In America, doctors, lawyers, generals, actors, television people and politicians are admired and rewarded. Not teachers. Teaching is the downstairs maid of professions. Teachers are told to use the service door or go round the back. They are congrat...
Beverly Oliver: Oh, yeah. One time I came in, Jack introduces me to these two guys. He said, "Beverly, this is my friend Lee..." and I didn't catch the other guy's name. He was a weird-looking guy with those funny little eyebrows. The other guy, Lee,...
Tyler Durden: Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us cha...
James Reston, Jr.: You know the first and greatest sin of the deception of television is that it simplifies; it diminishes great, complex ideas, stretches of time; whole careers become reduced to a single snapshot. At first I couldn't understand why ...
Tanya: We're closed. Quinlan: You've been cookin' at this hour? Tanya: Just cleanin' up. Quinlan: Have you forgotten your old friend, hmm? Tanya: I told you we were closed. Quinlan: I'm Hank Quinlan. Tanya: I didn't recognize you. You should lay off ...
Me: “I refuse to attend Support Group.” Mom: “One of the symptoms of depression is disinterest in activities.” Me: “Please just let me watch America’s Next Top Model. It’s an activity.” Mom: “Television is a passivity.” Me: “Ugh...
I worry about exposing him to bands like Journey, the appreciation of which will surely bring him nothing but the opprobrium of his peers. Though he has often been resistant - children so seldom know what is good for them - I have taught him to appre...
"I always read everything when I was a kid-and I do mean everything, from Nancy Drew to Dickens to my dad's John D. MacDonald-but then I went to regular school and the English teachers started telling me to read 'real' books, so I tried. And you k...
As I have explained in earlier chapters, abusiveness has little to do with psychological problems and everything to do with values and beliefs. Where do a boy’s values about partner relationships come from? The sources are many. The most important ...
Watch a man--say, a politician--being interviewed on television, an you are observing a demonstration of what both he and his interrogators learned in school: all questions have answers, and it is a good thing to give an answer even if there is none ...
Gwenovier: So where are you from originally? Frank T.J. Mackey: Around here. Gwenovier: The Valley? Frank T.J. Mackey: Hollywood, mainly. Gwenovier: What did your parents do? Frank T.J. Mackey: My father was in television. My mother... This is going ...
[first lines] Narrator: [on television] Although each of the world's countries would like to dispute this fact, we French know the truth: the best food in the world is made in France. The best food in France is made in Paris. And the best food in Par...
Ron Steigler: Mr. Gardner, uh, my editors and I have been wondering if you would consider writing a book for us, something about your um, political philosophy, what do you say? Chance the Gardener: I can't write. Ron Steigler: Heh, heh, of course not...
I look at him with the nostalgic affection men are said to feel for their wars, their fellow veterans. I think, I once threw things at this man. I threw a glass ashtray, a fairly cheap one which didn't break. I threw a shoe (his) and a handbag (mine)...
How can even the idea of rebellion against corporate culture stay meaningful when Chrysler Inc. advertises trucks by invoking “The Dodge Rebellion”? How is one to be bona fide iconoclast when Burger King sells onion rings with “Sometimes You Go...
Alford, Massachusetts: Mandy stood there with her old Nikon film camera, snapping photo after photo of the rural landscape. It was difficult to describe the wonderful feeling of there not being a single cell phone in sight; the only modern technology...
There is a belief advanced today, and in some cases by conservative black authors, that poor children and particularly black children should not be allowed to hear too much about these matters. If they learn how much less they are getting than rich c...
Captain Smek himself appeared on television for an official speech to humankind. [...] 'Noble Savages of Earth,' he said. 'Long time we have tried to live together in peace.' (It had been five months.) 'Long time have the Boov suffered under the host...
I love going out of my way, beyond what I know, and finding my way back a few extra miles, by another trail, with a compass that argues with the map…nights alone in motels in remote western towns where I know no one and no one I know knows where I ...
...a bad diet will eventually kill our dreams. It's essential that we constantly evaluate the nutritional value of what we are feeding ourselves. It may come down to how many hours of television we're viewing, the quality of the programs we're watchi...
As Molly wrapped one of the freshly made flour tortillas around several slices of perfectly cooked steak and piled on guacamole, she began talking. The more she talked, the faster her words came. It was as if she were afraid that someone else would s...
