Friday, July 04, 2008

Photo Friday: Spiral

My offering for today's Photo Friday theme, spiral:
your back arrow to return to this blog post.


The location of this shot is inside the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City -- but in the "back of the house" part of the basilica, not the main area where pilgrims and tourists go. It's not all ornate back there; there's mainly just your basic practical painted concrete walls and everyday tile floors. I was in that section once and only once in my life (in contrast to the public area, where I went probably at least a couple of hundred times during my 20+ years of residence in that city) -- in May of 2002, when I participated in a recital of Marian poetry composed by one of the Basilica's priests.

Though I only had a few seconds to get this picture (taken with my little Kodak DC3200 digital camera), I couldn't pass up the opportunity to photograph the spiral staircase that went down many floors through the heart of the building. Don't get me started on the possible spiritual allegories here; they'd be numerous and wind round and round like the staircases in the photo ...

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Quotes about Books

I love good quotations -- but maybe you knew that from the long list of them on the side bar of this blog. :-D
Well, the first quote below showed up in my inbox today in the very nice newsletter from Quote of the Day that I subscribe to; it got me thinking about good quotations about books, and I searched around and found the others. There must be a gazillion more out there, so if you know of a pithy quote, quip, or saying about books, please share it with us in a comment!


A book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.
-Franz Kafka

The covers of this book are too far apart.
-Ambrose Bierce

Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in, but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.
-Arthur Schopenhauer

Books had instant replay long before televised sports.
-Bert Williams

A book is a garden carried in the pocket.
-Chinese proverb

When you reread a classic you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before.
-Clifton Fadiman

Thank you for sending me a copy of your book - I'll waste no time reading it.
-Moses Hadas