| 12 Feb, 2009 |
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Eating without conversation is only stoking. I am treating you as my friend asking you share my present minuses in the hope I can ask you to share my future pluses. To be a saint does not exclude fine dresses nor a beautiful house. There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class. The quickest way to know a woman is to go shopping with her. All sins are attempts to fill voids. Who would ever think that so much went on in the soul of a young girl? I like people who refuse to speak until they are ready to speak. It it not good to see people who have been pretending strength all their lives lose it even for a minute. Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow talent to the dark place where it leads. If you realize too acutely how valuable time it, you are too paralyzed to do anything. The tourist may complain of other tourists, but he would be lost without them. Americans detest all lies except lies spoken in public or printed lies. Truth is always exciting. Speak it, then, Life is dull without it. Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention. When you are unhappy, is there anything more maddening than to be told that you should be contented with your lot? A vacation frequently means that the family goes away for a rest, accompanied by mother, who sees that the others get it. Women are at last becoming persons first and wives second, and that is as it should be. Writers should be read but not seen. Rarely are they a winsome sight. Marriage is not just spiritual communion, it is also remembering to take out the trash. I have too many fantasies to be a housewife. I guess I am a fantasy. I refuse to believe that trading recipes is silly. Tunafish casserole is at least as real as corporate stock. I stopped believing in Santa Claus at age six when my mother took me to see him in a store and he asked for my autograph. The eleventh commandment --- Thou shalt not be found out --- is the only one that is virtually impossible to keep these days. Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them. Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them. No degree of dullness can safeguard a work against the determination of critics to find it fascinating. The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do. Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it. Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies. What a blessing it would be if we could open and shut our ears as easily as we open and shut our eyes! Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible. Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status. Bureaucrats write memoranda both because they appear to be busy when they are writing and because the memos, once written, immediately become proof that they were busy. The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty. Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned. I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me. This paperback is very interesting, but I find it will never replace a hardcover book - it makes a very poor doorstop. I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific. Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event. The big thieves hang the little ones. Is fuel efficiency really what we need most desperatelly? I say that what we really need is a car that can be shot when it breaks down. A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized. Early morning cheerfulness can be extremely obnoxious. A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts. I am just going outside and may be some time. Never raise your hand to your children; it leaves your midsection unprotected. The advantage of a classical education is that it enables you to despise the wealth that it prevents you from achieving. Not even computers will replace committees, because committees buy computers. |
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