Monday, September 30, 2019
Poor books.
— Lily after ad for Downton Abbey: The Official Film Companion played on NPR
Sunday, September 29, 2019
She was interested in the philosophical shift from examining what things mean, the classical task of criticism, to examining how they came to mean it. But this idea, popularized, risked suggesting that meaning was a mere construction and that language, literature, and art were no more than the sum of the biases of a dominant group.
— Benjamin Moser, Sontag: Her Life and Work
Saturday, September 28, 2019
There was a Maintenance Man and a Janitor!
— Sondern on spyfall.crabhat.com game
Friday, September 27, 2019
“Believe me, many more people will see that selfie once I share it than will listen to this speech,” Bukele insisted, simultaneously underselling his own speaking skills, shortchanging the reach of the United Nations communications shop, and overstating the appetite of the global public for still photos of random smiling bearded dudes standing behind podiums.
— John Hayward, "Hayward: El Salvador’s Millennial President Warns U.N. May Go the Way of Blockbuster, Takes Selfie," Breitbart
Thursday, September 26, 2019
I could close my eyes and see the whole heart rotating... I don't know how long that will last, but that's useful.
— Lily
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
It was there that she met William Phillips, co-editor of Partisan Review, and asked him how one wrote for his magazine. "You ask," he said "I'm asking," she answered.
— Benjamin Moser, Sontag: Her Life and Work
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
The new work, the innovation, is legitimated by the chain of works leading back to an authoritative type. But the chain also needs the new work. It is the new work that selects the chain out of the debris of the past.
— Alexander Nagel and Christopher S. Wood, "Anachronic Renaissance," from a reading for VIS392
Monday, September 23, 2019
I don't want you to speak at my funeral. And if you do, I'll never speak to you again.
— Joke Sid heard someone say at a memorial service
Sunday, September 22, 2019
Mr. Iger believes that, if Mr. Jobs had lived, Disney and Apple might have merged.
— Maureen Dowd, "The Slow-Burning Success of Disney’s Bob Iger," The New York Times
Saturday, September 21, 2019
Do you know the phrase "tragedy is just comedy without the last act?"
— David, in the Yankee Traveler Motel
Friday, September 20, 2019
I feel like if I did model trains I would pick a scale and stick to it.
— David
Thursday, September 19, 2019
Boy, that's a good picture. Hey, I'd like a piece of that picture.
— Trump quoted by Jordan Fabian about a Tom Brenner photo of him with money in his back pocket
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
They don't know how to respond, all they know how to do is appeal.
— Sid*
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Just as a murderer's bloody fingerprint on a page says more than the words printed on it.
— Walter Benjamin, "The Author as Producer"
Monday, September 16, 2019
The heart of the house was the parlor, which Washington turned into his dining room, an eccentric space claiming the odd distinction of having seven doors and one window.
— Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life
Sunday, September 15, 2019
Learn from your mistakes, it's simple.
— One Amtrak conductor to another, generously, after the latter had made a mistake
Saturday, September 14, 2019
We're really into training the audience.
— Patrick Gabridge
Friday, September 13, 2019
Genome: bought the book; hard to read
— Eric Lander, Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony
Thursday, September 12, 2019
On a peanut farm in Asia with no floor.
— Andrew Yang, 3rd Democratic Debate
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Things happen by accident, but nothing gets left by accident.
— Emily Eveleth recounting something her husband says