As debate is rare in the House of Representatives, since nearly all real business is done in the committees, it is very natural th...at such debate as there is should be very oratorical, should be "sounding off," not discussion. And this is one of the reasons why public speaking in America is still so rhetorical, why audiences for example do not often "heckle" a speaker, bombard him with questions, or embarrass him with ironical applause or laughter. It is almost as rare to interrupt a political speech as it is to interrupt a sermon. In the Senate, things are different. Any senator who can get the floor can talk as long as his wind lasts. He cannot be out of order unless he takes the most extravagant liberties. So Senate debates are often lively, often educational. They are very different from the formal pieces declaimed in the other house, or even printed and sent to the voters without being spoken at all. A senator has to persuade his colleagues, even those of his own party, or he has to intimidate them, and so the Senate has a high representation of public speakers who can discuss as well as declaim.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down pato...is which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of bar- room vernacular, that is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed but attentive.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
[Ognev] recalled endless, heated, purely Russian arguments, when the wranglers, spraying spittle and banging their fists on the ta...ble, fail to understand yet interrupt one another, themselves not even noticing it, contradict themselves with every phrase, change the subject, then, having argued for two or three hours, begin to laugh.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What? for I know not yet what you will say. alc: Nor will you ever, if you interrupt.... Proceed, and I will hold my speechless tongue.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Real orgies are never so exciting as pornographic books. In a volume by Pierre Louys all the girls are young and their figures per...fect; there's no hiccoughing or bad breath, no fatigue or boredom, no sudden recollections of unpaid bills or business letters unanswered, to interrupt the raptures. Art gives you the sensation, the thought, the feeling quite pure--chemically pure, I mean,... not morally.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We will never be able to avoid conflicts entirely because parents' needs and children's needs are so often opposed. When we need t...o hurry, they want to dawdle. When we crave ten minutes of solitude after a trying day, they issue eighteen demands for immediate attention. When we get a long-distance phone call, they interrupt us with a crisis.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Tonight I will speak up and interrupt your letters, warning you that wars are coming,... that the Count will die, that you will accept your America back to live like a prim thing on the farm in Maine.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
"Pray my dear," quoth my mother, "have you not forgot to wind up the clock?"M"Good G--!" cried my father, making an exclamation, b...ut taking care to moderate his voice at the same time,--"Did ever woman, since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question?"LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The government does not concern me much, and I shall bestow the fewest possible thoughts on it. It is not many moments that I live... under a government, even in this world. If a man is thought- free, fancy-free, imagination-free ... unwise rulers or reformers cannot fatally interrupt him.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »