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.

Kingsley Amis on Reasons to Write

Posted on October 1, 2020 | Leave a comment

“If you can’t annoy somebody, there’s little point in writing.”

Kingsley Amis

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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Term of Art: Acute Stress Disorder

Posted on October 1, 2020 | Leave a comment

“acute stress disorder: A transient anxiety disorder following exposure to a traumatic event, with a similar pattern of symptoms to post-traumatic stress disorder plus symptoms of disassociation (such as dissociative amnesia, depersonalization, derealization) but occurring within four weeks of the traumatic event. If the symptoms persist beyond four weeks, then a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder may be considered.

[From the Latin acutus sharpened, from acuere, to sharpen, from acus a needle]”

Excerpted from: Colman, Andrew M., ed. Oxford Dictionary of Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

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Posted in Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

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Write it Right: At Auction for by Auction

Posted on October 1, 2020 | Leave a comment

“At auction for by Auction. ‘The goods were sold at auction.’”

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

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A Lexicon of Terms Related to Le Corbusier: Brutalism and Beton Brut

Posted on September 30, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Brutalism: A term coined by the British to characterize the style of Le Corbusier in the early 1950s and others inspired by him. His buildings at Marseilles, France, and Chandigarh, India, make use of Beton Brut. Increasingly occupied with sculptural effects, brutalist architects moved away from the geometric purism of the International Style.”

“Beton Brut: ‘Raw concrete’ is the result of pouring wet cement into a temporary form made of timber or metal. When the cement dries the form’s texture remains imprinted upon the surface. It’s an important element in the work of Le Corbusier.

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

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The Algonquin Wits: Robert E. Sherwood on Presidential Elections and Succession

Posted on September 30, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Discussing modern presidential history, Sherwood once stated: ‘All Coolidge had to do in 1924 was to keep his mean trap shut, to be elected. All Harding had to do in 1920 was repeat ‘avoid foreign entanglements.’ All Hoover had to in 1928 was to endorse Coolidge. All Roosevelt had to do in 1932 was to point to Hoover.’”

Robert E. Sherwood

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

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Posted in English Language Arts, New York City, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

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42—Life, The Universe, and Everything

Posted on September 30, 2020 | Leave a comment

“In Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the computer Deep Thought takes 7.5 million years to work out the Answer to the Ultimate Questions of Life, the Universe and Everything is ‘42’—even if in the process the question had been forgotten. It is an answer that must disconcert Japanese readers, for 42 in Japan is like 49 in Chinese: when pronounced ‘four’ and ‘two,’ it sounds horribly similar to ‘unto death.’”

Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.

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Term of Art: Predicate

Posted on September 28, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Predicate: The verb and its related words in a clause or sentence. The predicate expresses what the subject does, experiences, or is. Birds fly. The partygoers celebrated wildly for a long time.”

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

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Henry Adams on Politics

Posted on September 28, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Politics as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.”

Henry Adams

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

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Term of Art: Antonomasia

Posted on September 28, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Antonomasia: [Stress: ‘an-to-no-May-zy-a’]. 1. In rhetoric, the use of an epithet to acknowledge a quality in one person or place by using the name of another person or place already known for that quality: Henry is the local Casanova; Cambridge is England’s Silicon Valley. 2. The use of an epithet instead of the name of a person or thing: the Swan of Avon William Shakespeare.”

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

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Historical Term: Billeting

Posted on September 28, 2020 | Leave a comment

[Given the post immediately below this on, it’s worth mentioning that the Third Amendment to the United States Constitution–i.e. the third of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights, guaranteed this freedom: “No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.”]

“Billeting The custom of requiring householders to provide accommodation for members of the armed forces. The system was widely abused in the 17th century under Charles I and protests against it were included in the Petition of Right (1628). Despite the forbidding of forced billeting in 1679, it continued under Charles II and James II, ending only when parliament agreed to the building of permanent barracks in 1792.”

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

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