A life in words

  • Overheard in the Atrium

    In a nod to my friend Emily’s recent post, I’m going to describe something interesting I observed in the Harold B. Lee library last night. There I was on the first floor of the atrium, the big, three-story glass enclosure with trees and ferns and seats for studying. All was peaceful, I was happily being…

  • Bang!

    He was backed into a corner. The Apache Kid’s tenure as sheriff had been a rocky one, to be sure, but it was only as three consecutive bullets ripped into his abdomen, flopping him on the ground against the back of the player piano (“Maple Leaf Rag” still playing), that he finally thought the end…

  • Quote: Old Truths

    Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends—honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism—these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What…

The principal difficulty lies, and the greatest care should be employed in constituting this Representative Assembly. It should be in miniature, an exact portrait of the people at large. It should think, feel, reason, and act like them. That it may be the interest of this Assembly to do strict justice at all times, it should be an equal representation, or in other words equal interest among the people should have equal interest in it. Great care should be taken to effect this, and to prevent unfair, partial, and corrupt elections.John Adams, Thoughts on Government, April 1776