--THIS IS ALL I HAVE TO OFFER: AN EMPTY HEART AND EMPTY HANDS

 

…I hope you have a fantastic Christmas, filled with family, friends and lots of love.

I’m going to see Les Mis tonight at 10:30.  Can’t wait.  I love that story.  I’ve seen the play four times and usually bawl my eyes out by intermission.

…Here are some things to ponder:

"The road to hell is paved with adverbs." Stephen King

"A person is only as big as the dream they dare to live." Unknown

"Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them." Oscar Wilde

"What ought one to say then as each hardship comes?  I was practicing for this, I was training for this." Epictetus

"Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life." Sophia Loren

"Cut out all the exclamation points.  An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke." F. Scott Fitzgerald

"The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do." Thomas Jefferson

"To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man." Aristotle

"If it takes a lot of words to say what you have in mind, give it more thought." Dennis Roth

"Tears are words that need to be written." Paulo Coelho

"Nothing's a better cure for writer's block than to eat ice cream right out of the carton." Don Roff

"I can shake off everything as I write: my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn." Anne Frank

"The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon." Robert Cormier

"Everywhere I do I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers.  My opinion is they don't stifle enough of them." Flannery O'Connor

"If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of 'The Elements of Style.'  The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they're happy." Dorothy Parker