Michael Dirda Quotes
Once we know the plot and its surprises, we can appreciate a book's artistry without the usual confusion and sap flow of emotion, content to follow the action with tenderness and interest, all passion spent. Rather than surrender to the story or the characters - as a good first reader ought - we can now look at how the book works, and instead of swooning over it like a besotted lover begin to appreciate its intricacy and craftmanship. Surprisingly, such dissection doesn't murder the experience. Just the opposite: Only then does a work of art fully live.
Quotes to Explore
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Some people ask me, Do they put aging makeup on you? It's just this very nice street makeup.
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I've always dreamed of having an album. The problem is that it's just very difficult to make an album nowadays because through technology, music shifts so fast, especially electronic music. Once you make five songs, the first one you did is already old and you wished you would have put it out right away. So that's kind of the difficult part.
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Because I was a diminutive, arty kid, I felt like a misfit in high school - but who doesn't?
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When you leave New York, you are astonished at how clean the rest of the world is. Clean is not enough.
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When James Bond gets old, you get rid of him and bring a new James Bond in.
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I had a lot of alone time with no brothers or sisters running around, or anything. I would just sit and imagine things, all the time.
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I used to be able to think. My brain's circuits were all connected, and I had spark, a quickness of mind that let me function well in the world.
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I go to assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon Washington. Unless the great God, who assisted him, shall be with me and aid me, I must fail; but if the same omniscient mind and almighty arm that directed and protected him shall guide and support me, I shall not fail - I shall succeed.
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I was just a goofy little funny kid, who was always getting sent to the principal. It wasn't serious because I was smart. I wasn't like a true troublemaker, just rambunctious - like, talkative and trying to be funny. That was me in middle-school.
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We all have our painful pasts we have to get through.
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At school I used to avoid dance lessons. They were the worst.
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I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants.
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He is energetic only in evading responsibility.
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I am still making my living reciting my verses for crowds who refuse to buy my books. I must do this, as all American rhymers must, however sick I may be of the sound of my own voice.
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What good would it be to possess the whole universe if one were its only survivor?
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Don't take in no strangers while I'm gone. She sighed deeply. They ain't a soul in this world but what is a stranger to me, she said.
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I was once described by one of my critics as an aesthetic fascist.
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You must be wise, but not too wise.
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Respect and a gentlemanly character - those are marks of a Nebraskan.
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Hearts don't often break even. One person is usually more hurt while the other is more relieved.
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Often, those with the most to lose as a result of a poor policy move are the most vulnerable and most marginalized. Those folks need a voice, and I will endeavor to be that voice.
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For me, the acting part - and I have to say it makes me a little worried about my own psychological make-up - is that I just love to hide in other characters. I don't like to get up in front of people and talk as Kathy Baker. But as soon as you say 'action,' I'm lost in that character.
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A formally harmonious product needs no decoration; it should be elevated through pure form.
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Once we know the plot and its surprises, we can appreciate a book's artistry without the usual confusion and sap flow of emotion, content to follow the action with tenderness and interest, all passion spent. Rather than surrender to the story or the characters - as a good first reader ought - we can now look at how the book works, and instead of swooning over it like a besotted lover begin to appreciate its intricacy and craftmanship. Surprisingly, such dissection doesn't murder the experience. Just the opposite: Only then does a work of art fully live.
