If melodrama is the quintessence of drama, farce is the quintessence of theatre. Melodrama is written. A moving image of the world... is provided by a writer. Farce is acted. The writer's contribution seems not only absorbed but translated.... One cannot imagine melodrama being improvised. The improvised drama was pre-eminently farce.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The motion picture is like a picture of a lady in a half- piece bathing suit. If she wore a few more clothes, you might be intrigu...ed. If she wore no clothes at all, you might be shocked. But the way it is, you are occupied with noticing that her knees are too bony and that her toenails are too large. The modern film tries too hard to be real. Its techniques of illusion are so perfect that it requires no contribution from the audience but a mouthful of popcorn.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external worl...d by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act. This becomes even more obvious when posterity gives its final verdict and sometimes rehabilitates forgotten artists.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Advertising is a racket, like the movies and the brokerage business. You cannot be honest without admitting that its constructive ...contribution to humanity is exactly minus zero.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Sometimes I think that idlers seem to be a special class for whom nothing can be planned, plead as one will with them--their only ...contribution to the human family is to warm a seat at the common table.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
No society can survive without children. The rhetoric that holds children to be our greatest national resource is true, but the re...ality is that we do little to demonstrate any conviction of its truth. Becoming a parent and being a "good," concerned, and attentive parent may be the most significant contribution any adult can make to our society--and ultimately to the gross national product and to the future of the society.... Surely, it is time to acknowledge the contribution parents make in bearing, caring for, and rearing future generations of citizens, workers, and parents--even if they share personally in the rewards of having children. Surely, parenting is a life cycle stage warranting support at its inception and as an ongoing process by a society that needs and wants children.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Popular art is dominated throughout by the star system, not only in its actors but in all its elements, whatever the medium. Every... work of art, to be sure, has its dominant elements, to which the rest are subordinate. But in popular art it is the dominant ones alone that are the objects of interest, the ground of its satisfaction. By contrast, great art is in this sense pointless; everything in it is significant, everything makes its own contribution to the aesthetic substance. The domain of popular art is, paradoxically, an aristocracy, as it were: some few elements are singled out as the carriers of whatever meaning the work has while the rest are submerged into an anonymous mass. The life of the country is reduced to the mannered gestures of its king. It is this that gives the effect of simplification and standardization.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For a parent, it's hard to recognize the significance of your work when you're immersed in the mundane details. Few of us, as we r...un the bath water or spread the peanut butter on the bread, proclaim proudly, "I'm making my contribution to the future of the planet." But with the exception of global hunger, few jobs in the world of paychecks and promotions compare in significance to the job of parent.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »