I realized that with everything I did from that point onward, I would have to ask myself this question: "How would I feel if what I'm doing right now is written up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times or if it is on tele...
The sun tells the best joke of a day full of them, setting so spectacularly that you can almost smell the tropical paradise lazing somewhere over this rim of endless, gray socialist towers. Miles of square windows explode orange, red, and purple, lik...
Quick note here: if this crush-slash-swooning stuff is hard for you to stomach; if you’ve never had a similar experience, then you should come to grips with the fact that you’ve got a TV dinner for a heart and might want to consider climbing insi...
Books are better than television, the internet, or the computer for Books matter because they state ideas and then attempt to thoroughly prove them. They have an advantage allowing the reader to internalize, respond, react and transform. The ideas in...
1. Write like you’ll live forever — fear is a bad editor. 2. Write like you’ll croak today — death is the best editor. 3. Fooling others is fun. Fooling yourself is a lethal mistake. 4. Pick one — fame or delight. 5. The archer knows the ta...
Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all. Fame! You'll be as famous as famous can be, wit...
Despite the variety and the differences, and however much we proclaim the contrary, what the media produce is neither spontaneous nor completely “free:” “news” does not just happen, pictures and ideas do not merely spring from reality into ou...
Bliss—a-second-by-second joy and gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious—lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom. Pay close attention to the most tedious thing you can find (Tax Returns, Televised Golf) and, in waves, a bored...
Literary fiction and poetry are real marginalized right now. There's a fallacy that some of my friends sometimes fall into, the ol' "The audience is stupid. The audience only wants to go this deep. Poor us, we're marginalized because of TV, the great...
You and your scars. Please! You don't kill youself like this!" I gesture, holding a wrist turned up to the ceiling, then pretending to cut across it with my other hand. "That's just a cry for help. That's just attention. Everbody knows that. Cutting ...
There’s a lot of dirty theology out there, the religious counterpart to dirty politics and dirty business, I suppose. You might call it spiritual pornography—a kind of for-profit exploitative nakedness. It’s found in many of the same places as ...
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...
Ordell Robbie: Goddamn girl, you gettin' high already? It's just 2 o'clock! Melanie: [chuckling] It's that late? Ordell Robbie: You know you smoke too much of that shit, that shit gonna rob you of your own ambition. Melanie: Not if your ambition is t...
Dr. Millard Rausch, Scientist: We must think logically. We must deal with his crisis logically, with calm and unemotional response! We have to remain rational. We have to remain logical. TV Commentator: Scientists like you always think that way. That...
Cameron: [Ferris slowly pulls the Ferrari out of the garage] No! Ferris, forget it! You're just gonna have to think of somethin' else. I'm puttin' my foot down. [Ferris keeps driving] Cameron: How bout we rent a nice Cadillac? My treat! We could call...
Sam: Hey, I recognize you. Andrew Largeman: Oh, did you go to Columbia High? Sam: No, not from high school, from TV. Didn't you play the retarded quarterback? Andrew Largeman: Yeah. Sam: Are you really retarded? Andrew Largeman: No. Sam: Ooh, great j...
Norm: Now look, I've had a marvelous idea. Just for once, let's all try to behave like ordinary, respectable citizens. Let's not cause any trouble, pull any strokes, or do anything I'm gonna be sorry for. Especially tomorrow at that television theate...
[Frederick is talking about TV] Frederick: You see the whole culture. Nazis, deodorant salesmen, wrestlers, beauty contests, a talk show. Can you imagine the level of a mind that watches wrestling? But the worst are the fundamentalist preachers. Thir...
The Bride: Now, the incident that happened at the Two Pines Wedding Chapel that put this whole gory story into motion, has since become legend. "Massacre At Two Pines". That's what the newspapers called it. The local TV news called it, "The El Paso, ...
Babe: Listen, I want you to rob my apartment. Melendez: [laughs] Why? Babe: There are some guys out there after me, I got a gun in my desk drawer, and I want you to get me some clothes. Melendez: What's in there for me, man? Babe: I got a TV set, I g...
Diane: Sweetheart, last night, when you said "They're here'... Carol Anne: Can I take my goldfish to school? Diane: Sweetheart, do you remember last night when you woke up, and you said "They're here'? Carol Anne: Uh huh. Diane: Well, who did you mea...
