In 2007 I read the entire L’Amour Sackett canon, all 19 books, as research for a writing project which got back-burnered in 2008. To give you an idea of how unorthodox this project is, I also read the entire Wodehouse Jeeves canon, all 19 books, for the same project. That’s 38 books I read for a single project which got as far as the middle of Draft 2 before being shelved. The moral lesson for wanabe writers is left as an exercise to the reader.That being said, as I read I collected quotable lines as fodder for a character in my project. Here they are. The Sackett Brand evidently was particularly good ground for gleaning said quotes.“See her, Sakim?” I said, half-turning. “That is why I dream.” “I see, I do indeed. But she is not to dream about, my friend, she is the dream!” –Barnabas Sackett in Sackett’s Land, Ch 12. . . then I was through the curtains and found myself facing a burley fellow with more confidence than is usually permitted a man. – Kin Sackett in The Warrior’s Path, Ch 13. . . judging by the size of his stomach, he was a very important man. –Echo Sackett in Ride the River, Ch 4“How many are there? Of the Sacketts, I mean?” “Nobody rightly knows, but even one Sackett is quite a few.” –Echo Sackett in Ride the River, Ch 19. . . who, judging by disposition, was sired out of a Missouri mule by a mountain lion with a sore tooth. –Tyrel Sackett in The Daybreakers, Ch7“Boys,” Pa used to say, “avoid conflict and trouble, for enough of it fetches to a man without his asking, but if you are attacked, smite them hip and thigh.” Pa was a great man for Bible speaking, but I never could see a mite of sense in striking them hip and thigh. When I had to smite them I did it on the chin or in the belly. –Tell Sackett in Sackett“You have been led upon evil ways, “I explained, “and the way of the transgressor is hard.” –Tell Sackett about to correct a wrongdoer in SackettDrusilla looked slim and pretty as a three-month-old fawn. –Tell Sackett in SackettIf he was killed I was going up to that town and read them from the Book. –Tell Sackett in SackettShe was medium tall, with a way about her that set a man to thinking thoughts best kept to himself. –Tell Sackett in Mojave CrossingShe was beautiful . . . taller than most girls . . . and shaped like music. –Nolan Sackett in Mustang ManHe’d fight anything at the drop of a hat; he’d even drop it himself. –Nolan Sackett in The Sackett BrandI’d tackle hell with a bucket of water. –Tell Sacket in The Sackett BrandShe was little but she was doing her share where it counted, judging by the way she shaped out her clothes. –Tell Sackett in The Sackett BrandOver half the country stood on end, and it was crags and boulders, brush and fallen trees. – Tell Sackett in The Sackett BrandShe was young, all right, maybe not more than 17 or 18, but there was a kind of wise look about her eyes that made me think that, girl-wise, she’d been up the creek and over the mountain. –Tell Sackett in The Sackett BrandThe men who hung out there were hard cases, men with the bark on. There were men who came into that place so rough they wore their clothes out from the inside first. – Tell Sackett in The Sackett BrandI wanted a horse whose color would fade into the country, not one that would stand out like a red nose at a teetotal picnic. –Tell Sackett in The Sackett BrandMany a time a man with whiskey in him is apt to talk too much, and suddenly realize he wished he was somewhere else. –Tell Sackett in The Sackett Brand It was rare to find two such beautiful girls in one area. Yet, on second thought, that wasn’t unusual in Texas, where beautiful girls just seemed to happen in the most unexpected places. –Milo Talon in The Man from the Broken Hills, p 144-145

From Songwriters on Songwriting by Paul Zollo:Thompson: I’ve never recorded anything piece by piece. I’ve always recorded as much as possible live. To try to get something at once. And to record as fast as possible. We usually only take a couple of takes on any particular track. Two takes, three takes.Zollo: Your tracks always have the energy of a live performance. Are you singing and playing guitar live as well?Thompson: Yes. Sometimes we’l fix the vocals later. But I’m actually out there doing it.Zollo: You do the guitar solos live?Thompson: Yes.Zollo: You said recording fast is part of the approach?Thompson: The approach is to have fun. In the recording process. And not make it a job or a chore. Or a perfect thing. We’ll leave perfection to God. So we try to keep that spark and really have a good time doing it. I think there are people who can spend a long time making records and do it bit by bit and make it sound exciting and spontaneous. And that’s a kind of gift. And I really don’t have that.

