“I can’t give another inch. . . . I’ve already given too many miles.”
“I’m a prideful son-of-a-bitch, I’ll admit that. I’ll gladly meet you half way to love you like you’ve never been loved before. . . . But I’ll be damned if I’ll cross a bridge to kiss your ass.” – The Bard
“The most defining moments in one’s life are his birth. And his death. In between, what counts the most are not his wins. Or his losses. But the opportunities he took. And the ones he passed on. The girls he kissed. And the ones he wishes he had. May you live it all and regret the none of it, Junior.” – advice from “Uncle Waldo On My Front Porch”
“Virtuous character is not a mistress. You take a vow to it. And no one needs to inform it of infidelity. It is the first to know.”
“Character is like steel. It will maintain its integrity. Or it will crack under pressure. Each is nothing until tempered. Steel, by fire. Character, by choices.”
“According to you, you grew up in a household full of geniuses. Apparently, it was so commonplace, I did not recognize yours when I saw it.” – Uncle Waldo’s “Advice From Our Front Porch”
“Only difference between me and a June colt was a colt had more sense. And I had no fence.” – (from Yester Summer Day)
“Contentment can be found when love owns the mortgage on a heart lust once leased.”
“One day we overestimate our worth . . . and all too soon we’re turned to dirt.” (from the poem Death Comes A Horseman)
“When I read that people with high IQ’s talk to themselves more than others talk to themselves, I said to myself, ‘I told you so!'”
“A dog’s life. That’s about what I have left in me, Don.” (From Uncle Waldo’s insights into mortality dispensed from our front steps.)
“Sadly and too often . . . before there can be real peace . . . there must be real war.”
“It is apparent my heart and mind wish more years than granted by the lease on this tired and crumbling edifice they inhabit.”
“Those who take no interest in how they are governed, are destined to be governed by those who are thoroughly invested in controlling them.”
“I tried self-deprecating humor as a writing technique. But I’m not very good at it.”
“A lot of good things happen, get lost, get found “deep in the heart of Texas”. Some get left there . . . but memories of them linger on and bring a smile to those who own them.”
“I try not to embarrass myself or present company. I succeed about 50% of the time.”
“I cut my nose off to shave my face.” (on straight razors)
“Since we first met, my heart times itself by the breaths you take.” (to be continued)
“Do I think I’m the smartest guy in the room? That varies from room to room.”
“Don’t use my stories, poems and words against me. That’s not very original.”
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Comments on the passing of esteemed author Pat Conroy:
“They read one quote of his that made me fist pump! It was –
“One of the greatest gifts you can get as a writer is to be born into an unhappy family,” Mr. Conroy told the writer John Berendt for a Vanity Fair profile in 1995. “I could not have been born into a better one.” He added: “I don’t have to look very far for melodrama. It’s all right there.”
Well, that right there practically guarantees me a Pulitzer! I have to say, I got goose bumps reading the article, which is essentially an obituary. The parallels between his father and mine are eerie. And, as loyal and maternal as she was, when my mother had to take me to the doctor for the injuries my dad had inflicted on me, it was always quietly agreed that this was a family matter and to be kept private. The doctors weren’t idiots. But they were complicit. And like Conroy’s―boy!―is my family ever going to be pissed at me when all the stories are told . . . If I get published. I am just now getting into the nitty-gritty of family life in the Henry household. Stay tuned for more gun shots, wounded boar raccoons running rampant through my grandmother’s Better Homes and Gardens Rensselaer penthouse and castrated perverts! Woo hoo! From Navy Seabee to drug runner, Conroy’s dad had nothin’ on mine!
I like to think my prose is a lot like his. I am accused of being too flowery, verbose. But it worked for him and I think it works for me. Like him, I will be getting more inside people’s heads as I go forward. The quotes about opening the oyster and – “now you know my childhood” – freaking rocked! His characters in South of Broad were a little too effeminate for me to relate to. He was obviously a lot more liberal than I. More like my friend Bones who sent me the article!
Pat Conroy, Author of ‘The Prince of Tides’ and ‘The Great Santini,’ Dies at 70 – The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/05/books/pat-conroy-who-wove-his-family-strife-into-novels-of-carolina-dies-at-70.html
I think I am a little more like Conroy’s dad (incidentally named Donald!)! I laughed out loud when they asked him who read his son’s books! Mr. Conroy replied, “That’s easy: psychiatrists, homosexuals, extreme liberals and women.” Classic! But Conroy’s use of prose went down on paper like poetry and I loved it.
He started younger and stayed on track because he had a mentor and was more disciplined than I. But I’m going to chase him.” – DKH
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“I write in the shadow and spirit of Mark Twain and Bill Shakespeare. My greatest dream and aspiration is that they will laugh with me . . . and not laugh me out of the classroom.”
"When the paths of our lives have run their course, some memories will endure. It is my hope that somewhere within your treasury of fondest recollections, at least one of me, of us together, shall shine among the brightest."
“This child is the apple blossom on my family tree.” (Speaking of my daughter, Jessie Remington Henry)
“If the Earth were made entirely of gold . . . gold would have no value. If every woman were right for you, Kenton . . . women would have no value. Hold out for the one that goes through your heart and becomes one with your soul. She’ll be worth more to your life than any amount of gold or diamonds you could ever come to call your own.” – Advice from Uncle Waldo in “Thoughts And Poems In The Key Of Love”
“As Jason pursued the Golden Fleece, the Bard’s quest to find his muse continues. And yet, some days―alone without even the Argonauts―his pen finds its way across the page. And the words it leaves in its wake take on a life of their own and carry him forward to some distant shore. A shore where he knows she listens and lies in wait.”
“In the words of a famous clown, I once had the pleasure of knowing, ‘We are all actors in a grand play. We can choose to be either happy or sad performers.’ I choose ‘happy’!” I made that clown a promise I would do my part to make people smile. Again, I hope this does that much for you.” (From “About The Bard O’ The Woods)
“Every bridge I burned was a National Historic Monument.”
(From Venus Wore Red Ball Jets)
“Truth is often best received when delivered in the simplest, most innocent format possible. More often from the guy next door than the narcissistic, erudite deeply entrenched in their ivory towers.”
From Dumbass to Genius
(By Way of A Thousand Kicks in the Ass)
“Freedom is always forged by lead. Sharp tongue, sharp pen. … And steel. Like Bowie’s knife.”
(From Not The Pacifist)
“Let the wine blush–but keep a straight face when he asks you that. Everyone has a past and that’s not something you have to share if you don’t want to.” (From Princess Xanax And The Ride to Kalispell)
“A good story told well is a fine thing. A great story told well is bankable.
But a story like Shakespeare, Twain, and Hemingway told … well, that’s a gift from God, brother.”
“Any fool can die. Try to live a life worth living.”
“Time is an undefeated champion. It has not even fought to a draw . . . But you still get in the ring with it and do your best to pull an upset.”
QUOTE AND COUNTER-QUOTE:
“Don’t just embrace the crazy, sidle up next to it and lick its ear.”- Jim Wright
RESPONSE TO ABOVE:
“If my acquaintances were to submit to this advice, I would be made to feel like one whose head was slathered in maple syrup and tied down in a whelping box with a dozen month, old Labrador Retrievers.”
UPON AWAKENING FROM GENERAL ANESTHESIA ON O7.31.13:
“I have found the portal to the 4th dimension which allows us to go through the wormhole into another universe. Ours is not the only one. There is a parallel universe where all the characters are animated and Deputy Dawg is God.”
“Seems to me there is not much difference between heartburn and a broken heart. Initially, they feel almost identical. The only real difference is, there is a pill you may take for the first malady. For the second . . . the only real cure seems to be what got you sick in the first place.”
“Better to come to love to last late then love too fast lost.”
My doctor told me I needed a brain scan. Seriously. I told him, “They look in my brain, they’re gonna see Hemingway and General George S. Patton seated at a small table doin’ shots and arguing over who gets to tell me what to do next.”
*(All quotes are by Don Kenton Henry unless credited by name to someone else.)
bardofthewoods.com 
Name: Bones
Email: treidy@
Comment: To: bardofthewoods@gmail.com
Subject: [bardofthewoods.com] Quotations By The Bard*
Name: Bones
Comment: A moving tribute to Pat Conroy, an amazing author who I think I introduced you to after mentioning how he drones on with verbose, but richly colorful, characters and story lines. And yes, I have read The Great Santini along with all of his others. My three favorites are South of Broad, The Prince of Tides and Beach Music. Trying to pick my favorite of those three is akin to picking your favorite child, an impossibility since each has their own voice, talents, strengths and weaknesses and you appreciate and love them equally though some more than another given the day or your mood. More than once, I critiqued you for your stories’ verbosity, but after reading Conroy, I started appreciating the same wordiness as layering, adding texture and richness to the character, setting or story. Your similarities in family backgrounds resonate in your writing. And that is a good thing. I detected a somewhat darker tone in The Midnight Farmboy compared to your earlier works, by the use of the F word, well now I guess that’s fuck, and the more sensitive subject matter of homosexuality and race. It is sad to think the political correctness of the world and the fear of offending others has led us to the pussification of society to the point that I question whether Mark Twain could have even written the great American novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and his friend, the slave, Jim today. So, if you need to bring skeletons out of the family closet, do it. Beside, it’s all fiction, right? To hell with what your family thinks. Did I mention it’s fiction? Remember, Conroy was estranged from his father for years and then they made amends after he wrote The Great Santini. His dad, Donald, even joked about it being fiction at book signings he attended with his son, Pat. You’re maturing as a writer. You deserve to be deeper and darker, yet I know the humor will remain because as your professor opined, we are humored by things we know we shouldn’t laugh at. Pretty much stuff you and I have been laughing at together our entire lives, or at least since the 8th grade……Bones
Best comment I’ve gotten to date. Thanks, Bones – my life long friend. Please read my eulogy when the time comes.