Wit and Wisdom of Paul Newman

Still playing catch up with the posts. Remember, you can always find what you missed at my blog.

Paul Newman passed away last week, and as I have started to do when a celebrity departs us, I'll feature some of his quotes, comments, and stories today. Thanks to list member Dianne F. for the photo.

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THE WIT AND WISDOM OF PAUL NEWMAN

"I don't think there's anything exceptional or noble in being philanthropic. It's the other attitude that confuses me."

"I wasn't driven to acting by any inner compulsion. I was running away from the sporting goods business."

"I don't like to discuss my marriage, but I will tell you something which may sound corny but which happens to be true. I have steak at home. Why should I go out for hamburger?"

"I like racing but food and pictures are more thrilling. I can't give them up. In racing you can be certain, to the last thousandth of a second, that someone is the best, but with a film or a recipe, there is no way of knowing how all the ingredients will work out in the end. The best can turn out to be awful and the worst can be fantastic. Cooking is like performing and performing like cooking."

"I'm like a good cheese. I'm just getting moldy enough to be interesting."

After being nominated seven times, Newman finally won an Oscar in 1986 for "The Color of Money." This quote is from his acceptance speech. "It's like chasing a beautiful woman for 80 years. Finally, she relents and you say, 'I am terribly sorry. I'm tired.' "

"Newman's Second Rule: Just when things look darkest, they go black."

"The embarrassing thing is that my salad dressing is out-grossing my films."

[selected from Wikiquotes; photo sent by list member Dianne F.]

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One final weekend scooping ice cream at our local Renaissance Festival and this annual torture fundraising work will be over. Then we can get on with our autumn, which is turning into another glorious reason to go outside and look at the trees.

I'll see you on Monday. Hopefully on time. Maybe earlier here on the blog.

Mark

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WEB SITE of the WEEK: List member Patty M. reminded me of http://www.woot.com/, where you can find an "online store and community that focuses on selling cool stuff cheap." Each day they offer one - and only one - cool deal and in the text below the item there's usually some pretty good/goofy/funny copy to go with. The Woot community also has a tee shirt site, a wine site, and offers discounts to Woot members for other sites in the fine print up at the very top of the page. They also run a blog that occasionally features contests you can enter. This past week I picked up two 4-gigabyte flash drives for under $20. (I remember the first flash drive I bought: 1/2 a gig for over $80. Arrrgggghhh. This is why you never buy new electronics. Wait a year for it to get smaller, better, cheaper. But you know me, it was on the cutting edge at the time and I just *had* to have it.)

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Mark's Musings continues to be a Habeas-certified spam free mailer. Subscribe, view past issues in the Archives, and frolic all you want at my web site. To contact me and sooner or later get a reply, click here. To make sure you get all the posts, stop by the blog periodically. You know, this place. You can forward or reprint "Mark's Musings" freely but please keep the credits attached. Credit detachment is just rude. Original material and commentary © 2008 by Mark Raymond. I update the blog with a copy of this post daily and occasionally toss in bonus material on the weekends. Look for the label that says "Weekend" and you can bring them all up with one click. My personal mission statement remains John 3:30. Give more than people expect. There's no traffic jam on the extra mile.

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WORDS for YOUR WEEKEND: "Autumn is a second Spring where every leaf is a flower." (Albert Camus)