Shut up, he explained

Author Flannery O'Connor was born on this day in 1925.

"Shut up, Bobby Lee," the Misfit said. "It's no real pleasure in life." -- "A Good Man Is Hard To Find."

God bless us, every one!

"I never could see why people were so happy about Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol', because I never had any confidence that Scrooge was going to be different the next day." -- Dr. Karl Menninger.

Be kind to yourself - don't get married

Robert Louis Stevenson (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) was born on this day in 1850.

"In marriage, a man becomes slack and selfish," Stevenson wrote, "and undergoes a fatty degeneration of his moral being."

Did you know that today is World Kindness Day? Let's be nice to one another. Keep in mind Stevenson's words: "Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity."

(Read about Robert Louis Stevenson's bequeathal to a young woman, at Last Words. Visit farewells.blogspot.com.)