Into the Fire

“She was an uncompromising advocate of rational individualism and laissez-faire capitalism, and vociferously opposed socialism, altruism, and other contemporary philosophical trends, as well as religion. Her influential and often controversial ideas have attracted both enthusiastic admirers and scathing denunciation.

“ . . . and in later years said to the graduating class at West Point, ‘I can say—not as a patriotic bromide, but with full knowledge of the necessary metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, political and aesthetic roots—that the United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world.’” . . . Ayn Rand (from Wikipedia)

“Good dialogue is such a pleasure to come across while reading, a complete change of pace from description and exposition and all that writing. Suddenly people are talking, and we find ourselves clipping along. And we have all the pleasures of voyeurism because the characters don’t know we are listening. We get to feel privy to their inner workings without having to spend too much time listening to them think. I don’t want them to think all the time on paper. It’s bad enough that I have to think all the time without having someone else dump his or her obsessive-compulsive, paranoid thinking on me, too.
“On the other hand, nothing can break the mood of a piece of writing like bad dialogue. My students are miserable when they are reading an otherwise terrific story to the class and then hit a patch of dialogue that is so purple and expositional that it reads like something from a childhood play by the Gabor sisters.” . . . Anne Lamott (bird by bird)

“The artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs. It is a disease that arises from men not having sufficient power of expression to utter and get rid of the element of art in their being” . . . G.K. Chesterton (Heretics)

“I’m a guy who can’t function well in life, but I can in art.” . . . Woody Allen (Deconstructing Harry)

Father, you see us all. You care for each one. You are the only One we will answer to in the end. May I always serve you. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

*Please continue to pray for Kristy Dykes.*