Quote of the Day: Samuel Johnson

Once upon a time, Samuel Johnson's landlady asked him why one of his fellow boarders wanted to get so drunk every night and act like an animal. "I wonder, Madam," replied the Doctor, "that you have not penetration to see the strong inducement to this excess; for he who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man." I love Samuel Johnson and not just because he may be the English language king of pithy sayings; but also because I am something of an Anglophile and his quotes are usually dead-on.


I do have to admit that the drunk guy I ran into on the Burke Gilman trail the other day looked like he was feeling a little pain. I was innocently walking in the morning when a man who looked like he was wearing the clothes he'd slept in flagged me down and told me to turn down my music.

I said, "What?"
"Guess how far I've walked," he said and stepped in very close to me.
"I have no idea."
"All the way from downtown."
"Wow." We were by my house so that seemed like a good ways for somebody who smelled and looked very drunk. I can only assume that drunkenness was the only reasonable explanation he could have had for invading my personal space in such an egregious manner.
"My sister told me she'd pay me fifty bucks if I walked all the way to Kenmore. You know how far that is?"
"No."
"I think I have another three miles. I'm going the right way, right?"
"I believe so." I started to walk away.
"My sister's so stupid. She didn't think I could do it hung over. Stupid."
"Well, you sure showed her."
"No kidding. Keep the faith, brother," he said as we went our separate ways.


I finished reading A Sport and a Past Time by James Salter last night. James Salter has written a lot of books and is quite well respected in most critical circles but he is way too much of a writer's writer to be very well known. In fact, this was the first book of his I've ever read but I do intend to read more. The only problem is that his writing is so beautiful that it makes me despair about my own. Maybe I need to read Twilight next so I can feel better about it.