A Well Turned Phrase
(He) consistently packs hard rock’s long-standing mix of masculine bravado, deep vulnerability, and committed derangement into a scant few lines—and it’s a romp. This might be most obvious in the chorus to album standout “Psycho”: “If you ever leave, girl, I’m gonna get a face tattoo / crash my truck, end up on the six o’clock news.”
—Erin Vanderhoo
... See moreThe night is so thick she can tell she is there only by the scraping of her feet and the tap, tapping of the stick in the loose gravel. A moonless night with only the call of the katydids and marsh frogs. A night to swallow you up, the stars hid by clouds, and memory guiding her tired feet home.
Gloria Naylor • Mama Day
“Man and chimp share 98.5 per cent of their genetic code, which would be no surprise to Darwin. But we also share 75 per cent of our genetic make-up with the pumpkin. The pumpkin is just a big ridged orange lump lying on the ground all day, like a fat retiree on the beach in Florida. But other than that he has no discernible human characteristics u... See more
The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable.
—Oscar Wilde about fox hunting in England
(She) was enthusiastically heterosexual.
—Eccentric Lives, The Daily Telegraph Book of 21st Century Obituaries.
Although he remained clean-shaven, Mommsen’s hair was always shoulder-length and untidy, turning grey and finally white, resembling a witch or a wizard, as his critics observed. Possibly through the fame of Mommsen, wild hair in old age became a recognizable badge of an eccentric professor or genius, cultivated later by Einstein and generations of
... See moreHanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
Morgan Housel • 100 Little Ideas
Buy the ticket, take the ride.
—Hunter S. Thompson
It is useful to read certain authors before one realizes – either through one’s own or others’ critical diktats – that they should not in fact be read. Kipling floats in and out of fashion. When I encountered him I imagine he was pretty much out, but Just So Stories and the Jungle Books (titles whose destruction by Disney’s huns
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