The gentlemen [at a ball], as they passed and repassed, looked as if they thought we were quite at their disposal, and only waitin...g for the honour of their commands; and they sauntered about, in a careless indolent manner, as if with a view to keep us in suspense.... I thought it so provoking, that I determined in my own mind that, far from humouring such airs, I would rather not dance at all.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This perpetual round of constrained civilities to persons quite indifferent to us, is the most provoking and tiresome thing in the... world, but it is unavoidable in a country town, where everybody is known.... 'Tis a most shocking and unworthy way of spending our precious irrecoverable time, to those who know not its value.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If tragedy is made effective by provoking the phenomenon which psychology calls "empathy"Mby causing us, that is to say, actually ...to participate in the feelings of another--pure comedy must achieve its effects by completely inhibiting that phenomenon and by establishing a sense of separateness from the creatures whose antics we observe. Such sympathy as we feel for them is lofty and patronizing, like our sympathy for a child whose sorrows we know to be (however intense for him) transitory and trivial.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As her sons have seen her: the mother in patriarchy: controlling, erotic, castrating, heart-suffering, guilt-ridden, and guilt-pro...voking; a marble brow, a huge breast, an avid cave; between her legs snakes, swampgrass, or teeth; on her lap a helpless infant or a martyred son. She exists for one purpose: to bear and nourish the son.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I write about violence as naturally as Jane Austen wrote about manners. Violence shapes and obsesses our society, and if we do not... stop being violent we have no future.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »