I’m sorry I’ve been out of circulation for so long. Even longer at other places where I try to be active, like LinkedIn. I haven’t written anything there since Thanksgiving, a stretch so long that’s it’s been close to nine years since that happened. And I’m an “influencer” there with a lot of followers and facing constant pressure to produce high quality content on a half dozen or more substantial topics. I feel guilty but this isn’t what I’ve wanted. Trying to explain anything would take me a week and fill up a dozen huge books. Suffice it to say, our lives have been crazy, we’ve been very challenged with so many things we never could have anticipated, and my time and ability to be online like I have since close to 1980 has been shot. Apologies. That said, I wanted to break back into posting some things. I’ve been sitting on a book review for a couple of months that’s nearly finished, but I have a very narrow window of opportunity for everything, so that’s been on the backburner for awhile. But, during a few spare moments I’ve been finding more and more stuff about me, “by me,” against me, love and hate, respect and disdain, a ton of old biographical and bibliographical info and what apparently must be a crazy newish fad — quotes. I’ve already touched on this back in August and November, with that piece of the TODAY show picking up a quote of mine and running with that which prompted Yahoo, AOL, MSN and many more to either carry it or modify it as their own, most retaining me in their pieces. As if that isn’t surreal enough — because no one ever informed me of any of this; I just have been stumbling across things almost randomly — quotes and sayings attributed to me have been popping up seemingly everywhere. In that November post, I mentioned some interesting and or odd places and themes in which my stuff has been found. Since then, some additional websites and topics have included Social Criticism quotes, Merry Go Round quotes (at a company in Vietnam), a massive number of additional websites and webpages dedicated to all sorts of Halloween (and other holidays) quotes, a large portion containing some of my stuff, and not only just the one featured by TODAY. Another topic that’s been huge has been inspirational quotes. I honestly didn’t see that coming, but as I looked at some of the websites, I began to see some of what they were doing. Such quotes shouldn’t ALL be coming from Tony Robbins, Joel Osteen and whoever else delivers inspiration (cause I really don’t keep up with that). One can find inspiration in what may appear to be possibly negative situations, writings, readings, etc., in part because those are talking to a different group of people who may need their own types of inspiration. So when I saw inspirational quotes attributed to me from my ancient collection, Grungy Ass Swaying, I wondered what the hell? I had been approached by a prominent small press writer who wanted to co-author a very un-PC book from a crass male vs biting female respondent perspective (I was to be the male). It was supposed to be more complex than that, going way over the top to make criticisms and points about many social/cultural/gender issues of the late 80s/early 90s. When I saw it (the other writer took care of everything while I provided my text and handled distribution), I was horrified because it was at best, R-rated RAUNCHY! Complete with a lime green cover sporting a cartoon woman with massive bare tits on the cover. I wished I had never agreed, and tried to forget about it. Thus I was further shocked and mortified to find, some years ago, that was the first of my books to wind up in the Library of Congress! So when I saw the book and my name appearing under inspirational quotes, I thought another outfit was pranking me again (happens a lot). But no. They only had a couple but as I read them, I found they were among the non-raunchy and really could be read as described. It was nice to finally feel like the book had some redeeming value. [I found an old box with mint, “new,” never used or opened copies of some of my out-of-print books, including Grungy. You can check it, and a few others out, on my Mint Signed Rare Holstad Books For Sale Page. Please. 🙂 ]

So, finally the point. I have no idea how many — if any — see many of those quotes at those niche quote-specific websites. Goodreads has been posting quotes from my books for many years, but I have no idea how many have been viewed. So there’s this odd and big website — one of many owned by this company — called Quotes.net. Some of you may have heard of it. I hadn’t until a few years ago when I found someone had posted quotes attributed to me and ever since, on occasion, I’ve gone to the website and posted quotes from poems of both famous authors I like and more likely, lesser known contemporary poets and writers who are friends and colleagues. I’ve also posted a number of my own while others have also continued to do so. I’ve never been able to figure the deal out, in terms of Fans or Views. I have no Fans to speak of and some of my quotes have gotten a decent number of views for a little-known like me while other quotes I might consider to be stronger get very few. Not a consistent audience. Nonetheless, I’m starting to get more traction here, their Definitions.net, my site on Academia.edu and elsewhere. (One of my papers is being read and downloaded like crazy. I mean 10,000 times more than the two dozen other items I have on that site…) I don’t know what constitutes many views on this site, but I’ve seen many in single digits while others with a whole lot. Mine depend on when something is posted, as obviously something recently posted won’t have nearly as many as one from two years ago, let alone many at all. But since I’ve got so much going on in my life right now and since I feel guilty about my absence from some other sites, I just want to break back in by posting what I can when I can starting with this post today. This particular post came about out of personal intrigue — if anyone was viewing my quotes on Quotes.net and if so, which ones? I found myself a bit surprised, but was interested and a bit glad to see that most of the quotes have many views while others exceeded 200, 300 and even 400. My top ones have gone over 500 views and my top one is now close to 700. That’s probably not much (I don’t know the baseline), but still more than I expected. So this site gives out what I view as the digital version of old baseball cards we dinosaurs used to collect. I’ve had a couple here before and you’ll recognize them. The problem is the company does a lousy job on them in that probably over 40% are messed up (text squashed over each other as well as graphics, etc.) with nothing you can do about it. I had decided to show 10 of my most popular quotes in a slideshow but thanks to those frequent lines of text crossing each other out, they are unreadable and of no use, so I’m not happy about that. The graphics for six of my 10 most viewed quotes aren’t available due to this seeming-incompetence. Thus I’ve gone lower down the numbers of views to come up with 10 to put in this slideshow and I’m simply adding links to the other, more popular quotes. Four of my top five won’t be in this slide show. Grrr. Anyway, here they are and if anyone looks at it, thanks — feel free to Like or Comment. Feel free to go Like or whatever on my authors page at that website too! 😉 Cheers!

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Six of my 10 most popular quotes not seen here due to Quotes.net screwing up the graphics. I’m enclosing links in case anyone wants to go look.

1. “No one is asked whether they wish To be born. Everyone is asked to die. Life is comprised of the noisy silence One makes of it...”
   • Shadows Before the Maiming (Gothic Press, 1999)
   • VIEWS: 661
   • https://www.quotes.net/quote/86928
2. “seeing is believing they say and if boundaries are limitless are we? or is existence twofold and…”
   • Street Poems (Mulberry Press, 1991)
   • VIEWS: 524
   • https://www.quotes.net/quote/86997
3. “She told me that a friend of hers had heard of me and exclaimed “he’s disturbing to read...”
   • The End of Heaven (2004)
   • VIEWS: 502
   • https://www.quotes.net/quote/88586
4. “she said i want you to meet him you’ll like him really yeah i thought like car crash broken glass…”
   • Street Poems (Mulberry Press, 1991)
   • VIEWS: 489
   • https://www.quotes.net/quote/87255
5. “she dreams dreams wrapped in unknown skins. sweat scented covers…”
   • Shadows Before the Maiming (Gothic Press, 1999)
   • VIEWS: 470
   • https://www.quotes.net/quote/87071
6. “do you hate yourself i wonder? you can’t expect others to accept you until you’ve...”
   • Grungy Ass Swaying (Grunge City Press, 1993)
   • VIEWS: 454
   • https://www.quotes.net/quote/88416