Alan C. Baird Quotes

“My highest aspiration in life is to serve as the Limerick Laureate of Nantucket.”

“Limerick gained a reputation for piety, but we knew it was only the rain.”

“Uh-oh, I hope he doesn’t start rattling off dirty limericks next; she’ll probably burn the hotel down.”

“Since this war began our sympathy has gone out to all the suffering people who have been dragged into it. Further hundreds of millions have become involved since I spoke at Limerick fortnight ago.”

“A dozen more questions occurred to me. Not to mention twenty-two possible solutions to each one, sixteen resulting hypotheses and counter-theorems, eight abstract speculations, a quadrilateral equation, two axioms, and a limerick. That's raw intelligence for you.”

“How quickly bodies came to love each other, promise themselves to each other always, without asking permission. From the mind! If only she could give up her mind, let her heart swell, inflamed, her brain stepping out for whole days, whole seasons, her work shrinking to limericks.”

“I think the first time I really heard poetry was in the schoolyard. Just the little limericks that kids say when they're jumping rope and playing games. I think that's the first time I heard rhyming words - I don't know if I'd call that the definitive poetry, but that's when I heard rhyming words said and not necessarily sung.”

“On various occasions, especially in trying to think of western American history in the context of the worldwide history of colonialism, it has struck me that much of the mental behavior that we sometimes denounce as ethnocentrism and cultural insensitivity actually derives less from our indifference or hostility than from our clumsiness and awkwardness when we leave the comfort of the English language behind... [V]enturing outside the bounds of the English language exercises and stretches our minds in ways that are essential for getting as close as we can to the act of seeing the world from what would otherwise remain unfamiliar and alien perspectives.”

“O stand, stand at the window As the tears scald and start;You shall love your crooked neighbour With your crooked heart.”

“Blessed be, it's finally Spring. In joy and delight the birds sing, Ravished upon the entire earth, The new rebirth, Helas, the joy it brings!”