"Don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens - The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away."
— John Steinbeck, in a letter to his son Thom. Read it. It’s good for you.
(Source: ellens, via bramblescram)
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Talk on ‘prudishness or priggery.’
An excerpt of a letter, to George Sand from her grandmother:
Ah! in those days, people knew how to live, and how to die!… No one allowed himself to be dictated to by sickness. If a man had the gout, he walked, just the same, and without pulling faces. It was part of one’s education to never show when one was suffering. Business preoccupations, which are the ruin of home-life, and make the mind muddy, were then unknown. A man would meet ruin without flinching, like those gamblers who can lose without showing either anxiety or resentment. […]
We were philosophers in those days. We made no exhibition of austerity. We had to put up with it at times, but we did not make a showy virtue of it. Those of us who behaved rationally, did so because we wished to, not because we wanted to display our prudishness or priggery. We enjoyed life, and when the moment came for us to leave it we had no wish to spoil the pleasure that others took in living.
So, I’m all for our culture being preserved in the literature of the internet and its writers and artists. But can any short-form, web-based writer reflect on his own life or his culture with this sort of earnestness? I feel like the cultural representation of these contemporary generations is going to be lost to snark and sarcasm, when writers hide in the impersonal distance of the language of the web.
At least, I hope people are still writing emails like this. Maybe personal writings not originally meant for a larger audience will one day reveal the real thinkers.
Joe Strummer on Springsteen - “BRUCE IS GREAT.” Or, in full:
“BRUCE IS GREAT… IF YOU DONT AGREE WITH THAT YOU’RE A PRETENTIOUS MARTIAN FROM VENUS. BRUCE LOOKS GREAT… LIKE HE’S ABOUT TO CRAWL UNDERNEATH THE CHORDS WITH A SPANNER & SOCK THE STARTER MOTOR ONE TIME SO THAT A ENGINE STARTS UP - HUMMING & READY TO TAKE US ON A GOLDEN RIDE WAY OUT SOMEWHERE IN THE YONDER… BRUCE IS GREAT… BECAUSE HE’LL NEVER LAY DOWN & BE CONQUERED BY HIS PROBLEMS HE’S ALLWAYS READY TO BUST OUT the SHACK & HIT THE TRACK… HIS MUSIC IS GREAT ON A DARK & RAINY MORNING IN ENGLAND, JUST WHEN YOU NEED SOME SPIRIT & SOME PROOF THAT THE BIG WIDE WORLD EXISTS, THE D.J. PUTS ON “RACING IN THE STREETS” & LIFE SEEMS WORTH LIVING AGAIN… LIFE SEEMS TO BE IN CINEMASCOPE AGAIN. BRUCE IS NOT ON AN EGO TRIP… BRUCE IS ACTUALLY INTO THE MUSIC… WE NEED PEOPLE LIKE THIS… A LOT OF RECORDS TODAY ARE MADE BY PEOPLE JUST TO FEED THEIR FAME. BRUCE IS GREAT… THERE AINT NO WHINGING WHINING OR COMPLAINING.. THERE’S ONLY GREAT MUSIC, LYRICS & AN OCEAN OF TALENT. ME? I LOVE SPRINGSTEEN!!!”
Ain’t nothing wrong with being a fan. God, I love Letters of Note.
Cary Grant, 1958. How eloquent.
And what an elegant way to say, these shirts are too fruity for me. From Letters of Note.
"My whole effort for years might be described as an effort to fathom my own design, to explore my own channels, to discover my own ways…I have at last discovered my own America, I believe I have found my language, I think I know my way. And I shall wreak out my vision of this life, this way, this world and this America, to the top of my bent, to the height of my ability, but with an unswerving devotion, integrity and purity of purpose that shall not be menaced, altered or weakened by anyone."
— Thomas Wolfe to Maxwell E. Perkins, December 15, 1936.
Lord Byron called poetic rival William Wordsworth “Turdsworth” in all his letters.
And that’s why we call him a genius.
