Teaser Tuesday (21 Sept)

Teases on Tuesdays sometimes come in threes. Here, anyway.

Let us begin with fundamentals. The first requisite for a young writer is paper. You will find that the work will go much better if the paper has not been previously written on.  

(Max Shulman's Large Economy Size)

Let a Stoic open the resources of man, and tell men they are not leaning willows, but can and must detach themselves; that with the exercise of self-trust, new powers shall appear; that a man is the word made flesh, born to shed healing to the nations, that he should be ashamed of our compassion, and that the moment he acts from himself, tossing the laws, the books, idolatries, and customs out the window, we shall pity him no more but thank and revere him, -- and that teacher shall restore the life of man to splendor and make his name dear to all History. 

(p. 43, The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson. "Self Reliance").

I have never been able to trace the source of my passion for fossils. Neither, to their eternal bafflement, could my family. Indeed, it was the basis for some unease that I spent so much of my childhood drawing and painting skulls -- scarcely a healthy hobby for a growing boy, after all. 

(p. 1, The African Exodus. Christopher Stirnger and Robin McKie