Quotes

I used to rotate a lot of these through my .plan files on various accounts, but the hegemony of POP3 has rendered such things useless.  So here they are...

On fine dining

"Surliness is part of the ambience."
— My father, on Spaghetti Joe's in Utica

On women

"Women have always lightened my burdens, picked up my spirits and exhilarated me with the old anything-goes feeling, though anything doesn't go, of course, and never did."
— Richard Ford, The Sportswriter

On graduate school

"[Blott said,] `But I look at these guys that've been here six, seven years, eight years, still suffering, hurt, beat up, so tired, just like I feel tired and suffer, I feel this, what, dread, this dread, I see seven or eight years of unhappiness every day and day after day of tiredness and stress and suffering stretching ahead, and for what, for a chance at a like pro career that I'm starting to get this dready feeling a career in the Show means even more suffering, if I'm skeletally stressed from all the grueling here by the time I get there.'"
— David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

On Elvis

"The life of Elvis adheres to all essential elements of the template for the American iconography. He is loved by ordinary people and therefore despised by the sneery-lipped touristas of high culture."
— David Thomas, "Media Priests of the Big Lie"

On thinking for dollars

"Microsoft Research is an intellectual roach motel: All the big brains check in but nothing ever checks out."
— Paul Saffo quoted by Gary Rivlin, "Xerox's Proving Ground" (thanks Alex)

On nobility (Part I)

"Woody Guthrie had a sign on his guitar that said 'this machine kills fascists.' That's just the kind of connection between music and politics that I'm arguing against. It wasn't a machine and it didn't kill fascists. It made Woody Guthrie and the people who listened to him feel noble."
— Greil Marcus, Perfect Sound Forever interview

On nobility (Part II)

"Tear off their helmets! (clap clap) Skate on their faces!"
— Colgate hockey chant

On life in general

"Don't forget to stop and smell the glue"
— Future Bible Heroes, "Lonely Days"
Back to James' page