Creative Accounting #763

Nick Hornby is to England what Roddy Doyle is to Ireland

Creation

The artist brings something into the world that didn't exist before, and he does it without destroying something else.

John Updike, writer (1932- yesterday 2009)

Dot Comedy

Some favourite quotes from Dorothy Parker:

* Brevity is the soul of lingerie.

* Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.

* You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.

* You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.

* She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.

* If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.

* Salary is no object - I want only enough to keep body and soul apart.

* Take care of luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.

* This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.

* I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

* All I need is room enough to lay a hat and a few friends.

* It serves me right for keeping all my eggs in one bastard.

* That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.

* I don't care what is written about me, so long as it isn't true.

And, to celebrate the 40th anniversary this month of the Prague Spring, a new mash-up from me:

* The two most beautiful words in the English language are “cheque enclosed”. The two most beautiful words in the Czech language are “Czech freed”.

NYC - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

First view of America - a narrow long island or strip lit by the setting sun, bordered seaward by a thin wall of light sand and green/brown land, containing channels and tamed sea, meandering rivers and occasional harbours



Being a flaneur around night-time New York around Madison and 45th (having been reading Edmund White's The Flaneur)



Watching a French film on the plane to NYC - Ne le dit a Personne (Tell No-one) - a classy thriller starring Francois Cluzet who has aspects of Dustin Hoffman

Thought for the Day

"books are doors"
Jeanette Winterson
on Radio 4 this morning