Favorite Quotations

Writing

"Being an author is having angels whisper in your ear... and devils too." Terri Guillimets

"Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it." Hannah Arendt

"What I like in a good author is not what he says but what he whispers." Logan Pearsall Smith

"It's not about the writing, it's about the truth behind the words." Takayaki Ikkaku

"Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart." William Wordsworth

"I have made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter." Blaise Pascal

"A good novel tells us the truth about it's hero, but a bad novel tells us the truth about it's author." G.K. Chesterton

"Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability." Cicero

"A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents." Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

"When you're happy you enjoy the music, when you're sad you understand the lyrics unknown

"Actions lie louder than words." Carolyn Wells

"No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery, and thought is viscous." Henry Brooks Adams

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." Abraham Lincoln

"Personality can open doors but only character can keep them open." Ambrose Bierce

"[ I fear.] a cage. To be stay behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valor has gone beyond recall or desire." Eowyn The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

“Only paper flowers are afraid of the rain. We are not afraid of the noble rain of criticism because with it will flourish the magnificent garden of music.” Konstantin Dankevich

"Every time you listen to another person reading out a poem, in school or on a stage or in a studio, every time you read a poem aloud to yourself or in the presence of others, you are also reading it into yourself and them. Voice helps to carry words farther and deeper than eye. These recordings maintain a tradition of oral performance that is as old as the art of poetry itself Seamus Heaney

"Poetry is the highest form of language beyond a doubt. Higher than nobles, higher than drama because in terms of language the poet finds the perfect word to express emotion or wisdom and in doing so he also has a musical sense in which each word is in it's perfect place. Poetry is a trinity of sound, and sense and sensibility and the sound of sense... and the sense of sound will be lost unless you hear it. It's language caught alive" Josephine Hart

Genealogy


"There are two lasting bequests we can give our children - one is roots, the other - wings." - Hodding S. Carter

"No trumpets sound when the important decisions of life are made. Destiny is made known silently." -  Agnes DeMille

"In all of us there is a hunger, marrow deep, to know our heritage - to know who we are and where we came from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, an emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness." - Alex Haley, Roots

“We are all the product of things we've never seen and people we never met. In fact, if just one little detail had been changed in their lives, we may not even exist!” - Melanie Johnston

  “This packrat has learned that what the next generation will value most is not what we owned, but the evidence of who we were and the tales of how we loved. In the end, it’s the family stories that are worth the storage.” - Ellen Goodman

" How will our children know who they are if they do not know where they came from." - Anonymous

  "When an elder dies, it is as if an entire library has burned to the ground." African saying

  “There is no better heritage that a father can bequeath to his children than a good name; nor is there in a family, a richer heirloom, than the memory of a noble ancestor.” “The man who takes no pride in his ancestors is not likely to have his descendants take any pride in him.” - Unknown

"Generations pass like leaves fall from our family tree. Each season new life blossoms and grows benefiting from the strength and experience of those who went before." - Heidi Swapp

  Tombstone Poetry ▼

Dear Ancestor

Your tombstone stands among the rest
Neglected and alone.
The name and date are chiseled out
On polished, marble stone.
It reaches out to all who care
It is too late to mourn.
You did not know that I exist
You died and I was born.
Yet each of us are cells of you
In flesh, in blood, in bone.
Our blood contracts and beats a pulse
Entirely not our own.
Dear Ancestor, the place you filled
One hundred years ago
Spread out among the ones you left
Who would have loved you so.
I wonder if you lived and loved, I wonder if you knew
That someday I would find this spot,
And come to visit you.

Author Unknown

Your Name Poem ▼

Your Name...

You got it from your father, it was all he had to give,
So it's yours to keep and cherish for as long as you shall live,
It was clean the day he got it, and a worthy name to bear,
When he got it from his father, there was no dishonor there,
So protect and guard it safely, for when all is said and done,
You'll be proud the name is spotless when you give it to your son.

Remember Me Poem ▼

"Remember me in the family tree
My name, my days, my strife;
Then I'll ride upon the wings of time
And live an endless life."

Linda Goetsch

The Dash ▼

​I read of a man who stood to speak
at the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on the tombstone
from the beginning…to the end.

He noted that first came the date of birth
and spoke the following date with tears,
but he said what mattered most of all
was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time
that they spent alive on earth.
And now only those who loved them
know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own,
the cars…the house…the cash.
What matters is how we live and love
and how we spend our dash.

So, think about this long and hard.
Are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left
that can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough
to consider what’s true and real
and always try to understand
​the way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger
and show appreciation more
and love the people in our lives
like we’ve never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect
and more often wear a smile,
remembering that this special dash
might only last a little while.

​So, when your eulogy is being read,
with your life’s actions to rehash…
would you be proud of the things they say
about how you spent YOUR dash?


Linda Ellis

Historical Fiction

"The thing that most attracts me to historical fiction is taking the factual record as far as it is known, using that as scaffolding, and then letting imagination build the structure that fills in those things we can never find out for sure." ~ Geraldine Brooks

"I have always regarded historical fiction and fantasy as sisters under the skin, two genres separated at birth." ~ George R. R. Martin

"Writers of historical fiction are not under the same obligation as historians to find evidence for the statements they make. For us it is sufficient if what we say can't be disproved or shown to be false." Barry Unsworth

"It's really important in any historical fiction, I think, to anchor the story in its time. And you do that by weaving in those details, by, believe it or not, by the plumbing." ~ Jacqueline Winspear

"History tells us what people do; historical fiction helps us imagine how they felt." ~ Guy Vanderhaeghe,