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+Steven Curtis Lance
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portrait of the poet by Anna Schoendorfer
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Being Me
I
I am embarrassed to seem a failure
When so many had been expecting me
Or maybe it was just my family
To have made them proud might have been the cure
But they were honest and they said they were
And now they have all gone into the light
As I have gone further into the dark
I will live simply and sleep in the park
Although a failure is what I might seem
I am still here now and I can still dream
II
If poor and sick and uncomfortable
Having made rather a mess of living
I am not one of the irritable
Who seem to prefer getting to giving
I give away such as I have to give
Which could be why I have so little now
Having hit bottom deciding to live
Against bad odds and good advice somehow
Everybody knows what is best for me
But I have to follow my destiny
III
My grandma thought it was I was too smart
She and her doctor were worried for me
Life broke my mind just like it broke her heart
I think my mother saw how it would be
But she married my father after all
My grandpa was not my grandfather but
With that perspective could see that my fall
Would lift my people up no matter what
What they all wanted was to make it right
But ran out of time as day became night
IV
My children love me and I love them too
They watch me curiously anyway
One eye made proud one blind by what I do
I think one or two of them might still pray
The future is impossible to see
In fact the present is pretty hazy
As the past slips slowly from memory
Every now and then someone goes crazy
Since someone has to do it I will be
Myself since I am best at being me
+Steven Curtis Lance
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Specificities
My favorite greeting is "Mind the Cows"
I feel fragile when the going gets tough
I am not very good at whys nor hows
And yet under fire seem agile enough
To have dodged danger a very long while
Wearing my mentally-disabled smile
I like drinking tea and going to sea
And I want to live in England someday
The government here is not fond of me
And might likely like me to move away
I am kind to cats I like friendly dogs
I like to hear crickets at night (and frogs)
I am afraid of ladies but love them
I love to read my poetry out loud
I love young people and have three of them
Life makes me humble but they make me proud
I have a weakness for good cigarettes
I have only bad ones but no regrets
I am as poor as a person can be
Yet am not homeless nor do I need much
I am rich in friends who care about me
I am at once both in and out of touch
I get depressed yet know that I am blessed
So "Mind the Cows" (and never mind the rest)
+Steven Curtis Lance
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A Misfit Born and Bred
(for all the pretty girls)
A misfit born and bred I do
Exactly as I please
But kindly as my mother taught
("God bless you" if you sneeze)
And if I spend the night with you
I'll thank you in the morn
For all the wonders we have wrought
(How lovely to be born!)
The world has turned and I have learned
A trick (or maybe two)
While hardly working I have earned
A place in poetry
A "name" though I have never sought
To turn the world to me
And best of all (as falls the fall)
I've had a roaring time
If quietly if poor and small
Mucking about with rhyme
A misfit born and bred I do
Exactly as I please
But love to entertain you too
With nonsense-lines like these
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVII
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"We scan with our fingers / Life written as in Braille / Where memory lingers / When other senses fail // It might be better to / Just be alone with you"
--from the poem "One Lone Wolf to Another," found on page 65 of his book Sea Stones by +Steven Curtis Lance
He was born on a Friday, at 6:08 in the evening on 31 December 1954, a very strange evening when there was thunder and lightning out of the
blue but only a trace of rain. This was taken to be an omen by his people, but for good or ill they could not say.
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Do you believe in magic?
+Steven Curtis Lance does!
Read his latest collection
and discover the magic
for yourself.
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He was born to a war hero from the Second World War and Korea who was also a poet, this was his father; Steven's mother was a beautiful young girl who never grew up all the way, but who was the most wonderful mother a boy could have.
Steven's father rejected mother and child shortly thereafter, kicking them into the street, two kids left to fend for themselves in an absurd universe.
They ended up back at "home," the old house where Steven's mother had herself grown up. Grandma's house. Steven is there now, alone, having taken care of his mother and grandmother after they took care of him.
When he was nineteen years old, Steven died from complications of encephalitis, or so it was thought at the time. He was sent home, comatose, to dry away to nothing on the front room couch. It was thought better that way, since nothing could be done for him. His mother and his grandmother watched and prayed and wept for him. Steven woke up one day, very much changed, but with an expanded consciousness and an insatiable curiosity about everything; he had gotten a glimpse of the beyond, and he has never gotten over it. His mother and his grandmother did their best to nurse him back to life and health. He was never the same, but he had "the gift" now. Before he was a smartass, now he was a savant. It was--and is--a little spooky, but cool.
They are dead now. Just Steven and his big fat cat, Freddie Noodles, and Steven's three children, Maria, Stevie II, and Teddy, who come to visit and who are Steven's best friends.
Alone with the cat and occasional pleasant company, Steven spends his time studying--everything--and meticulously crafting his perfectionistic poems. (I do not mention the ghosts here; it has long been said that Studio Lance is haunted. Visitors discover this immediately, but the Lances are so used to how things are there that this only makes life more interesting. Besides, they are family.)
Steven's grandmother educated him well, and he did well in his life, making a good name for himself in many ways, especially as a composer of a cappella sacred choral motets and partsongs.
When Steven's grandmother died, after he had already lost his mother a few years before, and when his uncle stole Steven's inheritance and tried to kick him into the street just as his father had done years before, Steven had a nervous breakdown and gave up on life. He wanted to die. Nothing made any sense.
But his namesake son, Stevie II, had another idea: why not write a book of poems? Not texts for choral motets. Poems. So, with nothing to lose, and feeling dead already to his past life, Steven was reborn to something new.
He asked everyone to call him Stevie, as his mother and grandmother had done. He became a poet. This was five years ago, after his grandmother died. Good people stepped forward to help Steven. He fought his uncle and won. He had and has a wonderful doctor who helped and helps.
He has now published a dozen books. Steven--or Stevie, as he is now called--has made a new name for himself in a new life; he is a poet now. He is a good poet, and there are many who believe in him. He has websites, and people are starting to discover him, one by one by one.
When Stevie first became active at AuthorsDen, a cabal of cruel people tried to drive him away; they would not accept him. They failed. Stevie is still here. As he likes to say:
"Living well is the best revenge, and laughing last is always laughing best."
Stevie is a simple soul, and kind. He is an ordained German Lutheran minister--of all things--among many other things, many of them contradictory. But somewhere deep down inside where even Stevie cannot see, he is terribly tough, like his war hero Marine drill sergeant father. This surprises people, and Stevie always enjoys this surprise ...very, very much.
Buy a book of Lance and you will understand.
My son said the words of my poetry
Are like stones smoothed and rounded by the sea
Like sea stones I have carried from the beach
I carry his analogy with me
While savoring the sayings all and each
Of his and other hearts in my own heart
As inward echoes after when apart
Love grows down deep like the roots of a tree
And up from these roots through trunk and through stem
Through bud and through bloom the seed comes to be
Smoothed like these sea stones and rounded like them
As life is love so love is poetry
Sea Stones is a distillation of the essence of this modern master's late poetry, tracing the poet's passage from the death of winter through the birth of spring into the life of summer, a blooming of the light in which every moment matters and every word tells in ascending progression through the days to always, through one life reclusive to all life inclusive, from +Steven Curtis Lance's heart to yours.
An uncompromising artwork of meticulous quality, this ninth book of Lance is available in both softcover and collectible hardcover editions worldwide.
Softcover Edition: http://www.lulu.com/content/393223
Collectible Hardcover Edition: http://www.lulu.com/content/393233
Preview this book
Birth Place: Orange, CA USA
Accomplishments: "Aristotle says that in order to live alone, a man must be either an animal or a god. The third alternative is lacking: a man must be both - a philosopher." - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) German Philosopher, Poet
+Steven Curtis Lance, a brilliant poet and talented composer, is a reclusive figure and lives alone.
"Language has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone, and the word solitude to express the glory of being alone." - Paul Johannes Tillich (1886-1965) American Theologian, Philosopher
His first poem was published at age fifteen, and he has published countless things countless times since then.
His desire to set poetic words to music led him to study long and hard and he was honored with the title "master motet composer."
He has written and published more than one hundred and thirty intricately-woven a cappella choral motets - intense, linear counterpoint.
The success of this led him on to doing the same with all the major classical print music publishers in the United States.
His first music publication was when he was twenty-four, and at that time he was invited to join the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers as a dual member, composer and author; he has been a member more than twenty-five years.
Along the way he has completed degrees, has teaching credentials, won various awards, honors, prizes, alumni achievement awards, city and state proclamations, certificates of this and that.
But he just likes to write poems.
"Angels fly because they take themselves lightly." - Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English Essayist, Novelist, Journalist, Poet
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*~ Foreword to The Red Book of Lance ~*
by Steven's physician, Robert D. Budman, M.D.:
There is a place in heaven for many yet no spot is assured. Many seats in the majesty of the heavens are surely for the artisans of the world. Humble, wholesome souls for the most part, and Steven Curtis Lance would assuredly be counted amongst those. In the writings of Stevie his honesty and emotions come across clearly and vividly. The prose is an enigmatic slice of life that is uniquely his. The prolific writing habits that Stevie possesses make many a writer, myself included, jealous of his tenacity for attacking each morsel of life’s daily grind. Sometimes making fun or a mockery of the little things or at other times taking a challenging stand against the most critical and important issues facing us today. This is the poetic style he embodies for the rest of us to enjoy.
As Stevie’s doctor I engage him in a manner differently than any of his other relationships. That perspective allows me to see him from many perspectives from healthcare professional all the way quite frankly to a personal friend. Over the span of several years in that regard I saw his transition from Christian songwriter to poet and the dynamics involved in that change. Not only has there been a growth and learning phase to his abilities to put pen to paper, but Stevie’s life and writing is a fantastic journey of love and emotion.
This is now his seventh book and perhaps his deepest and most mature work. At each phase of his writing career his personal state of being comes across in every word. This book is no different with a certain brooding and darker more forceful stance on life yet continuously instilled with his hometown old Orange slant. Stevie rarely leaves us questioning what he is feeling or where he is going, but he does make us question our personal relationships and dealings with others. Of course there is often a push for us to be politically and socially responsible, too, whether by way of rantings and ravings or a push to be heard and accountable.
I think Stevie’s writing will take another turn soon as he takes us elsewhere in the land of feelings and prose. There is no harm in that. And, for the enjoyment we each derive from that, and the clear good nature and good will of Stevie’s contribution to our wonderful world that spot in heaven is reserved. Not too soon of course so that we might read these little snippets of life and love and Grandma and whomever else man or beast or machine happens to be captured by the flowing inks and pencils of one fine man: Mr. Steven Curtis Lance.
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Buy your Autographed copy today! >>
Sea Stones, Collectible Hardcover Edition $18.96,
Sea Stones, Softcover Edition $8.95,
Dancing Naked in a Haunted House, Softcover Edition $12.95,
Dancing Naked in a Haunted House, Collectible Hardcover Edit $22.95,
The Red Book of Lance, Collectible Hardcover Edition $20,
The Red Book of Lance, Softcover Edition $10,
The Little Book of Lance $7.86,
New Poems $14.93,
Magic $13.41,
Sweet Moon for Silke $9.77,
Transcendental Sonnets and Other Observations ...for Silke $16.08,
Steven Curtis Lance / Collected Poems $20.37,
Books
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 | New Poems by +Steven Curtis Lance
Love, loss, loneliness; affection, alienation, absurdity; poetics, politics, philosophy; humor, heartbreak, and humanity are passionately, poignantly, perfectly expressed in this fifth and best book of three hundred most unusual poems by this most unusual poet: the elusive, reclusive, enigmatic +Steven Curtis Lance....
Download Free Preview!
Click here to buy this book! 
Amazon.com Amazon.co.uk
Barnes & Noble.com
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Poetry
Grandma by +Steven Curtis Lance
"A tiny star to follow through the night"...
Franziska's Song: The Return by +Steven Curtis Lance
"An after which proves to be more than before"...
A Call to Revolution by +Steven Curtis Lance
"If once did not suffice then we must do it twice"...
Falling Stars Mistaken for Landing Airliners by +Steven Curtis Lance
"I am a falling star and you are too"...
Just So by +Steven Curtis Lance
"Forward is the only way"...
Wake Up and Scream by +Steven Curtis Lance
"Still waters run red and deadly as well as deep"...
Human Being by +Steven Curtis Lance
"A shadow reflecting on its creation"...
Up in the Trunks of Elephants by +Steven Curtis Lance
Mental illness and medical marijuana: "I tried it once / And decided to try again every day"...
Could it Be? by +Steven Curtis Lance
"Of loving you"...
Robert Frost and Me (Like a Chimpanzee) by +Steven Curtis Lance
"My piece out of the puzzle of the whole"...
Mirrors by +Steven Curtis Lance
"An entirely different breed of cat"...
Confluence by +Steven Curtis Lance
"...because these things are our dreams"...
Heaven Knows by +Steven Curtis Lance
"So hard to believe but heaven knows we try"...
Bad Hair Day? by +Steven Curtis Lance
"Some wind through the hair makes a poet look... strong"...
Imagining the Unimaginable In by +Steven Curtis Lance
"An unimagined figure waits and holds the door"...
You by +Steven Curtis Lance
"You ask me do you matter: yes you do"...
And Yes: When Broken Too by +Steven Curtis Lance
"Learning when to listen especially"...
Sparrow by +Steven Curtis Lance
"Roses like people so seldom seem free"...
Stranger by +Steven Curtis Lance
"If anyone asks I was just asking"...
Soul by +Steven Curtis Lance
"If we never try how can we ever know?"...
Close Encounter by +Steven Curtis Lance
"As near evolves to nearer"...
Change Your Mind by +Steven Curtis Lance
"The better to taste our time as it flies"...
Circles by +Steven Curtis Lance
"The dog knows it is his and where it went"...
Night Lights by +Steven Curtis Lance
"Only love can know what a poem is worth"...
Stardust by +Steven Curtis Lance
"A pattern in the pieces of the sky"...
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Articles
Recapitulation I: A Quarterly Review of My Poetry by +Steven Curtis Lance
Recent Poems, Group One...
Recapitulation II: A Quarterly Review of My Poetry by +Steven Curtis Lance
Recent Poems, Group Two...
Recapitulation III: A Quarterly Review of My Poetry by +Steven Curtis Lance
Recent Poems, Group Three...
Recapitulation IV: A Quarterly Review of My Poetry by +Steven Curtis Lance
Recent Poems, Group Four...
Recapitulation V: A Quarterly Review of My Poetry by +Steven Curtis Lance
Recent Poems, Group Five...
Recapitulation VI: A Quarterly Review of My Poetry by +Steven Curtis Lance
Recent Poems, Group Six...
A Working Theory of Poetics Expressed in Quotations of the Wise by +Steven Curtis Lance
"Poetry, as everybody with a lick of sense knows, is utterly inexplicable."...
Introducing my New Book, DANCING NAKED IN A HAUNTED HOUSE by +Steven Curtis Lance
"I have not lived in vain but lived for this"...
The Red Book of Lance by +Steven Curtis Lance
"...words of flame cried in the wilderness
by a madman who is damned to tell the truth..."...
Description and Dedicatory Page for THE LITTLE BOOK OF LANCE by +Steven Curtis Lance
These words,
along with this greyscale portrait,
will appear as the description
and dedicatory page
for my new project,
The Little Book of Lance....
My "About the Author" Statement for My Fifth Book: NEW POEMS by +Steven Curtis Lance
"Winston Churchill once said of Clement Attlee that he had ''a great deal to be modest about.'' So do I. Attlee did beat Churchill in that election though."...
A Letter from Hell to Heaven: In Memoriam Patricia Lance by +Steven Curtis Lance
"Yeah, I grew up to be a philosopher, I know. It''s not your fault; I remember how you used to say ''God knows I''ve tried.''
God knows you did, Mommy."...
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News
Sea Stones Among "Bestsellers in Poetry" at Blackwell UK by +Steven Curtis Lance
"...and may all our dreams come true."...
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Links
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| Selected Poems of Steven Curtis Lance
These are Stevie's poetry pages at BrainMeta.com, where he is Poet in Residence.
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+Steven Curtis Lance at Lulu
This is Stevie's homepage at Lulu, which links to the pages on the Lulu site for his twelve books offered there.
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The Secret Place
This is Stevie's personal poetry board at BrainMeta.com, where he is Poet in Residence. He likes to call this place "my treehouse." Come visit him here, and while you're on the site, check out his main poetry posting board as well. He would be honored if you would join the forum and post your poetry here.
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+Steven Curtis Lance's Poetry Journal
This is Stevie's blog at Lulu, where he posts all his latest poems. It is now by far the most visited and active personal blog on Lulu. Come and visit, and leave comments if you like.
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Additional information
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| A Working Theory of Poetics Expressed in Quotations of the Wise
"Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind." - Henry James (1843-1916) American Author
"When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become afraid of them as if their reason had left them. When it has left a place where we have always found it, it is like shipwreck; we drop from security into something malevolent and bottomless." - Willa Sibert Cather (1873-1947) American Novelist
"Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here." - Marianne Williamson (1952~) American Author, Lecturer
"Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God's handwriting - a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing." - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American Poet, Essayist
"If you want to be happy, be." - Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) [Count Lev Tolstoi] Russian Novelist, Moral Philosopher, Mystic
"Human kindness has never weakened the stamina nor softened the fibre of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough." - Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) 32nd U.S. President (1933-45)
"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered." - Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English Essayist, Novelist, Journalist, Poet
"I set myself on fire and people come to watch me burn." - John Wesley (1703-1791) English Preacher, Founder of Methodism
"Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow." - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832) German Poet, Dramatist, Novelist
"Crimes of which a people is ashamed constitute its real history. The same is true of man." - Jean Genet (1910-1986) French Playwright, Novelist
"Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean." - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832) German Poet, Dramatist, Novelist
"Whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have no right to the property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no right to the property of the poor." - John Ruskin (1819-1900) English Writer, Art Critic
"If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." - John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) 35th U.S. President (1961-63)
"Some of us might find happiness if we would quit struggling so desperately for it." - William Feather (1889-1981) American Publisher, Author
"The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy." - Steven Weinberg (1933~) American Nuclear Physicist
"Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures." - Jessamyn West (1902-1984) American Author
"There is no reality, but the one contained within." - Hermann Hesse (1877-1962) German-born Swiss Novelist, Poet
"The power of Thought, the magic of the Mind!" - Lord Byron (1788-1824) [George Gordon] English Poet
"If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun." - Katherine Hepburn (1907~) American Actor, Writer
"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." - Ernest Hemingway (1898-1961) American Writer
"Begin somewhere. You cannot build a reputation on what you intend to do." - Liz Smith (1923~) American Entertainment Journalist
"I'm not a teacher, but an awakener." - Robert Frost (1875-1963) American Poet
"If we discovered that we had only five minutes left to say all that we wanted to say, every telephone booth would be occupied by people calling other people to stammer that they loved them." - Christopher Darlington Morley (1890-1957) American Author, Journalist
"Love conquers everything [Amor vincit omnia]: let us, too, yield to love." - Virgil (70-19BC) [Publius Virgilius Maro Vergil] Roman Epic Poet
"True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen. [Maxims]" - Francois De La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French Classical Writer, Moralist
"The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough." - Sir Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Bengali Poet, Novelist, Composer
"Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire." - Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) Argentinean Author
"Time goes, you say? Ah, no! Alas, Time stays, we go." - Austin Dobson (1840-1921) English Author
"For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is to let it rain." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) American Poet
"Wisdom begins in wonder." - Socrates (469-399BC) Greek Philosopher of Athens
"Nothing that is God's is obtainable by money." - Tertullian (160-240) Roman Christian Author, Polemicist
"Of course, it all depends upon what we are praying for. If we are whimpering, and sniveling, and begging to be spared the discipline of life that is sent to knock some smatterings of manhood into us, the answer to that prayer may never come at all. Thank God! - If you are not bleating to get off, but asking to be given grace and strength to see this through with honour, 'the very day' you pray that prayer, the answer always comes." - A. J. Gossip (1873-1954) Scottish Theologian, Preacher
"The World is not dangerous because of those who do harm but because of those who look at it without doing anything." - Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-born American Physicist
"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself." - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American Poet, Essayist
"Critics are those who have failed in literature and art." - Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) English Statesman, Author, Prime Minister (1868, 1874-80)
"A bad review is even less important than whether it is raining in Patagonia." - Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) British Novelist, Philosopher
"You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it." - Neil Richard Gaiman (1960~) British Author
"There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That precisely is what makes its pursuit so interesting." - John Kenneth Galbraith (1908~) Canadian-American Economist, Diplomat, Author
"The profession of book-writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business." - John Steinbeck (1902-1968) American Author
"In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary, 'patriotism' is defined as the last resort of the scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer, I beg to submit that it is the first." - Ambrose Bierce (1842-1913) American Author, Editor, Journalist
"As the archer whittles and makes straight his arrows, so the master directs his straying thoughts." - Buddha (568-488BC) Indian Mystic, Philosopher, Founder of Buddhism
"All grand thoughts come from the heart." - Marquis De Vauvenargues (1715-1747) French Soldier, Moralist
"Make me immortal with a kiss." - Christopher Marlowe (1565-1593) English Dramatist, Poet
"Remember tonight, for it is the beginning of always." - Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) Italian Epic Poet, Philosopher
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Contact
Information
Studio Lance
145 N. Cleveland St.
Orange
CA
92866
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Work phone: (714) 538-0538
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