Quote

Lane Batot sent in this quote from "that clever 'Anonymous' person":

"Pedigree indicates what the animal is supposed to be; Conformation indicates what the animal appears to be; Function indicates what the animal actually is."

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"In my rucksack I took Mandelstam's Journey to Armenia and Hemingway's In Our Time. Six months later I came back with the bones of a book that, this time, did get published. While stringing its sentences together, I thought that telling stories was the only conceivable occupation for a superfluous person such as myself."

Bruce Chatwin in 1983, on the genesis of In Patagonia.

Quote

Via Jim Spencer: ""Write it, damn you, write it! What else are you good for?" (James Joyce)

Stil another quote

From Carlos Martinez  del Rio, a man with a serious library, a quote from Giacomo Leopardi, "... a wonderful Italian poet of the early 19th century" :

"Works of  'literary' genius have the intrinsic quality, that even when they capture exactly the nothingness of things, or vividly reveal and make us feel life's inevitable unhappiness, or express the most acute hopelessness... they are always a source of consolation and renewed enthusiasm."

  

Another quote

From the late Christopher Hitchens, via  Jackson, who said of it (remember, he is Orthodox): "...   [he's] both cynologically and theologically astute (atheist or no)..."

Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are God. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.

Hmmm. I can't speak to theology, but I would suggest it applies, but only to "derived" modern dogs, not to the tazis, laikas, and other so- called Primitives, who seem to go about entirely confident that they are at least minor household gods... Ataika for instance:

Poster by Arthur

Darwinian quote

Annie D got this from some Internet meme about retired people's opinions. I like it.

"I'm not saying let's go kill all the stupid people.  I'm just saying let's remove all the warning labels and let the problem work itself out."

Useful phrase

From the great Victorian explorer and translator Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton: "Lying like a publisher."

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From the  Cornell Gun Catalog Reprint site:

""A gun is like a parachute. If you need one, and don't have one, you'll probably never need one again..."

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"Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain the potency of life in them to be as active as that soul whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them."

Milton, Aeropagitica (HT Teddy Moritz)

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"The compact between writing and walking is almost as old as literature--a walk is only a step away from a story, and every path tells."

Rob Macfarlane, in The Old Ways ; sent by Guy Boyd.

As Bruce Chatwin quoted, from St Jerome I think, Solvitur ambulando. Would that I could still walk the way I used to; I expect much that seems hard would be solved.

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"Promoting novels in a soundbite culture is like selling elephants from a gumball machine."
Barbara Kingsolver

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On "Best" guns, from the delightful Westley Richards Blog:

"...the very best work is still done by men with files and chisels and, by definition, best work is what a best gun is about. When asked about the difference between making guns and making best guns, Tom Wilkes made the observation  ‘it all comes down to time and control of the tool, doesn’t it’?"

Literary Quote

In art, one is not compelled to choose sides, one poet or novelist at the expense of another. Beckett and Larkin are not mutually exclusive tastes. One feels no pressure to be consistent. Aesthetic love is promiscuous without being unfaithful. One loves Swift and Henry James, Italo Svevo and Barbara Pym. Rigorous consistency in matters of art suggests provinciality and poverty of imagination.

Patrick Kurp

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You know the essence of this, from Chandler, but Micah Mattix adds something from a Prufrock last week:

"There is no such thing as high or low culture. There is interesting culture and boring culture. There are works of art that show great skill and those that don’t."

Another Quote

...just popped up. From John Stuart Mill:

"He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. . . . Nor is it enough that he should hear the arguments of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. This is not the way to do justice to the arguments, or to bring them into real contact with his own mind. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of, else he will never really possess himself of the portion of truth which meets and removes that difficulty."

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"If the people who own pets do not come to understand the natural world and the true lives of animals, there will be no animals but pets. I share this so that others might learn from it and benefit from our experiences, not to be lectured by people without boundaries. All animals are not pets, they are not furbabies and child surrogates, some live in a different world, they are a different nation. They get sick, are eaten, they fall and die.

"Farms are not rescue facilities, nursing homes or assisted care housing."

Jon Katz, Bedlam Farm Journal.

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"There are countless horrible things happening all over the country, and horrible people prospering, but we must never allow them to disturb our equanimity or deflect us from our sacred duty to sabotage and annoy them whenever possible. "

AuberonWaugh, sent by Tom McIntyre

Another Quote

A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition.

(Attributed to Kipling by Paula Young Lee,  though I have heard a similar one attributed to Jeff Cooper-- who well may have gotten it from Kipling).

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"Some read that they may embellish their conversation, or shine in dispute; some that they may not be detected in ignorance, or want the reputation of literary accomplishments: but the most general and prevalent reason of study is the impossibility of finding another amusement equally cheap or constant, equally independent on the hour or the weather.”
(Dr Johnson)

Gun Quote with Examples

A bunch of 37's and a 17

"If an ancient Athenian had to choose between an M12 and an M17-37, he would no doubt have chosen the sexier looking of the two, the Winchester.  On the other hand, an ancient Spartan would have grabbed the Remington or Ithaca and shot the Athenian while he oogled the M12.  Then the Spartan would have walked off with both guns."
(Gil Stacy, who is the MAN on the M37).

Hemingway with Model 12

Gil's gun with snipe