Man scripturient, today, means man subservient. He is almost anachronistically nowadays in the same position as a miller or a musi...c-hall juggler or a chimney sweep. He is treated like a bastard at a family reunion. For one thing, no one believes that a writer actually writes. (Try to use writing, for instance, as an excuse for begging off a party some weekend.)LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A novice was sitting on a cornice High over the city. Angels... Combined their prayers with those Of the police, begging her to come off it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
People who begin sentences with "I may be old-fashioned but--" are usually not only old-fashioned but wrong. I never thought the t...ime would come when I should catch myself leading off with that crack. But I feel it coming on right now.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
"Medusa, come, we'll turn him into stone," they shouted all together glaring down, "how wrong we were to let off Theseus lightly!"LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The man who invented Eskimo Pie made a million dollars, so one is told, but E.E. Cummings, whose verse has been appearing off and ...on for three years now, and whose experiments should not be more appalling to those interested in poetry than the experiment of surrounding ice-cream with a layer of chocolate was to those interested in soda fountains, has hardly made a dent in the doughy minds of our so-called poetry lovers.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is no great religious leader--from the Buddha to Moses to Jesus to Mohammed to Luther--who offered people what they want. On...ly what they need. But television is not well-suited to offering people what they need. It is "user friendly." It is too easy to turn off. It is at its most alluring when it speaks the language of dynamic visual imagery. It does not accommodate complex language or stringent demands. As a consequence, what is preached on television is not anything like the Sermon on the Mount. Religious programs are filled with good cheer. They celebrate affluence. Their featured players become celebrities. Though their messages are trivial, the shows have high ratings, or rather, because their messages are trivial, the shows have high ratings.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »