The Legacy Letters Quotes & Sayings

More than likely you'll do well enough alone by the engines of your own fate until you either hit a few really nasty bumps in the road or grow old enough to realize that there may be a diamond or two in what you thought was your old man's bucket. — Carew Papritz

There's so much to learn. So much to enjoy. So terribly much to be curious about. Take your life and run with it. Make a habit of being alive. This much of anything, I have learned. And am still learning. — Carew Papritz

It is everything that makes a man. It is everything that makes this man. And that is who I am alive, and that is who I am dead. — Carew Papritz

Reading teaches us the nuances of humanity. To find the beauty of what is moral and ethical in your own actions and discover the strange subtlety of what it is to question why you should exist. — Carew Papritz

My God, what a sensation to be an atom in the scheme of such grandiosity. The allurement, the jazz, and the physics of it all ... — Carew Papritz

It's a fool who thinks having a kid is a right, which is the biggest crock of fish heads I've ever heard. — Carew Papritz

To Remember you so Vividly
To remember you so vividly, dancing there, with sweet champagne pulsing through your veins ... to know what it's like to feel another's presence pulsing through mine. And each time, looking forward to popping that enchanted cork with you and really disappearing from the world as we knew it - wondering if we would ever return. — Carew Papritz

Why travel? To be changed, and to be changed again and again. — Carew Papritz

Sometimes the best way is to get out of your own way. — Carew Papritz

I want to remember ... Smelling your newness upon this earth. The baby-Jesus smell as Grandma used to put it. Pure. Unsullied. Like the imagined smell in the twirling air of eiderdown feathers spin-floating around the yard on a new spring day. — Carew Papritz

It's not who you are, but what you're made of. It's not where you come from, but where you're going to. — Carew Papritz

Respect both what you need to know and what you don't need to know. Respect mystery, for mystery is still needed to run the universe."
The Legacy Letters, by Carew Papritz
"Things I didn't know. — Carew Papritz

Marriage is love put to it's ultimate test - the grindstone of life. Where the idealism of love meets the everydayness of marriage. — Carew Papritz

You haven't seen a thing until you've seen this man fight. My sword is sharp. My heart strong. My spirit ferocious - and I am going to live. Let the swords clash. Let the fight begin. — Carew Papritz

It is you who must someday break through the protective polish of who you are, to become naked and powerful to who you can truly be. — Carew Papritz

I can FEEL her next to me. This UNION. Of WARMTH. Of CARING. Of the INDESCRIBABLE. As if there were NO PARTING and NEVER could be. — Carew Papritz

A Good Man. Every night, like a question-and-answer prayer, my son and I recite ... What are you going to be? And he says ... An honest man. A fair man. A courageous man. And a good man. That's the most important thing, Papa. And my job is finally done. For the night. — Carew Papritz

Why read? Because books are precious guides to our humanity - civilization's backbone - that tenuous ridgeline that allows us to climb above the jungle and see what the horizon has to offer. Thus they represent the yearning to go beyond, to explore. Yet they are also human-sized. And made of paper and ink, and thus they come from the earth. Their physicality is what makes them immensely human. And they contain the flesh-and-bone thoughts of one person capturing one blink of time, now made immortal in the bound pages carried by your own hands and touched by your own eyes. How can such fragile and thin paper and spidery veins of ink be our most precious treasure, binding together the entire hope and legacy and language of a civilization - of our existence. We touch the book and turn the page, and thus we are bound to our destiny. — Carew Papritz

As an adult, be child-like as you learn but not child-ish as you live. — Carew Papritz

Summer, dropping so easily a delicious everything upon your skin and lips. Like a never-ending kiss - taunting, deep, and luscious. — Carew Papritz

Enjoy the RIDE NOW. You'll be SUCCESSFUL later, however YOU define SUCCESS. — Carew Papritz

Walk with me now into the very bright night, and revere with me in silence what must be God-given and what is surely God-taken. — Carew Papritz

I travel to be replenished with beauty, for travel makes the beauty of this world seem like a Christmas that never ends. — Carew Papritz

No, you become a man when you first decide to put away the things of childhood, the talk of childhood, and the thoughts of childhood. You decide because you cannot be treated as both a man and a boy. Because you are either one or the other, but you are not both ... — Carew Papritz

And Sometimes I Feel as if I'm Only a Doorman Awaiting the Arrival of her Royal Majesty. — Carew Papritz

Make doing your best a habit, and you'll never know not doing your best. If you build roads, then build them Roman - make them last two thousand years. Dig ditches as if you were taking them to the state fair to win another blue ribbon for best ditches ... — Carew Papritz

Read what you like, not what you're told to like. That way you'll read for a lifetime. — Carew Papritz

I travel for the jolting, angelic act of seeking strangeness and newness and profoundness. — Carew Papritz

Money-it can buy your kids anything, but it cannot teach them love, respect, and the true value of living life without things. — Carew Papritz

Don't have kids until you're ready. And when you do have them, have them all the way. They aren't like some Cadillac that you can turn back into the dealership after three years. — Carew Papritz

Sunrise - a time when all truths are still clean and enviable. — Carew Papritz

But more importantly in my book of life, it's what you can't buy with money that is often more important than what you can buy. — Carew Papritz

Rain with no shoes is just as much fun as rain with big rubber galoshes. — Carew Papritz

All you have to do to quickly become OLD is to slowly GIVE UP being ALIVE. — Carew Papritz

When do you become a man? When you become your own man. When other men trust you to do a man's work. Trust you with their name, their reputation, their thoughts. Trust you to watch their backs and trust you with their lives. — Carew Papritz

The trick to not growing old is to: Stay curious. Keep your teeth. Stay hopeful. Do everything gracefully, yet kick when you have to. — Carew Papritz

I promise to dream with you both great dreams and small dreams. To ask your counsel in times of uncertainty. To honor your silence when you seek to be alone. To be ever wondrous at your curiosities and revelations. And to be ever rejuvenated by your passions ... — Carew Papritz

Wake up. Be thankful. For whatever happens on this day, you are endlessly given the chance to start again-to be alive. And all of us should wish for that. — Carew Papritz

As I see it, you GET married - but you MAKE a marriage. — Carew Papritz

Money. It fits around your neck like some permanent noose. always waiting for your next misstep. — Carew Papritz

Money may buy you the means to a happiness, but it cannot buy happiness itself. — Carew Papritz

Money can buy you everything to fill your time but it cannot buy time itself. And things are definitely not time. — Carew Papritz

Who will you be, my Little Ones? Will you dance for the fires of your youth and run at midnight to water's edge, diving into summer's heat? Will you ride a wild mare to any thought or dream or love of your making? Will you seek the artistry of your own infatuations and explore ... — Carew Papritz

I travel because it makes me realize how much I haven't seen, how much I'm not going to see, and how much I still need to see.
- The Legacy Letters, by Carew Papritz — Carew Papritz

Be the greatest of who you were meant to be. Life goes on ferociously-with or without you. It is your choice. Truly and magnificently your choice. — Carew Papritz

If you don't know how to grow old, don't start learning how to grow old. — Carew Papritz

Spring is a time to make up a big bouquet of flowers for someone you love, or are trying to love, or are in love with. — Carew Papritz

What good is an "I LOVE YOU" If said only when you have to?
What good is it to ride a horse if you cannot gallop?
What good is it to believe in someone if you doubt your own belief? — Carew Papritz

With your Christmas-Day-will-never-arrive-soon enough salivations, you anticipate the moment when, like voracious cub lions, you'll rip open the wrapping paper and feast off your every delicious present. — Carew Papritz

Money can buy you knowledge, but not the wisdom to use it wisely. — Carew Papritz

Dream young. Don't settle for old - for to be old is to be superstitious and without curiosity and always questioning your faith. And be ferocious in your dreaming - run like a sun's explosion, and skip across bluing waves, and dance upon tips of swan feathers. — Carew Papritz

Be generous with your life - love deeply, honestly, and without reservation. — Carew Papritz

So, if the truest currency of life is time, then how do you get more time? Because if more is merrier, than having more time should make us more happier. Right? Therefore, all we have to ask ourselves is can we buy more time? ... — Carew Papritz

Only you can know the difference between your wants and your needs, and your sacrifice of your life's time to both. — Carew Papritz

The Losing of Love ... Like discovering a shard of heaven's handwriting in the snowflake that has landed upon your hand, desperately wishing you could give such beauty to your best friend before it melts away. And what you are left with is an exquisite regret - the eloquent conspiracy of memory - of the moment lived and the moment wished for that never will arrive. — Carew Papritz

Dream Bravely.
Find fearlessness inside of you. Dare, and fear will falter. Challenge, and fear will flee. This is the beginning of your dream-making. — Carew Papritz

I travel for the great stories now ready tell, and those waiting to be told. — Carew Papritz

I wish I could wrap up the glitter star-green of this moment and hand it to you like an angel gift. Give you the heat lightning flying in jagged silence over the distant mountains. And the smell of September prairie grass and the even fainter scent of October pine now descending ... — Carew Papritz

It's a heck of a responsibility to look after a spirit. So give kids the best of who you are. That's the most you can ever do. — Carew Papritz

Remember, life is too short to be spent dancing with idiots. — Carew Papritz

I travel to know where I fit into the world, and where I don't. — Carew Papritz

Living isn't always red bows and birthday balloons. — Carew Papritz

Kids are kids and not little adults. They're watching and listening to you all the time. They're figuring out the game plan but still don't know all the rules. Talk straight to them and they'll respect you for it. — Carew Papritz

So curious you must be. Like little calves poking their heads through the fence with big eyes and a headful of curiosity. — Carew Papritz

I travel because I become uncomfortable being too comfortable. — Carew Papritz

Old is old at any age. Old is when you quit asking questions about this, that, and everything. Old is when you forget how to love-or worse, don't care. Old is when you don't want to dance anymore. Old is when you don't want to learn anything new except how to be old. Old is when people tell you that you are old-and you believe them. — Carew Papritz

I remember once kissing you, your face lit by northern stars. Promising to grow old with you, and now so simply breaking the promise. — Carew Papritz

Who will you be my Little Ones?
Who will you be, my Little Ones?
Will you dance for the fires of your youth
and run at midnight to water's edge,
diving into summer's heat?
Will you ride a wild mare
to any thought or dream or love of your making?
Will you seek the artistry of your own infatuations
and explore all the reckless and eccentric corners
of your own impetuous world? — Carew Papritz

Take off my clothes and there becomes a man. Take off my skin and there becomes my bones. Break all my bones and there becomes my heart. Smash my heart and there becomes my soul. And that you cannot take. And what is my soul? ... It is everything that make a man. It is everything that makes this man. — Carew Papritz

Don't spoil kids by trying to buy them off, to buy their time. Kids aren't stupid. They know a bribe when they see one. They want a parent not a payoff. — Carew Papritz

These Moments Cascade Upon One Another
Here at shepherd's dusk, in a valley without echo, I listen for you. With a frayed longing, I hear your shadow voice whispering within me from far away. I grasp at what is left of this husky sun lying golden upon the upper meadows of lodge pole and bear grass. I gather the last remnants of the evening's breeze, so cool and lazy within my arms, feeling it curl up like a small and innocent kitten. And I see that behind a cloak of clouds, dalliance suits the canting moon. Suddenly I do not wish to lose another moment, And I covet all pristine light. — Carew Papritz

I gather the last remnants of the evening's breeze, so cool and lazy within my arms, feeling it curl up like a small and innocent kitten. — Carew Papritz

Time. Either you're for it or against it. So be here now. Not later. — Carew Papritz

While all the universe and my family are still sleeping, I will walk among the red and blue twinkle-lights of the living room, to sit and gaze upon the pretty white angel atop the tree and say silent prayers, remembering what was good in the world and why I was brought here to remember. — Carew Papritz

And my father left me a legacy of his handwriting through letters and a notebook. In the last two years of his life, when he was sick, he filled a notebook with his thoughts about me ... There are times when I want to trade all those years that I was too busy to sit with my dad and chat with him, and trade all those years for one hug. But too late. But that's when I take out his letters and I read them, and the paper that touched his hand is in mine, and I feel connected to him. — Lakshmi Pratury

Eat Ice Cream. Read Books. Be Happy. — Carew Papritz

You become a man when, in having children, you not only physically look after and protect them but also protect them with all the love and learning you have to give. — Carew Papritz

Let my memories of you be like water on the moon. A beautiful impossibility - but allowing me to sleep and dream of infinite beginnings rather than Othello endings. — Carew Papritz

POLITENESS must carry the true weight of SINCERITY and INTEGRITY for it to be a true act of POLITENESS. — Carew Papritz

One Archeology and Decipherment
Two History: Heroes, Kings, and Ensi's
Three Society: The Sumerian City
Four Religion: Theology, Rite, and Myth
Five Literature: The Sumerian Belles-Lettres
Six Education: The Sumerian School
Seven Character: Drives, Motives, and Values
Eight The Legacy of Sumer
APPENDIXES
A. The Origin and Development of the Cuneiform System of Writing
B. The Sumerian Language
C. Votive Inscriptions
D. Sample Date-Formulas
E. Sumerian King List
F. Letters
G. Dit lla's (court decisions)
H. Lipit-Ishtar Law Code
1. Farmers' Almanac
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY — Samuel Noah Kramer

I travel because life is short, and I will not wait for fear of death or sanctuary to become a prison of my own making. — Carew Papritz

And I don't care what age you are, kissing in the rain is the best. — Carew Papritz

Do not give a damn what "they" have to say (and you will know who they are) for you are either very right or very wrong, but at least you are very something. — Carew Papritz

Teach them what you love to do in life. It really doesn't matter what it is. It never does. Just show them how important a passion is ... — Carew Papritz

A good man lives for the joy in life and the happiness of being alive, not shackled to the wants of the future or the regrets of the past. — Carew Papritz

The Everything and Nothing of Money
The Legacy Letters
By Carew Papritz
Summer, and you are the first man and the first woman to kiss. The first to know the exacting, steeling pain of a broken heart. The first to know everything about the whole cascading universe of gods and stars and lunacy and tenderness. Thus you become the first man and woman to know love. And God help you, for you are now the first man and woman in the world. — Carew Papritz

Rain with an umbrella while holding hands with your lover is damned sure nice. — Carew Papritz

Part of loving kids is laying down fencelines. They need to know immediately when they've crossed a line; otherwise the lesson doesn't get learned. — Carew Papritz

Kids. They're not tin cans or sheetrock. They're laughing machines. Wind them up and watch them go. — Carew Papritz

Hunger
You are only here now, and then you are gone. So be hungry. Hunger toward beauty. Hunger toward love. Hunger towards the unimaginable and unthinkable. — Carew Papritz

You know there's got to be a better way of life - somewhere, sometime, somehow - but you're not exactly sure what better is. — Carew Papritz

So How Much of a THING or THINGS is Enough? And if you have EVERYTHING, have you achieved perfect HAPPINESS? — Carew Papritz

Be the same person- with or without money. — Carew Papritz

In reality, Little Ones, there are two winters. One made for kids; the other for adults. The one made for adults is always too cold and always too long. The one made for kids is always perfect. A kid winter is an endless and wild snow carnival where all the rides are free. — Carew Papritz

Money - it can buy you a moment of glee but not a lifetime of happiness. — Carew Papritz

I want to remember warming your two a.m. bottle, clipping your locks, watching you be baptized, bathing you in the big porcelain sink ... how I often laid you against my chest and felt the cradlesong of your tiny breaths as you fell asleep ... — Carew Papritz

It's through traveling you make the great journey into yourself, and it's the clarity of extremes in traveling that forces you to meet yourself like you've never met yourself before. — Carew Papritz

Just because you're breathing, doesn't mean you're alive. — Carew Papritz

Get someone-anyone-to read books to you. Having books read to you at any age is the supremo ultimato of living. — Carew Papritz

Starting the Day
The Legacy Letters
By Carew Papritz
Sometimes we make being happy so difficult. And being thankful such a chore. Starting the day like a job we hate. Beginning it like swallowing ten tablespoons of devil-made cough syrup. Because somehow along the way we forget that being alive and healthy and happy are noble goals-or just good ideas. And that the opposite of being alive is being dead. What a choice. — Carew Papritz