Fun Stuff

Let the fun stuff begin with one or our publisher’s favorite quotes:

It’s by Erma Bombeck, of course: When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me’.

Let’s move on with some lawyer quotes

If you are resolutely determined to make a lawyer of yourself, the thing is more than half done already. – Abraham Lincoln

The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, Letter to Isham Reavis (November 5, 1855), p. 327.

When I have a particular case in hand, I have that motive and feel an interest in the case, feel an interest in ferreting out the questions to the bottom, love to dig up the question by the roots and hold it up and dry it before the fires of the mind. – Recollected Words of Abraham Lincoln

Recollected Words of Abraham Lincoln compiled and edited by Virginia Fehrenbacher and Don E. Fehrenbacher (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1996), p. 242.

Best job in the world: I get paid to read, write, think, talk and argue—all things I would do anyway.  – Rick Ball, Chicago

(From the ABA Journal)

No client ever had money enough to bribe my conscience or to stop its utterance against wrong, and oppression. My conscience is my own – my creators – not man’s. I shall never sink the rights of mankind to the malice, wrong, or avarice of another’s wishes, though those wishes come to me in the relation of client and attorney.  – Recollected Words of Abraham Lincoln

Recollected Words of Abraham Lincoln compiled and edited by Virginia Fehrenbacher and Don E. Fehrenbacher (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1996), p. 242.

Again, a law may be both constitutional and expedient, and yet may be administered in an unjust and unfair way.   – Abraham Lincoln

The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VI, Opinion on the Draft (September 14, 1863), p. 448.

Okay, that was fun; now let’s enjoy some writing quotes

I don’t need an alarm clock. My ideas wake me.” — Ray Bradbury

(Assembled by Zachary Petit – an award-winning journalist AND Writer’s Digest magazine)

In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write. – Pearl S. Buck

(Assembled by Brainyquote.com)

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.  – Anais Nin

(Assembled by Brainyquote.com)

And as a writer, one of the things that I’ve always been interested in doing is actually invading your comfort space. Because that’s what we’re supposed to do. Get under your skin, and make you react.   – Stephen King

(Assembled by Brainyquote.com)

It ain’t whatcha write, it’s the way atcha write it.  —Jack Kerouac

(Assembled by Zachary Petit – an award-winning journalist AND Writer’s Digest magazine)

Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now.   —Annie Dillard

(Assembled by Zachary Petit – an award-winning journalist AND Writer’s Digest magazine)

The producer, in effect, has to work as a translator. You form a very tight relationship with the director and writer from the beginning, and then you are constantly communicating to the various people that begin to come into the process, as you are trying to manage to hold on to a vision that needs to be communicated over a long period of time.  – Kathleen Kennedy

(Assembled by Brainyquote.com)

You know, I always was an early morning or late night writer. Early morning was my favorite; late night was because you had a deadline. And at four in the morning you make up some of your most absurd jokes.  – Joss Whedon

(Assembled by Brainyquote.com)

That is how you get to be a writer, incidentally: you feel somehow marginal, somehow slightly off-balance all the time. Kurt Vonnegut

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In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.  – John Steinbeck

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What a writer can do, what a fiction writer or a poet or an essay writer can do is re-engage people with their own humanity.   – Barbara Kingsolver

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The writing of a novel is taking life as it already exists, not to report it but to make an object, toward the end that the finished work might contain this life inside it and offer it to the reader. The essence will not be, of course, the same thing as the raw material; it is not even of the same family of things. The novel is something that never was before and will not be again.  — Eudora Welty

(Assembled by Zachary Petit – an award-winning journalist AND Writer’s Digest magazine)

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.  — Robert A. Heinlein

(Assembled by Zachary Petit – an award-winning journalist AND Writer’s Digest magazine)

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

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To gain your own voice, you have to forget about having it heard.   – Allen Ginsberg

(Assembled by Zachary Petit – an award-winning journalist AND Writer’s Digest magazine)

Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.  — Ray Bradbury

(Assembled by Zachary Petit – an award-winning journalist AND Writer’s Digest magazine)

Now for some different fun stuff: A real life but frivolous law suit

A legal action was taken the a few years ago that is so outrageous it actually makes us cringe (and giggle).  A man in Portland, OR sued Michael Jordan and Phil Knight (co-founder of Nike) because people kept mistaking the Portland man for basketball legend and the claimant was sick of it all. With a height six inches shorter, weighing 30 pounds lighter, and aged eight years older than Jordan, the Portland man is not a doppelganger, that’s for sure. He does shave his head like Jordan and wears an earring in his left ear like the legend, and he also wears Air Jordan footwear quite often, so it’s no wonder everyone is confused. He is suing for defamation, permanent injury, emotional pain &  suffering as well as suing the Nike co-founder for helping to make “Mike” one of the most recognized men in the world. If he was awarded what he asked, he’d receive well over $800 Million. Maybe the Portland man has a point. If “his Airness” was sensitive to other people’s plights, he wouldn’t have started shaving his head or wearing an earring, which potentially could ruin the lives of other people who also shave and bejewel themselves. Seriously, man! The claimant later dismissed the suit without giving a reason. A Nike spokesperson said the man had not been paid any money but (and this is just speculation) maybe the man “realized he would end up paying the court costs if the lawsuit went to trial.”