Quote collection
114 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"To me, elitism means a love of excellence and superiority, but America has declared war on both and developed a sick love of the lowest common denominator to make sure no-one becomes too fine for our touted democracy. We are almost at the point of regarding every virtue as elitist."
"Golf is an exercise in Scottish pointlessness for people who are no longer able to throw telephone poles at each other."
"The confidence and security of a people can be measured by their attitude toward laxatives. At the high noon of the British sun, soldiers in far-flung outposts of the Empire doctored themselves with "a spoonful o' gunpowder in a cuppa 'ot tea." Purveyors and users of harsh laxatives were not afraid of being thought mean and unfriendly just because their laxatives were. But in America, the need to be nice is so consuming that nobody would dare take a laxative that makes you run up the stairs two at a time, pushing others aside and yelling, "Get out of the way!"
"Democracy is the fig leaf of elitism."
"True nostalgia is an ephemeral composition of disjointed memories."
"There are so many different kinds of people in America, with so many different boiling points, that we don't know how to fight with each other. The set piece that shapes and contains quarrels in homogeneous countries does not exist here. The Frenchman is an expert on the precise gradations of espèce de and the Italian knows exactly when to introduce the subject of his other's grave, but no American can be sure how or when another will react, so we zap each other with friendliness to neutralize potentially dangerous situations."
"I have a professional acquaintance whose recent eyelid job has left her with a permanent expression of such poleaxed astonishment that she looks at all times as if she had just read one of my books."
"Agoraphobia was my quirky armor against a gregarious America."
"American couples have gone to such lengths to avoid the interference of in-laws that they have to pay marriage counselors to interfere between them."
"Kings and queens might do wicked things, but they don't nag. One thing I like about Bloody Mary: she never said a word about lung cancer."
"I'm for prayer in the schools because ritual and ceremony are calming and civilizing, and the little fartlings should be tamped down whenever possible."
"Insecurity breeds treachery: if you are kind to people who hate themselves, they will hate you as well."
"Time has lost all meaning in that nightmare alley of the Western world known as the American mind. We wallow in nostalgia but manage to get it all wrong. True nostalgia is an ephemeral composition of disjointed memories... but American-style nostalgia is about as ephemeral as copyrighted d?j? vu."
"The witty woman is a tragic figure in American life. Wit destroys eroticism and eroticism destroys wit, so women must choose between taking lovers and taking no prisoners."
"Of all the old maid's blessing, the greatest is carte blanche. Spinsterhood is powerful; once a woman is called "that crazy old maid" she can get away with anything."
"Each time a mediocre singer performs, he is saying, in effect, "This is good enough for you." The audience, thrust into that familiar American mood of knowing something is wrong but not knowing what it is, unconsciously absorbs the insult and projects it back onto the mediocre performer in the form of inattention, rudeness and noise."
"Southerners have a genius for psychological alchemy...If something intolerable simply cannot be changed, driven away or shot they will not only tolerate it but take pride in it as well."
"Animal rights activists gives disillusioned feminists an excuse to go back to being women protecting wee creatures without compromising their radical credentials"
"Why do I hate people? Who else is there to hate?"
"If whisky or salt won't cure it, then to hell with it. I worry about important things."