The best novelist of my generation is an Italian living in Paris, still working and improving – Italo Calvino.
Prepare yourself for some bad news: Ronald Reagan’s library just burned down. Both books were destroyed. But the real horror: He hadn’t finished coloring either one of them.
On the throne of the world, any delusion can become fact.
Once a country is habituated to liars, it takes generations to get the truth back.
Let the dust take me when the adventure’s done and I shall make the dust glitter for all eternity with my marvelous fury.
Always beware of the fact, that the only thing hindering an all out revolution is your fear of losing the scraps they throw at you. – Twitter post, July 29, 2012.
To be categorized is, simply, to be enslaved.
A court is the most depressing place on earth. Wherever there is a throne, one may observe in rich detail every folly and wickedness of which man is capable, enameled with manners and gilded with hypocrisy.
Although we regularly stigmatize other societies as rogue states, we ourselves have become the largest rogue state of all. We honor no treaties. We spurn international courts. We strike unilaterally wherever we choose. We give orders to the United Nations but do not pay our dues. We complain of terrorism, yet our empire is now the greatest terrorist of all. We bomb, invade, subvert other states.
Seward appreciated the honest and open way that Stanton lied; it was the hallmark of the truly great lawyer, and demonstrated a professional mastery not unlike his own.
All over Greece, strangers of a certain age will greet one another with the question, “And where were you and what did you do when Xerxes came to Marathon?” Then they exchange lies.
Beneath my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find cold water.
As Seward did not understand the reference, he did not ask for an explanation. In any case, he had a constitutional dislike of being told things that he did not know, as opposed to ferreting them out.
None of this is quite true but Leggett feels that to be excitingly right in general is better than to be dully accurate in particular. That is why he is such an effective journalist.
I realize,” said Sumner, “that the press is hardly reliable.” Lincoln turned from the window; suddenly, he grinned. “Oh, yes, they are. They lie. And then they re-lie. So they are nothing if not re-lie-able.
I would not be surprised if elephants are more intelligent than human beings. After all, their heads are larger than ours, and the fact that they do not speak might well be an indication of superiority.
I have never been an eavesdropper, even in childhood. Not from any sense of virtue but because I really do not want to know what people think of me or, to be precise, what they say of me – often a different matter. I can usually imagine the unpleasant judgements, for we are what others needs us to be. That is why our reputations change so often and so drastically, reflecting no particular change in us, merely a change in the mood of those who observe us.
I think there should be a constitutional amendment making it impossible for anyone to be president who believes in an afterlife.
In the twentieth century, science has been everything and the arts almost nothing by comparison. As a result, many artists now pretend to be scientists. They try to imitate the strategies of science. Paintings that talk. Sculpture that swims. Books that turn to ash. New formulas just like the scientist. But that isn’t science of course, nor is it art. Just the end of the road.
Many years ago, there used to be something called ‘conflict of interest.’ No longer, I’m afraid. Today, we all bathe in the same river.