“A wizard is never late, Frodo Baggins. Nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to.”
– Gandalf, The Fellowship of the Ring (Screenplay by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, based on the book by J.R.R. Tolkien)
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“In any truly significant conversation with a person or reading of a book, the intensity of the first dawning of ideas scours the memory like the ground zero of an explosion.”
– Peter Brown, Journeys of the Mind
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Today doesn’t feel particularly auspicious.
There’s no breakthrough or revelation leaping from the page.
I’m still doing all the mental and physical things needed to write something significant.
Significance can come about through the same action as mediocrity.
I cannot control or command significance to emerge; I must worship at the page, get down on my knees and write.
If significance chooses to visit, I’m ready to record every word like a dedicated disciple at his master’s feet.
I wait for tidbits.
Like Plato recording Socrates, I capture what the great teacher tells me.
I don’t know when he will arrive; he keeps to his own schedule: just like Gandalf, significance is never late or early.
When the idea emerges, I leap to action, pen in hand, ready to record, my mind ever so slightly altered.
Silently, patiently, loyally, I wait for the sign.
Conversations With Quotations 