K Todd Ramer

“At the evident risk of seeming ridiculous, I want to begin by saying that I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences to be read posthumously. I hope this isn't too melodramatic or self-centred a way of saying that I attempt to write as if I did not care what reviewers said, what peers thought, or what prevailing opinions may be.”
― Christopher Hitchens, A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq

“If You're Gonna Be Dumb, You Gotta Be Tough"

If your gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough

When you get knocked down you gotta get back up,
If your gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough

When you get knocked down you gotta get back up,

I ain't the sharpest knife in the drawer but I know enough, to know,

If your gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough



I lit my brain with Rot-Gut whiskey

'Till all my pain was chicken fried

And I had dudes with badges frisk me

Teach me how to swallow pride



I took advice no fool would take

I got some habits I can't shake

I ain't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I know enough to know

If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough





If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough

When you get knocked down, you gotta get back up

That's the way it is in life and love

If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough





I've been up and down and down and out

I've been left and right and wrong

Well I've walked the walk and I've run my mouth

I've been on the short end for too long



But if they gave medals for honky tonk wars

Hell, I'd keep mine in my chest of drawers

With my IRS bills and divorce papers and all that stuff

If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough





If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough

When you get knocked down, you gotta get back up

I ain't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I know enough to know

If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough



If you're gonna be dumb you gotta be tough”
― Karen O

“In writing, you must kill all your darlings.”
― William Faulkner

“There Will Come Soft Rains

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pool singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.”
― Sara Teasdale, Flame and Shadow