Clear-Headed Act

“However great a man’s fear of life,” Doctor Magiot said, “suicide remains the courageous act, the clear-headed act of a mathematician. The suicide has judged by the laws of chance—so many odds against one that to live will be more miserable than to die. His sense of mathematics is greater than his sense of survival. But think how a sense of survival must clamour to be heard at the last moment, what excuses it must present of a totally unscientific nature.” —Graham Greene's The Comedians (1966)

Public Money Ought...

Life is Maintenance

René Descartes Says...

I'm reading “Discourse On Method” (from a prized 1910 edition of the Harvard Classics) by René Descartes (1596-1650)  and came across the following timely quote:

It is useful to know something of the manners of different nations, that we may be enabled to form a more correct judgment regarding our own, and be prevented from thinking that everything contrary to our customs is ridiculous and irrational, — a conclusion usually come to by those whose experience has been limited to their own country.

My Favorite Founding Father Reminds Us That...

*I'm contributing to @QuotablePaine on Twitter.

Letters: Edgar Allan Poe

I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. — Edgar Allan Poe to James Russell Lowell, July 2, 1844

Jack London Excerpt & Quotes

Jack London (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916) was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone

Excerpt from MARTIN EDEN (1909):

It was the rejection slips that completed the horrible machine likeness of the process. These slips were printed in stereotyped forms and he had received hundreds of them—as many as a dozen or more on each of his earlier manuscripts. If he had received one line, one personal line, along with one rejection of all his rejections, he would have been cheered. But not one editor had given that proof of existence. And he could conclude only that there were no warm human men at the other end, only mere cogs, well oiled and running beautifully in the machine.

Quotes

"I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time."

"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club."

"There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive."

"A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog."

"I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate."

"Darn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over? Where is the reverse gear?"

"I wrote a thousand words every day"

#

Special thanks to Matt Mayo for bringing to my attention Wolf: The Lives of Jack London. A terrific bio that is highly recommended.

Rex Stout Quotes

Rex Todhunter Stout (December 1, 1886 - October 27, 1975) was an American crime writer, best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe. [Wikipedia]

"I really mean what I say. A Dickens character to me is a theatrical projection of a character. Not that it isn't real. It's real, but in that removed sense. But Sherlock Holmes is simply there. I would be astonished if I went to 221½ B Baker Street and didn't find him."

"A character who is thought-out is not born, he or she is contrived. A born character is round, a thought-out character is flat."

"Hemingway never grew out of adolescence. His scope and depth stayed shallow because he had no idea what women are for."

"One of the hardest things to believe is that anyone will abandon the effort to escape a charge of murder. It is extremely important to suspend disbelief on that. If you don't, the story is spoiled."

"If I'm home with no chore at hand, and a package of books has come, the television set and the chess board and the unanswered mail will have to manage without me if one of the books is a detective story."

"I thought if you’re merely good and not great, what is the use of putting all that agony into it?"

"Everything in a story should be credible."

"Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth."

"Of course the modern detective story puts off its best tricks till the last, but Doyle always put his best tricks first and that's why they're still the best ones."

"I have a strong moral sense - by my standards."

"I have never regarded myself as this or that. I have been too busy being myself to bother about regarding myself."

Ruth Rendell Quotes

Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE, (born 17 February 1930), who also writes under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, is an acclaimed English crime writer, known for her many psychological thrillers and murder mysteries. [Wikipedia]

Quotes

"The knives of jealousy are honed on details."

"One is either a story-teller or one is not. And if you are a story-teller, and it is possible for you to write, you will start writing stories."

"I think to be driven to want to kill must be such a terrible burden."

"I try, and I think I succeed, in making my readers feel sorry for my psychopaths, because I do."

"I think about death every day - what it would be like, why it would happen to me. It would be humiliating to be afraid."

"I would think that the old-fashioned detective story which is so much a matter of clues and puzzles, is certainly on the way out, if not already gone. Crime novels now are much more novels of character, and novels which look at the world we live in."

"Writing is, while the process going on, a very private thing for me. I understand, I quite like the idea that some people write something and they read or show it to a friend or a companion or somebody they live with, and discuss it. But to me that's impossible. If I do that, the whole thing falls apart. It's as if it's brought into the light of day, and reality destroys it. I never discuss it at all."

"To be a classic, a novel should be original."

*

Ruth Rendell interview and her thoughts on English tea.

Bat Masterson

William Barclay "Bat" Masterson (November 26, 1853 – October 25, 1921) was a figure of the American Old West known as a buffalo hunter, U.S. Army scout, avid fisherman, gambler, frontier lawman, U.S. Marshal, and sports editor and columnist for the New York Morning Telegraph. He was the brother of lawmen James Masterson and Ed Masterson. Wikipedia

Quotes

"New York is the biggest boobtown there is. They will buy any damned thing here."

"When a man is at the racetrack he roars longer and louder over the twenty-five cents he loses through the hole in the bottom of his pocket than he does over the $25 he loses through the hole in the top of his pocket."

"It was as a hunter he won his name of 'Bat', which descended to him, as it were, from Baptiste Brown, or 'Old Bat', whose fame as a mighty nimrod was flung all across, from the Missouri River to the Spanish Peaks, and filled with admiration that generation of plainsmen which immediately preceded Masterson upon the Western stage." (Bat, writing in third person, explains his nickname in his book Gunfighters of the Western Frontier, (1907).

"At the earnest request of many citizens of Ford county, I have consented to run for the office of sheriff, at the coming election in this county. While earnestly soliciting the sufferages of the people, I have no pledges to make, as pledges are usually considered, before election, to be mere clap-trap. I desire to say to the voting public that I am no politician and shall make no combinations that would be likely to, in anywise, hamper me in the discharge of the duties of the office, and, should I be elected, will put forth my best efforts to so discharge the duties of the office that those voting for me shall have no occasion to regret having done so. Respectfully, 'W. B. MASTERSON.'" (Dodge City Times, 1877)

"Every dog, we are told, has his day, unless there are more dogs than days."

"I arrived here yesterday and was met at the train by a delegation of friends who escorted me without molestation to the business house of Harris & Short. I think the inflammatory reports published about Dodge City and its inhabitants have been greatly exaggerated and if at any time they did 'don the war paint,' it was completely washed off before I reached here. I never met a more gracious lot of people in my life. They all seemed favorably disposed, and hailed the return of Short and his friends with exultant joy. I have been unable as yet to find a single individual who participated with the crowd that forced him to leave here at first. I have conversed with a great many and they are unanimous in their expression of love for Short, both as a man and a good citizen. They say that he is gentlemanly, courteous and unostentatious - 'in fact a perfect ladies' man.' Wyatt Earp, Charley Bassett, McClain and others too numerous to mention are among the late arrivals, and are making the 'Long Branch' saloon their headquarters. All the gambling is closed in obedience to a proclamation issued by the mayor, but how long it will remain so I am unable to say at present. Not long I hope. The closing of this legitimate calling has caused a general depression in business of every description, and I am under the impression that the more liberal and thinking class will prevail upon the mayor to rescind the proclamation in a day or two." (Letter from Bat to the Daily Kansas State Journal, June 9, 1883)

"There are those who argue that everything breaks even in this old dump of a world of ours. I suppose these ginks who argue that way hold that because the rich man gets ice in the summer and the poor man gets it in the winter things are breaking even for both. Maybe so, but I'll swear I can't see it that way." (This last quotation was also Masterson's last words; it was a bit for a column found on his typewriter. He died while typing.)

My Friend Wyatt Earp by By W.R. Masterson

Additional sources:

Ford County Historical Society

Sangres.com

Richard Boone

Richard Allen Boone (June 18, 1917 – January 10, 1981) was an American actor who starred in over 50 films and was notable for his roles in Westerns. He was best known as the star of the TV series Have Gun – Will Travel. [Wikipedia]



Trivia:

Richard refused a salary for his part as General Sam Houston in The Alamo (1960), and John Wayne gave him a Rolls-Royce as well as the buckskin coat he wore in the film as compensation.

He was a 7th generation nephew of Daniel Boone.

Boone turned down the lead role in a television pilot for The Man -- later retitled as Hawaii Five-O.

His hobbies included painting and writing short stories.

During one episode of Boone's early 1970s show, Hec Ramsey, his character reveals he had worked under the name Paladin. <--I need to track this down-->

Boone turned down the role of Pike Bishop in The Wild Bunch (1969).

Quotes:

"Every time you go to the well, it's a little further down. It's sad, like seeing Sugar Ray Robinson after his best days are past. You wish he wouldn't fight any more, and you could just keep your memories." --about leaving the role of Paladin

"You know, Hec Ramsey is a lot like Paladin, only fatter." --on similarities between his series characters

"When I direct a show, I'm pretty arbitrary, if I have a fault, it's that I see an end and go for it with all my energy; and if I'm bugged with people who don't see it or won't go for it, it looks as though I'm riding all over them." --TV Guide magazine interview, 1961

Wyatt Earp

"Fast is fine, but accuracy is everything." -- Wyatt Earp

Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (March 19, 1848–January 13, 1929) was an American farmer, teamster, sometime buffalo hunter, officer of the law in various Western frontier towns, gambler, saloon-keeper, miner and boxing referee. He is best known for his participation in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, along with Doc Holliday, and two of his brothers, Virgil Earp and Morgan Earp. He is also noted for the Earp Vendetta. Wyatt Earp has become an iconic figure in American folk history. He is the major subject of various movies, TV shows, biographies and works of fiction. [Source: Wikipedia]

Related links:

G at Cedar's Mountain has an informative review of Inventing Wyatt Earp: His Life And Many Legends by Allen Barra.

Some historians have tried over the years to paint the Earps in a negative light but it never sticks. Here's the latest attempt.

How Wyatt Earp Got Buried in a Jewish Cemetery

For some interesting pictures, go to the Wyatt Earp Photo Page.

Doc Holliday

"I found him a loyal friend and good company. He was a dentist whom necessity had made a gambler; a gentleman whom disease had made a vagabond; a philosopher whom life had made a caustic wit; a long, lean blonde fellow nearly dead with consumption and at the same time the most skillful gambler and nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a six-gun I ever knew." -- Wyatt Earp speaking of Doc Holliday

"There was something very peculiar about Doc. He was gentlemanly, a good dentist, a friendly man and yet, outside of us boys, I don't think he had a friend in the Territory. Tales were told that he had murdered men in different parts of the country; that he had robbed and committed all manner of crimes, and yet, when persons were asked how they knew it, they could only admit it was hearsay, and that nothing of the kind could really be traced to Doc's account. He was a slender, sickly fellow, but whenever a stage was robbed or a row started, and help was needed, Doc was one of the first to saddle his horse and report for duty." –- Virgil Earp, The Arizona Daily Star (May 30, 1882)

"Holliday seemed to be absolutely unable to keep out of trouble for any great length of time. He would no sooner be out of one scrape before he was in another, and the strange part of it is he was more often in the right than in the wrong, which has rarely ever been the case with a man who is continually getting himself into trouble." -— Bat Masterson, from Gunfighters of the Western Frontier, 1907

"I said to him one day, ‘Doctor, don’t your conscience ever trouble you?’ ‘No,’ he replied, with that peculiar cough of his, ‘I coughed that up with my lungs long ago.’" -- Colonel Deweese, Attorney for Doc Holliday, via The Denver Republican

'Big Nose' Kate, his long-time companion, remembered Holliday's reaction after his role in the O.K. Corral gunfight. She reported that Holliday came back to his room, sat on the bed, wept and said, "that was awful — awful". [Doc Holiday Bio]

"This is funny." -- Doc Holliday's last words, according to witnesses by his bedside. Just before he died, he asked for a glass of whiskey, sipped it down and smiled looking at his bare feet, because he'd always expected he would be killed someday with his boots on. Doc Holliday of Spalding County

Dorothy Parker quotes

It was Jennifer Jason Leigh’s mannerisms and mumblings in 1994’s Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle that caught my interest in writer, critic, poet Dorothy Parker. Though Parker is primarily known for biting humor in her column for The New Yorker, she was also a fine short story writer. Her best-known work of fiction (and a personal favorite), Big Blonde, won the O. Henry Award as the Best Short Story of 1929. Here are some examples of her "pointed verbal wit":

This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force. [Said of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged]

If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

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

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

You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.

The two most beautiful words in the English language are 'cheque enclosed.'

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

The only ism Hollywood believes in is plagiarism.

Ducking for apples -- change one letter and it's the story of my life.

She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.

I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
After four I'm under my host.

I might repeat to myself slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound - if I can remember any of the damn things.

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

Ernest Hemingway Quotes

I finished reading The Good Life According To Hemingway by A.E. Hotchner. For an enthusiast, this book contains numerous black-and-white photos and unique quotations/witticisms that, in most cases, had never before been published. Here are a few colorful quotes:

Back in the days when American billboard advertising was in flower, there were two slogans that I always rated above all others: the old Cremo Cigar ad that proclaimed, “Spit Is a Horrid Word-but Worse on the End of Your Cigar,” and “Drink Schlitz in Brown Bottles and Avoid That Skunk Taste.” You don’t get creative writing like that anymore.

There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it’s like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.

I hate plays. Did you ever listen to the dialogue of a play with your eyes shut?

A book you talk about is a book you don’t write.

The only truly good novel, maybe great, to come out of World War II is The Gallery.
I say “maybe great” because who in the hell can tell? Greatness is the longest marathon ever run; many enter; few survive.

In New York birds fly, but they are not serious about it. They don’t climb.

The only two I could sit through were The Killers and To Have and Have Not -- I guess Ava Gardner and Lauren Bacall had a lot to do with it.

I read about the movie version of The Snows of Kilimanjaro and how there was only one minor alteration-the man is rescued and lives instead of dying-a very minor change, don’t you think?

Death is just another whore.

What if you can no longer measure up, no longer be involved, if you have used up all your fantasies? A champion cannot retire like anyone else. How the hell can a writer retire? The public won’t let him. When a man loses the center of his being, then he loses his being. Retire? It’s the filthiest word in the English language. It’s backing up into the grave. If I can’t exist on my own terms, then existence is impossible. That is how I have lived and must live-or not live.

The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for, and I hate very much to leave it.