My favorite Words: On Reputation

What has been longest known has been most considered, and what is most considered is best understood.

Dr. Johnson.
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That Thing of the Poets: On War

To say it clearly, I mean that the Iliad is a story of war, without care and without measure. It was composed in praise of a warring humanity, and it did it in such a memorable way that it should last throughout eternity and reach the last descendant of our last descendants, still singing the solemn beauty and the irredeemable emotion that war once and always will be. ... (A)t its heart lies this: The Iliad is a monument to war.

Alessandro Baricco
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Now down we came to the ship.

Homer
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That Thing of the Poets: What the Irish Did with the Greek...

Joyce did other than acknowledge Homer's position: he re-imagined the story of the primordial journey undertaken by every man in every age. His coupling was less between Ulysses and Bloom than between Homer and Joyce himself, less between the creations than between the creators.

Alberto Manguel
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That Thing of the Poets: Thinking of the Blind One...

Up there,
High on the walls, the dirge has already begun.
They're mourning the memory, the aura of our days.

Constantine Cavafy.
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Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
You'll have understood by then what these Ithakans mean.

Constantine Cavafy.
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My favorite words: Truth.

All I have written is true, except the lies.

Timothy Findley
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My Favorite Words: Truth.

Myth does not mean something untrue, but a concentration of truth.

Doris Lessing
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My Favorite Words: That Sailor!

My purpose holds,
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the Western stars, until I die.

Lord Tennyson
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Latin American Story:

...a certain South American diplomat told (the Mexican critic) Alfonso Reyes that whenever he returned to his country, he imagined the dictator in office thinking, "I must distrust this man, he knows his grammar."

Alberto Manguel
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