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.

Rotten Reviews: Nova Express by William S. Burroughs

Posted on November 1, 2019 | Leave a comment

“…The book is unnecessary.”

Granville Hicks, Saturday Review

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

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David Lodge on Narrative

Posted on November 1, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Narrative, whatever its medium, holds the interest of the audience by raising questions in their minds and delaying the answers…. The questions are broadly of two kinds, have to do with causality (e.g. whodunit?) and temporality (what will happen next?).”

David Lodge

The Art of Fiction

Excerpted from: Wiggins, Grant, and Jay McTighe. Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 1998.

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Term of Art: Rapport

Posted on November 1, 2019 | Leave a comment

“rapport n.: A sympathetic or harmonious relationship or state of mutual understanding. The word was introduced into psychology by the Viennese physician Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815), and the French psychologist and neurologist Pierre Janet (1859-1947) confined its meaning specifically to the relationship between a hypnotist and a hypnotized subject; then Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) eventually widened its meaning and described it as the prototype (2) of  the transference.

[From French rapporter, to bring back, from re-again and apportare, to carry to, from Latin apportare to bring to, from, ad to + portare to bring or carry]”

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

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The Devil’s Dictionary: Hell

Posted on October 30, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Hell, n. The residence of the late Noah Webster, dictionary-maker.”

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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Guys and Dolls

Posted on October 30, 2019 | Leave a comment

“A collection of stories (1931) by the US writer Damon Runyon (1884-1946), comprising amusing tales of gangster life, told in Runyon’s colorful version of New York underworld patois. The first collection was followed by several others, and the stories feature characters such as Joe the Joker, Nicely-Nicely, Apple Annie, and Regret the Horseplayer. The musical comedy entitled Guys and Dolls (1950), based on Runyon’s stories and with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser (1910-69) and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, focuses on the romance that develops between a Salvation Army worker (representing the ‘dolls’) and gambler Sky Masterson (representing the ‘guys’). It was filmed in 1955 starring Frank Sinatra, Marlon Brando, and Jean Simmons.”

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

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Helen Prejean on the Death Penalty

Posted on October 29, 2019 | Leave a comment

“[On her opposition to the death penalty:] People are more than the worst thing they have ever done in their lives.”

Sister Helen Prejean

Quote in N.Y. Times Magazine, 9 May 1993

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

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Term of Art: Caesarism

Posted on October 29, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Caesarism: Governmental system similar to that established by Julius Caesar (101-44 BC) in ancient Rome, that is, a semi-popular system of dictatorship, the dictator being enabled to seize power by the support of the army, a party or section of the people. Once in power, the dictator preserves the outward democratic forms with impotent parliaments, rigged elections and manipulations of the plebiscite. The property-owning class has its privileges and power curtailed, but is still protected from the poor. Egalitarian sentiments are expressed and the dictator claims to derive power from the people. Bonapartism is a variant of the model. Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), the German political philosopher, held that Caesarism would replace democracy in the 20th century since it was a trend to emerge in all civilizations at a certain point in their development.”

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

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Gordon W. Allport

Posted on October 29, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Allport, Gordon W. (1897-1967) A leading American social psychologist who became head of the Harvard Department of Psychology in 1938. His most significant contributions include a theory of personality which highlighted the self and the proprium, the latter defined ‘all the regions of our life that we regard as peculiarly ours’ (see Becoming, 1955); studies of the importance of prejudice as a historical and cultural, as well as a psychological, phenomenon; an emphasis on the importance of personal documents in social science (such as his collection of Letters from Jenny, 1965); and his championing of the ideographic method.”

Excerpted from: Matthews, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

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Bestiaries

Posted on October 28, 2019 | Leave a comment

“bestiaries: Allegorical poems or books giving descriptions of various animals or stories concerning them, with Christian application or moral appended to each. Although the characteristics and habits assigned to each animal were largely legendary, bestiaries were often treated during the Middle Ages as treatises on natural history, as well as moral instruction, and were highly popular.

The beast-fable, popular from Aesop to the medieval Roman de Renart, was usually satirical and pragmatic in its moral; a 4th-century work in Greek was probably the first to turn animal descriptions into specifically Christian allegory, and its translations into Latin Physiologi were the basis of most English and Continental bestiaries. The best known are the Latin Physiologus (11th century) by the abbot Theobaldus, the Bestiary by the Anglo-Norman poet Phillippe de Thaun, and an anonymous Middle English Bestiary (c1250).”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

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Write It Right: Which for That

Posted on October 28, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Which for That. “The boat which I engaged had a hole in it.” But a parenthetical clause may rightly be introduced by which; as, The boat, which had a hole in it, I nevertheless engaged. Which and that are seldom interchangeable; when they are, use that. It sounds better.”

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

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