NEIL GAIMAN & MARK TWAIN on the New Year to Come!

{Neil and his beloved dog, Cabal, who died in 2013.

Neil said "I found him by the side of the road, and we rescued each other."}

“I hope you will have a wonderful year,

that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously,

that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it,

that you will be loved and that you will be liked,

and that you will have people to love and to like in return.

And, most importantly

(because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now),

that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes,

then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself,

changing yourself, changing your world.

You're doing things you've never done before,

and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself.

Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes.

Make mistakes nobody's ever made before.

Don't freeze, don't stop,

don't worry that it isn't good enough,

or it isn't perfect, whatever it is:

art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, 

Do it. 

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

Be kind to yourself in the year ahead.

Remember to forgive yourself and to forgive others.

It is too easy to be outraged these days, so much harder to change things, 

to reach out, to understand.

Try to make your time matter:

Minutes and hours and days and weeks can blow away like dead leaves

with nothing to show but time you spent not quite doing things

or time you spent waiting to begin.

Hug too much, smile too much,

and when you can ... love."





 {Samuel Clemens in 1867}

MARK TWAIN:

Territorial Enterprise, January 1, 1863

LOCAL COLUMN  -  NEW YEAR'S DAY

"Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions.

Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.

Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink, and swore his last oath.

To-day, we are a pious and exemplary community.

Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds

and gone to cutting our ancient short comings considerably shorter than ever.

We shall also reflect pleasantly upon how we did the same old thing last year about this time.

However, go in, community.

New Year's is a harmless annual institution,

of no particular use to anybody

save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls, and humbug resolutions,

and we wish you to enjoy it with a looseness suited to the greatness of the occasion."