Words & Poetry by Others

Favorite Poems

When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name,
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular noun.
— T.S. Eliot, “The Naming of Cats”, final stanza
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men.
— William Allingham, “The Fairies”, first stanza
The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts;
All on a summer day:
The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts,
And took them quite Away.
— Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
–W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”, first stanza

Other Poems Around the Web

Memories by Belfast David
Don’t Forget to Talk to You by Chloe Richmond
Plunder by DeadPoet88

Favorite Quotations

• Death is not life’s goal, only life’s terminus. The goal is to live in such a way that our lives will prove worth dying for. — Rev. Dr. Forrest Church
• There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation has a rendezvous with destiny. — Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1936)
• A book provides what it always has: a haven. I remember the first year after my second child was born, what I can remember of it at all, as a year of disarray, of overturned glasses of milk, of toys on the floor, of hours from sunrise to sunset that were horribly busy but filled with what, at the end of the day, seemed like absolutely nothing at all. What saved my sanity was books. … The romantic ramblings of Heathcliff make a piquant counterpoint to dirty diapers, that’s for sure. As it was for me when I was young and surrounded by siblings, as it is for me today when I am surrounded by children, reading continues to provide an escape from a crowded house into an imaginary room of one’s own. — Anna Quindlen
• The essence of grace is economy of movement. — my mother
• Life is what happens while you make other plans. — Unknown
• “The world is full of nice, boring young men. The crazy ones are hard to find and harder to keep, but it’s worth it.”
  “But crazy isn’t the word for it, is it?”
  — Carl Hiassen, Native Tongue
• Nobody is free who has a thousand ancestors. — L.M. Montgomery, Emily of New Moon
• The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them. — Albert Einstein
• There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. — William Shakespeare, Hamlet
• There has never been a good war or a bad peace. — Benjamin Franklin
• The unexamined life is not worth living. — Plato
• You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view — until you climb into his skin and walk around in it. — Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
• Children in fact live at the beck and call of appetite, and it is in them that the desire for what is pleasant is strongest. — Aristotle

Favorite Books

These lists are not exhaustive.

Favorite Authors

Maeve Binchy
Charles DeLint
Diana Gabaldon
Nora Roberts
Amanda Quick
Rebecca Shaw
Edward Rutherfurd
Katherine McMahon
Robin Pilcher
Rosamunde Pilcher
Laurie R. King

Books That Made Me Think

Things Left Unspoken, Eve Marie Everson
Peace Like A River, Lief Enger
Crimson Rooms, Katherine McMahon
The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World, Jacqueline Novogratz: Read Review
Lizbeth on Romance Novelists

Books on Writing

A Poetry Handbook, Mary Oliver
The Poetry Handbook: A Dictionary of Terms, Babette Deutsch