That's no lie

September 29 -- Miguel de Cervantes was born in 1547. He wrote:

"Everyone is as God made him, and often a good deal worse."



September 30 -- Truman Capote (pictured) born in 1924.

"Truman Capote has made lying an art. A minor art." -- Gore Vidal.

August 15-17

August 15, 1785: Thomas DeQuincey, English author and opium eater, was born. He wrote:

"The peace of nature and of the innocent creatures of God seems to be secure and deep, only so long as the presence of man and his restless and unquiet spirit are not there to trouble its spirit."



August 16, 1920: Poet Charles Bukowski was born. He wrote:

“Boring damned people. All over the earth. Propagating more boring damned people. What a horror show. The earth swarmed with them.”



August 17, 1893: Actress Mae West was born.

"All wickedness is little but to the wickedness of a woman." -- Ecclesiates.

Cioran 101

E. M. Cioran, a Romanian writer who wrote in French, died on this day in 1995. A sampling of Cioran:

"When we must make a crucial decision, it is extremely dangerous to consult anyone else, since no one sincerely wishes us well."

"Religions, like the ideologies that have inherited their vices, are reduced to crusades against humor."

"To love one's neighbor is inconceivable. Does one ask a virus to love another virus?"

"Happiness and misery make me equally wretched."

"Believing in God dispenses one from believing in anything else."

"Friendship has scope and interest only for the young. For an older person, what he dreads most is being survived by his friends."

Cioran was born in Transylvania. he said that gypsy music made him "mad with melancholy." His father was a gloomy priest. His mother's last note to him ended:

"Whatever people try to do, they'll regret it sooner or later."

For more by Cioran on death and thoughts of death, visit Farewells

They sometimes make me sick when I eat them, though

Poet Walt Whitman was born on this day in 1819.

"Animals do not make me sick discussing their duty to God," Whitman wrote.

Give an ear to this

Vincent Van Gogh was born on this day in 1853.

"I believe more and more," Van Gogh said, "that God must not be judged on this earth. It is one of his sketches that has turned out badly."

And universities, too

Today is the birthday of Oral Roberts, born in 1918.

"Man is certainly stark mad. He cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens." -- Montaigne.

I myself think God has four sides

Let's hear from our old friend the Baron de Montesquieu again. (See Jan. 3.) He was born on this day in 1689. He wrote:

"An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations."

And also: "If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides."

Hold it right there now, Pilgrim

The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock on this day in 1620.

"A Pilgrim Father was one who, leaving Europe in 1620 because not permitted to sing psalms through his nose, followed it to Massachusetts, where he could personate God according to the dictates of his conscience." – Ambrose Bierce.

"It is a pity that instead of the Pilgrim Fathers landing on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock had not landed on the Pilgrim Fathers." – Chauncey Depew.