He poses as Jefferson Davis to please the Disruptionists. He ... poses as Lincoln to please the Unionists.... Why does he not visi...t America, and learn the cult of the man who can look his fellow man (or newspaper) in the eye, and tell him to go to hell?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A broad consensus exists that Lincoln was more eloquent than Davis in expressing war aims, more successful in communicating with t...he people, more skillful as a political leader in keeping factions working together for the war effort, better able to endure criticism and work with his critics to achieve a common goal. Lincoln was flexible, pragmatic, with a sense of humor to smooth relationships and help him survive the stress of his job; Davis was austere, rigid, humorless, with the type of personality that readily made enemies. Lincoln had a strong physical constitution; Davis suffered ill health and was frequently prostrated with illness. Lincoln picked good administrative subordinates (with some exceptions) and knew how to delegate authority to them; Davis went through five secretaries of war in four years; he spent a great deal of time and energy on petty administrative details that he should have left to subordinates. A disputatious man, Davis sometimes seemed to prefer winning an argument to winning the war; Lincoln was happy to lose an argument if it would help him win the war.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In short, camp mocks bad taste; kitsch exploits it. Camp arouses our sense of the ridiculous and we respond with amused tolerance.... When we see Bette Davis or Ruth Gordon, fine if sometimes flamboyant performers, relax their self-discipline and overextend their acting technique in a superfluity of ineffective gestures--finger-twitching and hip-switching, hand-rubbing or hip-protruding--we label the sum total as camp. Mae West, whose nasally provocative delivery, eye-rolling, lip-pursing, and pelvic tics parody the conventional invitation to dalliance, is never out of control and is camp, pure and simple.... Camp was also the stock-in-trade of Carmen Miranda, whose retina-searing Technicolor get-ups, skyscraper headdresses bearing a season's fruit harvest, clomping platform shoes and garbled English projected in a voice that could be heard on Mars all came together beautifully in her campy personification of Exaggeration. Had we been blessed with the Brazilian Bombshell's own blazing interpretation of Joan of Arc, the grotesque, if fascinating, result would surely have been kitsch.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If Mr. Vincent Price were to be co-starred with Miss Bette Davis in a story by Mr. Edgar Allan Poe directed by Mr. Roger Corman, i...t could not fully express the pent-up violence and depravity of a single day in the life of the average family.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Judge Bedford: I understand you refuse to be represented by counsel. Walter: That's correct, your honor.... Judge Bedford: Are you suicidal, Mr. Davis, or just plain stupid?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Honestly, the real trouble is ... a gang which unfortunately survives--made up mostly of those who were isolationists before Decem...ber seventh and who are actuated today by various motives in their effort to instill disunity in the country.... The best comment I have heard was by Elmer Davis.... "Some people want the United States to win so long as England loses. Some people want the United States to win so long as Russia loses. Some people want the United States to win so long as Roosevelt loses."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Alvy's psychiatrist: How often do you sleep together? Annie's psychiatrist: Do you have sex often?... Alvy Singer: Hardly ever. Maybe three times a week. Annie Hall: Constantly! I'd say three times a week.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
By contrast with history, evolution is an unconscious process. Another, and perhaps a better way of putting it would be to say tha...t evolution is a natural process, history a human one.... Insofar as we treat man as a part of nature--for instance in a biological survey of evolution--we are precisely not treating him as a historical being. As a historically developing being, he is set over against nature, both as a knower and as a doer.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »