My favorite figure of the American author is that of a man who breeds a favorite dog, which he throws into the Mississippi River f...or the pleasure of making a splash. The river does not splash, but it drowns the dog.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The greatest felony in the news business today is to be behind, or to miss a big story. So speed and quantity substitute for thoro...ughness and quality, for accuracy and context. The pressure to compete, the fear somebody else will make the splash first, creates a frenzied environment in which a blizzard of information is presented and serious questions may not be raised.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I am sensible that my keenness of temper, and a vanity to be distinguished for the day, make me too often splash in life.... I am ...resolved to restrain myself and attend more to decorum.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Language is like soil. However rich, it is subject to erosion, and its fertility is constantly threatened by uses that exhaust its... vitality. It needs constant re-invigoration if it is not to become arid and sterile.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What if we fail to stop the erosion of cities by automobiles?... In that case America will hardly need to ponder a mystery that ha...s troubled men for millennia: What is the purpose of life? For us, the answer will be clear, established and for all practical purposes indisputable: The purpose of life is to produce and consume automobiles.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Cities are expanding at an alarming rate. Inter-tidal zones are being polluted as mangroves gives way to marina. Over-consumption ...is leading to soil erosion and desertification, which in turn cause famine and exert pressure on formerly fertile areas. We are pulling out the plugs of the system that keeps us alive. Every indicator is showing red: species diversity, water quality, weather patterns, the number of refugees.... We are unravelling nature like an old jumper.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The one-hand downward loose shake of weary relinquishment; the two-hand dramatic splash of amazed distress; and the "disjunctive" ...motion--hands traveling apart to signify helpless passivity. And in conclusion, very slowly, Pnin showed how, in the international "shaking the finger" gesture, a half turn, as delicate as the switch of the wrist in fencing, metamorphosed the Russian solemn symbol of pointing up, "the Judge in Heaven sees you!" into a German air picture of the stick--"something is coming to you!"LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Americans, more than most people, believe that history is the result of individual decisions to implement conscious intentions. Fo...r Americans, more than most people, history has been that.... This sense of openness, of possibility and autonomy, has been a national asset as precious as the topsoil of the Middle West. But like topsoil, it is subject to erosion; it requires tending. And it is not bad for Americans to come to terms with the fact that for them too, history is a story of inertia and the unforeseen.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The new concept of the child as equal and the new integration of children into adult life has helped bring about a gradual but cer...tain erosion of these boundaries that once separated the world of children from the word of adults, boundaries that allowed adults to treat children differently than they treated other adults because they understood that children are different.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »