“When you realize that your history books and your science books and your literature books are not the result of experts sitting down and making it a wise decision, but of political pressure groups coming to the state textbook hearings, this is wrong.” BookStatesPoliticalLiteratureRealizingDecisionResultsWiseGroupsSittingPressureDown AndHearingExpertsTextbooksSitting DownHistory BooksWise DecisionScience BooksPressure Groups Author:Diane Ravitch
“During the last quarter of a century all the authority associated with the function of spiritual guidance ... has seeped down into the lowest publications. ... Between a poem by Valéry and an advertisement for a beauty cream promising a rich marriage to anyone who used it there was at no point a breach of continuity. So as a result of literature's spiritual usurpation a beauty cream advertisement possessed, in the eyes of little village girls, the authority that was formerly attached to the words of priests.” LittlesEyeLastsSpiritualUsedGirlLiteratureResultsRichCenturyAuthorityFunctionGuidancePriestsVillageQuartersPossessedCreamLowestNo PointContinuityPublicationAdvertisementsBreachUsurpationSpiritual GuidanceQuarter Of A Century Author:Simone Weil
“Publishers, theatrical managers, and critics ask not for the quality inherent in creative art, but will it meet with a good sale, will it suit the palate of the people? Alas, this palate is like a dumping ground; it relishes anything that needs no mental mastication. As a result, the mediocre, the ordinary, the commonplace represents the chief literary output.” PeopleNeedsArtAsksLiteratureResultsQualityCreativeOrdinaryCriticsSuitsChiefsManagersInherentMediocrePublishersAlasCommonplaceTheatricalRelishOutputCreative ArtPalate Book:Anarchism: Top Crime Collections Source: Anarchism: Top Crime Collections
“Literature, like magic, has always been about the handling of secrets, about the pain, the destruction, and the marvelous liberation that can result when they are revealed. If a writer doesn't give away secrets, his own or those of the people he loves, if he doesn't court disapproval, reproach and general wrath, whether of friends, family or party apparatchiks... the result is pallid, inanimate, a lump of earth.” PeopleIfsGivingEarthPainLiteratureResultsPartySecretMagicDestructionCourtLiberationMarvelousWrathReproachLumpsFamily FriendsDisapproval Author:Michael Chabon
“These self-appointed deacons in the Church of Latter-Day American Literature seem to regard generosity (of words) with suspicion, texture with dislike, and any broad literary stroke with outright hate. The result is a strange and arid literary climate where a meaningless little fingernail paring like Nicholson Baker's Vox becomes an object of fascinated debate and dissection, and a truly ambitious American novel like Matthew's Heart of the Country is all but ignored.” HeartLittlesSelfCountrySeemsHateLiteratureChurchResultsNovelObjectsStrangeRegardClimateDebateGenerosityLatterBroadsMeaninglessDislikeFascinatedAmbitiousSuspicionIgnoredStrokesTextureMatthewBakersAmerican LiteratureLatter DaysFingernailsNicholsonDissectionDeacons Author:Stephen King
“I was enthralled and moved by Azar Nafisi's account of how she defied, and helped others to defy, radical Islam's war against women. Her memoir contains important and properly complex reflections about the ravages of theocracy, about thoughtfulness, and about the ordeals of freedom-as well as a stirring account of the pleasures and deepening of consciousness that result from an encounter with great literature and with an inspired teacher.” WellsImportantWarLiteraturePleasureResultsConsciousnessTeacherReflectionAccountsMovedComplexesIslamInspiredMemoirRadicalEncountersStirringOrdealsThoughtfulnessTheocracyRadical IslamGreat Literature Author:Susan Sontag
“A great number of the disappointments and mishaps of the troubled world are the direct result of literature and the allied arts. It is our belief that no human being who devotes his life and energy to the manufacture of fantasies can be anything but fundamentally inadequate.” WorldHumansArtLiteratureBeliefEnergyHuman BeingsResultsNumbersFantasyDirectDisappointmentInadequateMishaps Author:Christopher Hampton
“Nine-tenths of English poetic literature is the result either of vulgar careerism or of a poet trying to keep his hand in. Most poets are dead by their late twenties.” TryingHandsPoetryLiteratureResultsPoetLateTwentiesNinePoeticVulgarLate Twenties Author:Robert Graves
“But that wasn't fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh dear me no, he had to invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolate them, With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiers to people they say Oh yes, they're the ones that a lot of wolves dressed up in gold and purple ate them.” PeopleEnoughLiteratureResultsLordFiguresSpeechGoldSoldierDearFancyTestamentPurpleOld TestamentDressed UpByronFigures Of SpeechDear Me Book:The primrose path Source: The primrose path
“As a result, the highly civilized man can endure incomparably more than the savage, whether of moral or physical strain. Being better able to control himself under all circumstances, he has a great advantage over the savage.” MenAbleLiteratureResultsMoralCircumstancesAdvantageEndureCivilizedSavagesStrain Book:Books and Habits Source: Books and Habits
“The physical act of meditating by closing one's eyes and slowing down the speed of internal thoughts - especially worrisome thinking - results in a physiological response that is well documented in the scientific literature.” ThinkingWellsEyeLiteratureResultsResponseSpeedInternalsSlow DownClosingMeditatingSlowingPhysiological Author:Tim McCarthy
“What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.” Would BeValuesLiteratureResultsToo MuchSeekingSiddhartha Book:Siddhartha Source: Siddhartha
“The executive branch maneuvered this result deftly.” LiteratureResultsBranchesExecutivesExecutive Branch Author:Andrew Cohen