... women are supposed to be unfit to vote because they are hysterical and emotional and of course men would not like to have emot...ion enter into a political campaign. They want to cut out all emotion and so they would like to cut us out. I had heard so much about our emotionalism that I went to the last Democratic national convention, held at Baltimore, to observe the calm repose of the male politicians. I saw some men take a picture of one gentleman whom they wanted elected and it was so big they had to walk sidewise as they carried it forward; they were followed by hundreds of other men screaming and yelling, shouting and singing the "Houn' Dawg".... I saw men jump up on the seats and throw their hats in the air and shout: "What's the matter with Champ Clark?" Then, when those hats came down, other men would kick them back into the air, shouting at the top of their voices: "He's all right!!"... No hysteria about it--just patriotic loyalty, splendid manly devotion to principle. And so they went on and on until 5 o'clock in the morning--the whole night long. I saw men jump up on their seats and jump down again and run around in a ring. I saw two men run towards another man to hug him both at once and they split his coat up the middle of his back and sent him spinning around like a wheel. All this with the perfect poise of the legal male mind in politics! I have been to many women's conventions in my day but I never saw a woman leap up on a chair and take off her bonnet and toss it up in the air and shout: "What's the matter with" somebody. I never saw a woman knock another woman's bonnet off her head as she screamed, "She's all right!".... But we are willing to admit that we are emotional. I have actually seen women stand up and wave their handkerchiefs. I have even seen them take hold of hands and sing, "Blest be the tie that binds." Nobody doubts that women are excitable.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is unlikely that someone could proclaim "truths" that are counter to physical laws for very long (for example, that it is healt...hy for children to run around in bathing suits in winter and in fur coats in summer) without appearing ridiculous. But it is perfectly normal to speak of the necessity of striking and humiliating children and robbing them of their autonomy, at the same time using such high-sounding words as chastising, upbringing, and guiding onto the right path.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Run fast, stand still. This, the lesson from lizards. For all writers. Observe almost any survival creature, you see the same. Jum...p, run, freeze. In the ability to flick like an eyelash, crack like a whip, vanish like steam, here this instant, gone the next--life teems the earth. And when that life is not rushing to escape, it is playing statues to do the same. See the hummingbird, there, not there. As thought arises and blinks off, so this thing of summer vapor; the clearing of a cosmic throat, the fall of a leaf. And where it was--a whisper. What can we writers learn from lizards, lift from birds? In quickness is truth. The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping. In between the scurries and flights, what? Be a chameleon, ink- blend, chromosome change with the landscape. Be a pet rock, lie with the dust, rest in the rainwater in the filled barrel by the drainspout outside your grandparents' window long ago.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As he walks away on his own two feet--the toddler's body-mind has reached its moment of perfection. The world is his and he the mi...ghty conqueror of all he beholds.... As long as mother sticks around in the wings, the mighty acrobat confidently performs his trick of twirling in circles, walking on tiptoe, jumping, climbing, staring, naming. He is joyous, filled with his grandeur and wondrous omnipotence.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is an anecdote passed around in psychoanalytical circles, about a boy who for no apparent reason reached the age of six with...out ever speaking. One night he suddenly said, "Please pass the mashed potatoes." The boy had never spoken before because his mother had always met every one of his needs without him saying a word. This is the epitome of the too good mother.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
She cried and prayed, but what good are prayers and orations when comes this last hour that the Book talks about: when the moon go...es out and the stars go out and the wax of the clouds masks the sun. When the courageous Negro says, "I am tired," and the Negress stops grinding the corn because she is tired. When there is a bird in the woods laughing like a rusty rattle and those who sing are sitting in a circle without a word and without a sound and those who cry run around Main Street and cry, "Help me, help me! because today we bury our man and he is going to the graveyard, to his tomb, to dust."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I am no Poet here; my pen 's the spout, Where the rain water of my eyes run out,... In pity of that name, whose fate wee see Thus copied out in griefs Hydrography: The Muses are not Mer-maids, though upon His death the Ocean might turn HeliconLESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
"... A nation has to take its natural course Of Progress round and round in circles... From King to Mob to King to Mob to King Until the eddy of it eddies out."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Would you approve of your young sons, young daughters--because girls can read as well as boys--reading this book? Is it a book tha...t you would have lying around in your own house? Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »