JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Mary Louise, can I share some advice with you?
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
I guess. What is it?
SUMMERS: Quote, "in order to discover who you are, first learn who everybody else is, and you're what's left."
KELLY: (Laugther) OK. That's profound. But also, bear in mind, no man is an island, but some of us are long peninsulas.
SUMMERS: Well, I will say I feel much better now that I've given up hope.
KELLY: OK. To be clear, these are not Juana's and my profound thoughts.
SUMMERS: Nope.
KELLY: They were coined by a man who called himself - and I'm quoting - "history's only full-time professional, published epigramist (ph)." His name was Ashleigh Brilliant. Yes, that was in fact his real name.
SUMMERS: He made a career as an author of witty phrases, which he called Brilliant Thoughts, or Pot-Shots. And as he told the Santa Barbara Writers Conference in 1984, even if his material was often whimsical, he took the craft of writing seriously.
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ASHLEIGH BRILLIANT: Fellow writers, fellow human beings, fellow pieces of matter - yes, we are matter. And regardless of all the evidence, we do matter.
KELLY: Yes, we do. Ashleigh Brilliant was born in London in 1933. His family eventually moved to the U.S. during World War II. He earned a Ph.D. in history. He sailed the world twice while teaching a geography course. He eventually wound up in San Francisco, where he would stand in Golden Gate Park, reciting his works, calling himself a mock hippie guru and singing.
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BRILLIANT: (Singing) Millions of moments by day and by dark, might as well spend them in Golden Gate Park. You don't have to be mentally ill to enjoy sitting perfectly still.
SUMMERS: California is also where he started writing and copyrighting clever statements that were often paired with cartoons to license to other entities, like the Hallmark company, or to collect in his own books and merch.
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BRILLIANT: In fact, I began with postcards. And you'll now find me on T-shirts, on tote bags and even illicitly on restroom walls.
SUMMERS: And he also had rules for his epigrams.
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BRILLIANT: It's actually a very restricted, crafted, disciplined form, which I, myself, have invented, a little box which I've confined myself in, I guess, in order to give myself something difficult to do for the rest of my life.
SUMMERS: They were limited to 17 words. They had to be easily translated to another language, and that ruled out rhyming or rhythm or cultural references.
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BRILLIANT: Now, if you think about that for a minute, that cuts out a whole lot of things. And I have to write in a very, very basic kind of English.
KELLY: And yet, Ashleigh Brilliant wrote 10,000 Pot-Shots. In 2005, when he reached this self-imposed limit, Brilliant published one last line - you are now leaving the universe, come again.
SUMMERS: He addressed the question of where all these ideas came from at a book signing in 2019.
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BRILLIANT: I think everybody does get ideas. The thing is most of us don't write them down...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yeah.
BRILLIANT: ...Or do anything with them.
SUMMERS: Ashleigh Brilliant died September 24 at the age of 91. If you had to pick one of his epigrams for his headstone, it might be - I'm not getting paid much for staying alive, but it's good experience.
KELLY: Good contender. I would choose this one, maybe - my life is a performance for which I was never given any chance to rehearse.
SUMMERS: Or perhaps maybe just this one - it's pretty simple - thanks for being.
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BRILLIANT: I bring you greetings from me at this moment. Oh, and I've written you a new song.
(Singing) Folks are free and hate Ashbury. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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