There is nothing more mysterious than a TV set left on in an empty room. It is even stranger than a man talking to himself or a wo...man standing dreaming at her stove. It is as if another planet is communicating with you.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This island is made mainly of coal and surrounded by fish. Only an organizing genius could produce a shortage of coal and fish at ...the same time.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Time to plant tears, says the almanac. The grandmother sings to the marvellous stove... and the child draws another inscrutable house.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A machine is characterized by sustained, autonomous action. It is set up by human hands and then is more or less set loose from hu...man control. It is designed to come between man and nature, to affect the natural world without requiring or indeed allowing humans to come into contact with it. Such is the clock, which abstracts the measurement of time from the sun and the stars: such is the steam engine, which turns coal into power to move ships or pump water without the intervention of human muscles. A tool, unlike a machine, is not self-sufficient or autonomous in action. It requires the skill of a craftsman and, when handled with skill, permits him to reshape the world in his way.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
"The room's very hot, with all this crowd," the Professor said to Sylvie. "I wonder why they don't put some lumps of ice in the gr...ate? You fill it with lumps of coal in the winter, you know, and you sit round it and enjoy the warmth. How jolly it would be to fill it now with lumps of ice, and sit round it and enjoy the coolth!"LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Writing is to descend like a miner to the depths of the mine with a lamp on your forehead, a light whose dubious brightness falsif...ies everything, whose wick is in permanent danger of explosion, whose blinking illumination in the coal dust exhausts and corrodes your eyes.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Shea--they call him Scholar Jack-- Went down the list of the dead.... Officers, seamen, gunners, marines, The crews of the gig and yawl, The bearded man and the lad in his teens, Carpenters, coal-passers--all.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Summer is different. We now have breakfast together, for example ... it hasn't happened in so long that we're not sure how to go a...bout it. So we bump into each other in the kitchen. I never saw Ozzie and Harriet bump into each other in the kitchen--not once. Ozzie knew his place was at the table, while Harriet knew that her place was at the stove.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Mr. Christian, it is about time for many people to begin to come to the White House to discuss different phases of the coal strike.... When anybody comes, if his special problem concerns the state, refer him to the governor of Pennsylvania. If his problem has a national phase, refer him to the United States Coal Commission. In no event bring him to me.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For every nineteenth-century middle-class family that protected its wife and child within the family circle, there was an Irish or... a German girl scrubbing floors in that home, a Welsh boy mining coal to keep the home-baked goodies warm, a black girl doing the family laundry, a black mother and child picking cotton to be made into clothes for the family, and a Jewish or an Italian daughter in a sweatshop making "ladies" dresses or artificial flowers for the family to purchase.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »