TITLE: Quotes of the Day
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: November 21, 2009  5:54 AM
DESC: 
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BODY:
The day was yesterday.

<B>I am large, I contain multitudes.</B>

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
The to-do list is a time capsule, containing missives and
pleas to your future selves.  ...  Why is it not trivially
easy to carry out items on your own to-do list?  And the
answer is: Because the one writing the list, and the one
carrying it out are two different people.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Now I understand the problem...  my to-do list is a
<A HREF="http://justbeast.livejournal.com/176790.html">
   form of time travel</A>.

<B>Open to Multitudes</B>

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
It's the kind of culture that can tolerate rap music and
extreme sports that can also create space for guys like
Page and Brin and Google.  That's one of our hidden
strengths.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is from economist Paul Romer, as quoted by
<A HREF="http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/11/from-poverty-to-prosperity-watch.html">
   Tyler Cowen</A>.
I agree.  We need to try out lots of ideas to find the
great ones.

<B>Going to an Extreme</B>

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
I'm not interested in writing short stories.  Anything that
doesn't take years of your life and drive you to suicide
hardly seems worth doing.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Cormac McCarthy must live on the edge.  This is one of
those romantic notions that has never appealed to me.
I've never been so driven -- nor felt like I wanted to
be.

<B>A Counterproposal</B>

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
6. MAKE MANY SKETCHES

Join the best sketches to produce others and improve them
until the result is satisfactory.

To make sketches is a humble and unpretentious approach
toward perfection.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

... says composer Arnold Schonberg, as quoted at
<A HREF="http://peripateticaxiom.blogspot.com/2009/11/sketches.html">
   peripatetic axiom</A>.
This is more my style.

<B>Speaking of Perfection</B>

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
My perfect day is sitting in a room with some blank paper.
That's heaven.  That's gold and anything else is just a
waste of time.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Again from Cormac McCarthy.  Unlike McCarthy, I do
not think that everything else is a waste of time.  Yet
I feel a kinship with his sense of a perfect day.  To
sit in a room, alone, with an open terminal.  To write,
whether prose or code.  But especially code.
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