poems for him

We are reformers in the spring and summer, but in autumn we stand by the old. Reformers in the morning, and conservers at night. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson



You cannot endow even the best machine with initiative; the jolliest steam-roller will not plant flowers. ~Walter Lippmann



The charm of baseball is that, dull as it may be on the field, it is endlessly fascinating as a rehash. ~Jim Murray



There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America. ~William J. Clinton There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America. ~William J. Clinton



It is an ironic fact that while half the world's population is dying as a result of diseases of poverty (largely starvation and infection) the other half is succumbing to diseases of affluence. ~Malcolm Carruthers



If you keep rephrasing the question, it gradually becomes the answer. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com



There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough to pay attention to the story. ~Linda Hogan



It was as though he had cut up the sky, melted down a flower garden, tossed in some jewels and made it into glass. ~Hugh McKean, this is not referring to jewelry but to Tiffany's glass



Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man - the biography of the man himself cannot be written. ~Mark Twain, Autobiography, 1924



We never repent of having eaten too little. ~Thomas Jefferson, 1825



Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes. ~John LeCarre



If you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time. ~Author Unknown



A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. ~Douglas Adams



You're obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd. You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn, and know lack all foundation. It is that permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires and all the dead formalities and vain pretenses of your civilization which makes you sad, troubled and unbalanced. In that intolerable conflict you lose all joy of life and all feeling of personality, because at every moment they suppress and restrain and check the free play of your powers. That's the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world. ~Octave Mirbeau, Torture Garden



The Rose Bowl is the only bowl I've ever seen that I didn't have to clean. ~Erma Bombeck



A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water. ~Carl Reiner



Man spends his life in reasoning on the past, in complaining of the present, in fearing future. ~Antoine Rivarol



A statistician made a few calculations and discovered that since the birth of our nation more lives had been lost in celebrating independence than in winning it. ~Curtis Billings



Ironically, making a statement with words is the least effective method. ~Grey Livingston



Watching your daughter being collected by her date feels like handing over a million dollar Stradivarius to a gorilla. ~Jim Bishop