Quote of the Day

“Those who unfeelingly push and jostle one another all the rest of the year smile on each other today, tell of the dangers they escaped, exchange addresses, and walk along with new friends. The squares are mountains of snow over which the icy lacework clinging like filigree to the branches of the trees glitters in the morning sun.”

—José Martí, “New York Under the Snow” (1888)

Quote of the Day

“Don't mope in your room. Go invent something.”
—Maira Kalman

It Gets Me Every Time

and I'm not sure why.

The Daily Literary Quote is a widget on my Google homepage. They seem to have a few dozen quotes in rotation.

Today, from Milan Kundera: “A novel that does not uncover a hitherto unknown segment of existence is immoral. Knowledge is the novel's only morality.”

I like for its absurdity, and also because part of me agrees with it.

A few months ago I encountered another quote that appealed to me. I'm despondent now that I neglected to write it down. I even contacted the nice folks at ModeRoom Press to retrieve it, but – no luck. It had something to do with writing from the inside out versus writing from the outside in. That's all I got. If you can tell me what I'm trying to think of, you'll win my undying gratitude.

Quote of the Day

"Sunday morning in New York is like no other time. From dawn until 10 the city is like an unborn fetus."

—Mickey Spillane, The Killing Man (printed in today's New York Times Week in Review)

Time to Rethink?

They always seemed like good words to live by: "The heart wants what it wants."

Until you consider that the person who uttered them most famously was Woody Allen.

Quote of the Day

"I don't really approve of whodunits because they're rather like a jigsaw or a crossword puzzle. No emotion. You simply wait to find out who committed the murder."

—Alfred Hitchcock, speaking to François Truffaut.

Quote of the Day

"I do not feel that 'talking about music is like dancing about architecture;' actually, I have always detested that quote, which I consider to be patently untrue. Moreover, I think dancing about architecture would be a very interesting thing to do."

—Jeremy Denk, Think Denk

THE TIMES, CONSISTENTLY FAILING TO SPOT THE BEST QUOTATION OF THE DAY

“GEORGE Bush hates midgets.”

CHRIS ROCK, on Friday’s “Shelter From the Storm” telethon for Katrina relief. [E7]

Quote of the Day

"We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate."

—Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Quote of the Day

"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!"

—Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake

Words to Live By

from opera director Tony Amato.

Quod Me Nutrit Me Destruit

These are the words Angelina Jolie has tattooed below her navel. Translated from Latin, they mean: “That which nourishes me also destroys me.” Is this her way of signaling to the world that she, too, is addicted to crosswords?

Google says no. This appears to be a favorite slogan of the eating disorder community. But I say we’re still kindred spirits. Because the language I use to describe why I do the puzzle is strikingly similar to theirs: it’s an aspect of my life that I can control. When chaos looms all around, I turn to the puzzle. Not only does it shut out the craziness, but I’m focused on a task I know I can master. It’s not about whether I’ll complete it, it’s about how much solace I can get out of immersing myself in it. I’ve often said that if there were a chance I could not finish the crossword, I wouldn’t do it.

Yes, this is what I’ve often said—until yesterday, when I had to cheat to fill in the NE corner. In so doing, I became, for a day, one of those people for whom the puzzle is itself the source of anxiety, not its vanquisher. Knowing that many on the Times crossword forum struggled with the same clues provided little comfort. Actually, no comfort at all. That’s their business.

Now I need to come up with a suitable place for that tattoo.

ONCE AGAIN, THE NEW YORK TIMES IGNORES THE TRULY INTERESTING QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"ONE of my favorite writers, Jane Jacobs, talks about the benefits of drift in life. After 16 years, I want to do a little creative drifting. I honestly don't know what is out there, but I'm certain there are exciting opportunities."

JONATHAN KARP, who is leaving his job as editor in chief after 16 years at Random House.

EVEN BETTER QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"IT would be hard to overstate how politically incorrect this paper is."

STEVEN PINKER, cognitive scientist at Harvard, on the hypothesis by researchers at the University of Utah that natural selection may have made Ashkenazim more intelligent than other Europeans. [A21]

One More for the Road

"The only work that really brings enjoyment
Is the kind that is for girl and boy meant."

—Ira Gershwin, "Nice Work If You Can Get It."

Quote of the Day After That

"The job of the poet is not to tell you it is raining; the job of the poet is to make rain."

—Paul Valéry, quoted by radio producer Chris Brookes.

Quote of the Day

“From the point of view of pure Art, you could almost establish it as an axiom that the subject is irrelevant, style itself being an absolute manner of seeing things…. What I would like to write is a book about nothing, a book without exterior attachments, which would be held together by the inner force of its style, as the earth without support is held in the air.”

—Gustave Flaubert, quoted in Ben Yagoda’s The Sound on the Page: Style and Voice in Writing.