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.

Charles Dickens: Great Expectations

Posted on July 7, 2018 | Leave a comment

“A novel by Charles Dickens (1812-70), published in 1860-1. The ‘expectations’ are those of the central character, Pip, who starts as a simple country boy. As he grows older he receives money and hints that he might expect much more; he sets himself up as a gentleman and disowns his humble beginnings. He believes the elderly Miss Havisham is his benefactor, but it turns out to be Magwitch, the convict he helped to escape as a child. He is spoilt by his expectations, but when penury strikes he returns to a life of honest toil.”

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

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Rotten Reviews: From Here to Eternity by James Jones

Posted on July 6, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Certainly America has something better to offer the world, along with its arms and its armies, than such a confession of spiritual vacuum as this.”

Christian Science Monitor

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

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1,003 Conquests of Don Giovanni

Posted on July 6, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Leporello, manservant of the fictional rake Don Giovanni (Don Juan), revealed that his master made 1,003 sexual conquests in his Spanish homeland…as well as 640 in Italy, 231 in Germany, 100 in France, and 91 in Turkey. Of course, it must be remembered that Leporello’s purpose was to gently persuade Donna Elvira not to put too much trust in his master–and to amuse an operatic audience. Still, Don Giovanni’s figures stack up well alongside his historic rivals. Casanova claimed to have slept with a mere 122 women. Byron (who wrote his own Don Juan) raced through more than 300 women (plus numerous rent boys and transvestites) before his early death in Greece, aged 36.”

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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Cornice (n)

Posted on June 27, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Any ornamental molding that completes the part to which it is attached. A cornice is a common architectural member on facades, but applies to a molding at the junction of a wall and ceiling as well. In classical architecture, it is the crowning molding of an entablature.”

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

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Kazuo Ishiguro’s An Artist of the Floating World

Posted on June 26, 2018 | Leave a comment

“A novel (1986) by the Japanese-born British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro (b. 1954), about a Japanese artist looking back on his life after the Second World War.

‘The floating world’ is a Japanese euphemism for the entertainment districts of Japanese cities, scenes from which were depicted in the genre titled Ukiyo-e (‘pictures of the floating world’), a type of painting particularly popular during the Tokugawa period (1603-1867) in Japan. Subjects included courtesans, actors, scenes from plays and erotica. A well-known work of fiction from the period is Ukiyo Monogatari (c. 1661; ‘tales of the floating world’) by the Samurai turned novelist Asai Ryoi.”

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

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Rotten Rejections: The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

Posted on June 26, 2018 | Leave a comment

“It is very interesting and has several good points, but it not quite suitable for our list.”

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

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The Algonquin Wits: Heywood Broun on Gasbags

Posted on June 26, 2018 | Leave a comment

“At a newsmen’s banquet President Harding appeared as guest speaker and delivered what struck Broun as the epitome of cliche-ridden ghost-written addresses. After a brief moment of respectful applause, Broun rose from his chair and cried ‘Author! Author!'”

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

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Term of Art: Deus ex Machina

Posted on June 26, 2018 | Leave a comment

“(Latin ‘god out of the machine’) In Greek drama a god was lowered out onto the stage by a mechane so that he could get the hero out of difficulties and untangle the plot. Euripides used it a good deal. Sophocles and Aeschylus avoided it. Bertolt Brecht parodied the abuse of the device at the end of his Threepenny Opera. Today this phrase is applied to any unanticipated intervener who resolves a difficult situation, in any literary genre.”

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

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Animal Farm

Posted on June 25, 2018 | Leave a comment

“A satire in fable form by George Orwell (1903-1950) published in 1945 and depicting a totalitarian regime like that of the Soviet Union under Stalin. The story describes how the animals, accompanied by the slogan ‘Four legs good, two legs bad,’ overthrow their human oppressors. However, the pigs, by cunning treachery and ruthlessness, come to dominate the more honest, gullible, and hard-working animals. Their ultimate slogan is: ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’ The leader of the pigs is Napoleon, representing Stalin, and at the end the pigs are in cahoots with the humans, even beginning to totter around on two legs. An animated film of the novel appeared in 1955.”

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

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A Philosophical Take on Concepts

Posted on June 24, 2018 | Leave a comment

“A concept is that which is understood by a term, particularly a predicate. To possess a concept is to be able to deploy a term expressing it in making judgements: the ability connects with such things as recognizing when the term applied, and being able to tell the consequences of its application. The term “idea” was formerly used in the same way, but is avoided because of its associations with subjective and mental imagery, which may be irrelevant to the possession of a concept. In the semantics of Frege, a concept is the reference of a predicate, and cannot be referred to by as subjective term.”

Excerpted from: Blackburn, Simon. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

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