Victor Hugo February 25

I have known of Victor Hugo, his works, and have seen movies and productions or interpretations of his work. I have known characters he has created in his works. But I have never read his work. I know little about him. So Tuesday, February 25, I will be reading from his work, discovering things about him and sharing them with you.  Come join in at 7 am eastern time at WRFR.

A Fleeting glimpse of a village

By Victor Hugo

           

How graceful the picture! the life, the repose!


The sunbeam that plays on the porchstone wide;


And the shadow that fleets o'er the stream that flows,


And the soft blue sky with the hill's green side.

Anais Nin - February 20 2014

 Anais Nin was born Angela Anais Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell on Feb. 21, 1903 and died on January 14, 1977.  She was an lived in France, Cuba and the United States. She was known for her journals, novels and essays, and after her death for collections of erotica she had written in the 1940's. She was married several times, at one time simultaneously. She was a great voice of women's understanding and perspective in an era of male dominance, leading the way for generations of women to speak out and live out more fully. 

Here are some quotes by Anais Nin:  

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.

If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because our culture has no use for it.

I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.

Ordinary life does not interest me.

Life is truly known only to those who suffer, lose, endure adversity and stumble from defeat to defeat.

Good things happen to those who hustle.

I am only responsible for my own heart, you offered yours up for the smashing my darling. Only a fool would give out such a vital organ.

How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself.

Shame is the lie someone told you about yourself.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.

There are only two kinds of freedom in the world; the freedom of the rich and powerful, and the freedom of the artist and the monk who renounces possessions.

February 18 Toni Morrison

On Tuesday, Feb. 18, I will play the nobel lecture given by Toni Morrison as we celebrate her 83rd birthday.  It will be a time to remember her life and celebrate her work. Come join WRFR fm.

Some quotes by Toni Morrison:

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.

At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough.

The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.

week of feb 4 and 6 2014

On Tuesday, Feb. 4th I read Langston Hughes.  What a great voice of America.
On Thursday, Feb. 6th I will read Sinclair Lewis.  These two voices of the American culture and understanding in the first half of the 20th century are pillars and patriarchs of american letters.

Langston Hughes

Sinclair Lewis