every girl a princess

'There was once a little princess who-'
'But, Mr. Author, why do you always write about princesses?'
'Because every little girl is a princess.'
'You will make them vain if you tell them that.'
'Not if they understand what I mean.'
'What do you mean?'
'What do you mean by princess?'
'The daughter of a king.'
'Very well, then every little girl is a princess...'

George MacDonald,
the original beginning of "The Princess and the Goblin".

A bouquet

A selection of several favorite quotes:

I had a very pleasant evening, though...there was no particular reason for it; but I do not think it worth while to wait for enjoyment until there is some real opportunity for it.
-Jane Austen

Read not to contradict, but to weigh and consider.
-Sir Francis Bacon

I gave in, and admitted that God was God and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.
-C.S. Lewis

...If you had gone to Mohammed and asked, 'Are you Allah?' he would have first rent his clothes and then cut your head off...
the idea of a great moral teacher saying what Christ said is out of the question.
... You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon, or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
-C.S. Lewis

If music be the food of love, play on.
-William Shakespeare

In what other language to people play at a recital, and recite at a play?
-Richard Lederer, from "Crazy English"

quote of the day

You can't have everything. Where would you put it?
-Steven Wright

Two by Chesterton

The really great man is the one who makes every man feel great.
-G.K. Chesterton

Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.
-G.K. Chesterton

Quote(s) of the day

If we really believe what we say we believe- if we really think that home is elsewhere and that this life is 'wandering to find home', why should we not look forward to the arrival?
-C.S. Lewis

As an unbelieving fatalist I can only let my arms sink before the terrors of death.
-Sigmund Freud

which attitude would you rather have?


C.S. Lewis is one of my favorite men to quote. He had an incredibly brilliant mind and a unique ability to get straight to the heart of an issue. He also enjoyed having fun with academia, his chosen life pursuit. ...

When a too-solemn undergraduate propounded some highfalutin theory on the nature and function of imaginative literature, he would nod gravely and say, "Yes. Now how would you apply that to The Tale of Peter Rabbit?"
-Henry Blamires on C.S. Lewis

Quote of the Day #1

all music is folk music, I ain't never heard no horse sing a song.
-Louis Armstrong