I guess I have a fairly good memory for languages, although I'm not fluent in anything but English. In my ESL class yesterday, one student asked another in (Mandarin) Chinese, "Is that a verb or a noun?" I understood what she said and replied in Chinese, "A verb."

The French writer Colette (her pen name) said, "Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it."

"Love yourself and be awake-
Today, tomorrow, always.

First establish yourself in the way,
Then teach others,
And so defeat sorrow.

To straighten the crooked
You must first do a harder thing-
Straighten yourself.

You are your only master.
Who else?

Subdue yourself,
And discover your master."


-from the Dhammapada
From Teachings of the Buddha, edited by Jack Kornfield, 1993.
Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Boston,
www.shambhala.com.