“Ideas brush past fleeting and insubstantial as moths. But I let them go, I don’t want them. What I want is a voice.”— Joyce Carol Oates Having turned 88 last month, the American author Joyce… Read More
“No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.”— W.H. Auden So wrote the British poet W.H. Auden, during a period of his life after he had… Read More
“We have things that grow outside of the house but I wouldn’t really call it a garden.”— Roz Chast A prime attraction of The New Yorker for almost five decades, the cartoonist Roz Chast draws… Read More
“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally.”— Flannery O’Connor You won’t find photos of the American author Flannery O’Connor as an old woman, nor even really of a middle-aged… Read More
“A bore is a fellow who opens his mouth and puts his feats in it.”— Henry Ford Henry Ford’s well-known observation has a decent pun in it, as well as a sharp insight into human… Read More
“I began to understand that self-esteem isn’t everything; it’s just that there’s nothing without it.”— Gloria Steinem Self-esteem has been on my mind a bit lately, for a variety of reasons. One thing that has… Read More
“I was a voracious reader, but you would be mistaken if you took that as evidence of my quality.”— Mordecai Richler The phrase “voracious reader” can be a loaded one, often without meaning to be…. Read More
“I guess I don’t subscribe to the twee school. I remember trying to lose our copy of Thomas the Tank Engine before I had to read it again. Life is a more dimensional and interesting… Read More
“Where we have strong emotions, we’re liable to fool ourselves.”— Carl Sagan Carl Sagan uttered these words in the groundbreaking TV series Cosmos, which aired on PBS in the fall of 1980. Sagan’s documentaries, and… Read More
“I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not. And the government will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. Not now, not ever. The leader… Read More
“For better or worse, it is the commentator who has the last word.”— Vladimir Nabokov This observation from Vladimir Nabokov is spoken by one of the Russian-American novelist’s characters, and not a nice one, either…. Read More
“One should never trespass on kindness. Human kindness is like a defective tap: the first gush may be impressive, but the stream soon dries up.” — P.D. James I had come across a truncated version… Read More
“I hate it when actors use the word ‘journey.’ That’s not a f–king journey, winning a Spirit Award. Escaping from Ukraine is.” — John Waters I’ve been a fan of John Waters and his trashy-chic… Read More
“The other creatures with which we share this world have their rights too, but not speaking our language, they have no voice, no vote; it is our moral duty to take care of them.”— Roger… Read More
“Never apologize, never explain — didn’t we always say that? Well, I haven’t and I don’t.”— Marianne Faithfull Those words appear in the first of Marianne Faithfull’s memoirs, Faithfull: An Autobiography, which was published in… Read More