Relayed Dispatches
“He started writing The Star Lummox [The Star Beast] on August 26…. He was able, even with interruptions, to finish the entire seventy-five-thousand-word book by September 26….”
– Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue With His Century, Volume 2
#NaNoWriMo
“Heinlein was able to start Starman Jones on February 2, 1953, and finish up on February 28, averaging twenty-three hundred words a day and working without an outline, even through distractions….”
— Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue With His Century, Volume 2
#NaNoWriMo
“So Athena vowed and under her feet fastened the supple sandals, ever-glowing gold, that wing her over the waves and boundless earth with the rush of gusting winds.”
– The Odyssey
Falstaff: ‘Sblood, I am as melancholy as a gib cat or a lugged bear. …
Prince: What sayest thou to a hare, or the melancholy of Moorditch?
— Henry IV, Part I
“If you lay violent hands on me, you’ll have my body, but my mind will remain with Stilpo.”
— Zeno, quoted in The Daily Stoic
I’m With Stilpo would make a good title.
“Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.”
– Romeo and Juliet
Have a jocund day.
(Image: Monty Python and the Holy Grail)
“How bloodily the sun begins to peer above yon bulky hill. The day looks pale at his distemp’rature.”
— Henry IV, Part I
Red sky in morning, sailor take warning.
“I’m shocked – shocked to find that gambling is going on in here.”
“Here are your winnings, sir.”
“Oh, thank you.”
– Casablanca. And everywhere else.
Falstaff: Why, there is it: come sing me a bawdy song; make me merry. I was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough; swore little; diced not above seven times a week; went to a bawdy-house once in a quarter — of an hour … lived well and in good compass: and now I live out of all order, out of all compass.
Lord Bardolph: Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out of all compass, out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.
— Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I
“And soon I shall have understanding of video cassette recorders and car telephones. And when I have understanding of them, I shall have understanding of computers. And when I have understanding of computers, I shall be the Supreme Being!”
– Evil, played by David Warner, Time Bandits
”… and dozens of others who made art from history’s trash and yoked together styles that felt like they belonged in different galaxies.” — Apple Music
Something to aspire to.
Hemingway said, “… stop while you are going good.” I understand this. Thelonius Monk said, “When you’re swinging, swing some more!” I understand this too. 📝
“Fear is the enemy…. Do what must be done with a docile heart.”
– Master Po, “Kung Fu” TV series
“Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.”
— John Steinbeck
"You don't seem to be worrying too much about what will happen."
"If I worry, will the future change?"
– “Kung Fu,” TV series
“It’s really important to keep in mind who you are now because people are always offering you the job of being who you were then.”
– M. John Harrison, in a social media post
“The demands on a Vulcan’s character are extraordinarily difficult. Do not mistake composure for ease.”
– Tuvok