This is a letter that I found interesting, from Benjamin Franklin to his parents, responding to his mother’s concern that he might be straying from the One True Faith.[Note: I added some paragraph breaks to make it more readable. Franklin was fond of paragraphs that ran a page or more.]

April 13, 1738

Honour’d Father and Mother

I have your Favor of the 21st of March in which you both seem concern’d lest I have imbib’d some erroneous Opinions. Doubtless I have my Share, and when the natural Weakness and Imperfection of Human Understanding is considered, with the unavoidable Influences of Education, Custom, Books and Company, upon our Ways of thinking, I imagine a Man must have a good deal of Vanity who believes, and a good deal of Boldness who affirms, that all the Doctrines he holds, are true; and all he rejects, are false. And perhaps the same may be justly said of every Sect, Church and Society of men which they assume to themselves the Infallibility which they deny to the Popes and Councils.I think Opinions should be judg’d of by by their Influences and Effects; and if a Man holds none that tend to make him less Virtuous or Vicious, it may be concluded he holds none that are dangerous; which I hope is the Case with me. I am sorry you should have any Uneasiness on my Account, and if it were a thing possible for one to alter his Opinions in order to please others, I know none whom I ought more willingly to oblige in that respect than yourselves: But since it is no more in a Man’s Power to think than to look like another, methinks all that should be expected from me is to keep my Mind open to Conviction, to hear patiently and examine attentively whatever is offered to me for that end; and if after all I continue in the same Errors, I believe your usual Charity will induce you rather to pity and excuse than blame me. In the mean time your Care and Concern for me is what I am very thankful for.As to the Freemasons, unless she will believe me when I assure her that they are in general a very harmless sort of People; and have no principles or Practices that are inconsistent with Religion or good Manners, I know no Way of giving my Mother a better Opinion of them than she seems to have at present (since it is not allow’d that Women should be admitted into that secret Society), She has, I must confess, on that Account, some reason to be displeas’d with it; but for any thing else, I must entreat her to suspend her Judgment till she is better inform’d, and in the mean time exercise her Charity.My Mother grieves that one of her Sons is an Arian, another an Arminian. What an Arminian or an Arian is, I cannot say that I very well know; the Truth is, I make such Distinctions very little my Study; I think vital Religion has always suffer’d, when Orthodoxy is more regarded than Virtue. And the Scripture assures me, that at the last Day, we shall not be examin’d what we thought, but what we did; and our Recommendation will not be that we said Lord, Lord, but that we did GOOD to our Fellow Creatures. See Matth. 2[5].[Stuff about the weather and family follows.]I am Your dutiful SonBF

Here’s some consolation for The Wunderfool from a wildly successful novelist who lived for some time in Hollywood in the 1930s, getting paid $1,500 a week to tinker around with screenplays. He asked novelist Claude Houghton:

Have you ever done any picture work? It is quite interesting, but I hate
having to condense my dialogue as one has to do. I can’t seem to get used to
writing a couple of lines for a scene between two characers, where in a novel
you would be able to extend yourself to a page or so.

Having spent the last three years trying to make the transition from novels to screenplays, I can confess that it is painful.

Here’s an incisive quote from Anton Chekhov as related in Alphabet Juice by Roy Blount, Jr.

Very well, then, I shall marry . . . But under the following conditions:
everything must continue as it was before, in other words, she must live in
Moscow and I in the country, and I’ll go visit her. I will never be able to
stand the sort of happiness that lasts from one day to the next, from one
morning to the next. Whenever someone talks to me day after day about the same
thing in the same tone of voice, it brings out the ferocity in me . . . I
promise to be a splendid husband, but give me a wife who, like the moon, does
not appear in my sky every day. I won’t write any better for having gotten
married.

Don’t show this to The Woman!

Monsignor Quixote, Graham GreeneAnother book I read (or in this case, re-read) while writing Escape From Fred. Once you’ve read it, you can see how this book might have informed it. Greene was my favorite author until I discovered Robertson Davies.p. 55. It’s odd how sharing a sense of doubt can bring two men together perhaps even more that sharing a faith. The believer will fight another believer over a shade of difference; the doubter fights only with himself.

