In full view of his television audience, he preached a new religion--or a new form of Christianity--based on faith in financial mi...racles and in a Heaven here on earth with a water slide and luxury hotels. It was a religion of celebrity and showmanship and fun, which made a mockery of all puritanical standards and all canons of good taste. Its standard was excess, and its doctrines were tolerance and freedom from accountability.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is as absurd to say that [due to motherhood] all women shall be denied the suffrage, as it would be to deny all men the suffrag...e, because some are liable, periodically, to inflammatory rheumatism, delirium tremens, or financial failure.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
And no one, it seemed, had had the presence of mind To initiate proceedings or stop the wheel... From the number it was backing away from as it stopped: It was performing prettily; the puncture stayed unseen....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
And the purpose of the many stops and starts will be made clear: Backing into the old affair of not wanting to grow... Into the night, which becomes a house, a parting of the ways Taking us far into sleep. A dumb love.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The system was breaking down. The one who had wandered alone past so many happenings and events began to feel, backing up along th...e primal vein that led to his center, the beginning of hiccup that would, if left to gather, explode the center to the extremities of life, the suburbs through which one makes one's way to where the country is.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What people don't realize is that intimacy has its conventions as well as ordinary social intercourse. There are three cardinal ru...les--don't take somebody else's boyfriend unless you've been specifically invited to do so, don't take a drink without being asked, and keep a scrupulous accounting in financial matters.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Everyone has taste, yet it is more of a taboo subject than sex or money. The reason for this is simple: claims about your attitude...s to or achievements in the carnal and financial arenas can be disputed only by your lover and your financial advisers, whereas by making statements about your taste you expose body and soul to terrible scrutiny. Taste is a merciless betrayer of social and cultural attitudes. Thus, while anybody will tell you as much (and perhaps more than) you want to know about their triumphs in bed and at the bank, it is taste that gets people's nerves tingling.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »