Tag Archives: Silver Threading Writer’s Quote Wednesday

Writer’s Quote Wednesday-A Woman’s Worth Priceless

A woman I know wears a thin gold chain around her waist, under her clothes, with a charm bearing the inscription Priceless. It drives men crazy, she tells me. Small wonder. They love to be reminded of what they already know, since we live in a world that constantly denies it. She wears the chain, she says, in such a way that the charm falls perfectly across a certain female charka, as it were, which reminds her constantly of her inestimable value.–Marianne Williamson

Marianne Williamson is an American author and spiritual teacher. She has published 10 books including 4 New York Times best sellers. “A Woman’s Worth” is one of her books. I have not read any of her books so I can not personally endorse any of them. This quote appealed to me because I like quotes that empower women.

In addition to writing books she founded Project Angel Food in Los Angeles which is a meals on wheels service for people suffering with AIDs. She works in organizations to eliminate poverty, promote peace, and support women who wish to pursue political candidacy.

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Writer’s Quote Wednesday-Conformity

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“I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.”
― Rita Mae Brown

Rita Mae Brown is the author of Rubyfruit Jungle and several Mrs. Murphy mystery books co-authored with her cat Sneaky Pie. She wrote another series called Sister Jane about fox hunting and has other published novels and screenplays. I have not had the good fortune of reading any of her books. Since I really love mysteries I think I want to remedy this. The Mrs. Murphy series are in the category of “cozy mysteries.” These are crime fiction where the detective is usually an amateur and an older woman who is not taken seriously by the authorities. They are not super violent. An example would be Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple.

I like this quote because it says to me that we give up a lot when we go along with other people at the expense of our true selves.

Here’s an interview with the author from Bantam Dell Publishing via You Tube:

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Writer’s Quote Wednesday-Rumi

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“Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to.
Don’t try to see through the distances.
That’s not for human beings. Move within,
But don’t move the way fear makes you move.”
— Rumi

Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (1207-1273) was a 13th century Persian poet, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic. His poetry has been translated into many languages and is much appreciated around the world. After his death, his son and his followers founded the Mevlevi Order or Order of the Whirling Dervishes. The whirling dance is part of the Sufi Sana Ceremony.

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Writer’s Quote Wednesday-Be Still

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“Be still, and the world is bound to turn herself inside out to entertain you. Everywhere you look, joyful noise is clanging to drown out quiet desperation.”–Barbara Kingsolver

This reminds me to take time to pause and really look around me. Especially when I contemplate nature. There really is so much to see every day. It doesn’t matter if it is sunny, cloudy, warm, or rainy, there is always something beautiful. Today it has been mostly cloudy. I noticed this morning that some of the clouds in the sky were beautiful, like the way the marine clouds crept over the tops of the local Santa Monica mountains this morning, as a I drove off to do literacy tutoring. I could have been preoccupied with my plans for the morning and distracted by the traffic. It was worth the effort to gaze up at the sky and take notice. I noticed the hills around my neighborhood are still green, with some goldenrod and wild California poppies blooming. Just seeing all the pretty wild grasses, shrubs and wildflowers was uplifting.

About Barbara Kingsolver from her website:

“Barbara Kingsolver was born in 1955, and grew up in rural Kentucky. She earned degrees in biology from DePauw University and the University of Arizona, and has worked as a freelance writer and author since 1985. At various times in her adult life she has lived in England, France, and the Canary Islands, and has worked in Europe, Africa, Asia, Mexico, and South America. She spent two decades in Tucson, Arizona, before moving to southwestern Virginia where she currently resides.

Her books, in order of publication, are: The Bean Trees (1988), Homeland (1989), Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike (1989), Animal Dreams (1990), Another America (1992), Pigs in Heaven (1993), High Tide in Tucson (1995), The Poisonwood Bible (1998), Prodigal Summer (2000), Small Wonder (2002), Last Stand: America’s Virgin Lands, with photographer Annie Griffiths Belt (2002), Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (2007), and The Lacuna (2009). She served as editor for Best American Short Stories 2001. Her books have been translated into more than two dozen languages, and have been adopted into the core literature curriculum in high schools and colleges throughout the nation. She has contributed to more than fifty literary anthologies, and her reviews and articles have appeared in most major U.S. newspapers and magazines.”

I have not read her books but have heard of The Poisonwood Bible, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, and The Lacuna.

The Poisonwood Bible partial summary from her website:

“The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it—from garden seeds to Scripture—is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family’s tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.”

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is about how Barbara and her family commit themselves to eating only locally grown foods, or food they have grown themselves, and what is available seasonally.

“The Lacuna is a poignant story of a man pulled between two nations as they invent their modern identities.” The two nations are the United States and Mexico. It includes the famous Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in the story. I think I want to read it just because of those two artists.

Remember to be still…

Writer’s Quote Wednesday-Frida Kahlo

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“My paintings are well-painted, not nimbly but patiently. My painting contains in it the message of pain. I think that at least a few people are interested in it. It’s not revolutionary. Why keep wishing for it to be belligerent? I can’t. Painting completed my life. I lost three children and a series of other things that would have fulfilled my horrible life. My painting took the place of all of this. I think work is the best.”
― Frida Kahlo

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Writer’s Quote Wednesday-A Valentine of Beautiful Words and Music

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” I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”

–Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) was a beloved Chilean poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. He wrote in green ink which was his symbol for desire and hope.

The Beautiful and Romantic Music of Bernard Herrmann

Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975) was a composer who wrote the scores for many famous films. He wrote the scores for the Orson Welles films Citizen Kane,The Magnificent Ambersons and the score for Jane Eyre (1944) that starred Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles. I like this version of Jane Eyre the best.

Hermann wrote the scores for 7 Alfred Hitchcock films including Vertigo. The Love Scene music from Vertigo was used in the more recent film The Artist. I thought it was very wrong that Bernard Herrmann was not mentioned in the credits of this film. When I heard the music I recognized it right away as being originally part of the score for Vertigo.

Here via Roberto Mastrosimone on You Tube is Esa-Pekka Salonen and the LA Philharmonic performing Bernard Hermann’s Scene D’Amour from Vertigo:

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Silver Threading Writer’s Quote Wednesday

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“Think before you speak is criticism’s motto; speak before you think, creation’s.”

–E. M. Forster

E. M. Forster (1879-1970) a well known and acclaimed English author who wrote A Room With a View, A Passage to India, and Howard’s End. All were made into films. I have seen all these films but not read the books. His books dealt with the class system in England, their values, and the shifting of power that was occurring in the early 20th century.

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Writer’s Quote Wednesday-Labels

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“A label is a mask life wears. We put labels on life all the time. “Right,” “wrong,” “success,” “failure,” “lucky,” “unlucky,” may be as limiting a way of seeing things as “diabetic,” “epileptic,” “manic-depressive,” or even “invalid.” Labeling sets up an expectation of life that is often so compelling we can no longer see things as they really are. This expectation often gives us a false sense of familiarity toward something that is really new and unprecedented. We are in relationship with our expectations and not with life itself.”

–Rachel Naomi Remen

Rachel Naomi Remen is a doctor and author. I have read both her books several times. Sometimes I like to read them before going to sleep at night because they give me inspiration and peace. The two books I am referring to are “Kitchen Table Wisdom” and My Grandfather’s Blessing.”

Rachel struggled with her own chronic illness and still managed to get through medical school. She became a doctor when women in medicine were not often welcomed and accepted. She started out as a Pediatrician and later counseled people battling cancer. She is a member of the faculty at the University of California San Francisco Medical School. She founded the Commonweal Cancer Help Program in Northern California with Dr. Michael Lerner.

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Writer’s Quote Wednesday-Faulkner

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“Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it.
Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.”
― William Faulkner

Well I should be able to write pretty good by now because I do read so much. I agree with this quote because I think you can pick up how to be more articulate in writing by reading others work. I read a bit of Faulkner’s biography and learned he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949. He never graduated from high school. He used some of his Nobel Prize money to help establish the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. I like the part in the quote where he says if the writing is not good you can throw it out the window. He developed his unique style. I think all writers need to develop their own style. Try not to compare yourself to others or copy others.

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Writer’s Quote Wednesday

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“I used to think that eighty was a very old age. Now I am ninety. I do not think this any more. As long as you are able to admire and to love, you are young.”
― Pablo Casals

Pablo Casals was a world famous cellist and composer. I like this quote because I think it is true that our perception of age changes as we get older. I once had a patient I visited when I worked as a Home Health Nurse. She was 97 years old at the time. She was living in a Nursing Home and one time she said to me about her fellow residents, ” They think they’re old, but they are young. When I was their age I could do a lot of things.” The other residents were in their 80s. How do you think about age and aging?

Pablo Casals via Ishaia Gonzalez You Tube: