Random Quotes

I was just looking through my writing journal (where I keep all kinds of prompts and words of inspiration for when the mood strikes me) and I found a few things I just had to share. (I've updated some of the prompts on my website, btw, if you're interested.)

• "Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine." --- Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
• "For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever." --- Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
• "I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see." --- John Burroughs
• "Their most destructive untruth is that it is easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times." --- A propaganda officer, and former U.S. citizen, for the German Army during WWII referring to American culture in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five
• "Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops." --- Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

I think that's enough to chew on for now. Please leave comments on anything that strikes you. My personal favorite of the moment is the final Vonnegut quote. There's just something so poignant about the observation. My heart actually jumped a bit when I read it. (Isn't it great when a piece of writing can do that to you? Literally stop you in your tracks?)

My sister and her kids have arrived yesterday afternoon for the big wedding this weekend and the fun has already begun :) And I must get back to it . . .