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Quote by John Dos Passos

“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men's reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”

Quote by John Dos Passos

Book:Occasions and protests

Work

Occasions and protests

This book delves into the complexities of numerous occasions and protests, analyzing their historical significance and societal implications. more

Author

John Dos Passos

John Dos Passos was an American novelist born on January 14, 1896, and died on September 28, 1970. His works are known for their unique narrative style and profound insights into the realities of American society. more

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“Man seems to be an animal whose capacity for lies is only equalled by his credulity; it does no good to let battalions of cats outof bags, to produce whole harems of naked facts, people eat the same three meals daily deception, and are always ready to turn with fury upon the purveyors of bagless cats and facts undraped. Probably their instinct is wise. Who knows?”

Source: The Fourteenth Chronicle: Letters and Diaries of John Dos Passos

“Three words that still have meaning, that I think we can apply to all professional writing, are discovery, originality, invention.The professional writer discovers some aspect of the world and invents out of the speech of his time some particularly apt and original way of putting it down on paper.”

Thinking World Way Writing Stills Three Speech Paper Discovery Aspect Originals Invention Prose Originality Three Words Professional Writing

Book:John Dos Passos: the major nonfictional prose

Source: John Dos Passos: the major nonfictional prose

“A set of ideas, a point of view, a frame of reference is in space only an intersection, the state of affairs at some given momentin the consciousness of one man or many men, but in time it has evolving form, virtually organic extension. In time ideas can be thought of as sprouting, growing, maturing, bringing forth seed and dying like plants.”

Source: The Ground We Stand on: The History of a Political Creed

“Women hock their jewels and their husbands' insurance policies to acquire an unaccustomed shade in hair or crêpe de chine. Why then is it that when anyone commits anything novel in the arts he should be always greeted by this same peevish howl of pain and surprise? One is led to suspect that the interest people show in these much talked of commodities, painting, music, and writing, cannot be very deep or very genuine when they so wince under an unexpected impact.”

“In a moment when criticism shows a singular dearth of direction every man has to be a law unto himself in matters of theatre, writing, and painting. While the American Mercury and the new Ford continue to spread a thin varnish of Ritz over the whole United States there is a certain virtue in being unfashionable.”

Source: John Dos Passos: the major nonfictional prose

“The Enormous Room seems to me to be the book that has nearest approached the mood of reckless adventure in which men will reach the white heat of imagination needed to fuse the soggy disjointed complexity of the industrial life about us into seething fluid of creation. There can be no more playing safe.”

Men Book Seems Imagination White Rooms Creativity Creation Adventure Needed Safe Mood Enormous Heat Complexity Prose Reckless Fluid Fuse Seething

Author:John Dos Passos

“Time has an undertaking establishment on every block and drives his coffin nails faster than the steam riveters rivet or the stenographers type or the tickers tick out fours and eights and dollar signs and ciphers.”

Death Time Type Dollars Block Faster Establishment Nails Steam Undertakings Coffins Tick Ciphers Fours

Book:Three Plays: The Garbage Man, Airways, Inc., Fortune Heights

Source: Three Plays: The Garbage Man, Airways, Inc., Fortune Heights

“Remember that it's never a crime in the face of humanity and enlightenment to distribute the works of the great humanists among the merchants and moneychangers of this godforsaken country... You better slip me the dough.”

Book Country Remember Faces Humanity Crime Enlightenment Slips Merchants Dough

Book:The 42nd Parallel

Source: The 42nd Parallel

“What's the use, there never was a woman living who could understand political ideas.”

Men Ideas Use Political Politics Men And Women Sexism

Book:1919: Volume Two of the U.S.A. Trilogy

Source: 1919: Volume Two of the U.S.A. Trilogy

“It's not the possibility of Stalinism in the U.S. that's worrying me, it's the fact that the Stalinist C.P. seems doomed to fail and to bring down with it all the humanitarian tendencies I personally believe in--all the while acting as a mould on which its obverse the fascist mentality is made--and this recent massacre is certainly a sign of Stalinism's weakness not of its strength. None of that has anything to do with Marx's work--but it certainly does influence one's attitude towards a given political party.”