12. Historians today rely on classics like Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, Caesar’s Gallic War, and Tacitus’s Histories. The earliest copies we have for these date from 1,300, 900, and 700 years after the original writing, respect...
The book argues that even though many cases have been held up as classic examples of modern American “witch hunts,” none of them fits that description. McMartin certainly comes close. But a careful examination of the evidence presented at trial d...
As a child, I read because books–violent and not, blasphemous and not, terrifying and not–were the most loving and trustworthy things in my life. I read widely, and loved plenty of the classics so, yes, I recognized the domestic terrors faced by ...
Commenting acidly on a writer whom I perhaps too naively admired, my old classics teacher put on his best sneer to ask: 'Wouldn't you say, Hitchens, that his writing was somewhat ?' This lofty schoolmaster employed my name sarcastically, and stressed...
Every age, every culture, every custom and tradition has its own character, its own weakness and its own strength, its beauties and ugliness; accepts certain sufferings as matters of course, puts up patiently with certain evils. Human life is reduced...
Willard: Could we, uh... talk to Colonel Kurtz? Photojournalist: Hey, man, you don't talk to the Colonel. You listen to him. The man's enlarged my mind. He's a poet warrior in the classic sense. I mean sometimes he'll... uh... well, you'll say "hello...
I have been studying for forty years, which is to say forty wasted years; I teach others yet am ignorant of everything; this state of affairs fills my soul with so much humiliation and disgust that my life is intolerable. I was born in Time, I live i...
..(l'architecte) il compose la musique que d'autres vont jouer. De plus, afin de vraiment comprendre ce qu'est l'architecture, il faut se rappeler que les gens qui l'interprètent ne sont pas des musiciens sensibles qui jouent la partition de quelqu'...
You are in his car and your words taste like honey. The suns yolk is stretching over the road, with hues of pink and red ribbon pressed against the bruises of the sky. He is talking about mechanics or sugar factories, and you are touching the rings o...
THE POEMS OF OUR CLIMATE I Clear water in a brilliant bowl, Pink and white carnations. The light In the room more like a snowy air, Reflecting snow. A newly-fallen snow At the end of winter when afternoons return. Pink and white carnations - one desi...
Charlie: I'll tell you a story about my father, that car in the garage, was off limits to me. He said it was a classic, it demands respect. One day, I'm a sophomore in high school, I bring home a report card, it's almost all A's so I go to the old ma...
Chloë: There's never been a classic movie made in Bruges until now. Ray: Of course there hasn't. It's a shithole. Chloë: Bruges is my home town, Ray. Ray: Well, it's still a shithole. Chloë: It's not a shithole! Ray: What? Even midgets have to tak...
On writing, my advice is the same to all. If you want to be a writer, write. Write and write and write. If you stop, start again. Save everything that you write. If you feel blocked, write through it until you feel your creative juices flowing again....
(about William Blake) As for Blake's happiness--a man who knew him said: "If asked whether I ever knew among the intellectual, a happy man, Blake would be the only one who would immediately occur to me." And yet this creative power in Blake did not c...
Well, Betsy," he said, "your mother tells me that you are going to use Uncle Keith's trunk for a desk. That's fine. You need a desk. I've often noticed how much you like to write. The way you eat up those advertising tablets from the store! I never s...
