EXERCISE: Twisted Quotes

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting to December 2008

I'm not sure why, but recently I woke up thinking, "A foolish consistency may be the hobgoblin of small minds, but favoring inconsistency is surely the mark of a lazy mind."

Today's quick writing exercise: Take a well known aphorism, quote, or phrase, and add a bit of commentary. Here, I'll even toss in a list of quotes:

1. "Listen; there's a hell of a good universe next door: let's go." e.e. cummings
2. "Knowledge can be communicated, but wisdom cannot. A man can find it, he can live it, he can be filled and sustained by it, but he cannot utter or teach it." Hermann Hesse
3. "There cannot be greater rudeness than to interrupt another in the current of his discourse." John Locke
4. "A woman is like a tea bag -- you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water." Eleanor Roosevelt
5. "You can lead a man to Congress, but you can't make him think." Milton Berle
6. "I dream, I test my dreams against my beliefs, I dare to take risks, and I execute my vision to make my dreams come true." Walt Disney
7. "The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis." Dante Alighieri
8. "Doubts are more cruel than the worst of truths." Moliere
9. "It is worse still to be ignorant of your ignorance." St. Jerome
10. "No amount of time and erase the memory of a good cat and no amount of masking tape can ever totally remove his fur from your couch." Leo Buscaglia

Take the whole thing, take a part - and give it a twist.

And now I'll go get morning tea.