People who live in the post-totalitarian system know only too well that the question of whether one or several political parties a...re in power, and how these parties define and label themselves, is of far less importance than the question of whether or not it is possible to live like a human being.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
[The] elderly and timid single gentleman in Paris ... never drove down the Champs Elysees without expecting an accident, and commo...nly witnessing one; or found himself in the neighborhood of an official without calculating the chances of a bomb. So long as the rates of progress held good, these bombs would double in force and number every ten years.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Just across the Green from the post office is the county jail, seldom occupied except by some backwoodsman who has been intemperat...e; the courthouse is under the same roof. The dog warden usually basks in the sunlight near the harness store or the post office, his golden badge polished bright.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Navajo men and boys have an odd way of showing their friendship. When two young men meet at the trading post, a "Sing", or a dance... they greet each other, inquire about the health of their respective families, then stand silently some ten or fifteen minutes while one feels the other's arms, shoulders, and chest.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Predictions of the future are never anything but projections of present automatic processes and procedures, that is, of occurrence...s that are likely to come to pass if men do not act and if nothing unexpected happens; every action, for better or worse, and every accident necessarily destroys the whole pattern in whose frame the prediction moves and where it finds its evidence.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It's impossible to represent a saint [in Art]. It becomes boring. Perhaps because he is, like the Saturday Evening Post people, in... the position of having almost infinitely free will.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The post-office had a great charm at one period of our lives. When you have lived to my age, you will begin to think letters are n...ever worth going through the rain for.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Every political system is an accumulation of habits, customs, prejudices, and principles that have survived a long process of tria...l and error and of ceaseless response to changing circumstances. If the system works well on the whole, it is a lucky accident--the luckiest, indeed, that can befall a society.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
My business is stanching blood and feeding fainting men; my post the open field between the bullet and the hospital. I sometimes d...iscuss the application of a compress or a wisp of hay under a broken limb, but not the bearing and merits of a political movement. I make gruel--not speeches; I write letters home for wounded soldiers, not political addresses.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Depression moods lead, almost invariably, to accidents. But, when they occur, our mood changes again, since the accident shows we ...can draw the world in our wake, and that we still retain some degree of power even when our spirits are low. A series of accidents creates a positively light-hearted state, out of consideration for this strange power.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »