Once in Life

"I was a guest lecturer at Oberlin some years ago, at a clarinet conference; somebody asked me, 'Did you ever hit what you really wanted?' And I said, 'Once, in my life.' Well, it's a lot, you know. Once is pretty good."
~ Artie Shaw (quoted in Tom Nolan, Three Chords for Beauty's Sake)

If Bulgaria had a celebrity writer, it was Georgi Markov. The Kremlin, however, was not a fan. Thus the poison pellet in his thigh... Kremlin

Stress is thought to be a bad thing. But there is vitality in anxiety. Kierkegaard called it “the dizziness of freedom,” and it’s perversely pleasurable... The only place without stress is cemetery

Nate Silver does not opine, he analyzes. He thinks only originally, and only about facts. There is a term for this pose: intimidation by quantification... Nate : Love & Hate of journalism; False Silver

I was at a party at William Dieterle's house which Thomas Mann attended. Also present were a few Hollywood screenwriters--the sort who decided they were the Great American Novelist, but for the moment they were hoping for better things. One of them came up to Thomas Mann and almost bowed as he moaned, 'How can a wonderful writer like you even talk to miserable whores like us?' Mann looked at him for a second and said, 'My dear sir, you are not big enough to make yourself so small.'"
~ Bernard Herrmann (quoted in Steven C. Smith, A Heart at Fire's Center