Michael Dirda Quotes
In Madame Bovary Flaubert never allows anything to go on too long; he can suggest years of boredom in a paragraph, capture the essence of a character in a single conversational exchange, or show us the gulf between his soulful heroine and her dull-witted husband in a sentence (and one that, moreover, presages all Emma's later experience of men). (...) This is one of the summits of prose art, and not to know such a masterpiece is to live a diminished life.
Quotes to Explore
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Even before it opened its retail arm, Beigh was renowned among pashmina cognoscenti for the quality and complexity of the work produced in its workshop, a large, airy, sunlit rectangle of a room directly across from its second-floor shop.
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Jesus Christ was a patriot! His country was the world. His laws were the eternal principles of liberty, and his followers, in every age, have been the chosen champions of freedom!
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I've said some things about other religions that I regret now. I think they were incorrect.
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Truth is not a matter of personal viewpoint.
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I love showing my scar on my tummy - it is shaped like a question mark.
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It wasn't until after I was reelected in 1982 that I thought of myself as a long-term member of Congress.
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When the Securities & Exchange Commission settled securities-fraud charges against Richard Harriton, former chairman of the clearing subsidiary of Bear, Stearns & Co., there were smiles all around. The SEC was happy. Harriton was happy. Bear Stearns was happy.
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I can create for others.
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The people in New York want to achieve something; the people in L.A., they just want to achieve success.
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I was quite happy with the way I went, I think.
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All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.
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I have often felt a bitter sorrow at the thought of the German people, which is so estimable in the individual and so wretched in the generality. A comparison of the German people with other peoples arouses a painful feeling, which I try to overcome in every possible way.
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As for 'taste' as a criterion of painting I find that it is most frequently applied to work that is essentially insensitive, brutal or vulgar beyond question. Could it now be a term with political undertones to seduce, or cover profounder motives of exploitation? I propose it be kept to the wine cellar. There it deceives no one but him who over-indulges.
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Go out to the last few grains of sand, the smartest of the smartest of the smartest, times a thousand. It makes sense that people would be a little odd out here. But you really have to wonder why we all end up in jail.
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What I've learned is you don't have to strive for perfection, but you do have to strive to be a very hard worker.
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I love commuting between languages just like I love commuting between cultures and cities.
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My life at the moment is a bit like my wardrobe. Organized chaos.
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I mean I've seen 3D films so far and I think it's a long way to go before they replace actors. It's a funny thing with 3D, I haven't quite got it yet. Yet.
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I think any time anybody sees the bad guy show emotion and you're not hitting the audience over the head, there's always a tinge of empathy for that individual.
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I'm not a long movie person. I have a very short attention span. If you give me a 90-minute movie, that's perfect. When it gets to be two hours, that's a little bit too long for me.
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People say I'm extravagant because I want to be surrounded by beauty. But tell me, who wants to be surrounded by garbage?
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Sports cars from the '50s and '60s are my favorites.
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In Madame Bovary Flaubert never allows anything to go on too long; he can suggest years of boredom in a paragraph, capture the essence of a character in a single conversational exchange, or show us the gulf between his soulful heroine and her dull-witted husband in a sentence (and one that, moreover, presages all Emma's later experience of men). (...) This is one of the summits of prose art, and not to know such a masterpiece is to live a diminished life.
