The last best hope of earth, two trillion dollars in debt, is spinning out of control, and all we can do is stare at a flickering ...cathode-ray tube as Ollie "answers" questions on TV while the press, resolutely irrelevant as ever, asks politicians if they have committed adultery. From V-J Day 1945 to this has been, my fellow countrymen, a perfect nightmare.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One of the great natural phenomena is the way in which a tube of toothpaste suddenly empties itself when it hears that you are pla...nning a trip, so that when you come to pack it is just a twisted shell of its former self, with not even a cubic millimeter left to be squeezed out.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Next we come to the bronchial buster, or the man (it is usually a man) who, being in the throes of a terrific throat and tube trou...ble chooses that night for theater-going.... He will soon learn to pick his pauses with finesse. It does no good to cough while there is a great deal of noise going on on the stage. No one can hear. The time is just as the star is about to do a little low speaking to her dying lover or when the hero, alone in his garret, goes silently over to the fireplace and tears up the letter. There for a good rousing bark, my hearty, followed by a series of short sharp ones like those of a coxswain! If possible the appearance of apoplexy should be simulated.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Directors like Satyajit Ray, Rossellini, Bresson, Buñuel, Forman, Scorsese, and Spike Lee have used non-professional actors preci...sely in order that the people we see on the screen may be scarcely more explained than reality itself. Professionals, except fo the greatest, usually play not just the necessary role, but an explanation of the role.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I loved, but woman fell away; I hid me from her faded fame.... I snatched the sun's eternal ray And wrote till earth was but a name.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The English public are not yet ripe to comprehend the essential difference between the reason and the understanding,--between a pr...inciple and a maxim--an eternal truth and a mere conclusion from a generalization of a great number of facts.... Suppose Adam watching the sun sinking under the horizon for the first time; he is seized with gloom and terror, relieved with scarce a ray of hope of ever seeing the glorious light again. The next evening when it declines, his hopes are stronger but mixed with fear, and even at the end of 1000 years, all that a man can feel, is hope and an expectation so strong as to preclude anxiety. Compare this in its highest degree with the assurance which you have that the two sides of any triangle are greater than the third. This demonstrated of one triangle is seen to be eternally true of all imaginable triangles. This is the truth perceived at once by the reason, wholly independently of experience. It is and must ever be so, multiply and vary the shapes and sizes of triangles as you may.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The desert is not only around the corner, The desert is squeezed in the tube-train next to you,... The desert is in the heart of your brother.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »