We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in race...s, even alone in genders.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Germans are the most philosophic people in the world, and the greatest smokers: now I trace their philosophy to their smoking....... Smoking has a sedative effect upon the nerves, and enables a man to bear the sorrows of this life (of which every one has his share) not only decently, but dignifiedly.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A person taking stock in middle age is like an artist or composer looking at an unfinished work; but whereas the composer and the ...painter can erase some of their past efforts, we cannot. We are stuck with what we have lived through. The trick is to finish it with a sense of design and a flourish rather than to patch up the holes or merely to add new patches to it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In general the newly sighted see the world as a dazzle of color-patches. They are pleased by the sensation of color, and learn qui...ckly to name the colors, but the rest of seeing is tormentingly difficult.... It oppresses them to realize, if they ever do at all, the tremendous size of the world, which they had previously conceived of as something touchingly manageable. It oppresses them to realize that they have been visible to people all along, perhaps unattractively so, without their knowledge or consent. A disheartening number of them refuse to use their new vision, continuing to go over objects with their tongues, and lapsing into apathy and despair.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Initially, between the trees, he caught sight of whirling, jumping bodies. Heya-hey-heya. Someone climbing. Rocks pitched after a ...board; and on the river, tilting patches of reflection. Heya-fulla-heya-heya. Boys were sliding down the bank on their buttocks, roughing the scaly sand. They sailed a can lid on the water where at first it turned, floating, then sank, burning like a mirror. Hiyah-smilah. Hee-mee? Coltch. Skirts rose slowly, slowly subsided. A parasol flew open with a snap. Or-rawk. Gah. Houf. Half buried in the shingle, a deep red brick was then awash. Yo-yo giggy. Teetoo Sheek? Num! Lissa-lissa. A willow leaned out, trailing its leaves in the water.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Without infringing on the liberty we so much boast, might we not ask our professional Mayor to call upon the smokers, have them re...gister their names in each ward, and then appoint certain thoroughfares in the city for their use, that those who feel no need of this envelopment of curling vapor, to insure protection may be relieved from a nuisance as disgusting to the olfactories as it is prejudicial to the lungs.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Dying smokers sense Walking towards them through some dappled park... As if on water that unfocused she No match lit up, nor drag ever brought near....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A good story is one that isn't demanding, that proceeds from A to B, and above all doesn't remind us of the bad times, the cardboa...rd patches we used to wear in our shoes, the failed farms, the way people you love just up and die. It tells us instead that hard work and perseverance can overcome all obstacles; it tells lie after lie, and the happy ending is the happiest lie of all.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »