Memorize an awesome passage. It will make you eloquent.

Just last morning, I memorized the Carl Sagan story on our pale blue dot, and already I have subconsciously borrowed phrases from it twice in writing and conversation.

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

– Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

Going along with the buy the best tool thinking I have labored for a while to find the best mechanical pencil that I could find. The 0.3mm Alvin draft/matic pencil has so much to like. Cheap, balanced to the grip, substantial feel, not too thin, cushion tip (like the expensive cross ones) and best of all it leads to an incredible precision in writing.

I LOVE this pencil.

See a review of it here: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1318182/review_alvi...

This is a very sound advice, probably the best in terms of where to spend your money. Don't get a cheap laptop, lousy pen or bad-looking notebook. If you follow this rule, you will be always using the best tools.

Good article, but the best tools to get started are the tools that you have at hand regardless of cost.

> 6. Draw something you see on TV: If you want to improve your drawing, you have to draw daily. Just while you are idling in front of the TV, draw some scene that catches your eye. Repeat.

I have entertained fantasies of being able to setup in the city park and do caricatures or portraits for free. I will start doing this!

My art-school trained friends have tried explaining to me that art school is about learning to look. Anyone can draw squiggles. But you have to be trained (sometimes methodically, sometimes painfully, sometimes by rote) to see, to look, to observe.

Before you can do something like: http://freekhand.blogspot.com/2010/12/barcelona-sketchcrawl-...

"2. Learn one or two words of a new (or old) language, translate a phrase:"

I wish more people did this. You'd amazed at what you could learn with such a small effort.