Category Archives: Quotes

As every second post on this site is a quote. You’ll find a deep and broad variety of quotes under this category, which overlap with several other tags and categories. Many of the quotes are larded with links for deeper reading on the subject of the quote, or connections between the subject of the quotes and other people, things, or ideas. See the Taxonomies page for more about this category.

The Devil’s Dictionary: Abstruseness

Posted on January 6, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Abstruseness, n. The bait of a bare hook.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000. 

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Ad Nauseam

Posted on January 5, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Ad Nauseam To the point of vomiting: to a sickening or wearisome degree, unrelievedly.

‘Henry Miller couldn’t feel anything and dug graves for a living. William Burroughs was an exterminator, Carl Sandburg was a janitor, Faulkner had to run rum, and so on, ad nauseam.’ Robert Hendrickson, The Literary Life”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

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Term of Art: Excursus

Posted on January 4, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Excursus: (Latin ‘running out’) A detailed examination and analysis of a point often added as an appendix to a book. An incidental discussion or digression.”

Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992.

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Term of Art: Antonym

Posted on December 18, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Antonym: One of two words or other expressions that have opposite meanings: fast and slow, hot and cold. Some words are antonymous in some contexts but not others: straight is the opposite of bent/curved, but is the antonym of gay in the context of homosexuality. Linguists identify three different types of antonymy: (1) Gradable antonyms, which operate on a continuum: (very) big, (very) small. Such pairs often occur in binomial phrases with and: (blow) hot and cold, (search) high and low. (2) Complementary antonyms, which express an either/or relationship: dead or alive, male or female. (3) Converse or relational antonyms, expressing reciprocity: borrow or lend, buy or sell, wife or husband.”

Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005

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Hieratic

Posted on December 17, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Hieratic: An expression used to designate the severe, stylized forms of Byzantine art (and its derivatives) in which the presentation of the sacredness of a person or thing takes precedence over any naturalistic qualities.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

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Henry Adams on Experience

Posted on December 17, 2020 | Leave a comment

“All experience is an arch, to build upon.”

Henry Adams

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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Rotten Reviews: Castle to Castle by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Posted on December 16, 2020 | Leave a comment

“…quite a tedious book.”

John Weightman, New York Review of Books 

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.    

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Write It Right: Both

Posted on December 16, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Both. This word is frequently misplaced; as, ‘A large mob, both of men and women.’ Say, of both men and women.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

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Book of Answers: Willing Suspension of Disbelief

Posted on December 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Who coined the term ‘willing suspension of disbelief’? Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his critical treatise Biographia Literaria (1817). Coleridge used the term to refer to the ‘poetic faith’ of a reader in accepting imaginary elements in a literary work.”

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

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Vorticism

Posted on December 14, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Vorticism: An English movement, founded by Wyndham Lewis in 1912 and named by Ezra Pound, which reacted against Cubism and Futurism (while owing much of its outlook and style to them). The compositions were abstract geometric forms organized in arcs around a focal point (vortex). The chief aim seems to have been to make the British aware of advanced movements in modern art on the continent and elsewhere.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

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