The most disgusting cad in the world is the man who, on grounds of decorum and morality, avoids the game of love. He is one who pu...ts his own ease and security above the most laudable of philanthropies.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Cad is the entire epitome, the complete blossom and fruit in one, of what we are told is an age of culture. Behold him in the ...vélodrome as he yells insanely after his kind as they tear along on their tandem machines in a match, and then ask yourself candidly, O my reader, if any age before this in all the centuries of earth ever produced any creature so utterly low and loathsome, so physically, mentally, individually, and collectively hideous?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Smile and others will smile back. Smile to show how transparent, how candid you are. Smile if you have nothing to say. Most of all..., do not hide the fact you have nothing to say nor your total indifference to others. Let this emptiness, this profound indifference shine out spontaneously in your smile.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is nothing funny about Halloween. This sarcastic festival reflects, rather, an infernal demand for revenge by children on th...e adult world.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is nothing more mysterious than a TV set left on in an empty room. It is even stranger than a man talking to himself or a wo...man standing dreaming at her stove. It is as if another planet is communicating with you.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The skylines lit up at dead of night, the air- conditioning systems cooling empty hotels in the desert and artificial light in the... middle of the day all have something both demented and admirable about them. The mindless luxury of a rich civilization, and yet of a civilization perhaps as scared to see the lights go out as was the hunter in his primitive night.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The anorexic prefigures this culture in rather a poetic fashion by trying to keep it at bay. He refuses lack. He says: I lack noth...ing, therefore I shall not eat. With the overweight person, it is the opposite: he refuses fullness, repletion. He says, I lack everything, so I will eat anything at all. The anorexic staves off lack by emptiness, the overweight person staves off fullness by excess. Both are homeopathic final solutions, solutions by extermination.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Laughter on American television has taken the place of the chorus in Greek tragedy.... In other countries, the business of laughin...g is left to the viewers. Here, their laughter is put on the screen, integrated into the show. It is the screen that is laughing and having a good time. You are simply left alone with your consternation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »