Pine Nuts with McAvoy Layne: Useful quotes to brighten one’s day
Submitted by Jeff Munson on Sun, 09/10/2023 - 12:40pm
Over the years I’ve contented myself by collecting poignant quotes that I thought might shed some light upon a long and winding road toward old age. Today I opened that file and was astonished to discover it had grown to 30 pages in length. So I thought for fun I might like to select my 10 favorite non-Twainian quotes, and share them with you here in this fine family journal.
The first comes to us from Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” Thank you, Mr. Emerson.
Number two comes from a man who lived for a hundred years, George Burns: “Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair.” We miss you, George.
Number three is a lasting proverb from Mexico: “Eyes that see do not grow old.”
Number four comes from the pen of Luciano de Crescenzo: “We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly embracing each other.”
For number five we call on Oscar Wilde: “The future is what artists are. Art is what makes the life of each citizen a sacrament and not a speculation.”
Number six flows from the founder of our nation, George Washington: “To encourage literature and the arts is a duty which every good citizen owes to his country.” As an aside, Mark Twain proffered, “George Washington could not tell a lie. I can but choose not to.”
Number seven is a welcome to the world from Kurt Vonnegut; “Hello, babies, welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies -God damn it, you've got to be kind." Vonnegut, as you know, loved Mark Twain.
Number eight goes to Florence Kennedy, who told it like it is: “The biggest sin is sitting on your ass.”
For number nine we call on Henry David Thoreau: “A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.” Should you happen to live near Tahoe or Donner Lake, you might want to add: “Amen.”
Finally at number 10 we return to Mr. Emerson, who reminds us, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
But I see I am running out of space and am only on page ten of thirty pages of my favorite quotes, so I shall have to continue this chronicle next week.
— For more than 30 years, in over 4,000 performances, columnist and Chautauquan McAvoy Layne has been dedicated to preserving the wit and wisdom of “The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope,” Mark Twain. As Layne puts it: “It’s like being a Monday through Friday preacher, whose sermon, though not reverently pious, is fervently American."
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