In baseball there are generalists, who keep their eye on the ball and see the big picture; football is full of special-duty charac...ters who are very limited in terms of their range but have depth. Baseball represents America before the frontier ended, when there was plenty of space and plenty of time, and philosophic anarchists roamed around on verdant fields "doing their thing" with a free and reckless abandon. The game is relaxing and not particularly taxing on the players, who play many times each week. Football is tremendously difficult on the players and is so tiring that sixty minutes of clock time--which amounts to several hours of real time--exhausts them. Baseball developed when we thought nature was a limitless reservoir and we would always live in abundance. Football reflects a different world view; everything has to be fought for, resources are precious, hostile people (guards, monster men) are everywhere and in such a world you have to grab what you can.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Hume's doctrine was that the circumstances vary, the amount of happiness does not; that the beggar cracking fleas in the sunshine ...under a hedge, and the duke rolling by in his chariot; the girl equipped for her first ball, and the orator returning triumphant from the debate, had different means, but the same quantity of pleasant excitement.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As a pastoral game, baseball attempts to close the gap between the players and the crowd. It creates the illusion, for instance, t...hat with a lot a hard work, a little luck, and possibly some extra talent, the average spectator might well be playing; not watching. For most of us can do a few of the things that ball players can do: catch a pop-up, field a ground ball, and maybe get a hit once in a while.... As a heroic game, football is not concerned with a shared community of near-equals. It seeks almost the opposite relationship between its spectators and players, one which stresses the distance between them. We are not allowed to identify directly with Jim Brown any more than we are with Zeus, because to do so would undercut his stature as something more than human.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He will not idly dance at his work who has wood to cut and cord before nightfall in the short days of winter; but every stroke wil...l be husbanded, and ring soberly through the wood; and so will the strokes of that scholar's pen, which at evening record the story of the day, ring soberly, yet cheerily, on the ear of the reader, long after the echoes of his axe have died away.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I mount the steps and ring the bell, turning Wearily, as one would turn to nod good-bye to Rochefoucauld,... If the street were time and he at the end of the street, And I say, "Cousin Harriet, here is the Boston Evening Transcript."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Let us roll all our strength, and all Our sweetness, up into one ball:... And tear our pleasures with rough strife, Thorough the iron gates of life. Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When someone kisses someone or flushes the toilet it is my other who sits in a ball and cries.... My other beats a tin drum in my heart. My other hangs up laundry as I try to sleep. My other cries and cries and cries when I put on a cocktail dress.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Will TV kill the theater? If the programs I have seen, save for "Kukla, Fran and Ollie," the ball games and the fights, are any cr...iterion, the theater need not wake up in a cold sweat.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Kids are without a doubt the most suspicious diners in the world. They will eat mud (raw or baked) rocks, paste, crayons, ball-poi...nt pens, moving goldfish, cigarette butts, and cat food. Try to coax a little beef stew into their mouths and they look at you like a puppy when you stand over him with the Sunday paper rolled up.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What is a novel? I say: an invented story. At the same time a story which, though invented has the power to ring true. True to wha...t? True to life as the reader knows life to be or, it may be, feels life to be. And I mean the adult, the grown-up reader. Such a reader has outgrown fairy tales, and we do not want the fantastic and the impossible. So I say to you that a novel must stand up to the adult tests of reality.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »