to catch a green lizard without its tail falling off

Above Roy R. Behrens, book cover design for Joseph Langland, The Sacrifice Poems. Cedar Falls IA: North American Review, 1975.

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Lawrence Durrell, quoted in George Plimpton, ed., The Writer's Chapbook (NY: Viking Press, 1989), pp. 107-108—

To write a poem is like trying to catch a lizard without its tail falling off. In India when I was a boy they had great big green lizards there, and if you shouted or shot them their tails would fall off. There was only one boy in the school who could catch lizards intact. No one knew quite how he did it. He had a special soft way of going up to them, and he'd bring them back with their tails on. That strikes me as the best analogy I can give you. To try and catch your poem without its tail falling off.

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Ginger Rogers on the Treadmill | Testimonial

Weight loss evidence. Thank you, Ingres.

Above Thanks for all the appreciative notes with regard to my retirement. Not to mention the many good-natured inquiries about my plans to lose a little weight. From this, you'll notice the progress I've already made. I attribute most of it to my strenuous treadmill workouts. In particular, I have come up with a new exercise program, which I call the Ginger Rogers Routine. It's really quite simple: Dance backwards on the treadmill while wearing high heeled shoes. 

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Benvenuto Cellini, Autobiography (c1558)—

When I was about five years old my father happened to be in a basement chamber of our house, where they had been washing, and where a good fire of oak logs was still burning; he had viol in his hand and was playing and singing alone beside the fire. The weather was cold. Happening to look into the fire, he spied in the middle of those most burning flames a little creation like a lizard, which was sporting in the intensest coals. Becoming instantly aware of what the thing was, he had my sister and me called, and pointing it out to us children, he gave me a great box on the ears, which caused me to howl and weep with all my might. Then he pacified me good-humoredly, and spoke as follows: "My dear little boy, I am not striking you for any wrong that you have done, but only to make you remember that the lizard which you see in the fire is a salamander, a creature which has never been seen before by any one of which we have credible information." So saying, he kissed me and gave me some pieces of money.