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.

Term of Art: Principal Verb

Posted on October 6, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Principal Verb: The predicating verb in a main clause or sentence.”

Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

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Write It Right: At for By

Posted on October 6, 2020 | Leave a comment

“At for By. ‘She was shocked at this conduct.’ This very common solecism is without excuse.”

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

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Ancient Near Eastern Art

Posted on October 5, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Ancient Near Eastern Art: Collective term for the art of ancient cultures (ca. 3500 B.C. to ca. 650 A.D.) in Mesopotamia, Iran, and the Levant. Some of the most important were Sumerian (Mesopotamia), Assyrian (Mesopotamia, the Levant), Hittite (Anatolia), and Achaemenian, Parthian, and Sassanian Persian (Iran).”

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

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Term of Art: Prepositional Phrase

Posted on October 5, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Prepositional Phrase: A group of words consisting of a preposition, its object, and any of the object’s modifiers. Georgia on my mind.”

Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

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Term of Art: War of Attrition

Posted on October 5, 2020 | Leave a comment

“War of Attrition Situation in which, as on the Western Front in World War I, both sides appear equally balanced, are unable to conduct a war of movement, and are restricted to wearing the enemy down militarily, industrially, and psychologically.”

Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.

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A Rotten Reviews Omnibus: William S. Burroughs

Posted on October 4, 2020 | Leave a comment

The Ticket That Exploded

“The works of William Burroughs…have been taken seriously, even solemnly, by some literary types, including Mary McCarthy and Norman Mailer. Actually, Burroughs’s work adds up to the world’s pluperfect put-on.

Time

Naked Lunch

“…the merest trash, not worth a second look.”

New Republic

Nova Express

“…The book is unnecessary,”

Granville Hicks, The New Republic 

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

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One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Posted on October 2, 2020 | Leave a comment

“One Hundred Years of Solitude: (Spanish title Cien anos de soledad). A novel (1967; English translation 1970) by the Columbian Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1928-2014), generally regarded as the archetypal example of Latin American magical realism. The setting is the small, isolated Columbian village of Macondo, a fictional community that had previously appeared in Garcia Marquez’s La hojarasca (1955; Leafstorm and Other Stories) and in La mala hora (1962; In Evil Hour). The novel follows seven generations of the increasingly inbred Buendia family, the founders of the village, and their story parallels the history of Columbia itself.”

Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.

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Book of Answers: The Bloomsbury Group

Posted on October 2, 2020 | Leave a comment

“What gave the Bloomsbury Group its name? The group of writers and thinkers, which included Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, and Lytton Strachey, among others, was named for the place where they held their meetings, 46 Gordon Square, in Bloomsbury, London.”

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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Spectrum Palette

Posted on October 2, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Spectrum Palette: The restricted palette first used by the French Impressionists, consisting of the colors of the spectrum (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet) plus white.”

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

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Term of Art: Preposition

Posted on October 2, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Preposition: A word that relates its object (a noun, pronoun, or -ing verb form) to another word in the sentence. She is the leader of our group. We opened the door by picking the lock. She went out the window.”

Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

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