Terrorism is an intolerant reaction to the hypertolerance of our societies, just as rape may be an intolerance of our boundless se...xual tolerance (paradoxically, the number of rapes increases with the degree of sexual liberation). It is second-generation violence--a reaction to the absence of violence. The same is true of the second-generation illnesses (cancer); they are a reaction to the hyperprotection of our bodies. When a woman turns off all signals of pleasure in your arms and leaves you no other solution but a disenchanted rape, no phantasy is of any use. But the same applies when her sexual demand is so great as to leave no room even for the illusion of rape.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Motherhood is the second oldest profession in the world. It never questions age, height, religious preference, health, political a...ffiliation, citizenship, morality, ethnic background, marital status, economic level, convenience, or previous experience.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Motion or change, and identity or rest, are the first and second secrets of nature: Motion and Rest. The whole code of her laws ma...y be written on the thumbnail, or the signet of a ring.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Popular art is normally decried as vulgar by the cultivated people of its time; then it loses favor with its original audience as ...a new generation grows up; then it begins to merge into the softer lighting of "quaint," and cultivated people become interested in it, and finally it begins to take on the archaic dignity of the primitive.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If for Americans, at least, the Great War could sometimes be imagined as a brief, quasi-athletic lark, the Second War permitted no... such melioration by the spirit of adolescent optimism. In North Africa alone, the 1st Infantry Division spent more time in mortal contact with the enemy than all the time it spent--forming up, marching, drawing equipment, lining up at the mess hall, training, bitching--in all of the First World War. And on December 7, 1941, the American navy lost in one day more men killed--2008, to be exact--than in all the days of the earlier war. The Second World War, total and global as it was, killed worldwide, more civilian men, women, and children than soldiers, sailors, and airmen. And compared with the idiocies of Verdun, Gallipoli, or Tannenberg, it was indescribably cruel and insane. It was not until the Second World War had enacted all its madness that one could realize how near Victorian social and ethical norms the First World War really was.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Most women without children spend much more time than men on housework; with children, they devote more time to both housework and... child care. Just as there is a wage gap between men and women in the workplace, there is a "leisure gap" between them at home. Most women work one shift at the office or factory and a "second shift" at home.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He is a Presbyterian first and an artist second, which is just as comfortable as trying to be a Presbyterian first and a chorus gi...rl second.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
First Let the rockets flash and the cannon thunder,... This child is a marvel, a matchless wonder. A staggering child, a child astounding, Dazzling, diaperless, dumfounding, Stupendous, miraculous, unsurpassed, A child to stagger and flabbergast, Bright as a button, sharp as a thorn, And the only perfect one ever born. Second Arrived this evening at half-past nine. Everybody is doing fine. Is it a boy, or quite the reverse? You can call in the morning and ask the nurse.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »