I promised to keep it short this time. So I will.

Two quotes appealed to the writer in me during the week, and might just exercise your smile muscles too:

1. DH Lawrence when Heinemann rejected ‘Sons and Lovers‘, citing as their reason ‘want of reticence’:
‘Curse the blasted, jelly-boned swines, the slimy, the belly-wriggling invertebrates, the miserably sodding rotters, the flaming sods, the snivelling, dribbling, dithering, palsied, pulseless lot that make up England today. They’ve got white of egg in their veins, and their spunk is that watery it’s a marvel they can breed …’
Oh, to have that kind of courage!

2. Michael Frayn
‘You just have to work with what God sends, and if God doesn’t seem to understand the concept of commercial success, then that’s your bad luck.’
Well, God’s been blamed for a lot during the recent natural disasters (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc) but this is a new one on me.

Wry smiles aside, I must confess that I struggled to give myself permission to spend so little time on this week’s blog. But it’s all part of a new resolve. This year – with all the time away from home, my mother’s decline and sundry other significant demands – has been taxing. I’ve felt my own limitations. So I’ve (albeit reluctantly) come to the conclusion that I need to heed Reinhold Niebuhr‘s serenity prayer – more apposite on this occasion in the secular version:

‘Know yourself well enough to do what you can, accept what you can’t, and avoid deceiving yourself into believing that you can achieve the impossible.’

Indeed.

Tags: DH Lawrence, Michael Frayn, Reinhold Niebuhr, Serenity prayer, Sons and Lovers, writing for a living