A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man. It is a bugbear to the imagination, and, though we do not beli...eve in it, it still haunts our apprehensions.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It all ended with the circuslike whump of a monstrous box on the ear with which I knocked down the traitress who rolled up in a ba...ll where she had collapsed, her eyes glistening at me through her spread fingers--all in all quite flattered, I think. Automatically, I searched for something to throw at her, saw the china sugar bowl I had given her for Easter, took the thing under my arm and went out, slamming the door.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razorstrap. A thin book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster to steady ...it. A large, flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a broken pane. And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to throw at a noisy cat.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Laughing at someone else is an excellent way of learning how to laugh at oneself; and questioning what seem to be the absurd belie...fs of another group is a good way of recognizing the potential absurdity of many of one's own cherished beliefs.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The creeks ... are an active mystery, fresh every minute. Theirs is the mystery of continuous creation and all that providence imp...lies: the uncertainty of vision, the horror of the fixed, the dissolution of the present, the intricacy of beauty, the pressure of fecundity, the elusiveness of the free, and the flawed nature of perfection. The mountains ... are a passive mystery, the oldest of all. Theirs is the one simple mystery of creation from nothing, of matter itself, anything at all, the given. Mountains are giant, restful, absorbent. You can heave your spirit into a mountain and the mountain will keep it, folded, and not throw it back as some creeks will. The creeks are the world with all its stimulus and beauty; I live there. But the mountains are home.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 »
A cultivated style would be like a mask. Everybody knows it's a mask, and sooner or later you must show yourself--or at least, you... show yourself as someone who could not afford to show himself, and so created something to hide behind.... You do not create a style. You work, and develop yourself; your style is an emanation from your own being.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I find in myself to-day the same spring of desire to learn all that I can, to read and study that has been mine from childhood; th...e same impulse to undertake the difficult enterprise whatever it may be, and the same readiness to throw caution overboard and attempt a task that requires labour and pains, that I have had at any previous moment.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... women are supposed to be unfit to vote because they are hysterical and emotional and of course men would not like to have emot...ion enter into a political campaign. They want to cut out all emotion and so they would like to cut us out. I had heard so much about our emotionalism that I went to the last Democratic national convention, held at Baltimore, to observe the calm repose of the male politicians. I saw some men take a picture of one gentleman whom they wanted elected and it was so big they had to walk sidewise as they carried it forward; they were followed by hundreds of other men screaming and yelling, shouting and singing the "Houn' Dawg".... I saw men jump up on the seats and throw their hats in the air and shout: "What's the matter with Champ Clark?" Then, when those hats came down, other men would kick them back into the air, shouting at the top of their voices: "He's all right!!"... No hysteria about it--just patriotic loyalty, splendid manly devotion to principle. And so they went on and on until 5 o'clock in the morning--the whole night long. I saw men jump up on their seats and jump down again and run around in a ring. I saw two men run towards another man to hug him both at once and they split his coat up the middle of his back and sent him spinning around like a wheel. All this with the perfect poise of the legal male mind in politics! I have been to many women's conventions in my day but I never saw a woman leap up on a chair and take off her bonnet and toss it up in the air and shout: "What's the matter with" somebody. I never saw a woman knock another woman's bonnet off her head as she screamed, "She's all right!".... But we are willing to admit that we are emotional. I have actually seen women stand up and wave their handkerchiefs. I have even seen them take hold of hands and sing, "Blest be the tie that binds." Nobody doubts that women are excitable.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »