dr seuss

Dr. Seuss National Memorial

The marching orders Ted Geisel received sound simple. "Write me a story that first graders can't put down" and limit the vocabulary to 225 words.  It took Ted, writing as Dr. Seuss, 9 months using 236 individual words, the longest being playthings, to create his masterpiece The Cat in the Hat.

Dr. Seuss who's 105th birthday was yesterday, continued to write books for children, and like most educators knew that buried within every good children's story was a message, Ted rarely skimped on the message.  As a tribute to Dr. Seuss I offer some of my favorite Seuss quotes, from The Quotations Page.

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.

If you never did, you should. These things are fun and fun is good!


You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You're on your own.
And you know what you know.
And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go....

Young cat, if you keep your eyes open enough, oh, the stuff you would learn! The most wonderful stuff!

I am the Lorax, and I'll yell and I'll shout for the fine things on earth that are on their way out

I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.

When at last we are sure, You've been properly pilled, Then a few paper forms, Must be properly filled. So that you and your heirs, May be properly billed.


Toad

It's a dogs life

TTWD

When Ted the Wonder Dog passed my son in law sent a long list of dog quotes to remember Ted by. It took several months before I could read them without tearing up. Last night I read them to Charley. She liked them and asked me to share, so I will.

The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue.
-Anonymous

Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.
-Ann Landers

If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.
-Will Rogers

There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.
-Ben Williams

A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.
-Josh Billings

The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.
-Andy Rooney

Charley

We give dogs time we can spare, space we can spare and love we can spare. And in return, dogs give us their all. It's the best deal man has ever made.
-M. Acklam

Dogs love their friends and bite their enemies, quite unlike people, who are incapable of pure love and always have to mix love and hate.
- Sigmund Freud

I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult.
-Rita Rudner

A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three
times before lying down.
-Robert Benchley

Anybody who doesn't know what soap tastes like never washed a dog.
-Franklin P. Jones

If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.
-James Thurber

If your dog is fat, you aren't getting enough exercise.
-Unknown

My dog is worried about the economy because Alpo is up to $3.00 a can. That's almost $21.00 in dog money.
-Joe Weinstein

Ever consider what our dogs must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul -- chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we're the greatest hunters on earth!
-Anne Tyler

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
-Robert A. Heinlein

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
-Mark Twain

You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says, 'Wow, you're right! I never would've thought of that!'
- Dave Barry

Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.
-Roger Caras

If you think dogs can't count, try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket and then give him only two of them.
-Phil Pastoret

My goal in life is to be as good of a person my dog already thinks I am.
-Unknown

The Best of Christmas Quotes

by We Heart it.com

I was catching up on world events traipsing English language newspapers around the globe and came across a compendium of the 30 best Christmas quotes in the Telegraph.  I think they missed a few, demonstrated by Ralphie's noticeable absence, but over all the list is pretty good.  Below are several of my favorites.  The rest can be found by following the link. Can you guess who said what?

"Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more."

One can never have enough socks. Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books.

Santa Clause has the right idea. Only visit people once a year.

'Let's just say that on this day, a million years ago, a dude was born who most of us think was magic. But others don't, and that's cool. But we're probably right. Amen.'

’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house/Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.'

'And girls in slacks remember Dad/And oafish louts remember Mum/And sleepless children’s hearts are glad/And Christmas-morning bells say ‘Come!’

'The one thing women don’t want to find in their stockings on Christmas morning is their husband.'

'I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.'

'Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won’t make it white.'

'The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.'

'There ain't no Sanity Clause!'

'Always winter but never Christmas.'

'Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed, in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused - in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened - by the recurrence of Christmas.'

'Christmas at my house is always at least six or seven times more pleasant than anywhere else. We start drinking early. And while everyone else is seeing only one Santa Claus, we'll be seeing six or seven.'

'Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.'

Toad