If you drink orange juice, once you sweat it it’s yours. Oranges really don’t belong to anybody. -Carlos Santana

The Gospel According to Job, Mike MasonI read this book while writing Escape From Fred, because matters of faith and dealing with what sometimes seems like a precarious or absent diety. A little more serious than others in the quotes series, but some good stuff, as Mason consistently delivers. If you haven’t read it, you must stop what you’re doing right now and read The Mystery of Marriage, even if you’re not married.p. xi. Mercy is the permission to be human.p. xi. Sometimes laying hold of the cross can be comforting; but other times it’s like picking up a snake.p. 36. Real worship has less to do with offering sacrifices than with being a sacrifice ourselves.It is wonderful to be filled with mystical rapture at the thought of Calvary. But more wonderful still, because more worshipful, is the moment when the rough wood touches our flesh and the nail bites.p. 126. Love is the humility in which self becomes subservient to relationship.p. 174. [on dying to self] For the truth is we do not die all at once but little by little, and every time a little part of us is nailed to the cross and dies immediately, the grace of the Lord Jesus flows into that dead part and renews it. This is how we live by grace. The power of grace is activated through the cross. Too many Christians are looking for graceless fix-it solutions to their problems, and to the problems of others as well. We forget that one of the great mysteries of the gospel is that God did not fix us when He saved us. By grace He simply saved us, warts and all.p. 176. Anger at God can be a sign of spiritual growth. It can mean we are outgrowing a concept of God that is no longer adequate for us. It could even be said that our anger is not directed at the living God Himself but at our own idolatrous concept of Him. While we ourselves may not understand this, nevertheless our anger functions to move us closer to God as He really is.p. 273. Faith is the ability to tolerate the intolerable paradox of God’s clear and undisputed title as Lord of the universe in spite of His apparent absence.p. 279. A clean conscience is not one that is without guilt, but one that is without blame. In an honest and healthy conscience, there is always a sense of guilt, but blame is continually being washed away by the blood of Christ.p. 306. What we need to realize is that only as sinners can we be disciples of Jesus. A saint cannot pick up the cross; only a sinner can pick up a cross. This is a profound mystery; but with our saintly selves, with that part of ourselves that has been sanctified and devoted to God, we cannot touch the cross. Only a sinful nature can touch the cross. It has to be flesh against bare wood. Mere spirit will not hold a nail.

A few tidbits from Marriage Lines.That is why marriage is so much more interesting than divorce,
Because it’s the only known example of the happy meeting of the immovable object and the irresistible force.
So I hope husbands and wives will continue to debate and combat over everything debatable and combatable,
Because I believe a little incompatibility is the spice of life, particularly if he has income and she is pattable.-=-=-=-=-=-Speaking of wisdom and wealth and grace —
As recently I have dared to —
There are lots of people compared to whom
I’d rather not be compared to.
There are people I ought to wish I was;
But under the circumstances,
I prefer to continue my life as me —
For nobody else has Francis-=-=-=-=-=-A prepared postition Man hankers for
Is parallel to and above the floor,
For thither retreating horizontally,
He evades the issues that charge him frontally.-=-=-=-=-=-From: They Won’t Believe On New Year’s Eve, That New Year’s Day Will Come What MayHow do I feel today? I feel as unfit as an unfiddle,
And it is the result of a certain turbulence in the mind and an uncertain burbulence in the middle.

Hotel Honolulu, Paul Theroux

This guy is a great writer. You might have seen the Harrison Ford movie made from his book, Mosquito Coast. The movie was good. The book was better.

p. 4. A large square building with porches like pulled-out bureau drawers.
p. 6. “It’s not rocket surgery.”
p. 11. A boss’s comedy is always an employee’s hardship.
p. 25. On the beach everyone is a body.
p. 48. Games are the pastimes of men who cannot bear to be alone, who do not read.
p. 55. Fiction can be an epistle to the living, but more often the things we write, believing they matter, are letters to the dead.
p. 87. Guilt shows clearest on the faces of older people, whose skin is so full of detail.
p. 133. She was in the secrets keeping business, and I was a collector of secrets.
p. 166. She climbed on him and hugged him with all her bones, clinging like a little gecko on a big crumbling tree trunk.
p. 382. You’re a writer. Among other things, that’s a pathological condition.