Tag: quotation

… the wind has its reasons. We just don’t notice as we go about our lives. But then, at some point, we are made to notice. The wind envelops you with a certain purpose in mind, and it rocks you. The wind knows everything that’s inside you. And not just the wind. Everything, including a stone. They all know us very well. From top to bottom. It only occurs to us at certain times. And all we can do is go with those things. As we take them in, we survive, and deepen.

Haruki Murakami, in Hear the Wind Sing [1979], translated by Alfred Birnbaum.

… the wind has its reasons. We just don’t notice as we go about our lives. But then, at some point, we are made to notice. The wind envelops you with a certain purpose in mind, and it rocks you. The wind knows everything that’s inside you. And not just the wind. Everything, including a stone. They all know us very well. From top to bottom. It only occurs to us at certain times. And all we can do is go with those things. As we take them in, we survive, and deepen.

Haruki Murakami, in Hear the Wind Sing [1979], translated by Alfred Birnbaum.

Happy Birthday to robertpatrick, who shares his birthday today with Edgar Bergen (same date, different year).

Many joyful returns of the day, my ancient friend!

Bonus: Risque banter between Charlie McCarthy and Mae West, from a 1937 radio broadcast. The FCC deemed the dialog indecent, and banned Mae West from the radio until 1950.

Charlie: Not so loud, Mae, not so loud! All my girlfriends are listening.

Mae: Oh, yeah! You’re all wood and a yard long.

Charlie: Yeah.

Mae: You weren’t so nervous and backward when you came up to see me at my apartment. In fact, you didn’t need any encouragement to kiss me.

Charlie: Did I do that?

Mae: Why, you certainly did. I got marks to prove it. An’ splinters, too.

Happy Birthday to robertpatrick, who shares his birthday today with Edgar Bergen (same date, different year).

Many joyful returns of the day, my ancient friend!

Bonus: Risque banter between Charlie McCarthy and Mae West, from a 1937 radio broadcast. The FCC deemed the dialog indecent, and banned Mae West from the radio until 1950.

Charlie: Not so loud, Mae, not so loud! All my girlfriends are listening.

Mae: Oh, yeah! You’re all wood and a yard long.

Charlie: Yeah.

Mae: You weren’t so nervous and backward when you came up to see me at my apartment. In fact, you didn’t need any encouragement to kiss me.

Charlie: Did I do that?

Mae: Why, you certainly did. I got marks to prove it. An’ splinters, too.

The mountains of the Great Divide are not, as everyone knows, born treeless, though we always think of them as above timberline with the eternal snows on their heads. They wade up through ancient forests and plunge into canyons tangled up with water-courses and pause in little gem-like valleys and march attended by loud winds across the high plateaus, but all such incidents of the lower world they leave behind them when they begin to strip for the skies: like the Holy Ones of old, they go up alone and barren of all circumstance to meet their transfiguration.

Wallace Stegner, in Angle of Repose, 1971. 

The mountains of the Great Divide are not, as everyone knows, born treeless, though we always think of them as above timberline with the eternal snows on their heads. They wade up through ancient forests and plunge into canyons tangled up with water-courses and pause in little gem-like valleys and march attended by loud winds across the high plateaus, but all such incidents of the lower world they leave behind them when they begin to strip for the skies: like the Holy Ones of old, they go up alone and barren of all circumstance to meet their transfiguration.

Wallace Stegner, in Angle of Repose, 1971. 

Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how. To plant a pine, for example, one need be neither god nor poet; one need only own a good shovel. By virtue of this curious loophole in the rules, any clodhopper may say: Let there be a tree—and there will be one.

If his back be strong and his shovel sharp, there may eventually be ten thousand. And in the seventh year he may lean upon his shovel, and look upon his trees, and find them good.

God passed on his handiwork as early as the seventh day, but I notice He has since been rather noncommittal about its merits. I gather either that He spoke too soon, or that trees stand more looking upon than do fig leaves and firmaments.

Aldo Leopold, in A Sand County Almanac, on the anniversary of his birth.

Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how. To plant a pine, for example, one need be neither god nor poet; one need only own a good shovel. By virtue of this curious loophole in the rules, any clodhopper may say: Let there be a tree—and there will be one.

If his back be strong and his shovel sharp, there may eventually be ten thousand. And in the seventh year he may lean upon his shovel, and look upon his trees, and find them good.

God passed on his handiwork as early as the seventh day, but I notice He has since been rather noncommittal about its merits. I gather either that He spoke too soon, or that trees stand more looking upon than do fig leaves and firmaments.

Aldo Leopold, in A Sand County Almanac, on the anniversary of his birth.

“It’s never the wrong time to call on Toad. Early or late he’s always the same fellow. Always good-tempered, always glad to see you, always sorry when you go!”

– Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Please click photo for enlarged view.

“It’s never the wrong time to call on Toad. Early or late he’s always the same fellow. Always good-tempered, always glad to see you, always sorry when you go!”

– Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Please click photo for enlarged view.