A river runs through it, quote by Norman Maclean

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.”

 NORMAN MACLEAN, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories

PHOTO: “The Tetons and the Snake River” (1942), Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, by Ansel Adams. National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the National Park Service. (79-AAG-1)

Refrains of Nature, quote by Rachel Carson

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”

RACHEL CARSON, Silent Spring

Illustration: “Flycatcher and plum” (ink and watercolor on hosho washi) by Lisa Chakrabarti. Visit Lisa’s website CloudDragonArt.com to learn more about this L.A.-based artist.

Truth and Originality, quote by C.S. Lewis

“…in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original…” C.S. LEWIS

Narnia fans might enjoy spending 2014 with A Year with Aslan: Daily Reflections on the Chronicles of Narnia.  The book offers 365 of the most thought-provoking passages from all seven Narnia books, paired with questions that promote reflection on particular topics.

The 480-page A Year with Aslan is available at Amazon.com.

Thoughts for the New Year, quote by Rainer Maria Rilke

“And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been.” RAINER MARIA RILKE

Photo: Ben Hur

Drama, comedy, and tragedy, quote by Mark Twain

There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.”

 MARK TWAIN

Photo: Mark Twain and a cat friend. Twain enjoyed the company of cats and was often surrounded by his feline friends while writing.

Staying young, quote by Franz Kafka

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.” FRANZ KAFKA

Artwork: “Flowers” (1964) by Andy Warhol

Redwoods…ambassadors from another time, quote by John Steinbeck

The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always. No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe. It’s not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time.” Excerpt from Travels with Charley: In Search of America, memoir by JOHN STEINBECK

Photo: Jon Von Neumann, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

The sublime, quote by Immanuel Kant

“Whereas the beautiful is limited, the sublime is limitless, so that the mind in the presence of the sublime, attempting to imagine what it cannot, has pain in the failure but pleasure in contemplating the immensity of the attempt” IMMANUEL KANT, A Critique of Pure Reason

Photo: “Lake McDonald, Glacier National Park, Montana, 1942″ by Ansel Adams

Winter wind, quote by George R.R. Martin

A cold wind was blowing from the north, and it made the trees rustle like living things.”  

GEORGE R.R. MARTIN, A Game of Thrones

Photo: Jamie Hooper, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Writing Advice from Raymond Chandler

WRITING ADVICE FROM RAYMOND CHANDLER:

• A writer who is afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong.

• Technique alone is never enough. You have to have passion. Technique alone is just an embroidered potholder… The moment a man begins to talk about technique that’s proof that he is fresh out of ideas.

• The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the single most valuable investment a writer can make with his time. It [style] is a projection of personality and you have to have a personality before you can project it. It is the product of emotion and perception.

• The challenge is to write about real things magically.

• The more you reason the less you create.

• Don’t ever write anything you don’t like yourself and if you do like it, don’t take anyone’s advice about changing it.

• I am a writer, and there comes a time when that which I write has to belong to me, has to be written alone and in silence, with no one looking over my shoulder, no one telling me a better way to write it. It doesn’t have to be great writing, it doesn’t even have to be terribly good. It just has to be mine.

Photo: Raymond Chandler’s novels