Quote of the Day

Shoulda ain’t is.
– Lorraine J. Barrick

Something to remember as I move myself through the world from now on.

The most solid advice for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.

– William Saroyan, American writer, 1908-1981

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

– Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence

Words worth remembering as our government taps our phones, looks through our bank records, violates the basic principles of the Constitution by holding people indefinitely without charge or public trial, and co-opts yet another holiday to “honor the troops.”

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”

– Theodor Geisel (aka: Dr. Seuss)

“He is a man of sense who does not grieve for what he has not, but rejoices in what he has.”

– Epictetus