school and out.

Anonymous said...

I hope the cretivity came out in your writing today. I get the sense that you are enjoying this class. It's not good year in Illinois to be a politician with all the corruption exposed.

Indigo said...

Indigo Incarnates

I'm glad you got a good grade on your first quiz. You're smart and dedicated. :)

Ur-spo said...

Grouch Marx said similar - playing piano in a whorehouse was no difference than working in hollywood.

I think it would be jolly good fun to play piano in a whorehouse. I think there is a short story on this topic, but the man was ashamed to do so - he needed the money.