APHORISMS: This I Believe

My mind wanders in the morning. I just follow it around and, now and then, make a note.

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All of my manuscripts are palimpsests. I just call it "editing".

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Irony is an existential nutrient in a robust diet of ideas.

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All they that doeth evil, they go forth in the depth of the night,
all they that doeth evil, and even so do feareth the light.
And they that fighteth evil may go forth into the night,
only so far as they shall sustaineth within them the light.
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Curiosity may kill a few cats, but it sure makes a lot of babies.

Motto of the Sex Educator

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Excedrin Headache #QW?RTY, i.e. writers' block.

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I dunno should be an insurable liability for a writer. The last such insurer probably went bankrupt in the Sixteenth Century.

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Fact is a flat line. Faith is a bell curve. Consensus is the space between.

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Archimedes is the godfather of all Bond villains.

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Once upon a time there was a word. Everyday, it grew and changed. One day, we married. Because of that, a new word was born, grew and married. Until finally, she gave us gerundkids. They are unruly, but we love them all.

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Why think? Whine not.
A little foresight
might just save you a lot
of white ink.

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I am very nearly a First Amendment absolutist. Speech and violence are two absolutely different things.
I believe in the podium, not the pedestal.

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Dance as though no child is watching. Speak as though no woman is listening. Write as though no man can judge.

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Political correctness has tied zero sum thinking to self-esteem.

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Voltaire never said, "I may hate what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." That was his biographer's summation.

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We are part-time amateur voters up against full-time professional politicians. We have them outnumbered. They have us cornered.

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"I" is the shortest word in the English language, and so the strongest. Use it sparingly.

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A child can write to anyone, and often get back a straight answer. Do you want to romance an actress? Serve legal documents by mail? Send some ayatollah a Christmas card? Address the envelope in crayon, left-handed.

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Bite your quill!

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We teach our children rules so they may grow to live in a society of laws. We teach our children fairness so that they may grow to live in a society of justice.
         But rules are not laws, fairness is not justice and we are not children.

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Write in the third person. Write for a single second person. Review in the first person.

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Even a genius can equate popularity with excellence. Still, genius cannot redeem that equation of its falsity.

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"Schadenfreude" is a four-syllable word.

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To every drinking song there are a hundred lost verses.

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It can be hard to tell, from a distance, a genuine idea from a simple pattern.

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Dilemma of the Caesar: "Having conquered, Imperator, now you must govern."
Dilemma of the Car-chasing Dog: "Now you' caught it, Rover, whatcha gonna do with it?"

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Stolen drinks are stronger still, saith no poet. Those who would are too inebriated to parse or concur.

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"Saint Peter, forgive me my arrogance and I'll bring you a whole new list of sins to hang under my name on the Gates."

The Editor's Prayer