The North will at least preserve your flesh for you; Northerners are pale for good and all. There's very little difference between... a dead Swede and a young man who's had a bad night. But the Colonial is full of maggots the day after he gets off the boat.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The bad lover, like the bad poet, perhaps because of a preoccupation with self, is essentially inattentive, doesn't listen, doesn'...t anticipate. Or, just as bad, proceeds by rote, first this thing and then the next, and therefore leaves no opportunity for discovery, or departure. Form to me implies an alertness to the demands of your material and an orchestration of effects. It is some happy combination of the poet's intent and the poem's esprit and the necessary compromises between the two. We can't be too willful, but we must have things in mind. We don't want to be the wimps of our own poems, but we'd be happy to be led into some lovely places. And we'd like to have some control after we lose control, at least enough to throw light on what has just hap pened, perhaps even to articulate what it has meant to us. And of course there are moments when we'd be better off being appreciatively silent.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Marriage accustomed one to the good things, so one came to take them for granted, but magnified the bad things, so they came to fe...el as painful as a grain in one's eye. An open window, a forgotten quart of milk, a TV set left blaring, socks on the bathroom floor could become occasions for incredible rage. And something happened sexually in marriage--the swearing to forsake all others, despite its slight observance, had a profound effect. Some people felt trapped by it, impelled to assert what they called freedom. Some accepted it like a rein, and in the effort to avoid pain in the form of hopeless desire, cut off occasions of desire, avoided having long talks at parties with attractive members of the opposite sex. In time, all feeling for the opposite sex was cut off, and intercourse limited to the barest politenesses.... But something happened to you when you did that, a kind of death seeped up from the genitals to the rest of the body, till it showed in the eyes, the gestures, in a certain lifelessness.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As for them saying theres no God I wouldnt give a snap of my two fingers for all their learning why dont they go and create someth...ing I often asked him atheists or whatever they call themselves go and wash the cobbles off themselves first when they go howling for the priest and they dying and why why because theyre afraid of hell on account of their bad conscience ah yes I know them well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody that made it all who ah that they dont know neither do I so there you are they might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head.....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have three kinds of "quality time." The first I call "Split-Brain Time" because only one side of my brain is with my children.......The second type of quality time is what I call "Timed Time" and is best characterized by declarations such as, "okay, you children have ten minutes to get in bed and fall asleep...." On the really bad days I settle for the "Quality Greeting"Ma brief "Hi there! or "Sleep tight"Musually uttered from a comfortable chair just before I drift off to sleep.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
America is like one of those old-fashioned six-cylinder truck engines that can be missing two sparkplugs and have a broken flywhee...l and have a crankshaft that's 5000 millimeters off fitting properly, and two bad ball-bearings, and still runs. We're in that kind of situation. We can have substantial parts of the population committing suicide, and still run and look fairly good.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Most childhood problems don't result from "bad" parenting, but are the inevitable result of the growing that parents and children ...do together. The point isn't to head off these problems or find ways around them, but rather to work through them together and in doing so to develop a relationship of mutual trust to rely on when the next problem comes along.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
...when we are going through the aftereffects of a bad jolt in loss of money or pride--and both are closely connected--we should g...et off to ourselves, make an honest appraisal of our shortcomings, and try to find our weak spots and bolster them up before starting in again. First on the program we should figure out a plan to eat. The money we have lost is a small matter; if we can keep our pride and strong faith in ourselves the battle ahead is half won before we start.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find Englishmen doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong.... He does everything on principle. He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles; he bullies you on manly principles; he supports his king on loyal principles and cuts off his king's head on republican principles. His watchword is always Duty; and he never forgets that the nation which lets its duty get on the opposite side to its interest is lost.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »