Past Quotation Challenges and Winners! 

July 16-31, 2005:  "In the first case it was necessary to renounce the consciousness of an unreal immobility in space and to recognize a motion we did not feel; in the present case it is similarly necessary to renounce a freedom that does not exist, and to recognize a dependence of which we are not conscious." - Leo Tolstoy, from 'War and Peace'

July 1-15, 2005:  "Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow-You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream." - Edgar Allen Poe, from his poem, "A Dream Within a Dream"

May 1-15, 2005: "And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part." - William Shakespeare, from 'As You Like It'

April 16-31, 2005:  "In the ancient city of London, on a certain autumn day in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, a boy was born to a poor family of the name of Canty, who did not want him.  On the same day another English child was born to a rich family of the name of Tudor, who did want him. All England wanted him too. England had so longed for him, and hoped for him, and prayed God for him, that, now that he was really come, the people went nearly mad for joy. - Mark Twain, from 'The Prince and the Pauper'

April 1-15, 2005:  "THE Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne, Glowed on the marble, where the glass Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines From which a golden Cupidon peeped out (Another hid his eyes behind his wing)Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra Reflecting light upon the table as The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it, From satin cases poured in rich profusion..." - T.S. Eliot, from "The Wasteland"

March 16-31, 2005:  "I got undressed and I looked at myself and I began to cry. Hush, Luster said. Looking for them aint going to do no good. They're gone. You keep on like this, and we aint going have you no more birthday. He put my gown on. I hushed, and then Luster stopped, his head toward the window. Then he went to the window and looked out. He came back and took my arm. Here she come, he said. Be quiet, now. We went to the window and looked out." - William Faulkner, from 'The Sound and the Fury'

March 1-15, 2005:  "How grand the sight was that was displayed before me as the day broke in its splendour...I was ravished with the beauty of the world. I'd never known such exaltation and such a transcendent joy. I had a strange sensation, a tingling that arose in my feet and traveled up to my head, and I felt as though I were suddenly released from my body and as pure spirit partook of a loveliness I had never conceived. I had a sense that a knowledge more than human possessed me, so that everything that had been confused was clear and everything that had perplexed me was explained. I was so happy that it was pain and I struggled to release myself from it, for I felt that if it lasted a moment longer I should die; and yet it was such rapture that I was ready to die rather than forego it. How can I tell you what I felt? No words can tell the ecstasy of my bliss. When I came to myself I was exhausted and trembling." - W. Somerset Maugham, from The Razor's Edge, 1944

February 15-28, 2005:  "He belonged to that cut of present-day lesser artists who don't ask too much of themselves, wish first of all to be happy and amiable, utilize their comfortably small talent to enhance their personal appeal, and play the naïve genius in society. Intentionally childlike, unscrupulous, beyond morality, enjoying everything, and contented with themselves as they are, they  are healthy enough to enjoy their little illnesses; and their vanity is in reality quite delightful so long as it is not wounded." - Thomas Mann, from 'Loulou', 1921

February 1-14, 2005:  "We have merely scratched the surface of the store of knowledge which will come to us. I believe that we are now, a-tremble on the verge of vast discoveries - discoveries so wondrously important they will upset the present trend of human thought and start it along completely new lines." - Thomas Edison

January 16-31, 2005:  "I have here, according to your Request, given you my present Thoughts of the general State of Things in the Universe. Such as they are, you have them, and are welcome to 'em; and if they yield you any Pleasure or Satisfaction, I shall think my Trouble sufficiently compensated. I know my Scheme will be liable to many Objections from a less discerning Reader than your self; but it is not design'd for those who can't understand it. I need not give you any Caution to distinguish the hypothetical Parts of the Argument from the conclusive: You will easily perceive what I design for Demonstration, and what for Probability only. The whole I leave entirely to you, and shall value my self more or less on this account, in proportion to your Esteem and Approbation." -  Benjamin Franklin

January 1-15, 2005: "We stand midway between two theories of economic society. The one theory maintains that wages should be fixed by reference to what is ’fair’ and ’reasonable’ as between classes. The other theory–the theory of the economic juggernaut–is that wages should be settled by economic pressure, otherwise called ’hard facts’, and that our vast machine should crash along, with regard only to its equilibrium as a whole, and without attention to the chance consequences of the journey to individual groups." - John Maynard Keynes

December 16-31, 2004:  "To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve! It was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have got into the works. Twelve!  He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve: and stopped." - Charles Dickens, from 'A Christmas Carol'

December 1-15, 2004:  "Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men." - Ayn Rand, from 'Atlas Shrugged'

November 16-30, 2004:  "AFTER having been twice driven back by heavy southwestern gales, Her Majesty's ship Beagle, a ten-gun brig, under the command of Captain Fitz Roy, R. N., sailed from Devonport on the 27th of December, 1831. The object of the expedition was to complete the survey of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, commenced under Captain King in 1826 to 1830, -- to survey the shores of Chile, Peru, and of some islands in the Pacific -- and to carry a chain of chronometrical measurements round the World." - Charles Darwin, from 'The Voyage of the Beagle'

November 1-15, 2004:  'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?' -  'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.'  `I don't much care where.'  `Then it doesn't matter which way you go.'  `--so long as I get SOMEWHERE.'  `Oh, you're sure to do that... If you only walk long enough.' - Lewis Carroll, from 'Alice in Wonderland'

October 16-31, 2004:  "MANY years ago, I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot family, and had once been wealthy; but a series of misfortunes had reduced him to want. To avoid the mortification consequent upon his disasters, he left New Orleans, the city of his forefathers, and took up his residence at Sullivan's Island, near Charleston, South Carolina." - Edgar Allan Poe, from 'The Gold Bug'

October 1-15, 2004: "See the mountains kiss high Heaven, And the waves clasp one another; No sister-flower would be forgiven  If it disdained its brother; And the sunlight clasps the earth, And the moonbeams kiss the sea - What are all these kissings worth  If thou kiss not me?" -Percy Bysshe Shelley, from his poem, "Love's Philosophy"

September 16-30, 2004:    "And for a long time after that he said nothing...until at last, humming to himself in a rather sticky voice, he got up, shook Rabbit lovingly by the paw, and said that he must be going on." - A.A. Milne, from the Winnie the Pooh series

September 1-15, 2004: "The broad foundation upon which our Constitution rests being the people—a breath of theirs having made, as a breath can unmake, change, or modify it—it can be assigned to none of the great divisions of government but to that of democracy. If such is its theory, those who are called upon to administer it must recognize as its leading principle the duty of shaping their measures so as to produce the greatest good to the greatest number." - President William Henry Harrison from his inaugural address, 1841

August 16-31, 2004:  "Now when tidings of the battle that had been fought at Marathon reached the ears of King Darius, the son of Hystaspes, his anger against the Athenians, which had been already roused by their attack upon Sardis, waxed still fiercer, and he became more than ever eager to lead an army against Greece." - Herodotus, from 'The Histories'

Winners: Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Patty DeWitts (Berkley, MI); Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI);

August 1-15, 2004:  "The subject of psychical research is one upon which I have thought more and about which I have been slower to form my opinion, than upon any other subject whatever.  Every now and then as one jogs along through life some small incident happens which very forcibly brings home the fact that time passes and that first youth and then middle age are slipping away. Such a one occurred the other day." - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, from 'The New Revelation'

Winners:  Jack Curson; Chris Duchateau; Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI); Wally Dow (Naples, FL)

July 16-31, 2004: "This is the easy time, there is nothing doing. I have whirled the midwife's extractor, I have my honey, Six jars of it, Six cat's eyes in the wine cellar..." - Sylvia Plath, from "Wintering"

Winners: Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Jon May (Justin, TX); Kimberly Aranda; Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Kirsty Low; Deb Mohlenhoff (Ithaca, NY)

July 1-15, 2004:  "Where are Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom and Charley, The weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, the fighter?  All, all, are sleeping on the hill." - Edgar Lee Masters, from 'The Hill'

Winners:  Kimberly Huemmer (Freeport, NY); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Jenny Torchia; Rhonda Roberts; Denise Swails (Florida); Anita Quanstrom; Frank Rodgers (Henderson, Nevada); Mariam Katkhouda; Laura Olszewski; Linda Hamburg; Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI); Lauren Day; Anita Quanstrom; Laura Lowry; Wally Dow (Naples, FL)

June 16-30, 2004:  Quotation Vacation

June 1-15, 2004: "The phenomena of the year take place every day in a pond on a small scale. Every morning, generally speaking, the shallow water is being warmed more rapidly than the deep, though it may not be made so warm after all, and every evening it is being cooled more rapidly until the morning. The day is an epitome of the year." - Henry David Thoreau, from 'Walden Pond'

Winners: Wally Dow (Naples, FL)

May 16-31, 2004: "When they had heaped up the barrow they went back again into the city, and being well assembled they held high feast in the house of Priam their king." - Homer, from 'The Iliad'

Winners: Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Jamie Horton; Sarah Brand; Torrie Jones; Ryan Mizuno; Julia Muneer; Jacqueline Gregg; Kimberly Huemmer (Freeport, NY); Jen Towe; Jamie Carver; Leslie West; John Blackwell (Starkville, MS); Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI); Kevin Bretting; Kristen Dewey; Kristin McNeish; Vesa Botezatu; Rhonda Roberts; Chloe Brandon; Jenny Olsson (Brooklyn, NY); Setareh Samii; Katherine Stevens (Potomac, MD); Frank Rodgers (Henderson, Nevada); Ruven (Livingston, NJ)

May 1-15, 2004:  "Just so. But hesitation, suspense, conflict between belief and disbelief - is sometimes such torture to a conscientious man, such as you are, that it's better to hang oneself at once. Knowing that you are inclined to believe in me, I administered some disbelief by telling you that anecdote. I lead you to belief and disbelief by turns, and I have my motive in it. It's the new method. As soon as you disbelieve in me completely, you'll begin assuring me to my face that I am not a dream but a reality. I know you. Then I shall have attained my object, which is an honourable one. I shall sow in you only a tiny grain of faith and it will grow into an oak-tree- and such an oak-tree that, sitting on it, you will long to enter the ranks of 'the hermits in the wilderness and the saintly women,' for that is what you are secretly longing for. You'll dine on locusts, you'll wander into the wilderness to save your soul!" - Fyodor Doestoevsky, from 'The Brothers Karamazov'

Winners:  Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI); Catherine Campbell; Melissa Parris; John W. Roney III (Naples, FL); Sally; Michele Drzewiecki; Bruce Tindale; Helen Halligan; Mariam Katkhouda; Prince Kurama; Angie Bergman; Rhonda Roberts; Jenny; Mary Simmerman (Denver, CO); Edwin Walker; Judy Florian (Girard, Ohio); Lee-Anne Voordenhout; Carla Cooper; Lanny Sherwin (Franklin, TN); Leslie Flynn (Oak Creek, WI); Kara Klein; Dennis Bellinkx; Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Linda Hansen

April 16-30, 2004:  "Just to give you a general idea," he would explain to them. For of course some sort of general idea they must have, if they were to do their work intelligently–though as little of one, if they were to be good and happy members of society, as possible. For particulars, as every one knows, make for virtue and happiness; generalities are intellectually necessary evils. Not philosophers but fret-sawyers and stamp collectors compose the backbone of society." - Aldous Huxley, from 'Brave New World'

Winners: Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Denise Swails (Florida); Sally; Jenny Olsson (Brooklyn, NY); Eilidh Ashmore; Nina Torres (Winter Park, FL)

April 1-15, 2004:  "IN the days when the spinning-wheels hummed busily in the farmhouses -- and even great ladies, clothed in silk and thread-lace, had their toy spinning-wheels of polished oak -- there might be seen in districts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom of the hills, certain pallid undersized men, who, by the side of the brawny country-folk, looked like the remnants of a disinherited race." - George Eliot, from 'Silas Marner'

Winners: Shirley Thompson; Jenny Olsson (Brooklyn, NY); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Sally; Mary Simmerman (Denver, CO); Mirela Zecevic (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania); Alfred Lee; Josh Durey; Hayley Michelle Dowling; Anita Swigart; Indira Srinivasan

March 16-31, 2004:  "Maule's well, all this time, though left in solitude, was throwing up a succession of kaleidoscopic pictures, in which a gifted eye might have seen foreshadowed the coming fortunes of Hepzibah and Clifford, and the descendant of the legendary wizard, and the village maiden, over whom he had thrown Love's web of sorcery." - Nathaniel Hawthorne, from 'The House of the Seven Gables'

Winners: Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Shirley Thompson; Jenny Olsson (Brooklyn, NY); Krista Rhea; Nathan Germelman; Betty M. Dygart (Beloit, WI); Gina Smith; Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Adrien Linebarger; Sally; Eilidh Ashmore; Chelsee (Kapolei, Hawaii)

March 1-15, 2004: "Though leaves are many, the root is one; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun; Now I may wither into the truth." - William Butler Yeats, from "The Coming of Wisdom with Time"

Winners:  Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Steve Brinager (Harold, KY); Shirley Thompson; Kristina (University of Virginia); Betty M. Dygart (Beloit, WI); Gauri Deshpande; Sally M.; Someswari (India); Jenny Olsson (Brooklyn, NY); Adrien Linebarger (Southborough, MA)

February 16-29, 2004: "Then Cyrus, who had heard that and marvelled not at the account, was bidding perform that deed, and thus was recommending them, as he was bidding, prepare themselves on the grounds that no longer shall they rule, but be ruled; for there loves out of soft places soft men come to be --for nothing is it the same land’s to grow marvelous fruit and men good in the things of war. And so, with a share of that knowledge the Persians were gone and stood off, worsted in their judgement by Cyrus, and to rule chose, housed on paining land, rather than, sowers of flat, to be others’ slave." - from Herodotus' Inquiries, Book 9: installment 48

Winners:  Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Steve Brinager (Harold, KY); Betty M. Dygart (Beloit, WI); Carla Cooper (Lakeville, MN); Shirley Thompson; Sean Winter; Nikki Bevil; Elizabeth Ouellette

February 1-15, 2004: Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we, In that the world's contracted thus; Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be To warm the world, that's done in warming us. Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere; This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere. - John Donne, from "The Sun Rising"

Winners:  Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Rhonda Roberts; Lori Robertson; Shirley Thompson; Eilidh Ashmore; Casey Borlase; Denise Swails (Gainesville, FL); Betty M. Dygart (Beloit, WI); Sabeen Hasan; Steve Brinager (Harold, KY); Julia Harding; Alan Watkins-Groves; Carla Cooper (Lakeville, MN); Rach Chua; Cryssy

January 16-31, 2004:  "Why, we have come almost to looking upon real life as an effort, almost as hard work, and we are all privately agreed that it is better in books. And why do we fuss and fume sometimes? Why are we perverse and ask for something else? We don't know what ourselves. It would be the worse for us if our petulant prayers were answered. Come, try, give any one of us, for instance, a little more independence, untie our hands, widen the spheres of our activity, relax the control and we ... yes, I assure you ... we should be begging to be under control again at once." - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, from 'Notes from the Underground'

Winners: Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Steve Brinager (Harold, KY); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Shirley Thompson; Renee Villani (Green Valley, Arizona); Jenny Olsson (Brooklyn, NY); Betty M. Dygart (Beloit, WI); Rhonda Roberts; Jason M Schultz; Schlomo Schlumpsky; Mike Larsen; Lori Robertson

January 1-15, 2004:  "So endeth this chronicle. It being strictly a history of a boy, it must stop here; the story could not go much further without becoming the history of a man. When one writes a novel about grown people, he knows exactly where to stop -- that is, with a marriage; but when he writes of juveniles, he must stop where he best can." - Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), from 'Tom Sawyer'

Winners:  Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Racheal; Mirela Zecevic (Philadelphia, PA); Edwin Walker; Tyrel Schalamon; Mary (Denver, CO); Denise Swails (Gainesville, FL); Leslie Flynn (Oak Creek, WI); Leonie Allan (Canberra, Australia); Katie Ramus; Rhonda M. Roberts; Lee Knaggs (Australia); Doug Lavanture; Shannon Kurtas (Philadelphia, PA); Indira Srinivasan; Shirley Thompson; Lucretia McDowell; Jeff Evangelista

December 16-31, 2003:  "When I finished my cigar and went up, the light was still on. I could see the empty keyhole, but I couldn't hear a sound. She studied quiet. Maybe she learned that in school. I told Mother goodnight and went on to my room and got the box out and counted it again. I could hear the Great American Gelding snoring away like a planing mill. I read somewhere they'd fix men that way to give them women's voices. But maybe he didn't know what they'd done to him. I dont reckon he even knew what he had been trying to do, or why Mr Burgess knocked him out with the fence picket." - William Faulkner, from 'The Sound and the Fury'

Winners:  Julia Muneer; Lori Robertson; Denise Swails (Gainesville, FL); Shirley

December 1-15, 2003:  "He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.  May that be truly said of us, and all of us!..." - Charles Dickens, from 'A Christmas Carol'

Winners:  Rachel Ost (Kansas City, Missouri); Indira Srinivasan; Gisèle Kashul; Denise Swails (Gainesville, FL); Elise Pent; Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI); Kristen Shanklin (Raleigh, NC); Elaine Inman (Hillsborough, New Jersey); Mary Laidlaw Otto (Brookfield, WI); Sally Simoes; Ben Porter; Karyn Robinson (Phoenix, AZ); Hope Johnson; Julia Muneer; Nameesh Sharma; Diane Demers (Dresden, Ontario); Lois Masarik; Joanne Callahan; Lucretia McDowell; Paula Turner; Nancy Van Devender (Aurora, CO); Kirsten Smith; Carla Cooper (Lakeville, MN); Eileen Beetz; Jared Maurer(Pittsburgh, PA); Ashley Douglass; Renee Villani (Green Valley, AZ); Parnilla Carpenter (Pine City, NY); Kuljeet Bhachu (London, UK); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Marianne Coble; Joann M. Esposito (Pittsgrove, NJ); Deanna O'Brien

November 16-30, 2003: Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.  "It's so dreadful to be poor!" sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress.  "I don't think it's fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all," added little Amy, with an injured sniff.  "We've got Father and Mother, and each other," said Beth contentedly from her corner. - Louisa May Alcott, from 'Little Women'

Winners: Gisèle Kashul; Kelsey E. Kudak; Leonie Allan; Tiffany Bennett (BelAir, MD); Kristen Douglass; Tobias Black (Texas); Jennifer Cripps-Ludlum, PhD (Towanda, PA); Denise Swails (Florida); Ashley Johnson; Elizabeth McCarthy; Diane Larkin; Elizabeth; Karyn Robinson (Phoenix, AZ); Pat Curtis; Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Beth Buzis; Paula Barrington; Karen Boers (Lantzville, BC Canada); Paul Toot (Northridge, California); Rachel Ost (Kansas City, Missouri); Carla Cooper; Nameesh Sharma; Arif Mansuri; P Harris; Indira Srinivasan; Rebecca Wall; Disa; Jean Schluckebier; Amanda Drapcho; Anne Laux; Julie Wangler (Omaha, NE); Carla P. Gilbert-Keener; Mary Laidlaw Otto (Brookfield, WI); Katie (NJ); Lia Tunru. Herndon VA; Allison Wolf (University of Minnesota); Alice Owen; Kimberly Huemmer (Freeport, NY); Siobhan K. Coulliette; Martha Beltran-Martinez

November 1-15, 2003: "On a lovely spring morning in the year 1829, a man of fifty or thereabouts was wending his way on horseback along the mountain road that leads to a large village near the Grande Chartreuse. This village is the market town of a populous canton that lies within the limits of a valley of some considerable length." - Honore de Balzac, from 'The Country Doctor'

Winners: Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Mirela Zecevic; Rhonda Roberts (Indiana); Dr. Santosh Kumar Sinha (Kuwait); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Shirley; Vella King; Mary (Denver, CO); Sarah Butler; Jessica Anderson; Renee Villani (Green Valley, Arizona); Denise Swails (Gainesville, FL); Lori Frigillana

October 16 through October 31, 2003:  "When at the first I took my pen in hand Thus for to write, I did not understand That I at all should make a little book In such a mode; nay, I had undertook To make another; which, when almost done, Before I was aware, I this begun." - John Bunyan, from 'The Pilgrim's Progress'

Winners:  Eib Kantessa (Tucson, Arizona); Dr. Santosh Kumar Sinha (Kuwait); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Vanessa Theiss (IR magazine); Rhonda Roberts (Indiana); Shirley; Denise Swails (Gainesville, FL); Mary (Denver, CO); Kuljeet Bhachu (London, England); Paul Toot (Northridge, California); Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI); Joyce (Bloomfield, NJ); Mirela
Zecevic (Philadelphia, PA); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Jeanne Niewoehner

October 1 through October 15, 2003: "I shall no longer ask myself if this is expedient, but only if it is right.  I shall do this not because I am noble or unselfish, but because I need for the rest of my journey, a star that will not play false to me, a compass that will not lie.  I am no longer able to aspire to the highest with one part of myself and to deny it with another." - Alan Paton, from 'Cry The Beloved Country'

Winners:  Renee Villani (Green Valley, Arizona); Mirela Zecevic (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania); Kenneth Smith (Springdale, Arkansas); Arthur Darvis; Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Paul Toot (Northridge, California); Shirley; Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI); Mary Simmerman (Denver, CO); Rhonda M. Roberts; Jillian Miller (Goodlettsville, TN); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Santosh Sinha; Jason Gelband; Eib Kantessa (Tucson, Arizona); Renee Gunnels

September 16 through September 30, 2003:  "A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment. Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud shutting out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath for its floor." - Thomas Hardy, from 'The Return of the Native"

Winners:  Kenneth Smith (Springdale, Arkansas); Corey Richason; Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Mary Simmerman; Rhonda Roberts; Ken Smith (Fayetteville, Arkansas); Dr. Santosh Kumar Sinha (Kuwait); Denise Swails; Jeanne Beanie; Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC);  Shirley; Charlie Hely (Boston, MA); Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI); Lee-Anne Voordenhout; Jenelle Knight; Joyce (Bloomfield, NJ); Mark Christiansen; Jane P. Hands; Ruven (Livingston, NJ)

September 1 through September 15, 2003:  "When the shadow of the sash appeared on the curtains it was between seven and eight oclock and then I was in time again, hearing the watch. It was Grandfather's and when Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it's rather excruciating-ly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father's." - William Faulkner, from 'The Sound and the Fury'

Winners: Jason Gelband; Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Mirela Zecevic (Philadelphia, PA); Jane Hands; Joyce (Bloomfield NJ); Rhonda M. Roberts (Princeton, IN);  Edwin D. Walker (Faulkner University); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Denise Swails; Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI); Courtney Jones; Kenneth Smith (Springdale, Arkansas); Sir Saswat Mishra; Kerry L. Blankenship

August 1 through August 15, 2003: "And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it toward some overwhelming question, To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"... - T.S. Eliot, from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Winners:  Eib Kantessa (Tucson, Arizona); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Karyn Robinson (Phoenix, Arizona); Kenneth G. Smith (Fayetteville, Arkansas); Mirela Zecevic (Philadelphia, PA); William Edwards; Joyce (Bloomfield NJ); Kathy Strickland

July 16 through July 31, 2003: "I would I were a careless child,  Still dwelling in my Highland cave,  Or roaming through the dusky wild,  Or bounding o'er the dark blue wave..." - Lord Byron, from "I Would I Were a Careless Child"

Winners:  Rhonda Roberts; Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Lee-Anne Voordenhout; Kenneth G. Smith (Fayetteville, Arkansas); Santosh Sinha; Sarah Garrison; Joyce (Bloomfield NJ); Denise Swails; Karyn Robinson (Phoenix, Arizona); 

July 1 through July 15, 2003:  "SELDEN PAUSED in surprise. In the afternoon rush of the Grand Central Station his eyes had been refreshed by the sight of Miss Lily Bart. It was a Monday in early September, and he was returning to his work from a hurried dip into the country; but what was Miss Bart doing in town at that season?" - Edith Wharton, from 'The House of Mirth'

Winners (in order received): Yiting Foo; Kenneth G. Smith (Fayetteville, Arkansas); Vickie Lord (Atlanta, GA); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Eib Kantessa; Betty Dygart, Beloit, WI; Ida Clarke; Rhonda Burton; Karyn Robinson (Phoenix, Arizona); Dr.Santosh Kumar Sinha (Kuwait)

June 16 through June 30, 2003:  "The children's section of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church of Stamps, Arkansas, was wiggling and giggling over my well-known forgetfulness.  The dress I wore was lavender taffeta, and each time I breathed it rustled, and now that I was sucking in air to breathe out shame it sounded like crepe paper on the back of hearses." - Maya Angelou from 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'  

Winners (in order received):  Rhonda Burton; Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Vickie Warfield; Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Jenny Olsson (Brooklyn, NY); Solomon Iwegim (Mr Bigg's, Enugu, Nigeria); Howard Bolling; Larry Williams (APO AE); Santosh Sinha; Kimberly Strickland; Karyn Robinson (Phoenix, AZ); Katie Ramus; Katherine Stevens (Potomac, MD); Kenneth Smith; Karon Fields; Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI); Amanda Drapcho; Diane LM Wittig; Jenn Giandalone (Shelburne Falls, MA); Jessica Zimmerling; Katherine Ramus

June 1 through June 15, 2003:  "At Oxford town there dwelt upon a day, an artisan that took in guests for pay - A wealthy wretch, a carpenter by trade, And in his house a poor young student stayed..." - Geoffrey Chaucer, from "The Miller's Tale" in the Canterbury Tales

Winners (in order received): Matt Kovich (Elmhurst IL)

May 5 through May 26, 2003:  "If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be." - Jean Paul Sartre

Winners (in order received): Ronald Balle (Trevose, PA); Santosh Sinha; Larry Williams (APO AE)

April 21 through May 5, 2003:  "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." - Ayn Rand

Winners (in order received): Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Jenny Olsson (Brooklyn, NY); Kenneth; Kuljeet Bhachu (London, England); Julie Beth (Sioux Falls, SD); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC)

April 7 through April 21, 2003:  "It is natural to believe in great men.  If the companions of our childhood should turn out to be heroes, and their condition regal it would not surprise us.  All mythology opens with demigods, and the circumstance high and poetic; that is, their genius is paramount." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Winners (in order received): Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Nina Torres (Winter Park, FL); Jessica Holdcraft (Marietta, GA); Jenny Olsson (Brooklyn, NY); Nelica Jakisic (Split, Croatia); Kuljeet Bhachu (London, England); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Kenneth Smith; Larry Williams (APO AE); James R (Canberra, Australia); Doug Rubin (Glenmont, NY); Whitney (Huron,Ohio)

March 25 through April 7, 2003: "History is marked by alternating movements across the imaginary line that separates East from West in Eurasia." - Herodotus

Winners (in order received):  Ting (Singapore); Samantha Dunaway (Emporia, KS); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Jenny Olsson (Brooklyn, NY); Eib Kantessa (Tucson, Arizona); Nina Torres (Winter Park, FL); William Mccullar (Memphis, TN); Katherine (Australia); Jeremy Day (Pittsburgh, PA); Angela (Baltimore)

March 10 through March 24, 2003: "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." - Thomas Jefferson, from 'The Declaration of Independence'

Winners (in order received): Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Charlie Hely (Boston); Samantha Dunaway (Emporia, KS); Jenny Olsson (Brooklyn, NY); Kevin Duffy; Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); E Hungerford (Elwell, MI); Christine (Minnesota); P. DeWitts (Berkley, MI); Megan Tracy (Bandera, TX); Jeff Montgomery (Edmond, OK); Allyson Edwards (East Bend, NC)

February 24 - March 10, 2003: "To the sick the doctors wisely recommend a change of air and scenery.  Thank Heaven, here is not all the world.  The buckeye does not grow in New England, and the mockingbird is rarely heard here." - Henry David Thoreau

Winners: Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Jenny Olsson (Brooklyn, NY); E Hungerford (Elwell, MI); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Samantha Dunaway (Emporia, KS); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Larry Williams (APO AE

February 10 - February 24, 2003: "Since the beginning of mankind, the fable-tellers have not only given us entertainment but a kind of wisdom, humor, and understanding that, like all true art, remains imperishable through the ages." - Walt Disney

Winners: Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Larry Williams (APO AE); Samantha Dunaway (Emporia, KS); Jack D. Curson III; Dean Bates (Penticton, B.C. Canada); Seymour Blackman (Anguilla); Cathy D. Reeves (Halifax); Birgitta Mackiewicz (Peoria, IL); Susan Shumate (Richmond, VA); Jennifer Dawson (Alberta, Canada); Carol Cannon (Seattle, WA); Kelly Zorn (Castalia, Ohio); Nicole Kenyon (Queen Creek, AZ); Suzanne Meattey (Dover, NH) 

January 28 - February 9, 2003:  "Mr. President:  No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House.  But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope that it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen, if, entertaining as I do, opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve." - Patrick Henry

Winners: Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Samantha Dunaway; Jenny Olsson (Brooklyn, NY); Tom Brennen (Shelburne, VT); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Perry J. Gibson, Sr.; Larry Williams (APO AE); Jagdish Kumar (India); Jack D. Curson III; Andrew Chavangi; Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI)

January 13 - January 27, 2003:  "It is with feelings of deep regret that I observe the literary animosity daily growing up between England and America.  Great curiosity has been awakened of late with respect to the United States, and the London press has teemed with volumes of travels through the Republic; but they seemed intended to diffuse error rather than knowledge..." - Washington Irving

Winners: Jenny Olsson (Brooklyn, NY); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Sarah Garrison; Samantha Dunaway; Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI); Jack D. Curson III; Andrew Chavangi; 

week of 11/18/02:  Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that." - John Donne, from 'Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, No. 17' in the year 1624

WINNERS:  Jenny Olsson (Brooklyn, NY); Miranda Aalderink (Auckland, New Zealand); Corey Green (Atlanta, GA); E. Hungerford (Elwell, MI); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); John Olsson (Austin, TX); Katherine Shaw (NC); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Samantha Dunaway (Emporia, KS); Linda Jordan; Michel Gallegos (Bothell, WA); Arthur Chaparyan (Glendale, CA); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Marlon Santos (Manila, Philippines); Keith Berry (Dallas, TX); Gerardo Martinez Chemis; Colleen Kerr (Barrie, Ontario); April (Birmingham, AL); Allison Cox (Calgary, Alberta, Canada); Jaqueline Langheim (Durham, NC)

week of 11/11/02:  "And I have known the eyes already, know them all -- The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin..." - T.S. Eliot, from 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'

WINNERS: Miranda Aalderink (Auckland, New Zealand); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI); Samantha Dunaway (Emporia, KS); Michel Gallegos (Bothell, WA); E. Hungerford (Elwell, MI); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Lisa Xavier, Aldan, PA; Adella Phrie (Boston, MA); Corey Green (Atlanta, GA); Linda Unger (Medford, NY); Kara Jelly (Miami, FL); Justin Wince (Mancos, CO); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Taft (Seattle, WA); Carol Deditch (Kokomo, IN); Jenny Olsson (Brooklyn, NY); Ron Atchison (from Inspiration Peak); Audrey Fellinge (English Department, Redmond High School); Bethany Buchanan (Williamsburg, VA); Marianna (Greeley, CO)

week of 11/4/02:  There's a certain slant of light, On winter afternoons That oppresses, like the weight Of cathedral tunes..." - Emily Dickinson, from her poem, 'There's a certain Slant of light'

WINNERS: Lisa Xavier, Aldan, PA; Jenn Giandalone (Shelburne Falls, MA); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); E. Hungerford (Elwell, MI); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI); Jeff Hielsberg (Atlanta, GA); Justin Wince (Mancos, CO); Kate Lottinville (Lincoln, NE); Miranda Aalderink (Auckland, New Zealand); Jeremy S. (Oklahoma); Michelle (College Station, TX); Nikki (FL); Peggy Durst (Decatur, IL); Amanda (Davis, CA); Samantha Dunaway (Emporia, KS); Lesley Oakman; Sylvana (Greenwich, CT)

week of 10/28/02:  "Grandfather said:  This is the kind of a man Boon Hogganbeck was.  Hung on the wall, it could have been his epitaph, like a Bertillon chart or a police poster; any cop in north Mississippi would have arrested him out of any crowd after merely reading the date." - William Faulkner, from his novel, 'The Reivers'

WINNERS: E. Hungerford (Elwell, MI); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI); Lupita Hernandez (Phoenix, AZ); Sue Meattey (Dover, NH); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Larry Williams (APO AE); Phyllis Messerla (Eureka, MO); Carl Conway (Oak Grove, KY); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Justin Wince (Mancos, CO); Nikki (FL)

week of 10/14/02:  "I want today, here in California, to make a special appeal to all of you, and to California as a whole, for work along a certain line - the line of preserving your great natural advantages alike from the standpoint of use and from the standpoint of beauty." -  Theodore Roosevelt, from his speech at Leland Stanford Junior University, Palo Alto, California; May 12, 1903

WINNERS: Jared Maurer

week of 10/07/02:  "Mr. President and Gentleman:  I greet you on the recommencement of our literary year.  Our anniversary is one of hope, and perhaps, not enough of labor.  We do not meet for games of strength or skill, for the recitation of histories, tragedies, and odes, like the ancient Greeks; for parliaments of love and poesy, like the troubadors; nor for the advancement of science, like our contemporaries in the British and European capitals." - Ralph Waldo Emerson, from 'The American Scholar' speech, August 31, 1837 at First Parish Church, Cambridge Massachusetts

WINNERS:  Lisa A. Xavier (Aldan, PA); Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI); Michel Gallegos (Bothell, WA); Larry Williams (APO, AE); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Cathy Connell (Upstate, NY); Amber Starr (Ithaca, NY); Jim Upshaw (San Diego, CA)

week of 9/23/02:  "In some distant arcade, a clock tower calls out six times and then stops.  The young man slumps at this desk.  He has come to the office at dawn, after another upheaval.  His hair is uncombed and his trousers are too big." - Alan Lightman, from 'Einstein's Dreams'

WINNERS:  Lisa A. Xavier (Aldan, PA); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Emily (Dallas, TX); Katharine Boggess (Albuquerque, NM); Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI); Larry Williams (APO, AE); Sarah Schindler; Bryan Newton; E. Hungerford (Elwell, MI)

week of 9/9/02:  "Every realist knows that the democratic way of life is at this moment being directly assailed in every part of the world - assailed either by arms, or by secret spreading of poisonous propaganda by those who seek to destroy unity and promote discord in nations that are still at peace." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, from 'The Four Freedoms' speech at the U.S. House of Representatives, Washington D.C., January 6, 1941

WINNERS:  Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI); Larry Williams (APO, AE); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Meredith White (Austin, TX); Victor (Brooklyn, NY); Lisa Xavier (Aldan, PA); E. Hungerford (Elwell, MI); Susan J Alexander (Phoenix, AZ)

week of 9/2/02:  Mr. Chairman, we have come to experience in recent years that peace at home and peace abroad are closely related.  How well we perform in foreign policy depends importantly on how purposeful we are at home.  America has passed through a decade of domestic turbulence which has deepened divisions and even shaken our national self-confidence in some measure..." - Henry Kissinger, from his statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Washington D.C., September 7, 1973

WINNERS:  Jared Maurer

week of 8/26/02:  "That the machine has dealt art in the grand old sense a death-blow, none will deny - the evidence is too substantial: art in the grand old sense, meaning art in the sense of structural tradition, whose craft is fashioned upon the handicraft ideal, ancient or modern; an art wherein this form and that form as structural parts were laboriously joined in such a way as to beautifully emphasize the manner of joining... craft that will not see that human thought is stripping off one form and donning another..." - Frank Lloyd Wright, from his speech at the Chicago Arts and Crafts Society, Hull House, Chicago, Illinois, March 6, 1901

WINNERS:  Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Ellen Hungerford (Elwell, MI); Perry J. Gibson, Sr (Chicago, IL); Larry Williams (APO AE); Mike Walde (Greenwood, SC); Mike (New Jersey); Angelin Baskaan (Sterling Heights, MI); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); John Harrington (Milwaukee, WI)

week of 8/19/02:   "I feel impelled to speak today in a language that in a sense is new -- one which I, who have spent so much of my life in the military profession, would have preferred never to use.  That new language is the language of atomic warfare." - Dwight D. Eisenhower, from his speech to the United Nations General Assembly - December 8, 1953, New York, New York

WINNERS:  Catharine Reeves; Rashmi Vittal (India); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Ellen Hungerford (Elwell, MI); Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI); Larry Williams; Doris Schroeder (Hutchinson, KS); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Marie Kirby (Sunderland, UK)

week of 8/12/02:  "Good evening.  This is the thirty-seventh time I have spoken to you from this office in which so many decisions have been made that shape the history of this nation.  Each time I have done so to discuss with you some matters that I believe affected the national interest.  And all the decisions I have made in my public life I have always tried to do what was best for the nation." - Richard M. Nixon, from his resignation speech, August 8, 1974

WINNERS: Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Jeff Montgomery (Edmond, OK); Bernie Clements (Florissant, MO); Doris Schroeder; Bruce Tindale (Sydney, Australia); Larry McAulay; Diane (Yukon); Ellen Hungerford (Elwell, MI); Maxim DeWinter (Manderlay, England); Andy (TX); Holli King (Fort Wayne, IN); Lena Summa (Midwest City, OK)

week of 8/5/02:  "Everyone is aware of the difficult and menacing situation in which human society - shrunk into one community with a common fate - finds itself, but only a few act accordingly.  Most people go on living their everyday life: half frightened, half indifferent, they behold the ghostly tragicomedy that is being performed on the international stage before the eyes and ears of the world."  - Albert Einstein, from his speech to the 2nd annual dinner of the Foreign Press Association to the General Assembly and Security Council of the United Nations, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York, New York; November 11, 1947

WINNERS: Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Maxim DeWinter (Manderlay, England); Michael (New Jersey); E. Hungerford (Elwell, MI)

week of 7/29/02:  "The whole subject of trusts is of vital concern to us, because it presents one, and perhaps the most conspicuous, of the many problems forced upon our attention by the tremendous industrial development which has taken place during the last century, a development which is occurring in all civilized countries, notably in our own." - Theodore Roosevelt, from speech at Music Hall, Cincinnati, Ohio, September 20, 1902

WINNERS: Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Charlie Hely

week of 7/15/02:   "Mr. President: No man thinks more highly then I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House.  But different men often see the same subjects in different lights; and, therefore, I hope that it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen, if, entertaining as I do, opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve." -  Patrick Henry, from speech at the Virginia Convention, St. John's Church, Richmond, Virginia; March 23, 1775

WINNERS:  Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); E. Hungerford (Elwell, MI); Julie (Omaha, NE); Melody L. Tadena (Trece Martires City, Cavite, Philippines); Wendy Guyton (Alpharetta, GA); Bernie Clements (Florissant, MO); Wally Dow (Naples, FL)

week of 7/8/02:  "The villagers of Little Hangleton still called it "the Riddle House," even though it had been many years since the Riddle family lived there.  It stood on a hill overlooking the village, some of its windows boarded, tiles missing from its roof, and ivy spreading unchecked over its face." - J.K. Rowling, from 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'

WINNERS: Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); E. Hungerford (Elwell, MI); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Meredith (Uxbridge, MA); Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI); Jason LeMaster (Portland, OR); Anne (Virginia); Ken Nelson; Jill Krezoski (Milwaukee, WI); Laura Nash (Houston, TX); Lindsay Ryan (Michigan); Zack Harbaugh (College, PA)

week of 7/1/02:  "WHAT shall I do with this absurdity - O heart, O troubled heart - this caricature,  Decrepit age that has been tied to me  As to a dog's tail?  Never had I more  Excited, passionate, fantastical Imagination, nor an ear and eye  That more expected the impossible..." - W.B. Yeats, from "The Tower"

WINNERS:  Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); E. Hungerford (Elwell, MI); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Betty Dygart (Beloit, WI)

week of 6/24/02:  "In my opinion, it is impossible to create characters until one has spent a long time studying men, just as it is impossible to speak a language before one has spent a long time in mastering it." - Alexander Dumas, from 'Camille'

WINNERS: D. Reeves (Indiana); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); E. Hungerford (Elwell, MI)

week of 6/10/02:  "On the human imagination events produce the effects of time.  Thus, he who has travelled far and seen much is apt to fancy that he has lived long and the history that most abounds in important incidents soonest assumes the aspect of antiquity." - James Fenimore Cooper, from 'The Deerslayer'

WINNERS: E. Hungerford (Elwell, MI); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Sharon; Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Kristina (San Diego, CA)

 week of 6/3/02:  "It was four o'clock when the ceremony was over and the carriages began to arrive.  There had been a crowd following all the way, owing to the exuberance of Marija Berczynskas.  The occasion rested heavily upon Marija's broad shoulders - it was her task to see that all things went in due form, and after the best home traditions; and, flying wildly hither and thither, bowling every one out of the way..." - Upton Sinclair, from 'The Jungle' 

WINNERS: Colin Haggith (Australia); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); E. Hungerford (Elwell, MI); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Lydia Sekulic

 week of 5/27/02:  "An easterly is the most disagreeable wind in Lyme Bay - Lyme Bay being the largest bite from the underside of England's outstretched southwestern leg - and a person of curiosity could at once have deduced several strong probabilities about the pair who began to walk down the quay at Lyme Regis, the small but ancient eponym of the inbite, one incisively sharp and blustery morning in the late March of 1867." - John Fowles, from 'The French Lieutenant's Woman'

WINNERS: Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Don Huebsch (Taos, NM); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); E. Hungerford (Elwell, Michigan); Peter

week of 5/20/02:  "There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative.  If this belief is put to the test, one can count on the students' reaction: they will be uncomprehending." - Allan Bloom, from 'The Closing of the American Mind'

WINNERS:  Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); E. Hungerford (Elwell, Michigan); Wally Dow (Naples, FL)

week of 5/13/02: "The Jebel es Zubleh is a mountain fifty miles and more in length, and so narrow that its tracery on the map gives it a likeness to a caterpillar crawling from the south to the north."  - Lew Wallace, from 'Ben-Hur'

WINNERS: Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); E. Hungerford (Elwell, Michigan); Archibald Taylor

week of 5/6/02:  "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far." - H.P. Lovecraft, in 'The Call Of Cthulhu'

WINNERS: E. Hungerford (Elwell, Michigan); Sharon; Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Kim (Vienna, Austria); Harold Bassett (Henderson, TX); Ashley (Zwozer); Gregory Gietzen (Boston, MA); Sonja (NY)

week of 4/29/02:  "I want a hero: an uncommon want, When every year and month sends forth a new one, Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant, The age discovers he is not the true one...." - Lord Byron, from 'Don Juan'

WINNERS: Rita Fetter (Trappe, PA); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Sharon; Alex Dixon (Radcliff, KY); E. Hungerford (Elwell, Michigan); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA)

week of 4/22/02:  "When Zarathustra was thirty years old, he left his home and the lake of his home, and went into the mountains.  There he enjoyed his spirit and solitude, and for ten years did not weary of it." - Friedrich Nietzsche from 'Thus Spake Zarathustra'

WINNERS:  Tom Freeman; Vickie Lord; Jason LeMaster (Portland, OR); Prasanta Behera (Pune, India); James Coumbe (Conroe, TX); Sharon Lingenfelter; Dennis Pitman (Seattle, WA); E. Hungerford (Elwell, Michigan); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Michael Dellger; Jim Bosley; Mark Saylor (Jeffersonville, PA); Johan Khalilian (Chicago, IL); Rita Fetter (Trappe, PA); Patty Dewitts (Pomona, CA); Nancy Olson

week of 4/8/02:  "Between 7:30 and 8:30 every morning except Sundays, Johnnie Butt made the round of the village of Chipping Cleghorn on his bicycle, whistling vociferously through his teeth and alighting at each house or cottage to shove through the letter box such morning papers as had been ordered by the occupants of the house in question from Mr. Totman, stationer, of the High Street." - Agatha Christie, from 'A Murder is Announced'

WINNERS:  E. Hungerford (Elwell, Michigan); John Olsson (Austin, TX); Rita Fetter (Trappe, PA); Belinda Ferguson; Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Amy Stratton (Wahpeton, ND); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Robert Tatro; (Hillsborough, NC); Jason LeMaster (Portland, OR); Rebecca (Rainier, WA)

week of 3/31/02:  "They started two hours before daylight, and at first, it was not necessary to break the ice across the canal as other boats had gone on ahead.  In each boat, in the darkness, so you could not see, but only hear him, the poler stood in the stern, with his long oar.  The shorter sat on a shooting stool fastened to the top of a box that contained his lunch and shells, and the shooter's two, or more, guns were propped against the load of wooden decoys."  - Ernest Hemingway, from 'Across the River and into the Trees'

WINNERS:  Robert Tatro; (Hillsborough, NC)

week of 3/24/02:  "One is apt to think of Etiquette as being of no more real service to the average citizen than a top hat - something that is of importance to none but brides or diplomats or the newly-rich or persons lately elected to political office.  As a matter of fact, there is not a single thing that we do, or say, or choose, or use, or even think, that does not follow (or break) one of the exactions of taste, or tact, or ethics, or good manners, or etiquette - call it what you will." - Emily Post, from 'Etiquette'

WINNERS:  Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Catharine Reeves; E. Hungerford (Elwell, Michigan); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Jason LeMaster (Portland, OR)

week of 3/17/02:  "Long ago, when wishes often came true, there lived a King whose daughters were all handsome, but the youngest was so beautiful that the sun himself, who has seen everything, was bemused every time he shone over her because of her beauty." - The Brothers Grimm in 'The Frog Prince'

WINNERS:   Robert Tatro; (Hillsborough, NC); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Lydia Moore (Pleasanton, CA); Kristina (San Diego, CA); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Jarrod Gold (Chandler, AZ); Bethany Bagnardi (Jacksonville, NC)

week of 3/10/02:  "What if a few hundred thousand men huddled together in a small corner of the world had done their utmost to disfigure it, had paved the ground with stones so that no green thing, not even a blade of grass, could grow; had filled the air with the fumes of coal smoke and naphtha, trimmed all the trees and driven away every animal and every bird, - and in spite of all, spring was still spring in every town." - Leo Tolstoy, from 'Resurrection'

WINNERS: Paul Toot (Northridge, CA)

week of 3/3/02:  "An unassuming young man was travelling, in midsummer, from his native city of Hamburg to Davos-Platz in the Canton of the Grisons, on a three weeks' visit." - Thomas Mann, from 'The Magic Mountain'

WINNERS: Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Lydia Moore (Pleasanton, CA); Seana Grey; Harold Bassett (Henderson, TX)

week of 2/25/02:  Left Munich at 8:35 P.M., on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late.  Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets." - Bram Stoker, from 'Dracula'

WINNERS:  Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); C. Carrigan (Philadelphia, PA); Rita Fetter (Trappe, PA); Jon Westcot (Brimfield, IL); Mick Reinhard (Harrisburg PA); Tina Minskoff (NJ); Marianne Ward; Lyd Moore (California); Tim Peterson (Kewadin, Michigan); Wilson Suen (Toronto, Canada); Mireya Romo-Bowen (No. Hollywood, CA); Phoebe Terry (Magee, MS); Linda Eales (West Lafayette, IN)

week of 2/18/02:  "No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water." - H. G. Wells in 'The War of the Worlds'

WINNERS:  Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Gordon Mackey (Belfast); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Rita Fetter (Trappe, PA); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Becky LaFlamme; Jeff Greer (Birmingham, AL); C. Mawhinney (New Brighton, PA); E. Hungerford (Elwell, Michigan); Steve Russell; Linda Eales; Robert Rainwater (Sweetwater, TX)

week of 2/11/02:   "It was in the spring of the year 1894 that all London was interested, and the fashionable world dismayed, by the murder of the Honourable Ronald Adair, under most unusual and inexplicable circumstances." - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, from 'The Later Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'

WINNERS:  Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); John Olsson (Austin, TX); Jenny Olsson (Brooklyn, NY); Catharine Reeves; Harold Bassett (Henderson, TX); Patty DeWitts (Pomona, CA)

week of 1/28/02:  On they went, singing "Rest Eternal," and whenever they stopped, their feet, the horses, and the gusts of wind seemed to carry on their singing.  Passers-by made way for the procession, counted the wreaths, and crossed themselves.  Some joined in out of curiosity and asked:  "Who is being buried?..." - Boris Pasternak, from 'Doctor Zhivago'

WINNERS: Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Julie (Omaha, NE); Beckie; James Crews (Cicero, IL)

week of 1/21/02:  "It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before the adverse hosts could meet.  A wide and apparently an impervious boundary of forests severed the possessions of the hostile provinces of France and England.  The hardy colonists, and the trained European who fought at his side, frequently expended months in struggling against the rapids of the streams, or in effecting the rugged passes of the mountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit their courage in a more martial conflict." - James Fenimore Cooper, from 'The Last of the Mohicans.'

WINNERS:  Ederic Peñaflor Eder (Manila, Philippines); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Mick (Harrisburg, PA); Bruce Meakem; Harold Bassett (Henderson, TX); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); E. Hungerford (Elwell, MI); Ben Conrick (Troy, NY); Jenny Olsson (Brooklyn, NY); Tricia Crockett, NH; Melissa (Plantation, FL); James Anderson (somewhere in Montana); Rita Fetter (Trappe, PA); Jami Severstad (Appleton, WI); Elizabeth Sherman; Renee Jost (Vineland NJ)

week of 1/14/02:  The date which the following events are assumed to have occurred may be set down as between 1840 and 1850, when the old watering-place herein called "Budmouth" still retained sufficient afterglow from its Georgian gaiety and prestige to lend it an absorbing attractiveness to the romantic and imaginative soul of a lonely dweller inland." - Thomas Hardy, from 'The Return of the Native'

WINNERS: Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Melissa (Plantation, FL); Jenny Olsson (Brooklyn, NY)

week of 1/7/02:  "The day broke gray and dull.  The clouds hung heavily, and there was a rawness in the air that suggested snow.  A woman servant came into a room in which a child was sleeping and drew the curtains.  She glanced mechanically at the house opposite, a stucco house with a portico, and went to the child's bed.  "Wake up Philip," she said." - from 'Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham

WINNERS: Liz Dodd-Moher; Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Harold Bassett (Henderson, TX); Mick (Harrisburg, PA); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Julie (Omaha, NE); Aarti Raghavan (Chennai/Tamil Nadu)

week of 12/24/01:  "Up to the time George Webber's father died, there were some unforgiving souls in the town of Libya Hill who spoke of him as a man who not only had deserted his wife and child, but had consumated his iniquity by going off to live with another woman.  In the main, those facts are correct." - Thomas Wolfe, from 'The Web and the Rock'

WINNERS: Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC)

week of 12/10/01:  It is a sin to write this.  It is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see.  It is base and evil.  It is as if we were speaking alone to no ears but our own." - Ayn Rand, from 'Anthem'

WINNERS: Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Glenda S.; Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Rita Fetter (Trappe, PA); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Ben Conrick (Troy, NY); Harold Bassett (Henderson, TX); Barry Wood (Cambridge, MA)

week of 12/3/01: The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.  As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened, and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors." - Stephen Crane, from 'The Red Badge of Courage'

WINNERS: Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Rita Fetter; Meredith White (Austin, TX); Robert J. Horton; Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Mick Reinhard (Harrisburg, PA); Harold Bassett (Henderson, TX)

week of 11/26/01:   Craig: (after a long moment of silence) I know something's wrong.  Mickey: There's nothing wrong.  When you're finished we'll go buy something nice.  What would you like?" - Larry Kramer, from 'The Normal Heart' 

WINNERS: Paul Toot (Northridge, CA)

week of 11/19/01:  "In that place, where they tore the nightshade and blackberry patches from their roots to make room for the Medallion City Golf Course, there was once a neighborhood.  It stood in the hills above the valley town of Medallion and spread all the way to the river.  It is called the suburbs now, but when black people lived there it was called the Bottom." - Toni Morrison, from 'Sula'

WINNERS:  Patty DeWitts (Lompoc, CA); Jenny Olsson (Brooklyn, NY); Melissa (Plantation, FL); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Linda Eales (West Lafayette, IN); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO)

week of 11/12/01:  Dysart: With one particular horse, called Nugget, he embraces.  The animal digs its sweaty brow into his cheek, and they stand in the dark for an hour - like a necking couple." - Peter Shaffer, from the play, 'Equus'

WINNERS:  Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Adria (Canton, NY); Jenny Olsson (Brooklyn, NY); Renee Jost (Vineland, NJ); David Smith (Lawrenceville, GA); Seana E. Grey; Harold Bassett (Henderson, TX)

week of 11/5/01:  For Lucy had her work cut out for her.  The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer's men were coming.  And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning - fresh as if issued to children on a beach." - Virginia Woolf, from 'Mrs. Dalloway'

WINNERS: Mick Reinhard (Harrisburg, PA); Amy; Wally Dow (Naples,FL); Linda Eales (West Lafayette, IN); Melissa (Plantation, FL); Heidi (Brewster, NY); Jenny Olsson (Brooklyn, NY); Catharine Reeves; Amber Bareno (La Jolla, CA); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Julia Schofield (Philadelphia, PA); Bill Austin (Chandler, AZ); Edie Killmer

week of 10/29/01:  Those who desire to win the favor of princes generally endeavor to do so by offering them those things which they themselves prize most, or such as they observe the prince to delight in most.  Thence it is that princes have very often presented to them horses, arms, cloth of gold, precious stones, and similar ornaments worthy of their greatness." - Niccolo Machiavelli, from 'The Prince'

WINNERS: Wally Dow (Naples,FL); Linda Eales (West Lafayette, IN); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Melissa (Plantation, FL); Harold Bassett (Henderson, TX); Patty DeWitts (Lompoc, CA);  Phyllis Rogers (Portland, Maine); John Olsson (Austin, Texas); Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Mick Reinhard (Harrisburg, PA); Dan Munday (Oakville, Ontario); Laura England (Omaha, NE); Kristen S. (Wilmington, NC); Lee Stanley; Nicole Fischer (Toms River, NJ); Peggy Olsson (Texas); Sarah (Washington, D.C.); Tom Christensen

week of 10/22/01:  "This is a book about the most admirable of human virtues - courage.  "Grace under pressure," Ernest Hemingway defined it.  And these are the stories of the pressures experienced by eight United States Senators and the grace with which they endured them - the risks to their careers, the unpopularity of their courses, the defamation of their characters, and sometimes, but sadly only sometimes, the vindication of their reputations and their principles." - John F. Kennedy, from 'Profiles in Courage'

WINNERS:  John Olsson (Austin, Texas); Tracy (St. Louis, MO); Wally Dow (Naples,FL); Linda Eales (West Lafayette, IN); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Phyllis Rogers (Portland, Maine); Patty DeWitts (Lompoc, CA); Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Ellen Hungerford (Elwell, MI); Nicole deLeon (Phoenix, AZ); Joan (Larkin); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Melissa (Plantation, FL); Jenn G.; Edie Killmer; Toni (Sandy Hook, CT); Dan Munday (Oakville, Ontario); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY)

week of 10/15/01:  "Toward the end of September, 1917, an alien Professor of Sociology visiting Russia came to see me in Petrograd.  He had been informed by business men and intellectuals that the Revolution was slowing down." - John Reed, from 'Ten Days that Shook the World.'

WINNERS:  Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Harold Bassett (Henderson, TX); Wally Dow (Naples,FL)

week of 10/08/01:   POZZO: (suddenly furious).  Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time!  It's abdominable!  When!  When!  One day, is that not enough for you, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we'll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you?..." - Samuel Beckett, from 'Waiting for Godot'

WINNERS:  Wally Dow (Naples,FL); John (Pasadena, CA); Wendell Ricketts (Oakland, CA); Michael Dellger; Jenn Giandalone; Ken  Rathke; Jamie Fray; Tiffanie Ing; Amy; Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Laura England

week of 10/01/01:  Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond.  His fame rested on solid personal achievements.  As a young man of eighteen he had brought honor to his village by throwing Amalinze the Cat." - Chinua Achebe from 'Things Fall Apart'

WINNERS: Linda Eales (West Lafayette, IN);  Wally Dow (Naples,FL); John Olsson; Beckie Fisher (Dallas, TX); Rebecca (Rainier, WA); Michel Gallegos (Bothell, WA); Devon Anne Ludwig (Milan, Ohio); Steve Russell; Alison G (Berkeley, CA); Laura Fish; Colleen (Salt Lake City, UT); Gina Hatchell

week of 9/24/01:  Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically.  The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habits, to have new little hopes.  It is rather hard work:  there is now no smooth road into the future:  but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles.  We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen." - D.H. Lawrence, from 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'

WINNERS: Linda Eales (West Lafayette, IN); Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO);  Dianne (Indiana)

week of 9/17/01:   "Where are Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom and Charley,  The weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, the fighter?  All, all, are sleeping on the hill."  - Edgar Lee Masters, from 'Spoon River Anthology'

WINNERS:  T.E. Drake (Arlington, TX); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Linda Eales; Debbie Cole (Baker City, OR); Wally Dow (Naples, FL)

week of 9/10/01:  "The woods are lovely, dark and deep.  But I have promises to keep,  And miles to go before I sleep,  And miles to go before I sleep." - Robert Frost, from his poem, "Stopping by woods on a snowy evening"    

WINNERS:  Jamie Isaac (Eldorado, WI); Melissa (Plantation, FL); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Alison Sands (UK); Jenna Haldeman (Portland, OR); Mary Jo Blaney Kolb; Barbara Bogie; Sharon Lingenfelter (Richmond, BC); Lalit Kumar; Brit Naslund (Eau Claire, WI); Susan White; Timothy G. McKenna (Cambridge, MA); Margaret Browder; Vickie Lord (Atlanta, GA); Anita Recchio; Camilla North; Laura England (Omaha, NE); Zeba Anwar; Martha Beltran-Martinez (Washington, D.C.); Tracy (St. Louis, MO); Dave Rusk (Littleton, CO); Julie High Horse; Shannon Athey; Shannon S. (Iowa City, Iowa); Patty DeWitts (Lompoc , CA); Barb Peil (McKinney, TX); Kevin Tschai (Virginia Beach, VA); Lonnie Spencer; Harold Bassett (Henderson. TX); Linda Eales; Steve Blackie (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada); Betty Armstrong (Cherokee Village, AR); Linda Hall; Elsa Corbis; Alice Bakker (Sioux Falls, SD); Labu Labi (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia); Mary Ann  Adams; Nancy Porte (Wauwatosa, WI); FF (Canada); Rebecca (Rainier, WA); Edgardo L. Luis (Philippines); Amrita; Kathy Thompson; Elsa Corbis; Megan Howlin (Anderson, SC); Cynthia M. Lewis (Manville, RI); Cynthia; Kimberly Lane (Guymon,OK); Jennifer Ann Johnson; Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Emily R. (Wisconsin); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Robert Lee Rainwater (Sweetwater, TX); Steve Schier; Amy Stier; Nameesh Sharma; Bill Longe (Miami, FL); Sajesh Saran; Tina (Leominster, MA); Jami Severstad; Monty Bray; Susan Kimball (Dallas, TX); Tricia Crockett (NH); Allyson Edwards; Jeff Greer (Birmingham, AL); Kathy Dougherty; Gloria Cohen; Barbara Rajkowski; Jennifer (CT); D Reeves (Terre Haute, Indiana); Rajat Chander; Carolyn F; Meg Chapin (Hingham, MA); Marjos Verbeek (Amsterdam); Nblack (San Clemente, CA); Tanya Playford (Phoenix, Arizona); Alyson (Plainfield, CT); Debbie Cole (Baker City, OR); Heather Stevenson (Boston, MA); Brian Kennedy; Jen Toomey (Naugatuck, CT); Katherine Kidde (Villanova, PA); Bill Tatum (Hunstsville, AL); Susan Martin; Catharine Reeves; Toni Ivey (Newtown, CT); Rita Fetter (Trappe, PA); Billye A. Schafer (Orlando, FL); Jody Bing, (Richmond, VA); Amy Place (Jericho, VT); Renee Jost (Vineland NJ); Jenny Murray (Batavia, IL); Ellen H. (Elwell, MI); Minu (India)

week of 9/3/01:  "There was a man and a dog too this time.  Two beasts, counting Old Ben, the bear, and two men, counting Boon Hogganbeck, in whom some of the same blood ran which ran in Sam Fathers, even though Boon's was a plebeian strain of it and only Sam and Old Ben and the mongrel Lion were taintless and incorruptible." - William Faulkner, from his short story, "The Bear"

WINNERS:  Melissa (Plantation, FL); J. R. Burns (Arlington, MA); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Laura England (Omaha, NE); Linda Eales; Elisabeth Meehan (Spring, TX); Patty Dewitts (Lompoc, CA); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Sharon Lingenfelter; Colleen Bryan (Thoreau, New Mexico); Audrey Fellinge (Redmond, WA); Nancy Porte (Wauwatosa, WI)

week of 9/3/01:  Much madness is divinest sense  To a discerning eye;  Much sense the starkest madness..." - Emily Dickinson, from her poem, "Much Madness is Divinest Sense"

WINNERS:  Harold Bassett (Henderson, TX); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Luncai (Big river, Malaysia); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Rita Fetter, (Trappe, PA); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Erin Woods; Linda Eales; Angela Chilton (Fort Worth, TX); Nancy Porte (Wauwatosa, WI); Art Sathoff (Iowa); Devon Anne Ludwig; Rebecca Anne (Rainier, WA); Laura England; Jenn Giandalone (Shelburne Falls, MA)

week of 8/26/01:  A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments, and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes." - Nathaniel Hawthorne, from 'The Scarlet Letter'

WINNERS:  Laura England; Rene Stelzer-Rousseau; Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Art Sathoff; Linda Eales; Luncai (Sg Besar, Malaysia); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Ellie (Georgetown U); Adam Boneker; Trisha Elizabeth Robson; Diana (Lakeland, FL); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA)

week of 8/19/01:  "At nine o'clock in the morning, towards the end of November, the Warsaw train was approaching Petersburg at full speed.  It was thawing, and so damp and foggy that it was difficult to distinguish anything ten paces from the line to right or left of the carriage windows." - Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, from his novel, 'The Idiot.'

WINNERS: Rebecca (Beckie) Fisher (Dallas, TX); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Tracy (St. Louis, MO); Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Julie (Omaha, NE); Leigh Rene Hoyt (Altadena, CA); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Wally Dow (Naples, FL)

week of 8/12/01:  "We are at rest five miles behind the front.  Yesterday we were relieved, and now our bellies are full of beef and haricot beans.  We are satisfied and at peace." - Erich Maria Remarque, from 'All Quiet on the Western Front'

WINNERS: Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Mohamad Nizom Bin Mohamad Nor (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia); Ab Halim Miswani (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia); Jim Anderson (somewhere in Montana); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Nancy Porte (Wauwatosa, WI); Ky Shobert (Valencia, CA); Sandy; Kate Marchetti; Heidi Bortner (Newtown, PA); Tracy (St. Louis, MO); Anna Forgione (Toronto, Ontario); Wally Dow (Naples, FL); Debbie Kirby (Barrington, IL); Paul Toot (Northridge, CA); Rojane Swanepoel (MI); James Crews (Cicero, IL); Michelle; Dr. Azlina Anuar (KL, Malaysia); Harold Bassett (Henderson, TX)

weeks of 7/29/01 and 8/5/01:  "Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie,  O what a panic's in thy breastie!..." - Robert Burns (1759-1796), from his poem "To A Mouse"

WINNERS: Dennis Newquist (Bolingbrook, IL);  Julie (Omaha, NE); Brian Kennedy; Mohamad Nizom bin Mohamad Nor (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia); Emily R. (Wisconsin); Kay Adams; Rita Fetter (Trappe, PA); Jami Severstad; Jennifer Baird; Lyman F. Fletcher; Jennifer Plante (Caribou, Maine); Melissa (Plantation, FL); Joe Siragusa; Fiona Jones (Australia);  E. Hungerford (Elwell, MI); Shirle Hood (Kingston, Ohio)

week of 7/22/01:  I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,  And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;  Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,  And live alone in the bee-loud glade..." - William Butler Yeats, from his poem, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree"

WINNERS: Julie (Omaha, NE); Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Emily R. (Wisconsin); Michel Gallegos (Bothell, WA)

week of 7/15/01:   Twas brillig, and the slithy toves  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:  All mimsy were the borogroves,  And the mome raths outgrabe..." - Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)

WINNERS: Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Emily R. (Wisconsin); Nate (Clifton, VA); David Anderson (Raleigh, NC); Donna-Lee Gonsalves-Barriero (Antigua/Barbuda, WI); Reenie Stelzer-Rousseau; Dave Rusk (Littleton, CO); Jami Severstad; John Joachim; Jeff Greer (Birmingham, AL); Gomathi; Dianne Reeves; Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); David A. Rearick, DO, MBA, CPE (Atlanta, GA); Vickie Lord (Atlanta, GA); Phyllis Phcuas (Hempstead, TX); Tom Christensen; Nancy Porte (Wauwatosa, WI); Simone; Mona Moyer; Rudy Henkel; Rita Fetter; Harold Bassett (Henderson, TX)

week of 7/8/01:  Remember, remember always that all of us and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists." - Franklin Delano Roosevelt 

WINNERS: Sparsha Reddy (Jersey City, NJ); Babatunde A Fajimi (Lagos, Nigeria); Beth Foster (Dallas, TX); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Richard A. Barreto (Carolina Shores, NC); Julie (Omaha, NE); Amy P; Ellie (Dartmouth, MA); Emily R. (Wisconsin)

week of 7/1/01:  "Among the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of condition among the people.  I readily discovered the prodigious influence that this primary fact exercises on the whole course of society; it gives a peculiar direction to public opinion and a peculiar tenor to the laws; it imparts new maxims to the governing authorities and peculiar habits to the governed." - Alexis De Tocqueville, from 'Democracy in America.'  

WINNERS: Julie (Omaha, NE); Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Jim Anderson (Missoula, MT); Stephen Webb (Lilburn, GA); Phyllis Rogers (Portland, Maine); Babatunde A Fajimi (Lagos, Nigeria); Steven E. Schier (Northfield, MN); MaryLynne Smith; Lena Summa (Midwest City, OK); Richard A. Barreto (Carolina Shores, NC); Beth Foster (Dallas, TX)

week of 6/24/01:  "Long before the first bugles sounded from the barracks within the city and the cantonments surrounding it, most of the people in the city were already awake.  They did not need to rise from the straw mattresses and thin pallet beds of their hive-dense tenements, because few of them save the children had even lain down." - William Faulkner, from his novel, 'A Fable.'

WINNERS: Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Julie (Omaha, NE); Rene Stelzer-Rousseau; Beth Foster

week of 6/17/01:  "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan  A stately pleasure-dome decree:  Where Alph, the sacred river, ran  Through caverns measureless to man  Down to sunless sea." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from his poem "Kubla Khan"

WINNERS:  Melissa (Gainesville, FL); Richard A. Barreto (Carolina Shores, NC); J. Gromadzka (London, England); Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Dave Rusk (Littleton, CO); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Stephen Webb (Lilburn, GA); Alma Papic (Zagreb, Croatia); Maria Dekest (San Jose, CA); Beth Foster (Dallas, TX); Dianne Reeves; D Harrigan Reeves (Terre Haute, IN); James Anderson (Montana); Lalit Kumar; 

week of 6/10/01:  O Captain!  my Captain!  our fearful trip is done,  The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won..." - Walt Whitman, from his poem, "O Captain!  My Captain!"

WINNERS:  Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Rebecca (Rainier, WA); Melissa (Gainesville, FL); (Linzi (Goodrich); Damascene Brocki; Joyce Radtke (Milwaukee, WI); Anja Hoster (Traverse City, MI); Dave Rusk (Littleton, CO); Luke Wilson (Billings, MT); Jennifer Baker (Weymouth, MA); Richard A. Barreto (Carolina Shores, NC); Kelly Nolan; Alisa Yablonski; Brian Kennedy (New Zealand); Lena Summa; Randi (Hamilton, TX); Beth Haggerty (Glen Rock, NJ); Julie (Omaha, NE); Craig Hoffman (Holbrook, NY); Gael (Port Townsend, WA); Beth Foster (Dallas, TX); Lalit Kumar; Amanda Maddox (Lakeland, FL); Alma Papic (Croatia); Maria Dekest (San Jose, CA); Eric Chung (Huntington, NY); Deb Yoder (Pensacola, FL); Plain Jane; Rich Mertes

week of 6/3/01:  "How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.  I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight for the ends of Being and ideal Grace." - Elizabeth Barrett Browning, from her poem, "How Do I Love Thee?"

WINNERS:  Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Chessie (Maryland); Richard A. Barreto (Carolina Shores, NC); Sue Smith (Ontario, Canada); Shana Williams (Decatur, IL); Elizabeth McDonald; Rameen (Atlanta, GA); Reenie Stelzer-Rousseau (Denton, TX); Joyce Radtke (Milwaukee, WI); Kimberly Lane (Oklahoma City, OK); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Melissa (Gainesville, FL); Sanjit K. Kundu (Denver, CO); Chris Ceccoli (Norwalk, OH); Jane Porter (Hinckley, UT); Angela Wright (Bella Vista, AR); Julie (Omaha, NE); Porter; Symone Martin (Kansas City, KS); Jessica; Sheila; Tricia Crockett; Jennifer (Jacksonville, FL); Sr M. Danatha Suchyta; Tom Christensen; Jenn G.; Dale (Denver, CO); 

week of 5/27/01: "We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people.  Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way." - General George S. Patton

WINNERS:   Kristian Helge Andersen (Gevninge, Denmark); Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Craig Hoffman (Laura's boyfriend) (Holbrook, NY); Dennis Newquist (Bolingbrook, IL); Jared Maurer (Murrysville, PA); Scott (Orlando); Sally (Elgin, IL)

week of 5/20/01:  "Just as in earthly life lovers long for the moment when they are able to breathe forth their love for each other, to let their souls blend in a soft whisper, so the mystic longs for the moment when in prayer he can, as it were, creep into God." - Soren Kierkegaard

WINNERS:  Kristian Helge Andersen (Gevninge, Denmark); Laura Ginex (Massapequa, NY); Ellie (Dartmouth, MA); Lola (Topeka, KS)

week of 5/13/01:  "There is one mind common to all individual men.  Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same.  He that is once admitted to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate." - Ralph Waldo Emerson, from his essay, 'History'

WINNERS:  Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Julie (Omaha, NE); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY)

week of 5/6/01:  Courteous READER, I might in this place attempt to gain thy Favour, by declaring that I write Almanacks with no other View than that of the publick good; but in this I should not be sincere; and Men are now a-days too wise to be deceiv'd by Pretences how specious soever." - Benjamin Franklin, from 'Poor Richard's Almanacks' 

WINNERS:  Kristian Helge Andersen (Gevninge, Denmark); Kathy; Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Cathy (Mechanicsburg, PA); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Ellie (Washington, DC); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Brett Wiley (Athens, GA); Eric Eskin (Wilmington, DE); Michel Gallegos (Bothell, WA); Carol (San Francisco, CA); Nancy Porte (Wauwatosa, WI); Rebecca (Rainier, WA); Helen (Sun City West, AZ); Wendell Heiny (Denver, CO); Kate H. (Richardson, TX); Ronald (Louisville, KY); Dale Ogden (Denver, CO); Leonard Ke (San Francisco, CA); Tricia Crockett; Richard A. Barreto (Carolina Shores, NC); Mike Dellger (Sheboygan, WI); Jenn G.; Darrin Lancaster (Daytona Beach, FL); Angela Wright (Bella Vista, AR); Beth (Cambridge, MA); Becky LaFlamme (Gainesville, TX); Ryan Nokes (Merritt Island, FL); Julie (Omaha, NE); Jack & Barb Hays; Dennis Newquist (Bolingbrook, IL); Vickie Lord; S. Hood; Monica Voicu (San Jose, CA); Jan Crittenden; Katherine Williams

week of 4/29/01:  It was just noon that Sunday morning when the sheriff reached the jail with Lucas Beauchamp though the whole town (the whole country too for that matter) had known since the night before that Lucas had killed a white man." - William Faulkner, from 'Intruder in the Dust'

WINNERS:  Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Kristian Helge Andersen (Gevninge, Denmark); Susan VanOsdal (Wenatchee, Washington); Jani Diedrick; Ellie (Washington, DC); Camilla L. North (Pittsburg, KS); Laura Ginex (Massapequa, NY); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY)

week of 4/22/01: "At Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of 18--, I was enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and a meerschaum, in company with my friend C. Auguste Dupin, in his little back library, or book-closet, au troisieme, No. 33, Rue Dunot, Faubourg, St. Germain.  For one hour at least we had maintained a profound silence; while each, to any casual observer, might have seemed intently and exclusively occupied with the curling eddies of smoke that oppressed the atmosphere of the chamber." - Edgar Allen Poe, from 'The Purloined Letter'

WINNERS:  Kristian Helge Andersen (Gevninge, Denmark); Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Mike Dellger (Sheboygan, WI); Tom Christensen; Julie (Omaha, NE); Ellie (Washington, DC); Michael Weinbach (Boston, MA); Shoba Holdcraft (Lilburn, GA); Anja Hoster; Jani Diedrick; Susan VanOsdal (Wenatchee, Washington)

week of 4/15/01:  "Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people: and behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him..." - Pontius Pilate, from The Bible, King James Version, St. Luke 23:14

WINNERS:  Kristian Helge Andersen (Gevninge, Denmark); Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Ellie (Washington, DC); David Anderson (Raleigh, NC); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Alex (Cuba, NY); Natalie Bailey (Rockford, Illinois); Rebecca (Queensland, Australia); Jamie L. Thompson (Eaton, Ohio); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Jack & Barb Hays ; Andy Gabor (Arnold, MD); Maya Gumennik (Cambridge, MA); Michelle (Moncton); Joyce (Illinois); Becky Laflamme; John Woolridge (Bermuda); Brad D. Stratton (Newport); Deanlo Shird (Fayetteville, GA); ebarbour (Bethel, CT); Olehile G. Manong (Kimberley); Christine Wille; Felicia Roberts (Apalachin, NY); Erin Bishop; Sylvia Taylor (Ventura, CA); Brenda (Osaka, Japan); Robert Rowland (Parrish, AL); Melissa (Gainesville, FL); Robert L. Rainwater (Sweetwater, TX); Shawn Seiler (Scottsbluff, NE); Darlene Bishop (Rockford, TN); Robin Perry (Cordova, TN); Tom Christensen; Deric M. Behar; Bonnie Heatherly (Vinemont, AL); Roger T. Demarest (Westwood, NJ); Anna Ibrahim (Clinton Twp., MI); Jeff Greer (Birmingham, AL); Michael Dellger (Sheboygan, WI); Michael Schram (Traverse City, MI); Ronald Cox (Phoenix, AZ); D.Burris (Corona, CA); Click (O'Leary, PEI, Canada); Barbara (Anaheim, CA)

week of 4/8/01:  "Oh my children, the new blood of ancient Thebes, why are you here?  Huddling at my altar, praying before me, your branches wound in wool." - Sophocles, from 'Oedipus the King' 

WINNERS:  Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Kristian Helge Andersen (Gevninge, Denmark); Ellie Wheeler (Washington, DC); Brian Pike (Orange City, IA); Julie Sergel (Warren, MI); Becky Laflamme; Ian C.; Erin Klee

week of 4/1/01:  "Reader, I married him.  A quiet wedding we had: he and I, the parson and clerk, alone were present.  When we got back from church, I went into the kitchen of the manor-house, where Mary was cooking the dinner, and John cleaning the knives, and I said:  "Mary, I have been married to Mr. Rochester this morning." - Charlotte Bronte, from 'Jane Eyre'

WINNERS:  Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Kristian Helge Andersen (Gevninge, Denmark); Rebecca (Rainier, WA); Holly (Lewisburg); Melissa (Gainesville, FL); Joyce Radtke (Cudahy, WI); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Melissa Pols (LeRoy, Michigan); Jessica Katz (Centereach, NY); Kimmy (MA); Lety Verduzco (South Bend, IN); Julie (Omaha, NE); Deborah Forrest (Kingston, Jamaica, West Indies); Michelle (Frederick, CO); Shah Kanal; Fiona (UK); Alison Coady (Southampton, UK); cvolstorf (Mechanicsburg, PA); Ranya Bechara (Lebanon); Denis Coady

week of 3/25/01:  "I entitle transcendental all knowledge which is occupied not so much with objects as with the mode of our knowledge of objects in so far as this mode of knowledge is to be possible a priori." - Immanuel Kant, from 'Critique of Pure Reason' 

WINNERS:  Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Kristian Helge Andersen (Gevninge, Denmark); Art Dean (Palm Desert, CA); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY)

week of 3/18/01:  "NOW in these dread latter days of the old violent beloved U.S.A. and of the Christ-forgetting Christ-haunted death-dealing Western world I came to myself in a grove of young pines and the question came to me: has it happened at last?" - Walker Percy, from 'Love in the Ruins'

WINNERS:  Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Kristian Helge Andersen (Gevninge, Denmark)

week of 3/11/01: "To move over better waters now hoists sail  the little vessel of my mind  which leaves behind so rough a sea;     and I will sing of the second realm  where the human spirit is cleansed  and becomes worthy to rise to Heaven     Here, O holy Muses, since I am yours,  let dead poetry be revived  and let Calliope arise a while, ..." - Dante, from 'The Divine Comedy'

WINNERS:  Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Kristian Helge Andersen (Gevninge, Denmark); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Mike (NJ)

week of 3/4/01: The being finished speaking and fixed his looks upon me in the expectation of a reply.  But I was bewildered, perplexed, and unable to arrange my ideas sufficiently to understand the full extent of his proposition.  He continued, 'You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being.  This you alone can do, and I demand it of you as a right which you must not refuse to concede.'"  Mary Shelley, from 'Frankenstein'

WINNERS:  Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); June Pearson (Calgary, Canada); Susan Delgado (Mejis); Kristian Helge Andersen (Gevninge, Denmark); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Tina (Lexington, KY); Ellyn Rideout (Sylvania, OH); Candace Krzywicki (Camp Hill, PA); Laura Nash (Houston, TX); Pat Donovan (Carlsbad, NM); Melissa (Gainesville, FL); Kass (Salt Lake City, UT); Jeff Greer (Birmingham, AL); Christina Ballew (Grosse Pointe Shores, MI)

week of 2/25/01: I first met him in Piraeus.  I wanted to take the boat for Crete and had gone down to the port.  It was almost daybreak and raining.  A strong sirocco was blowing the spray from the waves as far as the little cafe, whose glass doors were shut." - Nikos Kazantzakis, from 'Zorba the Greek'

WINNERS:  Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Kristian Helge Andersen (Gevninge, Denmark)

week of 2/18/01: England, as the mighty William and many others have observed, is an island.  Therefore, if we are serious, if we are seeking to offer the thing itself, we in turn must go in search of a precious whatsit set in a silver doodah."  - Julian Barnes, from 'England, England'

WINNERS:  Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Kristian Helge Andersen (Gevninge, Denmark)

week of 2/11/01:  "We judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the bottom of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in, and that was what we was after.  We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go way up the Ohio amongst the free states, and then be out of trouble." - Mark Twain, from 'Huckleberry Finn.' 

WINNERS:  Melissa (Gainesville, FL); Jim Killgore (Jacksonville, FL); Josh DeFamio (Tempe, AZ); Mitch Ferres (Newbury Park, CA); Niall Donnelly (Belfast); Rich Mertes (Milwaukee, Wisconsin); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Logan (Memphis); Julie (Omaha, NE); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Russell Smith; Janis Kinens; Jeff (Providence RI); C. Guidry (Baton Rouge, LA); Camilla North; Tom (Roswell, GA); Meghan (New Iberia, LA); Lesley (Durham, NC); Jodi Stanley (Insitute, WV); Joyce Radtke (Milwaukee, WI); Leah H. Gleason (MN); Sherri Lee (Mesquite); Jessica (Collierville, TN); Tom Murphy (Phoenix, AZ)

week of 2/4/01: "... pick yourself up and try again.  Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself, but the power of always trying again.  For, however important any virtue may be, this process trains us in the habits of the soul, which are more important still." - C.S. Lewis

WINNERS:  no one!

week of 1/28/01: "Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream." - John Steinbeck, from his short novel, 'Cannery Row'

WINNERS:  Madeline Christensen (Pocatello, Idaho); Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Melissa (Gainesville, FL); Robert Lee Rainwater (Sweetwater, Texas); Katie (Boston, MA); Ellen Kelley (Shasta Lake, CA); Tom Murphy (Phoenix, AZ); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Rosalie Aronson (Minneapolis, MN); Velvet (Arcata, CA); Melissa (Ohio); John Schudel

week of 1/21/01:  "He had started rounds at five-thirty in the morning, working his way from one room to the next, writing progress notes as he went.  He was at the bedside of his last patient when his beeper went off.  When he saw the number displayed, his throat constricted." - Abraham Verghese, from 'The Tennis Partner'

WINNERS:  no one!

 week of 1/14/01:  "Once, long ago in a land far away, there lived four little characters who ran through a maze looking for cheese to nourish them and make them happy.  Two were mice named "Sniff" and "Scurry" and two were littlepeople..." - Spencer Johnson, MD, from 'Who Moved My Cheese'

WINNERS:  Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Josh DeFamio (Tempe, AZ); Tracey Layman (Atlanta, GA); Jennifer Duderwick (Williamsville NY); Midge Peluso (Phoenix, AZ)

week of 1/7/01: "In my dreams I hear again the crash of the guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.  But in the evening of my memory always I come back to West Point.  Always there echoes and re-echoes:  duty, honor, country." - General Douglas MacArthur

WINNERS:  Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Randy Grant; Bradley Brock (Richlands, NC); Helen Geri K (SunCityWest, AZ)

week of 12/30/00:  "I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up.  I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won't bother to talk about, except that it had something to do with the miserably weary split-up and my feeling that everything was dead.  With the coming of Dean Moriarty began the part of my life you could call my life on the road." - Jack Kerouac, from 'On the Road' 

WINNERS:  Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Melissa (Gainesville, FL); Maryna Gray (Morrisonville, NY); Doni Sue Langlois (Spring, TX)

week of 12/23/00: "The time has come," the walrus said, "to talk of many things; of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings, and why the sea is boiling hot..." - Lewis Carroll, from 'Through the Looking Glass'

WINNERS:  Melissa (Gainesville, FL); Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Chrissy (Caldwell, NJ); Beth (Billings, MT); Nancy Bond (Windsor, NS  Canada); Ellie (Dartmouth, MA); Barbara Collison (Kotzebue, AK); Alex (Glastonbury, CT); John Greze; Natalie (Pittsburgh, PA); Alan Scott (Greenwich, CT); Robert LaRue (Eden Prairie, MN); Kate Marchetti; Jan Crittenden (Canyon Country, CA); Tony Ivey (Sandy Hook, CT); Shirley Laliberte  (Bangor, ME)

week of 12/16/00:  "Here is an account of a few years in the life of Quoyle, born in Brooklyn and raised in a shuffle of dreary upstate towns." - E. Annie Proulx, from 'The Shipping News'

WINNERS:  Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Jeff Hielsberg (Hillsborough, NC); Joyce Radtke (Milwaukee, WI)

week of 12/9/00: What we do in life echoes in eternity." - Maximus from the movie, 'Gladiator,' played by Russell Crowe

WINNERS:  Jay (Honolulu, HI); Jeff Hielsberg (Hillsborough, NC); Amy Evans (Greensboro, NC); Yu Woon Chi (Singapore); Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Nikki Pierre (Columbia City, IN); Kaci Spurlock (Seattle, WA); Jill Mc (Midland, MI); Ian Despalo (Glendale); Alex Scheum (Olathe, Kansas); Tim Chisholm (San Diego, CA); Kara Schmid (Cincinnati, OH); Brent D. Wesley (Thunder Bay, Canada); Tina (Lexington, KY); Melissa Chasse (Brookpark, OH); Darrin Zblewski (Brookfield, WI); Heidi Clarin Ash; Mike (Rhode Island); Zhenya (Los Angeles, CA)

week of 12/2/00: Anger be now your song, immortal one, Akhilleus' anger, doomed and ruinous, that caused the Akhaians loss on bitter loss and crowded brave souls into the undergloom, leaving so many dead men - carrion for dogs and birds; and the will of Zeus was done." - Homer, from 'The Iliad'

WINNERS:  John Harrington (Milwaukee, WI); Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Tanjanica Crowder (Birmingham, AL); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Jeff Hielsberg (Hillsborough, NC); Robert Tatro (Hillsborough, NC); Mary Anne Meyer (Long Beach, NY); Jen (NH); Jerry Chen (Los Angeles, CA)

week of 11/26/00:  For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't, no proof is possible. - John & Lyn St. Clair, from 'Eyes of the Beholder'

WINNERS:  no one!

week of 11/19/00:  The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child. - Henry James, from 'The Turn of the Screw' 

WINNERS: Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Amber (New York); Jeff Hielsberg (Hillsborough, NC)

week of 11/12/00:  The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call 'out there.'  Some seventy miles east of the Colorado border, the countryside, with its hard blue skies and desert-clear air, has an atmosphere that is rather more Far West than Middle West. - Truman Capote, from 'In Cold Blood'

WINNERS:  Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Mark Cockerill (Boston, MA); Ellie (Georgetown Univ); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY)

week of 11/5/00:  ...Instruct me, for thou know'st; thou from the first Wast present, and, with mighty wings outspread,
Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast Abyss  And mad'st it pregnant: what in me is dark  Illumine, what is low raise and support,
That to the highth of this great argument  I may assert Eternal Providence  And justify the ways of God to men." - John Milton, from "Paradise Lost"  (submitted by Catherine Alfieri)

WINNERS:  Ellie (Georgetown Univ); Val Hirte (Beecher, WI)

week of 10/29/00:  Nobody could sleep.  When morning came, assault craft would be lowered and a first wave of troops would ride through the surf and charge ashore on the beach at Anopopei.  All over the ship, all through the convoy, there was a knowledge that in a few hours some of them were going to be dead." - Norman Mailer, from 'The Naked and the Dead'  (submitted by Don Huebsch)

WINNERS:  Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Val C. Hirte (Beecher, WI)

week of 10/22/00:  Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton.  Do not think that I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it meant a lot to Cohn.  -Ernest Hemingway, from 'The Sun Also Rises'

WINNERS:  Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Owen Corrigan; Michael (Clinton, MS); Josh DeFamio (Tempe, AZ); Jessica Seaberg (Minneapolis, MN); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Lauren Jenkins (Newport News, VA); Ellie (Georgetown University)

week of 10/15/00:  The chroniclers among the Persians say that it was the Phoenicians who were the cause of the falling-out; for they came from what is called the Red Sea to our sea, and, having settled in the country in which they now live, they at once set about long voyages; and carrying Egyptian and Assyrian freights, they put into other lands, and among them Argos. - Herodotus, from 'The History'

WINNERS:  no one!

week of 10/8/00 (quotation submitted by Josh DeFamio from Tempe, AZ): Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."   -J.R.R. Tolkien

WINNERS:  Bill Michaud (Portland, Maine); Craig Jorgenson (Mount Prospect, IL); Jason Miller (Camden, NJ); Jeff Hielsberg (Hillsborough, NC)

week of 10/1/00 (quotation submitted by Don Huebsch from Castle Rock, Colorado): This man did not know cold.  Possibly all the generations of his ancestry had been ignorant of cold, of real cold, of cold one hundred and seven degrees below freezing point.  But the dog knew; all its ancestry knew, and it had inherited the knowledge.  And it knew that it was not good to walk abroad in such fearful cold. - Jack London, from 'To Build a Fire'

WINNERS:  Josh DeFamio (Tempe, AZ); Ellie (Georgetown University); Melissa (Gainesville, FL); Aimee (Rockaway, NJ); Jimmy (Boston); Andy Vavreck (Willmar, MN); John Dubas (Omaha, NE); Emily Cain (Shippenville, PA); Jill Benevides; J.E. (Belle Rose, New York); Jennifer Vicinsky (Upland, CA)

week of 9/24/00:  My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains   My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,  Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains  One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk..."  -  John Keats, from his poem "Ode to a Nightingale"

WINNERS: Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Sara du Sablon (Bailey, NC); Melissa (Gainesville, FL); Nancy Porte (Wauwatosa, WI); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Sheila P. (Minneapolis, MN); Ellie (Georgetown University)

week of 9/17/00:  Sitting beside the road, watching the wagon mount the hill toward her, Lena thinks, 'I have come from Alabama: a fur piece.  All the way from Alabama a-walking.  A fur piece.'  Thinking although I have not been quite a month on the road I am already in Mississippi, further from home than I have ever been before.  I am now further from Doane's Mill than I have been since I was twelve years old." - William Faulkner, from his novel, 'Light in August'

WINNERS:  Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Ellie (Georgetown University); Jamie L. Thompson (Eaton, Ohio)

week of 9/10/00: Even this must have a preface - that is, a literary preface," laughed Ivan, "and I am a poor hand at making one.  You see, my action takes place in the sixteenth century, and at that time, as you probably learnt at school, it was customary in poetry to bring down heavenly powers on earth. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, from 'The Brothers Karamazov'

WINNERS:  Josh DeFamio (Tempe, AZ); Ellie (Georgetown University); Rebecca Johnson (Sharpsburg, GA)

week of 9/3/00:  True! - nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am not mad?  The disease had sharpened my senses - not destroyed - not dulled them.  Above all was the sense of hearing acute." - Edgar Allen Poe, from "The Tell-Tale Heart"

WINNERS:  Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Lora Geftic (Fair Lawn, NJ); S. Hansen (San Luis Obispo, CA); Catherine Alfieri (Pittsford, NY); Kim Weber (Vienna, Austria); Jeff Greer (Birmingham, AL); Nick Hardaway (MO); Jeff Hielsberg (Guam);  Anna Hardie (Christchurch, New Zealand); Amber De Gelia (Rancho Cucamonga, CA)

week of 8/27/00: Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty. - John F. Kennedy

WINNERS:  Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Jill Upton; Ellie (Dartmouth, MA); Lynn Ouellet (Tolland CT); E Kunsman (Moreno Valley, California); Joe Cavanaugh (Milwaukee WI); Clint Mosley (Archdale, NC)

week of 8/20/00:  It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.  However little known the feelings or view of such a man may be on his first entering a neighborhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters. - Jane Austen, from 'Pride and Prejudice'

WINNERS: Renuka (India); Suzanne (Denton, TX); Denise Oppenhagen (Woodbridge, VA); Cauvery Kodira (GermanTown, MD); Samantha Jones (Cincinnati, OH)

week of 8/13/00: What's it going to be then, eh?"  There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening..." - Anthony Burgess, from his novel, 'A Clockwork Orange'

WINNERS: Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Purnima Anand (Buenos Aires, Argentina); Ellie (Dartmouth, MA); Lynne (Essex, UK); Mindy Calisti (Louisville, KY); James A. Anderson (Florence, MT)

week of 8/6/00: I can see by my watch, without taking my hand from the left grip of the cycle, that it is eight-thirty in the morning.  The wind, even at sixty miles an hour, is warm and humid.  When it's this hot and muggy at eight-thirty, I'm wondering what it's going to be like in the afternoon. - Robert M. Pirsig, from his novel, 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance'

WINNERS: Sheila Peterson (Minnesota); Ellie (Dartmouth, MA)

week of 7/30/00: Who is the third who walks always beside you?  When I count, there are only you and I together  But when I look ahead up the white road  There is always another one walking beside you... - T.S. Eliot, from his poem, "The Waste Land" 

WINNERS: Ellie (Dartmouth, MA)

week of 7/23/00:  Nuns go by as quiet as lust, and drunken men and sober eyes sing in the lobby of the Greek hotel.  Rosemary Villanucci, our next-door friend who lives above her father's cafe sits in a 1939 Buick eating bread and butter." - Toni Morrison from 'The Bluest Eye'

WINNERS: Ellie (Dartmouth, MA)

week of 7/16/00: When I was one-and-twenty  I heard a wise man say  "Give crowns and pounds and guineas  But not your heart away;  give pearls away and rubies  But keep your fancy free."  But I was one-and-twenty,  No use to talk to me. - A.E. Housman from the poem, "When I Was One-and-Twenty"

WINNERS: Purnima Anand (Buenos Ares, Argentina); Ellie (Dartmouth, MA); Nancy Porte (Wauwatosa, WI); Joyce Radtke (Milwaukee, WI); Judy (Tampa, FL); Jon (Greeley, CO)

week of 7/9/00: I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.  - Nathan Hale (a martyr soldier of the American Revolution, born in Coventry, Conn., June 6, 1755.  When but little more than twenty-one years old he was hanged, by order of General William Howe, as a spy, in the city of New York, on September 22, 1776)

WINNERS: Nancy Porte (Wauwatosa, WI); Ellie (Dartmouth, MA); Mary Ann (Chicago, IL); Elaine (Utah); Laura (Rancho Cucamonga, CA)

week of 7/2/00: Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. - J.K. Rowling, from the novel, 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone'

WINNERS: Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Ellie (Dartmouth, MA); Taadhameka Kennedy (NY); Nancy Porte (Wauwatosa, WI); Simone Tran (Irvine, CA); Marcia Weingarten (Woodland Hills, CA); Sheila Peterson (Minneapolis, MN); Nicky Davison (New Zealand); Julie Wangler (Omaha, NE); Tara Redden (Strykersville, NY); Carolyn McCombs (New Zealand); Charisse Malloy (Queens, NY); Silvia Vedia; Rob Phillips (New York, NY)

week of 6/25/00:  Our purpose is to consider what form of political community is best of all for those who are most able to realize their ideal of life.  We must therefore examine not only this but other constitutions, both such as actually exist in well-governed states, and any theoretical forms which are held in esteem, so that what is good and useful may be brought to light." - Aristotle, from 'Politics'

WINNERS: Purnima Anand (Buenos Aires, Argentina); Ellie (Dartmouth, MA); Nancy Porte (Wauwatosa, WI); Mike Harnett (Birmingham, England)

week of 6/18/00:  I, too, sing America.  I am the darker brother.  They send me to eat in the kitchen  When company comes,  But I laugh,  And eat well,  And grow strong. - Langston Hughes, from his poem "I, Too, Sing America"

WINNERS: Carla Ziino (Melbourne Australia); Cynthia (Memphis, TN); Purnima Anand (Buenos Aires, Argentina); Irene de la Cruz (Buenos Aires, Argentina); Rich Mertes (Wisconsin); Nancy Porte (Wauwatosa, WI); Julie Karr (Snohomish, WA); Jeff Hielsberg (Hillsborough, NC); Jyothi Nagraj (Providence, RI); Paula Stabile (Wayland, MA); Laura (Houston, TX); Ellie (Dartmouth, MA)

week of 6/11/00:  He was only twenty, his brother Ivan was in his twenty-fourth year at the time, while their elder brother Dmitri was twenty-seven.  First of all, I must explain that this young man, Alyosha, was not a fanatic, and, in my opinion, at least, was not even a mystic.  I may as well give my full opinion from the beginning.  He was simply an early lover of humanity, and that he adopted the monastic life was simply because at that time it struck him, so to say, as the ideal escape for his soul struggling from the darkness of worldly wickedness to the light of love." - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, from his novel, 'The Brothers Karamazov' 

WINNERS: Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Chrissy (Modesto, CA); Purnima Anand (Buenos Aires); Sarah Atkins (Denver, CO); Allan Shweky (Brooklyn, NY); Ellie (Dartmouth, MA); Joyce Radtke (Milwaukee, WI); Emma Maglaque

week of 6/4/00:  I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror - of an intense and hopeless despair.  Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge?  He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision - he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath - "The horror!  The horror!" - Joseph Conrad, from his novel, 'Heart of Darkness.'

WINNERS: Don Huebsch; (Castle Rock, CO); Ellie (Dartmouth, MA); Heidi Silvester (Philadelphia, PA); Lih-wern Wang (Canyon Country, CA); Shelley Skoglund (San Rafael, CA); Purnima Anand (Buenos Aires)

week of 5/27/00:   Jean Valjean went out of the city as if he were escaping. He made all haste to get into the open country, taking the first lanes and bypaths that offered, without noticing that he was every moment retracing his steps. He wandered thus all the morning. - Victor Hugo, from his novel, 'Les Miserables' 

WINNERS: Don Huebsch; (Castle Rock, CO); Ellie (Dartmouth, MA); John McConnell (New Milford, CT); Miggie (Everett WA); Chad Swanzy (Lakewood, CO); Susan (Texas); Gael Hill (Elmwood Park, NJ); Etienne Bender (London, England); Thomas E. C. Barclay (Plainsboro, New Jersey); Tim Ferk (Menomonee Falls, WI); Christine Kittle (Weymouth, MA); Connie Vivero (Manila, Philippines); Vanessa (Temple City, California); B.J. Min (La Jolla, CA); Ace Van Wanseele (Denver, CO); Mckenzie (Utah); Karen Huang (Ottawa/Ontario/Canada); Laura Fish (Rancho Cucamonga, CA); D. Giannini (Santa Barbara, CA); Georgia MacDougall (Bradford, VT); Amy Nielsen; Ann Wood (Ontario, Canada); Shawn Strannigan; Laura Pul (Cerritos, CA); Linda Ferris (London, England); Meg (PA); Lisa (Orleans, MA); Sheila Peterson (Minneapolis, MN); Allan Shweky (Brooklyn, NY)

week of 5/20/00:  "Do I dare  Disturb the universe?  In a minute there is time  For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse." - T.S. Eliot, from his poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

WINNERS:  Ellie (Dartmouth, MA); Purnima Anand (Buenos Aires, Argentina); Pete Busichio (Roselle Park, NJ); Carla Ziino (Melbourne, Australia); Morty Rosner (Teaneck, NJ); Irene de la Cruz (Buenos Aires, Argentina); John McConnell (New Milford, CT)

week of 5/13/00:  It seemed to be calling and waiting for the words John Galt was now to pronounce.  "The road is cleared," said Galt.  "We are going back to the world."  He raised his hand and over the desolate earth he traced in space the sign of the dollar." - Ayn Rand, from her novel, 'Atlas Shrugged'

WINNERS:  Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Margaret S (Mississauga, Ontario, Canada); Ellie (Dartmouth, MA); Carol Ann (Havertown, PA); Mona Nisoff (Research Triangle Park, NC); Sheila Peterson (Minneapolis, MN); Maggie Mitchell (Athens, Ohio); Lindy Greer (Roswell, NM); Phil Woellner (Southlake, TX); D. Giannini (Santa Barbara, CA); Julia Sullivan; David Edwards (Houston, TX)

week of 5/6/00:  I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. - Walt Whitman, from his poem, "Song of Myself."

WINNERS:  Carole (Clinton IA); Jennifer A. Johnson (University of Virginia); Bill Nilsen (Avon, MA); Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Barb Peil (Placentia, CA); Deb Christenson; Nicolette (Marquette); Michael Benner (Glendale, CA); Nila (Florence, Italy); Lola Rennt (Omaha, Nebraska); Tanis Eastridge (Mesa, Arizona); Jennifer Vicinsky (Upland, CA); Nancy Porte (Wauwatosa, WI); Laura Fish (Rancho Cucamonga, CA); L. Allen (Haverhill, MA); Michelley (Walla Walla, WA); Larry Merryman (Dallas, Oregon); George Orwell (Monmouth, Oregon); Bill Brinegar (Upland, CA)

week of 4/30/00:  As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. - Franz Kafka, from his short story, 'The Metamorphosis'

WINNERS:  Scott Crouch (Wauwatosa, WI); Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Jean Johnson; Cecile Charlton (Ottawa, Ontario); Barb Peil (Placentia, CA); Candace Henry (Minneapolis, MN); Amanda Gartmann (Merrill, WI); Ellie (Dartmouth, MA); Whitney (Metairie, LA); Angela Wright (Bella Vista, AR); Dale (Wheat Ridge, CO); George Conner (Berlin, MD); Mitch Harding (Austin, TX); Marcia Weingarten (Woodland Hills, CA); Jenie Hall (Seattle, WA); Mike Richmond (Rutherford, NJ); Stephanie Takes-Desbiens (Yarmouth, ME); Laura Fish (Rancho Cucamonga, CA); Patricia Bronson (Riverton, UT); Carlos Gieseken (Boston, MA); Jessi (Kuna, ID); CAThompson (Norwin); Ron Maurer (Johnstown, PA); John Tsao (Palos Verdes, CA); Kelly Gendron (North Kingstown, RI); Gautham Reddy (Houston, TX)

week of 4/23/00: (William Carlos Williams' poem, "The Red Wheelbarrow")

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

WINNERS:  Bill (Lake Mary, FL); Val C. Hirte (Beecher, WI); Nancy Porte (Wauwatosa, WI); Alisa (NJ); Michael Feldkamp (Tecumseh, MI); Ellie (Dartmouth, MA); Karen M. K. Stanley (Lincoln, NE); Janice Dye (Toronto, Ontario); Scott Crouch (Wauwatosa, WI)

week of 4/16/00: When I have fears that I may cease to be, Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high-piled books, in charact'ry, Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain... - John Keats from his poem: "When I Have Fears"

WINNERS:  Ellie (Dartmouth, MA); Nancy Porte (Wauwatosa, WI); Ursula Dawson (Adelaide, South Australia); Jamie L. Thompson (Eaton, OH); Jeff Hielsberg (Hillsborough, NC); Bill (Lake Mary, FL)

week of 4/9/00: Whilom ther was dwellynge at oxenford, A riche gnof, that gestes heeld to bord, And of his craft he was a carpenter. - Sir Geoffrey Chaucer, from 'The Canterbury Tales' (The Miller's Tale)

WINNERS:  Nancy Porte (Wauwatosa, WI); Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, Co); Eric Peele (Cary, NC); lproutt (Millersville, MD); Harry Torres (Valrico); Ellie (Dartmouth, MA); Frederick Heuser (Kenosha, WI); James Amos (Madison, WI); D. Giannini (Santa Barbara, CA); Brandon Hess (Madison, SD); Mary Ann Adams (Chicago, IL); Ursula Dawson (Adelaide, South Australia)

week of 4/2/00: A destiny that leads the English to the Dutch is strange enough; but one that leads from Epsom into Pennsylvania, and thence into the hills that shut in Altamont over the proud coral cry of the cock, and the soft stone smile on an angel, is touched by that dark miracle of chance which makes new magic in a dusty world. - Thomas Wolfe, from his novel, 'Look Homeward, Angel'

WINNERS:  D. Giannini (Santa Barbara, CA); Chuck Lockridge (Austin, TX); Jeff Hielsberg (Hillsborough, NC)

week of 3/26/00: Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. - Gabriel Garcia Marquez from 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'

WINNERS:  Lee Root (Phoenix, AZ); Michael Boggess (Tacoma, WA); JBJC (Ridgewood, NJ); Lois Suddath (Sun City, AZ); Diane Helton; Ellie (Dartmouth, MA); Margarita Vega (Clifton, NJ); Shelby Hilyard (Orlando, FL); Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Cecile Charlton (Ottawa); Jenn Giandalone (Buckland, MA); Shannon Barnthson (Fort Worth, TX); Laura Fish (Rancho Cucamonga, CA); Christine Carino (Philippines); Trish Rambaud (Yucaipa, CA); Mirjana Kosic (BanjaLuka, Bosnia); Nancy Porte (Wauwatosa, WI)

week of 3/19/00: Mr. Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses, broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, old Ireland's hearts and hands. - James Joyce, from 'Ulysses'

WINNERS: Ellie (Dartmouth, MA); Cassandra (Richmond, VA); Debra Banta (Stuart, FL); MaryLynne Smith (Santa Rosa, CA); Laura Fish (Rancho Cucamonga, CA); Allan Roit (Springfield); Bill Nilsen (Avon, MA); James Allen Anderson (Goldsboro, NC); Gail Holcomb (St. Paul, MN); Isabella Veeger (Sarasota, FL); Don Huebsch (Castle Rock, CO); Frank Miller (Granite Bay, CA); Crystal Kotal (Racine, WI); Nancy Porte (Wauwatosa, WI); Mark Archer (Anchorage, Alaska); Ralph Head (Santa Barbara, CA); James Amos (Madison, WI); Daniel T. McCarthy (Phoenix, AZ)

week of 3/12/00: Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. - Benjamin Franklin, from 'Poor Richard's Almanac'

WINNERS: Naomi Shadis (Superior, WI); Marlene (Indio); Carol Hielsberg (Menomonee Falls, WI); David Lives (Forest Park, OH); Terra (Chardon, OH); Steve Talbott (Hacienda Heights, CA); Calli (Grand Ledge, MI); Carlos Gieseken (Boston, MA); Karen Hopper (Lakeview, AR); Praveen Chhabra (Delhi); Jason Lee (Beaverton, OR); Ron Atchison (San Francisco, CA); Seana Grey (Kingston, RI); Penny (Anchorage, AK); Eleonor Prado (Philippines); Kathy Schneider (Aurora, CO); Julie George (Ormond Beach, FL); Laura Fish (Rancho Cucamonga, CA); Lih-wern Wang (Canyon Country, CA)

week of 3/5/00: Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys' house. - Leo Tolstoy from 'Anna Karenina'

