Monday

Oct. 14, 1996

Humanity I love you

by E. E. Cummings

MONDAY 10/14

Today's Reading:"Humanity i love you" by e. e. cummings, from 100 SELECTED POEMS, published by Grove Weidenfeld.

Today is Columbus Day, commemorating 12 October 1492, when Columubus landed on a small island in the Bahamas, which he named San Slavador.

Martin Luther King became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize on this day in 1964.

The idea for the Peace Corps was born on this day in 1960 when John F. Kennedy gave a speech to students at the University of Michigan.

Former U. S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop was born on this day in 1916 in Brooklyn, New York.

Travel writer Eugene Fodor was born on this day in Leva, Hungary, in 1905.

William McKinley became the first president to ride in an automobile on this day in 1899.

Poet e. e. cummings, famous for writing without capital letters or punctuation, was born on this day in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1894.

The "First Lady of the Silent Screen," actress Lillian Gish, was born on this day in Springfield, Ohio, 1893.

The 34th president of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, was born on this day in Denison, Texas, 1890.

It's the birthday of short story writer Katherine Mansfield (THE GARDEN PARTY), born in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1888.

It's the birthday in New York City of Irish revolutionary and later prime minister and president, Eamon de Valera, 1882.

It's the birthday of Quaker William Penn, born on this day in London, 1644.

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®

 

«

»

  • “Writers end up writing stories—or rather, stories' shadows—and they're grateful if they can, but it is not enough. Nothing the writer can do is ever enough” —Joy Williams
  • “I want to live other lives. I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get. Writing is my way of making other chances.” —Anne Tyler
  • “Writing is a performance, like singing an aria or dancing a jig” —Stephen Greenblatt
  • “All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • “Good writing is always about things that are important to you, things that are scary to you, things that eat you up.” —John Edgar Wideman
  • “In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.” —Denise Levertov
  • “Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” —E.L. Doctorow
  • “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” —E.L. Doctorow
  • “Let's face it, writing is hell.” —William Styron
  • “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” —Thomas Mann
  • “Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials.” —Paul Rudnick
  • “Writing is a failure. Writing is not only useless, it's spoiled paper.” —Padget Powell
  • “Writing is very hard work and knowing what you're doing the whole time.” —Shelby Foote
  • “I think all writing is a disease. You can't stop it.” —William Carlos Williams
  • “Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.” —Iris Murdoch
  • “The less conscious one is of being ‘a writer,’ the better the writing.” —Pico Iyer
  • “Writing is…that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.” —Pico Iyer
  • “Writing is my dharma.” —Raja Rao
  • “Writing is a combination of intangible creative fantasy and appallingly hard work.” —Anthony Powell
  • “I think writing is, by definition, an optimistic act.” —Michael Cunningham
Current Faves - Learn more about poets featured frequently on the show