The impulse to perfection cannot exist where the definition of perfection is the arbitrary decision of authority. That which is bo...rn in loneliness and from the heart cannot be defended against the judgment of a committee of sycophants. The volatile essences which make literature cannot survive the clichés of a long series of story conferences.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. Permanence is but a word of degrees. Our globe seen by God is... a transparent law, not a mass of facts. The law dissolves the fact and holds it fluid.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The vanishing volatile froth of the present which any shadow will alter, any thought blow away, any event annihilate, is every mom...ent converted into the Adamantine Record of the past.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
America--rather, the United States--seems to me to be the Jew among the nations. It is resourceful, adaptable, maligned, envied, f...eared, imposed upon. It is warm-hearted, overfriendly; quick-witted, lavish, colorful; given to extravagant speech and gestures; its people are travelers and wanderers by nature, moving, shifting, restless; swarming in Fords, in ocean liners; craving entertainment; volatile. The schnuckle among the nations of the world.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
You ask can we ever trust the Bear?... I will give you several answers at once. The first is no, we can never trust the Bear. For ...one reason, the Bear doesn't trust himself. The Bear is threatened and the Bear is frightened and the Bear is falling apart. The Bear is disgusted with his past, sick of his present and scared stiff of his future. He often was. The Bear is broke, lazy, volatile, incompetent, slippery, dangerously proud, dangerously armed, sometimes brilliant, often ignorant. Without his claws, he'd be just another chaotic member of the Third World.... The second answer is yes, we can trust the Bear completely. The Bear has never been so trustworthy. The Bear is begging to be part of us, to submerge his problems in us, to have his own bank account with us, to shop in our High Street and be accepted as a dignified member of our forest as well as his.... The Bear needs us so desperately that we may safely trust him to need us.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The volatile truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the residual statement. Their truth is instantly trans...lated; its literal monument alone remains.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »