In the news

"Literature is news that stays news."

-- Ezra Pound

Saying no

"I don't want any yes-men around me. I want everybody to tell me the truth even if it costs them their jobs."

-- Samuel Goldwyn

Rated PG?

"A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to."

-- Granville Hicks

Buying too many books?

"Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?"

-- Henry Ward Beecher

Thoughts on art

"First, I am dealing with no object. Perception is the object. Secondly, I am dealing with no image, because I want to avoid associative, symbolic thought. Thirdly, I am dealing with no focus or particular place to look. With no object, no image and no focus, what are you looking at? You are looking at you looking."

-- James Turrell

Answers from above

"When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers."

-- Oscar Wilde

The world comes to LA

"Turn the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles."

-- Frank Lloyd Wright

Thoughts on life

"A day above the dirt is better than a day under it."

-- Byron Halsey

Inattentive idealists?

"That which we do is what we are. That which we remember is, more often than not, that which we would like to have been; or that which we hope to be. Thus our memory and our identity are ever at odds; our history ever a tall tale told by inattentive idealists."

-- Ralph Ellison, Shadow and Act

Thoughts on military service

"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested."

-- Smedley Darlington Butler (1881 – 1940), Major General, U.S. Marine Corps