Music is our myth of the inner life.
—Susanne K. Langer, 1942
Archive
Quotes
At the start there’s always energy.
—Suzan-Lori Parks, 2006Attacks on me will do no harm, and silent contempt is the best answer to them.
—James Monroe, 1808The dead are often just as living to us as the living are, only we cannot get them to believe it. They can come to us, but till we die we cannot go to them. To be dead is to be unable to understand that one is alive.
—Samuel Butler, c. 1888Give us this day our television, and an automobile, but deliver us from freedom.
—Jean-Luc Godard, 1966The worship of opinion is, at this day, the established religion of the United States.
—Harriet Martineau, 1839Whoever expects to walk peacefully in the world must be money’s guest.
—Norman O. Brown, 1959A change in the weather is sufficient to create the world and oneself anew.
—Marcel Proust, c. 1920Spit not in the well; you may have to drink its water.
—French proverbOur enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.
—George W. Bush, 2004To put one’s trust in God is only a longer way of saying that one will chance it.
—Samuel Butler, c. 1890Technology is so much fun, but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge.
—Daniel Boorstin, 1978A brilliant boxing match, quicksilver in its motions, transpiring far more rapidly than the mind can absorb, can have the power that Emily Dickinson attributed to great poetry: you know it’s great when it takes the top of your head off.
—Joyce Carol Oates, 1987