Comments on: Humility or the Nobel Prize? You choose.

By: bloglily

bloglily — Fri, 16 May 2008 03:01:00 +0000

Bob Dylan (or so google says):

My love she speaks like silence,
Without ideals or violence,
She doesn’t have to say she’s faithful,
Yet she’s true, like ice, like fire.
People carry roses,
Make promises by the hours,
My love she laughs like the flowers,
Valentines can’t buy her.

In the dime stores and bus stations,
People talk of situations,
Read books, repeat quotations,
Draw conclusions on the wall.
Some speak of the future,
My love she speaks softly,
She knows there’s no success like failure
And that failure’s no success at all.

By: bloglily

bloglily — Thu, 15 May 2008 17:11:16 +0000

John, It’s very helpful to be reminded that what looks like success is often anything but. Thanks for this post, and the many good links in it. I particularly liked the “old french poet”’s poem. –Lily

jb says: There’s no success like failure. Who said that?

By: Jim Murdoch

Jim Murdoch — Thu, 15 May 2008 11:10:12 +0000

Yes, when the news arrived that Beckett had won the Nobel prize his wife’s initial response was: “This is a catastrophe.” They didn’t attend the ceremony and went into hiding instead. Knowlson’s biography of him is well titled: ‘Damned to Fame’.

jb says: Thanks for that, Jim. Something else I didn’t know.