Content is not mere facts, drummed into tender little minds under the relentless pounding of rote learning. Content--even the date of the Quebec Act, Confederation, or the Battle of Vimy Ridge, or the name of the first prime minister-- is cultural ca...
Show me you care about our common tongue. Bring to your [writing] passion, deeply informed by knowledge of your subject. Stay me, not with apples and flagons, but with wit and grace, humor and intense caring about your discipline. Don't slack, don't ...
Not long ago, having expressed some disagreements in print with an old comrade of long standing, I was sent a response that he had published in an obscure newspaper. This riposte referred to my opinions as ‘racist.’ I would obviously scorn to den...
If I understand you rightly, you had formed a surmise of such horror as I have hardly words to-- Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained. What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age...
Raymond: Yo, uncle! Dexter: Come look at this! Zeus: [looks at watch] It's ten after nine. Why aren't you in school? Raymond: Tony wants to sell you this. Zeus: Tony? That no-neck dude they call "Bad T"? Dexter: He says he found it in a dumpster. Zeu...
Dash: She would be eating if we were having Tony loaf. Violet: That's it! [jumps at Dash] Helen: Both of you sit down! [Dash runs around the table, hitting Violet as he passes her, until Violet makes a force field to stop him] Dash: Hey! No force fie...
Elaine Harper: Now, wait a minute! Listen! You can't marry me one minute and throw me out of the house the next. Mortimer Brewster: I am not throwing you out of the house, I am not throwing you out of the house! Will you get out of here? [pushes her ...
Bruce Wayne: [as Alfred opens the curtains] Bats are nocturnal. Alfred Pennyworth: Bats may be, but even for billionaire playboys, three o'clock is pushing it. The price of leading a double life, I fear. Your theatrics made an impression. [shows the ...
Her first really great role, the one that cemented the “Jean Arthur character,” was as the wisecracking big-city reporter who eventually melts for country rube Gary Cooper in Frank Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936). It was the first of thre...
Although drinking to the point of becoming incapacitated is unwise and risky for anyone, the blame for rape must be put on the rapist who preys on a drunk woman, not a drunk woman who becomes prey. If my car is stolen after I’ve parked it with the ...
It was not death, for I stood up, And all the dead lie down; It was not night, for all the bells Put out their tongues, for noon. It was not frost, for on my flesh I felt siroccos crawl, Nor fire, for just my marble feet Could keep a chancel cool. An...
Police and prosecutors are morally and professionally obligated to make every effort to identify specious rape reports, safeguard the civil rights of rape suspects, and prevent the falsely accused from being convicted. At the same time, however, poli...
Give me a scholar, therefore, who is able to think and to write, to look with an eye of discernment into things, and to do business himself, if called upon, who hath both civil and military knowledge; one, moreover, who has been in camps, and has see...
We underestimate the power of science, and overestimate the power of personal observation. A peer-reviewed, journal-published, replicated report is worth far more than what you see with your own eyes. Our own eyes can deceive us. People can fool them...
Hawaii once had a rat problem. Then, somebody hit upon a brilliant solution. import mongooses from India. Mongooses would kill the rats. It worked. Mongooses did kill the rats. Mongooses also killed chickens, young pigs, birds, cats, dogs, and small ...
My grandfather was crying. The kind of quiet that is quiet and a secret. The kind of crying that only I noticed. I thought about him going into my mom's room when she was little and hitting my mom and holding up her report card and saying that her ba...
As Donilon [President Obama's security advisor] would tell me, Obama said: "Here's the deal. I want this hunt for Osama bin Laden and al-Zawahiri to come to the front of the line. I worry that the trail has gone cold. This has to be our top priority ...
Raoul Duke: How long could we maintain? I wondered. How long until one of us starts raving and jabbering at this boy? What will he think then? This same lonely desert was the last known home of the Manson family; will he make that grim connection whe...
Brody: Is it true that most people get attacked by sharks in three feet of water about ten feet from the beach? Hooper: Yeah. Brody: And that... and that before people started to swim for recreation - I mean before sharks knew what they were missing ...
[listening to BBC reporter Hugh Elder's broadcast on the radio] Jon Swain: Where do they get this crap? Al Rockoff: That guy across the gate there. The little guy. Could we all not look at once, please? I have it on reliable sources that that's none ...
Agatha: Think about all the lives that little girl has saved. Lamar Burgess: Think about all the lives that little girl has saved, think about all the lives she will save, that little girl could have saved Sean. John Anderton: [yells] Don't you *ever...
