The postmodern reply to the modern consists of recognizing that the past, since it cannot really be destroyed, because its destruc...tion leads to silence, must be revisited: but with irony, not innocently. I think of the postmodern attitude as that of a man who loves a very cultivated woman and knows he cannot say to her, "I love you madly" because he knows that she knows (and that she knows that he knows) that these words have already been written by Barbara Cartland. Still, there is a solution. He can say, "As Barbara Cartland would put it, I love you madly."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Irony is a disciplinarian feared only by those who do not know it, but cherished by those who do. He who does not understand irony... and has no ear for its whispering lacks eo ipso what might be called the absolute beginning of the personal life. He lacks what at moments is indispensable for the personal life, lacks both the regeneration and rejuvenation, the cleaning baptism of irony that redeems the soul from having its life in finitude though living boldly and energetically in finitude.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Irony, forsooth! Guard yourself, Engineer, from the sort of irony that thrives up here; guard yourself altogether from taking on t...heir mental attitude! Where irony is not a direct and classic device of oratory, not for a moment equivocal to a healthy mind, it makes for depravity, it becomes a drawback to civilization, an unclean traffic with the forces of reaction, vice and materialism.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
You know, there's a certain irony in the fact that our lives and perhaps the lives of everyone on Earth may depend on Captain Patt...erson's sex appeal.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What a cunning mixture of sentiment, pity, tenderness, irony surrounds adolescence, what knowing watchfulness! Young birds on thei...r first flight are hardly so hovered around.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One year, I'd completely lost my bearings trying to follow potty training instruction from a psychiatric expert. I was stuck on st...ep on, which stated without an atom of irony: "Before you begin, remove all stubbornness from the child." . . . I knew it only could have been written by someone whose suit coat was still spotless at the end of the day, not someone who had any hands-on experience with an actual two-year-old.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In the works of the better poets you get the sensation that they're not talking to people any more, or to some seraphical creature.... What they're doing is simply talking back to the language itself--as beauty, sensuality, wisdom, irony--those aspects of language of which the poet is a clear mirror. Poetry is not an art or a branch of art, it's something more. If what distinguishes us from other species is speech, then poetry, which is the supreme linguistic operation, is our anthropological, indeed genetic, goal. Anyone who regards poetry as an entertainment, as a "read," commits an anthropological crime, in the first place, against himself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Poor Man whom everyone speaks of, the Poor Man whom everyone pities, one of the repulsive Poor from whom "charitable" souls ke...ep their distance, he has still said nothing. Or, rather, he has spoken through the voice of Victor Hugo, Zola, Richepin. At least, they said so. And these shameful impostures fed their authors. Cruel irony, the Poor Man tormented with hunger feeds those who plead his case.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The keynote of American civilization is a sort of warm-hearted vulgarity. The Americans have none of the irony of the English, non...e of their cool poise, none of their manner. But they do have friendliness. Where an Englishman would give you his card, an American would very likely give you his shirt.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »