Quote of the Day -- James Clear

What starts as an excuse can easily become a habit. Don't let a bad day become a lifestyle.

-- James Clear

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 James Clear is a widely respected speaker and writer who focuses on habits and self-improvement. His best-selling book Atomic Habits has sold over 5 million copies.

Quote of the Day -- James Clear

Your entire life happens inside your body. It's the one home you will always occupy and can never sell.

But you can renovate it.

If you can only pick one habit to build, exercise might be the one. Everything is downstream from how your body is functioning.

-- James Clear

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James Clear is a widely respected speaker and writer who focuses on habits and self-improvement. His best-selling book Atomic Habits has sold over 5 million copies.

Quote of the Day -- Wallace Stevens

Her green mind made the world around her green.

-- Wallace Stevens

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According to the Poetry Foundation, Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955) is one of America’s most respected 20th century poets. He was a master stylist, employing an extraordinary vocabulary and a rigorous precision in crafting his poems. But he was also a philosopher of aesthetics, vigorously exploring the notion of poetry as the supreme fusion of the creative imagination and objective reality.

Quote of the Day -- Ted Kennedy

Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, Blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is—and is often the only—protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy….

-- Ted Kennedy, 1987 hearing for Robert Bork (who was not confirmed)

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According to the Biography web site, Ted Kennedy (1932 - 2009) was the youngest brother of John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. He was elected to the Senate when he was 30, and continued to work in Congress throughout his life. Though marked by scandal, Kennedy was viewed as an icon of political progressivism and liberal thought by the time of his death, on August 25, 2009.

Quote of the Day -- Judy Garland

Always be a first rate version of yourself and not a second rate version of someone else.

-- Judy Garland

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According to Goodreads, Judy Garland (1922 - 1969), a Minnesota native, was the star of many classic musical films, was known for her tremendous talent and troubled life. She started out in show business at an early age. The daughter of vaudeville professionals, she started her stage career as a child.

Quote of the Day -- Doris Lessing

There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag – and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement. Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty-and vise versa. Don’t read a book out of its right time for you.

-- Doris Lessing

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According to Wikipedia, Doris Lessing (1919 - 2013) was a British-Zimbabwean (Rhodesian) novelist. She was born to British parents in Iran, where she lived until 1925. Her family then moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where she remained until moving in 1949 to London, England. Lessing was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature. In awarding the prize, the Swedish Academy described her as "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny".

Book Review: Leaving Everything Most Loved

Leaving Everything Most Loved by Jacqueline Winspear is my 10th Maisie Dobbs novel. I'm most definitely a fan. Each novel features an intriguing, knotty mystery with most of the violence happening either before the story begins or outside our view. My kind of mystery... spare me the gory details. Maisie Dobbs is both cerebral and psychological in her approach to solving a case, and she is always haunted by her own demons while she  pursues justice for others.

Leaving Everything provides Winspear's typical satisfying story, combining a social problem (in this case the treatment of Indians in London) with the killer's very personal motives. But reading it, I experienced a stronger than usual sense of melancholy and dread about Maisie's future and the future of her friends and colleagues. I felt like I was supposed to be on Maisie's side and share her desire for adventure and self-discovery, but I kept thinking "Poor James!"

[Spoiler alert coming up for Elizabeth George readers] Midway through her wonderful series of mysteries, Elizabeth George chose to kill off her detective's beloved and pregnant wife, Lady Helen. Readers were livid. George spent time explaining herself on social media and even wrote another entire book about it (What Came Before He Shot Her). In the end, I think most readers forgave her. As George explained, it was something she had to do for her series to continue. Writing her detective as a happily married man with a baby simply didn't work. It lacked the level of angst and drama that she needed. 

And my point in recounting George's journey is because I think that Winspear has arrived at the same juncture. (Meaning she arrived there in 2013, when this book was published. And if you've read all her novels and know the answer, don't tell me!) I don't think she can see her way forward if Maisie becomes happily married to James, plus she needs to change up the cast of characters, replacing Billy and Sandra with new people. She's not exactly bored and out of new ideas, but she's definitely looking for a major change of scenery. When I read the next novel, I'll report back. I remain a serious Maisie Dobbs fan and don't expect to be disappointed with her next adventure.

Quote of the Day -- Tracey Gendron

I define 'elderhood' as the developmental stage encompassing later life. There are two primary reasons why I think the term 'elderhood' is essential. First, we believe that to be 'successful' at aging, we need to maintain roles and interests associated with adulthood. I disagree. I believe that roles and contributions in elderhood evolve and can look and feel different. Sometimes the contribution is active engagement, but sometimes it is a quiet reflection that is more personal. [emphasis mine] Both are developmentally healthy and appropriate. 'Elderhood' accounts for the nuances where the term 'older adult' or 'old age' does not.

-- Tracey Gendron

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Dr. Tracey Gendron is chair of the Department of Gerontology at Virginia Commonwealth University and the author of Ageism Unmasked: Exploring Age Bias and How to End It.

Quote of the Day -- Ukranian Proverb

Love will find a way. Indifference will find an excuse.

-- Ukrainian Proverb

Quote of the Day -- Elie Wiesel

Mankind must remember that peace is not God’s gift to his creatures; peace is our gift to each other.

-- Elie Wiesel

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According to the Nobel Prize organization, The Nobel Peace Prize 1986 was awarded to Elie Wiesel (1928 - 2016) "for being a messenger to mankind: his message is one of peace, atonement and dignity."