Sir Walter, being strangely surprised and put out of his countenance at so great a table, gives his son a damned blow over the fac...e. His son, as rude as he was, would not strike his father, but strikes over the face the gentleman that sat next to him and said "Box about: 'twill come to my father anon."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... if there are no waving flags and marching songs at the barricades as Walter marches out with his little battalion, it is not b...ecause the battle lacks nobility. On the contrary, he has picked up in his way, still imperfect and wobbly in his small view of human destiny.... He becomes, in spite of those who are too intrigued with despair and hatred of man to see it, King Oedipus refusing to tear out his eyes, but attacking the oracle instead. He is that last Jewish patriot manning his rifle at Warsaw.... He is Anne Frank, still believing in people; he is the nine small heroes of Little Rock; he is Michelangelo creating David and Beethoven bursting forth with the Ninth Symphony. He is all these things because he has finally reached out in his tiny moment and caught that sweet essence which is human dignity, and it shines like the old star-touched dream that is in his eyes.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
MAMA: Son--how come you talk so much 'bout money? WALTER: Because it is life, Mama!... MAMA: Oh--So now it's life. Money is life. Once upon a time freedom used to be life--now it's money. I guess the world really do change ... WALTER: No--it was always money, Mama. We just didn't know about it. MAMA: No ... something has changed. You something new, boy. In my time we was worried about not being lynched and getting to the North if we could and how to stay alive and still have a pinch of dignity too.... Now here come you and Beneatha--talking 'bout things we ain't never even thought about hardly, me and your daddy. You ain't satisfied or proud of nothing we done. I mean that you had a home; that we kept you out of trouble till you was grown; that you don't have to ride to work on the back of nobody's streetcar--You my children--but how different we done become.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Judge Bedford: I understand you refuse to be represented by counsel. Walter: That's correct, your honor.... Judge Bedford: Are you suicidal, Mr. Davis, or just plain stupid?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Walter Neff: I'm crazy about you, baby. Phyllis Dietrichson: I'm crazy about you, Walter.... Walter Neff: That perfume on your hair, what's the name of it? Phyllis Dietrichson: I don't know. I bought it in Ensenada.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
You want to know who killed Dietrichson? Hold tight to that cheap cigar of yours, Keyes. I killed Dietrichson. Me, Walter Neff. In...surance salesman. Thirty-five-years old. Unmarried. No visible scars. Till a while ago, that is. Yes, I killed him. Killed him for money, and for a woman. I didn't get the money, and, I didn't get the woman.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The work is rather too light, bright, and sparkling; it wants shade; it wants to be stretched out here and there with a long<...br />chapter of sense, if it could be had; if not of solemn specious nonsense, about something unconnected with the story; an essay on writing, a critique of Walter Scott, or a history of Buonaparte, or anything that would form a contrast, and bring the reader with increased delight to the playfulness and epigrammatism of the general style.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
"Mother" has always been a generic term synonymous with love, devotion, and sacrifice. There's always been something mystical and ...reverent about them. They're the Walter Cronkites of the human race . . . infallible, virtuous, without flaws and conceived without original sin, with no room for ambivalence.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The War of the Roses in England and the Civil War in America were both intestinal conflicts arising out of similar ideas. In the f...irst the clash was between feudalism and the new economic order; in the second, between an agricultural society and a new industrial one. Both led to similar ends; the first to the founding of the English nation, and the second to the founding of the American. Both were strangely interlinked; for it was men of the old military and not of the new economic mind--men, such as Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh--who founded the English colonies in America.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »