Quote of the Day

“The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.”

Honoré de Balzac

In “honoré” (hot diggity – dog ziggity boom – I’m funny!) of the fact that my new office is a coffee shop called Balzac’s, that the first book I ever read for a book club 13 years ago was Dai Sijie’s Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (great book, beautiful cover design by the way), and that my mum is a 24/7 rock star, I dedicate this Quote of the Day to her – and to all the moms out there who practice forgiveness on a daily basis with aplomb, like it’s a freakin’ walk in the park, the easiest thing in the world to do.

Balzac was a bit of a bad-ass rebel in his day, the early 19th century. Born in the same year as Alexander Pushkin, Balzac followed a professional path not totally dissimilar to that of another towering artistic figure – Wassily Kandinsky. Both would start out in law, quickly grow bored of its banality, and move on to writing and painting, respectively. More than that, both would go on to shape their respective fields like few before or after them.

I’ll finish this post off with one more quote from Balzac that I’ve always wholeheartedly believed in:

“There is no such thing as a great talent without great will power.”