It is reported here that the King of Prussia has gone mad and has been locked up. There would be nothing bad about that: at least ...that might of his would no longer be a menace, and you could breathe freely for a while. I much prefer madmen who are locked up to those who are not.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
And I looked to be happy, and I was, As I said, for a while but I don't know!... Somehow the change wore out like a prescription.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Dating at least from ancient Rome, the holiday was a time of public and communal celebration, a time to commemorate some event of ...civic or religious significance that all citizens participated in equally. The set of holidays observed by a given community was a way of defining that community. Each holiday, with its unique history and set of rituals, connected the members of a community to one another, and to the community's collective past. The holiday was fundamentally noneconomic in character. Everyone participated, independent of economic circumstances.... In contrast, the vacation is thoroughly private and economic. People negotiate for paid vacations with their employers. They decide whether to spend their money on vacations or on things, in a way that they never would with holidays. Imagine asking whether to buy a new car or celebrate Easter. The point of a vacation is not to join in celebration with other members of the community but to escape it--at least for a while. People take vacations for a change of scene, and they take them alone, or just with their families.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In my later years I have sought to become simpler, straighter and purer in my handling of the language. I've had many writing hero...es, writers who have influenced me. Of the ones still alive, I can think of E.B. White. I certainly admire the pure, crystal stream of his prose. When I was very young as a sportswriter I knowingly and unashamedly imitated others. I had a series of heroes who would delight me for a while and I'd imitate them--Damon Runyon, Westbrook Pegler, Joe Williams.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The reading which I love best is the scriptures of the several nations, though it happens that I am better acquainted with those o...f the Hindoos, the Chinese, and the Persians, than of the Hebrews, which I have come to last. Give me one of these bibles, and you have silenced me for a while. When I recover the use of my tongue, I am wont to worry my neighbors with the new sentences; but commonly they cannot see that there is any wit in them. Such has been my experience with the New Testament. I have not yet got to the crucifixion, I have read it over so many times. I should love dearly to read it aloud to my friends, some of whom are seriously inclined; it is so good, and I am sure that they have never heard it, it fits their case exactly, and we should enjoy it so much together,--but I instinctively despair of getting their ears. They soon show, by signs not to be mistaken, that it is inexpressibly wearisome to them. I do not mean to imply that I am any better than my neighbors; for, alas! I know that I am only as good, though I love better books than they.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Children ... after a certain age do not welcome parental advice. Occasionally, they may listen to another adult, which is why perh...aps people should switch children with their neighbors and friends for a while in the teen years!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
New Yorkers speak more quickly and shift topics more rapidly. We all know that. But the way it's done is fascinating. At least it ...fascinated me when I first moved to New York. Someone has the floor and talks. As soon as I know what they are going to say, I can jump in, finish the sentence to show I understand, and take off into my own turn. The northern California I know isn't like that. Someone talks, and I lie back and listen and let them roll for a while. When they're done, there'll be a pause that will flash like a green light to announce that someone else can have the floor.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To look backward for a while is to refresh the eye, to restore it, and to render it the more fit for its prime function of looking... forward.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Do you know why I came to you, Amy? Why I came to be your friend? Because you called to me. Out of your loneliness you called me a...nd brought me into being. And I came, so that your childhood could be bright and full of friendliness. Now you must send me away.... You'll remember me for a while, mourn a little, but then you'll forget. And that is as it should be.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We were that generation called "silent," but we were silent neither, as some thought, because we shared the period's official opti...mism nor, as others thought, because we feared its official repression. We were silent because the exhilaration of social action seemed to many of us just one more way of escaping the personal, of masking for a while that dread of the meaningless which was man's fate.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »