I'm beginning to believe that Killer Illiteracy ought to rank near heart disease and cancer as one of the leading causes of death ...among Americans. What you don't know can indeed hurt you, and so those who can neither read nor write lead miserable lives, like Richard Wright's character, Bigger Thomas, born dead with no past or future.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give f...orth its spark.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In general, one may pronounce kissing dangerous. A spark of fire has often been struck out of the collision of lips, that has blow...n up the whole magazine of virtue.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Mr. [John] Barrymore's smile was the smile of an actor who hates actors, and who knows that he is going to kill two or three befor...e the play is over. I am not an actor-killer, but I like my Hamlets to dislike actors, if you know what I mean, and I think you don't.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I do not wish to lose my temper because very shortly I will lose my head. Nevertheless, upon leaving this spark of earthly existen...ce, I have this to say: I shall see you all very soon ... very soon.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is the fixed that horrifies us, the fixed that assails us with the tremendous force of mindlessness. The fixed is a Mason jar, ...and we can't beat it open. ...The fixed is a world without fire--dead flint, dead tinder, and nowhere a spark. It is motion without direction, force without power, the aimless procession of caterpillars round the rim of a vase, and I hate it because at any moment I myself might step to that charmed and glistening thread.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »