“I know no other way out of what is both the maze of the eternal present and the prison of the self except with a string of words.” KnowsWaySelfEternalPrisonStringsSimileMazesHyperbole Author:Lewis H. Lapham
“Let the rabbit of free enterprise out of its velveteen bag and too many people would have to be fired, too much idiocy exposed to the light of judgment or ridicule, too much vanity sacrificed to the fires of efficiency. Such a catastrophe obviously would threaten the American way of life, to say nothing of the belief in free markets.” PeopleWayLightBeliefFireToo MuchJudgmentVanityEnterpriseBagsExposedEfficiencyCatastropheRidiculeFree MarketRabbitsFree EnterpriseIdiocyAmerican Way Of Life Book:Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on the Civil Religion Source: Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on the Civil Religion
“The practice of our democracy depends on a sense of, and knowledge of, history in the same way that playing in the World Series requires a bat and a ball.” WorldWayPracticeDemocracyDependsBallsSeriesBatsWorld Series Author:Lewis H. Lapham
“The figure of the enthusiast who has just discovered jogging or a new way to fix tofu can be said to stand or, more accurately, to tremble on the threshold of conversion, as the representative American” WaySaidFiguresConversionEnthusiasmRepresentativesNew WaysThresholdJoggingTofu Author:Lewis H. Lapham
“Seeking the invisible through the imagery of the visible, the Americans never can get quite all the way to the end of the American dream.” WayEndsDreamSeekingInvisibleVisibleAmerican DreamImagery Book:Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on the Civil Religion Source: Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on the Civil Religion
“From authors whom I read more than once I learn to value the weight of words and to delight in their meter and cadence -- in Gibbon's polyphonic counterpoint and Guedalla's command of the subjunctive, in Mailer's hyperbole and Dillard's similes, in Twain's invectives and burlesques with which he set the torch of his ferocious wit to the hospitality tents of the world's colossal humbug . . . I know no other way out of what is both the maze of the eternal present and the prison of the self except with a string of words.” KnowsWorldWaySelfValuesEternalWeightPrisonDelightWitCommandStringsHospitalitySimileTorchesTentsMeterMazesColossalCadenceHumbugHyperbole Author:Lewis H. Lapham
