Dressing up is a bore. At a certain age, you decorate yourself to attract the opposite sex, and at a certain age, I did that. But ...I'm past that age.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates--but pages Might be filled up, as vainly as before,... With the sad usage of all sorts of sages, Who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore! The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only thos...e, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag--and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement. Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty--and vice versa. Don't read a book out of its right time for you.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Up from the South at break of day, Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,... The affrighted air with a shudder bore, Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain's door, The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar, Telling the battle was on once more, And Sheridan twenty miles away.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Some years ago, writing about stage adaptations of fiction, I noted: "There is a simple law governing the dramatization of novels:... if it is worth doing, it can't be done; if it can be done, it's not worth doing." Certain reviewers did me the honor of calling this Simon's Law, and I might as well state it now as far as the screen is concerned, "Simon's Law" may still serve as a useful warning but has no legality. For two reasons. First, because unlike the stage, the screen possesses as many resources as fiction, so that, for example, extended narration is possible on screen, backed up by an extensive visual scenario, but not on the stage, where it must become monotonous; similarly, stream of consciousness has its filmic equivalents in montage, voice-over dialogue, closeups and extreme closeups, dissolves, etc., whereas on stage, as mere verbiage, it cannot fail to bore. Secondly, because the screen can fully illustrate what the novel can only name or describe. Of course, this is a mixed blessing, because such illustration can make things overexplicit and oppressive; still, it is there as a resource for those who can effectively handle it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
They darted down and rose up like a wave Or buzzed impetuously as before;... One would have thought the corpse was held a slave To living by the life it bore!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We had made about fifty miles this day with sail and oar, and now, far in the evening, our boat was grating against the bulrushes ...of its native port, and its keel recognized the Concord mud, where some semblance of its outline was preserved in the flattened flags which had scarce yet erected themselves since our departure; and we leaped gladly on shore, drawing it up and fastening it to the wild apple tree, whose stem still bore the mark which its chain had worn in the chafing of the spring freshets.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The nearest beach to us on the other side, whither we looked, due east, was on the coast of Galicia, in Spain, whose capital is Sa...ntiago, though by old poets' reckoning it should have been Atlantis or the Hesperides; but heaven is found to be farther west now.... A little south of east was Palos, where Columbus weighed anchor, and farther yet the pillars which Hercules set up; concerning which when we inquired at the top of our voices what was written on them,--for we had the morning sun in our faces, and could not see distinctly,--the inhabitants shouted Ne plus ultra (no more beyond), but the wind bore to us the truth only, plus ultra (more beyond), and over the Bay westward was echoed ultra (beyond). We spoke to them through the surf about the Far West, the true Hesperia, heos peras or end of the day, the This Side Sundown, where the sun was extinguished in the Pacific, and we advised them to pull up stakes and plant those pillars of theirs on the shore of California, whither all our folks were gone,--the only ne plus ultra now. Whereat they looked crestfallen on their cliffs, for we had taken the wind out of all their sails.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What's the use of worrying? It never was worth while,... So, pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag, And smile, smile, smile.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »