'“The Corner” ended with De’Andre’s first adult arrest, and Simon recalled that McCullough was frustrated with that conclusion. “He said, ‘You write that like it’s the end. Maybe that’s not the end,’” Simon said.'

If the virtue most in request by record buyers (or thieves) is not what they call 'consistency' in an artist's work, but what Emerson calls conformity, that says little about what the self-reliant artist's career would look like: there are so many things for aversion to oppose, to turn away from.

'When I ask for a garment of a particular form, my tailoress tells me gravely, "They do not make them so now," not emphasizing the "They" at all, as if she quoted an authority as impersonal as the Fates, and I find it difficult to get made what I want, simply because she cannot believe that I mean what I say, that I am so rash. When I hear this oracular sentence, I am for a moment absorbed in thought, emphasizing to myself each word separately that I may come at the meaning of it, that I may find out by what degree of consanguinity They are related to me, and what authority they may have in an affair which affects me so nearly; and, finally, I am inclined to answer her with equal mystery, and without any more emphasis of the "they,"—"It is true, they did not make them so recently, but they do now."'

Ways to work:

grow something, build something, create something, move something, cook something, clean something, prepare something, fix something, sort something, gather something, dig something up, cut something down, break something up, set something up, assemble something, count something, calculate something, watch something, watch someone, drive something, haul something, package something, study something, serve something, wait on someone, take care of someone, help someone

It's always funny when a scholar writes, 'I do not have time here to...'. Is there a moderator holding a stopwatch? Why not say 'I do not have space here to...'. But who are you, Fermat? Get another piece of paper!

Dual principles (Nov. 11, 1851):

'"Says I to myself" should be the motto of my journal.

It is fatal to the writer to be too much possessed by his thought. Things must lie a little remote to be described.'

If you want to use the word 'ineluctably' you might want to look it up and make sure you aren't hankering after the wrong kind of impossibility just because it sounds so fancy and distinctive somehow.

Everyone who scribbles marginalia is the richer for the fine expression, 'O RLY'.

Tamales are the kind of food I think should come in a pile.