WINNERS: Ellie (Dartmouth, MA); Natasha (Abkhazia)

week of 2/27/00: Mr. Phileas Fogg lived, in 1872, at No. 7, Savile Row, Burlington Gardens, the house in which Sheridan died in 1814. - Jules Verne, from 'Around the World in 80 Days'

WINNERS: Brian James (Woodbridge, VA); Ellie (Dartmouth, MA); Michele (Platteville, WI); Patrick (South Africa); Laura Fish (Rancho Cucamonga, CA); Andrew Tan (Vancouver B C)

week of 2/20/00: All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. - George Orwell, from 'Animal Farm'

WINNERS: Lisa (Montreal); Jonathan Euvrard (South Africa); Adriana; Cindy Ogasawara (Seattle, WA); Michael Carman (Port Townsend, WA); Amanda (Belgium); Samantha Gruner (Madison, IN); Angela DelBrocco (Memphis, TN); Eiman Zarrug (Ontario); Kelly I. (Jersey City, NJ); Morris Hallquist (Fargo, North Dakota); Diane (Louisville, KY); Tristan (Canada); C?cile Charlton (Ottawa, Ontario); R. David Reynolds (Crossville, Illinois); Megan Martin (Austin, TX); Natalie (Dayton, OH); Victor Chayet (Littleton, CO); Jillian Savage (Tulsa, OK); Laura Fish (Rancho Cucamonga, CA); Travis Foutz (Wyoming); Juliana Cooper-Goldenberg (Asheville, NC); Regina (Singapore)

week of 2/13/00: A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green. - John Steinbeck, from 'Of Mice and Men'

WINNERS: Babzee (Buhl, Idaho); Serena Loo (Blacksburg, VA); Jediah Sim (Santa Clarita, CA); Andrew Moore (Anglesey, Wales, Great Britain); Karen Percak (Chicago, IL); Liz (New Orleans, LA); Cindy (Seattle, WA); Mike Carman

week of 2/6/00: Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is. - Vince Lombardi

WINNERS: Beth Miklius (Palatine, IL); Justin (Orlando, FL); Kyle Hick (Perry, IA); Jesse G (Livingston, NJ); Beth (Sanborn, NY); Will Miller (Platteville, WI); Laura Fish (Rancho Cucamonga, CA)

week of 1/30/00: The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. - Eleanor Roosevelt

WINNERS:  T. Murphy (Phoenix, AZ); Kyle Burson (Columbia, MO); Izza Malik (New York); Keith Ball (W. Lafayette, IN); Melissa (Harrisburg, PA); Colleen (Dewitt, NY); Jillian (Gillett, NJ); Janel Seibert (West Lafayette, IN); Stacey Borah (Newburgh, IN)

week of 1/23/00: Estragon(E): Why don't we hang ourselves?   Vladimir(V): With what?   E: You haven't got a bit of rope?   V: No.   E: Then we can't.   V: Let's go. - Samuel Beckett, from his play, 'Waiting for Godot.'

WINNERS:  Laura (NY); Becky (Studio City, CA); Michel G. (Bothell, WA); Jeff Hielsberg (Orlando, FL); T. Murphy (Phoenix, AZ); Sheryl Basso (Phoenix, AZ); James Allen Anderson (Goldsboro, NC)

week of 1/16/00: All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players. - William Shakespeare, from his play, 'As You Like It.'

WINNERS: Doretta (Paducah, KY); Jennifer Prudhome (Cerritos, CA); Tom Barclay (Trenton, NJ); Nicky Surko (Hazlet, NJ); Colleen (Athens, GA); Tori (Paducah, KY); James Butler (Sunrise, FL); Laura Fish (Rancho Cucamonga, CA); Andrea (NY); Nelson Surles (Angier, NC); Kelly (Jersey City, NJ); Barbara Spivack (North Woodmere, NY); Michelle (Elyria, Ohio); Hillary Carr (London, England); Paula (Orlando, FL); Sameer Bindra (Chandigarh India); Kenneth Jakobsen (Norway); Yanxiu (Singapore); Angie (Holly Springs, GA); T Murphy (Phoenix, AZ); Karima Ammar (Cairo, Egypt); Dave (Singapore); Mckenzie (Salt Lake City, Utah); Sharon (Port Charlotte, FL); Marco Pereira (Fall River, MA); Archna (Centreville, VA); Natalie Weygant (Dayton, OH); Francine Gertz (Pittsburgh, PA); Marshall (TX); Lisa Lall; Liz Coppinger (Maryville TN); Emily Truscott (Woodstock, Ontario); Lih-wern Wang (Canyon Country, CA); Maritza Suarez (Miami, FL); S. Goodman (Natick, MA); Amy (Jersey City, NJ); Michel Gallegos (Bothell, WA); Yen Leong (Houston, TX); Noorul Ameen (Pune, India); Josh (Dallas, TX); Jeff Hielsberg (Orlando, FL); Jimaia (Singapore); Tom Hoffman (Clifton Park, NY); Christine (Marion, Indiana); Theresa (New Fairfield, CT); Jessie Oates (Richland, WA)

week of 1/9/00: Most of us spend too much time on the last twenty-four hours and too little on the last six thousand years. - Will Durant

WINNERS: No one!

week of 1/2/00: To infinity and beyond! - Buzz Lightyear (voice of Tim Allen), from Disney's 'Toy Story.'

WINNERS: Dana B. (Beverly Hills, CA); Tom Barclay (Trenton, NJ); Jill U (East Hartford, CT); Theresa Prendergast (New Fairfield, CT); Caro K. (Gatlinburg, TN); Diana (Columbia, SC); Marty Welch (Vacaville, CA); Laura Ginex (Massapequa, NY); Dennis May (Lafayette, LA); Tara (Grapevine, TX); Dana Ramold (Lenexa); Patrice Smith (Madison Heights, MI); kcarter (Ashley, MI); Lih-wern Wang (Canyon Country, CA); Simone (Seattle, WA); Brad Yarbrough (Tempe, AZ); Dianne Smith (Calgary, Alberta); Andrew Jaqua (Harrisville, MI); Anita (Betsy Layne, KY); Todd White (ME); Ellie (Garden City, NY); Jeff Beasley (Amarillo, Texas); Timothy Smith (Akron, Ohio); Elizabeth Wolf (Los Angeles, CA); Jessica Stone (Syracuse,NY)

week of 12/26/99: I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me.  May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.  -  Charles Dickens, from 'A Christmas Carol'

WINNERS: Alan Slone (Lexington KY); A P Lechner (Vancouver WA); Marylynne (Santa Rosa); Tom Murphy (Phoenix, AZ); Dana Ferguson (St. Paul, MN); Rich (San Diego, CA); Dave Mickits (Sherman Oaks, CA)

week of 12/19/99: Veni, vidi, vici (I came, I saw, I conquered) - Julius Caesar 

WINNERS: Taylor H. Stair (Atlanta, Georgia); Chris Perera (Richmond VA); Tom Murphy (Phoenix, AZ); Rich (San Diego, CA); Alex (Cebu); Steve Frump (St. Petersburg, FL); Alejandro (Cap.Fed Argentina); Paula Bunton (Lexington, KY); Megan McPherson (Glendive, Montana); Vikram (Pittsburgh, PA); Eric Peele (Cary, NC); Val C. Hirte (Beecher, Wisconsin)

week of 12/12/99: Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting. They were coming toward where the flag was and I went along the fence.  Luster was hunting in the grass by the flower tree. - William Faulkner from his novel 'The Sound and the Fury.'

WINNERS:  Tom Murphy (Phoenix, AZ); Izza Malik (New York); Elizabeth Coppinger (Maryville, TN); Nathan Goldstein (Honolulu, Hawaii)

week of 12/5/99: O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up - for you the flag is flung - for you the bugle trills... - Walt Whitman, from his poem, "O Captain! My Captain!"

WINNERS: Mary (Winters, CA); Tom Murphy (Phoenix, AZ); Robert Driscoll (Winchendon, MA); Kjirsti Petersen (Moses Lake, WA); Sandi Foss; Stefanie (St Pete, FL); Jim Steel (Teaneck, NJ); Russ (Long Beach, CA); Jeff Drabicki (Saugus, MA)

week of 11/28/99: Chance favors the prepared mind. - Louis Pasteur

WINNERS: D.H. Edwards (Wildwood, MO)

week of 11/21/99: He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. - Ernest Hemingway from his novel ''The Old Man and The Sea'

WINNERS: Jose M. Serrano (San Juan, PR ); Victoria Collins (Richardson, TX); Meg (NYC); Lih-wern Wang (Canyon Country, CA); Tom Murphy (Phoenix, AZ); Jessica (Keene, NH); Kevin Brennan (Binghamton, NY); Jediah Sim (Santa Clarita, CA); Gary Woodard (Interlochen, MI); Jim Anderson (Goldsboro, NC); Barb Peil (Placentia); DeAnne Connolly (Miramar, FL); H.R.Tate (Severn, MD)

week of 11/14/99: The motto of Dwayne Hoover's and Kilgore Trout's nation was this, which meant in a language nobody spoke anymore, Out of Many, One: "E pluribus unum." - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. from his novel 'Breakfast of Champions.'

WINNERS: T Murphy (Phoenix, AZ)

week of 11/7/99:  This is the way the world ends, This is the way the world ends, Not with a bang but a whimper. - T.S. Eliot, from his poem, "The Hollow Men."

WINNERS: Lih-wern Wang (Canyon Country, CA); Loren Heinold (Cambridge, MA); Brinn Dillard (Essexville, Michigan); Angelica Martinez (San Diego, CA); Michelle (Orange, CA)

week of 10/31/99: Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul - and sings the tune without words, and never stops - at all. - Emily Dickinson

WINNERS:  Nancy Nunnally (Oklahoma City, OK); Tiger Koyama (San Diego, CA); Maryna Gray; Sue Weare (Southampton,Ontario,Canada); Eric Peele (Cary, NC)

week of 10/24/99: "As before, the door opened the merest crack, and again two sharp and mistrustful eyes peered at him from the darkness. Then Raskolnikov lost his head and made what might have been a serious mistake."  - Feodor Dostoevsky, from 'Crime and Punishment'

WINNERS: Lih-wern Wang (Canyon Country, CA); Jakob Persson (Sweden)

week of 10/17/99: "A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, and, in a shield, the World State's motto, Community, Identity, Stability." - Aldous Huxley, opening line from 'Brave New World.'

WINNERS:  Lisa Sjödin (Svenljunga, Sweden); Brady Weiss (St. Augustine, Florida); Angelica Martinez (San Diego, CA); Donald Sanger (Tucson, Arizona); Lih-wern Wang (Canyon Country, CA)

week of 10/10/99: "Howard Roark laughed. He stood naked at the edge of a cliff..." - Ayn Rand, opening line from 'The Fountainhead.'

WINNERS:  Karen Sanger (Tucson, Arizona); Tiger Koyama (San Diego, California); Heather Shelton; Michael J. Mazzone (Houston, Texas); Will Fleshman (Lewis Center, OH); Huseyin Icen (Ankara, Turkey)

week of 10/3/99:  "For I have known them all already, know them all: have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons; I have measured out my life with coffee spoons..." - T.S. Eliot, from his poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."

WINNERS:  George Dunbar (Monageer, Ireland); Natalie Ortiz (Notre Dame, IN); Tracy Scott (Seattle, Washington); Emily Isaak (Mason City, Iowa); Shahab Enam Khan, University of Dhaka (Dhaka, Bangladesh)

week of 9/26/99:  "I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff."  - J.D. Salinger from 'Catcher in the Rye.'  Spoken by the character, Holden Caulfield.

WINNERS:  Kate Nojiri (Branchburg); Natalie Ortiz (Notre Dame, IN); Sarah Hughes (Athens, GA); Brian Gotta (San Diego, CA); Kim Castillo (Bay Area, California)

week of 9/19/99:  "Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world."  - Herman Melville (opening lines of Moby Dick)

WINNERS:  Dave Allen (Lytham St Annes - Lancashire, UK); Val Hirte (Beecher, WI); Liz Browne (Manhattan, KS); Lih-wern Wang (Canyon Country, CA); Leslie Newman (Portland, Oregon); Poulomi Saha (Silver Spring, MD); Natalie Ortiz (San Antoino, TX); Danielle Leonard (Muncie, IN)

week of 9/12/99: "riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs." - James Joyce (opening lines from Finnegans Wake)

WINNERS:  no one! (tough quote!!)

week of 9/5/99:  "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness..."; - Charles Dickens (from A Tale of Two Cities)

WINNERS:  Lia Ellen Brigid Fisher (New York, New York); Jacob Singletary (Coldwater, Michigan); Kevin (middle schooler, Seoul Foreign School, Seoul, Korea); Diane Larkin (Whitehorse, Yukon); Jamie Thomas (Decatur, GA); L. DeLucia (Merrick, NY)

week of 8/29/99: "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary...  - Edgar Allen Poe (from "The Raven")

WINNERS: Lauren Chamberlain (Los Angeles, California); K. T. Smith (Shreveport, LA); Jana Jansen-Walton (Kansas City, Missouri); Pete (Fall River, Massachusetts); Robert Weatherspoon (Hampstead NC)

week of 8/22/99: "Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least." - Goethe

WINNERS: Tom Sturrock (Burlington, Ontario); Jana Jansen-Walton (Kansas City, MO); Jamie L. Thompson (Eaton, Ohio)

week of 8/15/99: "Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get." - Dale Carnegie

WINNER: Daniel Kim (San Angelo, TX)

week of 8/8/99: "You must be the change you wish to see in the world" - Mahatma Gandhi

WINNERS: Eric Peele (Cary, NC); Lee Qarib (Lafayette, La); David Emprimo (Jacksonville, TX); William Bostic (Asheboro, NC)

week of 8/1/99:  "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." - Henry David Thoreau

WINNERS: Barbara (Sacramento, CA); Jim Richards (NO); Chris Ceccoli (Sandusky, OH); Willa J. Chambers (Lexington, KY);D. Shevlin (NV); Irene Roy (Texas); Ham990bz; Tom Sturrock (Burlington, Ontario); Jasmine (NJ); Jamie L. Thompson (Eaton, Ohio)

week of 7/25/99:  "This is my letter to the world, that never wrote to me, the simple news that Nature told, with tender majesty.  Her message is committed, to hands I cannot see; for love of her, sweet countrymen, judge tenderly of me." - Emily Dickinson

WINNERS: Erin Jeter; Angela C. Abeles (Hewitt, Texas); Chris Ceccoli (Sandusky, OH); anonymous (NY, NY); Andrea (New Jersey)

week of 7/18/99:  "This above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." - Shakespeare, spoken by Polonius in Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3.

WINNERS:  Sherri (Toronto, Ontario, Canada);  Will Sample (Jonesboro, Arkansas); Allyson Edwards (East Bend, NC); Sohne Van Selus (Littleton, CO); Jeff Hielsberg (Orlando, FL); Tim (Chicago, IL)