Word: write
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...once wrote an essay for TIME in which, without attribution, I referred to "the hobgoblin of little minds." I had at least a dozen people write to me and say, "You plagiarist! Ralph Waldo Emerson said, 'consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.'" I wrote back and said, "Gee, I assumed the reader would know the Emerson line. Suppose I'd written 'To be or not to be.' Would I need the attribution to Shakespeare?" Jacoby's offense is a little like that...
...pulling the plug without tossing the set. My daughter smugly (and correctly) predicted the loss would be hardest on me. Those first few evenings without the tube seemed to last forever. But we've been reading more, playing cards and going out for ice cream after dinner. As I write this, the kid is in the other room teaching herself to play the piano...
...epidemic in the day-care center he serves as pediatrician. The nits would light up so brightly that pilots could use the kid's head to get a bead on the airport. The mother could destroy them all. Think of the hours saved--hours the mother might use to write a novel or perfect her computer skills or harangue her husband about why he never seems to be the one combing out the second-grader's hair...
Like Adam, he exulted, "The world was new to me." And then he lamented that "a day came when I began to cease noting the glories and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight wrought upon the river's face." Yet when he came to write his novel, all the original wonder returned to him: "Once or twice at night we would see a steamboat slipping along in the dark, and now and then she would belch a whole world of sparks up out of her chimbleys, and they would rain down in the river...
...that the trip was a lot of fun. We went to minor league baseball games, community picnics, jazz festivals, swamp tours and innovative schools. We fished and played cards and tested the limits of wireless technology from our boat. I hope that in addition to the serious topics we write about, we have been able to convey some of this spirit of fun, along with our deepened appreciation for what makes this country so special...