For above all, pornography is ritual. It is an enacted drama that is laden with meaning, which imparts a vision of the world. The ...altar for the ritual is a woman's body. And the ritual which is carried out on this altar is the desecration of flesh. Here, what is sacred within the body is degraded.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Literature is the one place in any society where, within the secrecy of our own heads, we can hear voices talking about everything... in every possible way. The reason for ensuring that that privileged arena is preserved is not that writers want the absolute freedom to say and do whatever they please. It is that we, all of us, readers and writers and citizens and generals and goodmen, need that little, unimportant-looking room. We do not need to call it sacred, but we do need to remember that it is necessary.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas--...uncertainty, progress, change--into crimes.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Sweet is the day of sacred rest; No mortal cares shall seize my breast;... O may my heart in tune be found Like David's harp of solemn sound.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »