As you’ve probably already concluded from my habit of stippling my pieces here with quotations, I’m always on the hunt for pithy sayings, clever epigrams, and thought-provoking observations. Brevity isn’t just the soul of wit; it also maximizes your chance of actually getting an idea through the ever-more-substantial blockades around others’ brains. Lately, I haven’t seen many of particular interest. Of course, that might be because I’ve recently been spending my days cowering in the corner while clutching a loaded shotgun and whimpering “Don’t come any closer,” but a little impediment like that isn’t enough to keep me off the World Wide Web. So I keep looking.
Among the largely untapped sources of good stuff are the great items of children’s literature. You can find quite a lot of hugely instructive material in the works of Theodore Seuss Geisel, better known to his millions of fans as Dr. Seuss. The works of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who wrote under the immortal nom de plume of Lewis Carroll, are even more enlightening. Then there are the juvenile fictions of C. S. Lewis, Gerald Durrell, Norton Juster, Lloyd Alexander, Hilaire Belloc, and many others.
In recent days, I have found many great insights in that timeless creation of A. A. Milne’s: Edward Bear. (Not to be confused with “Win” Bear, the creation of science fiction writer L. Neil Smith.) Edward Bear, as you may (but probably don’t) know, was the “official” name of the beloved character better known as Winnie the Pooh. Pooh and his friends have so much to say, and say it so piercingly, that a whole cottage industry has sprung up to create memorializing graphics of their aphorisms. Here are a few of my favorites:
And so begins the weekend.
1 comment
Pooh really missed Piglet, but man! was that pulled pork sandwich delicious.