Grace's Book of Necessary Quotations

"Never say 'bad' when you could say 'potentially dangerous.'" -Grace, after Hope changed "bad" to "potentially dangerous"

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." -J.R.R. Tolkien

"Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule." -Stephen King

"Faith, you do look like Cinderella. It's a little creepy." -Grace

"I never saw a purple cow, I hope I never do." -Tory

"I can't live without my Budweiser." -Grandma

"Hey dog, whatcha doin? Dog stuff? Okay, cool." -Steven

"Nobody loves you. Go back to bed." -Me, to the dog

*Hope does something uncouth at dinner*
Mom: "I hope you have better manners than that when you have children." *Mom dips a finger in the butter and licks it off.*

Grace to Nana, on Mom's uncouth behavior: "Did you not teach her any manners, or did they just not stick?"
Nana: "She came like that."

"Once there was a magical elf who lived in a rainbow tree/ He lived downstairs from a flatulent dwarf who constantly had to pee/ One day the elf could take no more/ so he went to bang on the rude dwarf's door/ and what do you know, they suddenly both were marrrrried." --"Elliot"

"The giraffes taste the same as the elephants. That's messed up." --"Boog"

"Not only does beauty fade, but it leaves a record on the face as to what became of it." --Elbert Hubbard

"That's not even real water! It's Star-2-O!" --Sam

*Gracie is distracted by a shiny jewelry department*
Darlene: "You're like a racoon!"

"Never go to bed angry. Stay up and plot your revenge." --seen somewhere

"What happens in the basement, stays in the basement. ...That sounded really bad." -Faith

"In some things it is better to receive than give. Massage is one of them." - Al Michaels

"WD-40 and duct tape are the only tools you need in life. If it's not loose and should be, use the WD-40. If it's loose and shouldn't be, use the duct tape." -seen somewhere

"We have ... a thirst unquenchable, to allay which he has not shown us the crystal springs. This thirst belongs to the immortality of Man.... It is no mere appreciation of the Beauty before us—but a wild effort to reach the Beauty above."
--Edgar Allan Poe

Grace: You're eating ketchup with your late stew? Were you raised by wolves?
Tory: I don't know, is Daddy a wolf?
Hope: Well, he does have a lot of facial hair.

"There's no such thing as natural beauty." - Steel Magnolias

Faith: I want to watch an exciting movie. Daredevil, Star Wars, Batman Begins,  um....
Mom: How about Mary Poppins?

"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. " -Mark Twain

"The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit." --Somerset Maugham

Off the Cuff

How many times have you said, "Once upon a time..." and made up a story right then? I enjoy doing this occasionally. The result is often silly, usually to make a point, and always ends with the room exploding with laughter. My most recent creation:

"Once upon another time, there were children in Ethiopia who were starving because there was a war in their country. So the mothers in the United States threatened to send their children's dinners and desserts to the children in Ethiopia if their children refused to eat. Because of course you know that what the children in Ethiopia needed was dessert."

The finicky eater who was forced to be the audience of this story was my youngest sister, Tory. She was refusing to eat a slice of potato out of the Yankee Pot Roast our mother had made. For God only knows what reason, she decided that the potatoes were icky. After the story, she ate half of it.

So, spontaneously combusted stories. Discuss.

Inaugural Address

My name is Grace. I am awfully glad I have not been elected President. Washington did a much better job than I ever would. His inaugural address is certainly better than mine would be. And while I'm sure that the position is stimulating, I am quite content with the pace of my own life.

Now let me introduce myself. I was born in 1983, my favorite color is blue, my favorite food is cookies, and my favorite crochet hook is the red Boye G/6 that my Nana taught me to crochet with. I have three younger sisters, Hope, Faith, and Victory. I have been a reader almost all my life and a writer almost as long. The first story I remember writing was at age 8 in third grade. It was about the family farm and had something to do with grasshoppers, as I had been impressed with the abundance of them when we visited the land. Not long before, my mother had read to Hope and I about Laura Ingalls Wilder's youth in On the Banks of Plum Creek. Laura's locusts were in my mind also.

The first book I remember reading by myself was an I Can Read book called Little Bear by Elsa Holmelund Minarik. I still savor the simplicity of children's literature, and the sweetness of the conversations that Little Bear had with Mother Bear. There is no wonder about why my first completed manuscript was a children's picture book. I am still trying to get an agent to sell that book, but while I wait, I write. And work. And read. And crochet.