"Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, there is no reason either in football or in poetry why the two should not meet in a man's life if he has the weight and cares about the words."

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“If God is God, he is not good. If God is good, he is not God.”

“The Paris Review interview series”

“It is not in the world of ideas that life is lived. Life is lived for better or worse in life, and to a man in life, his life can be no more absurd than it can be the opposite of absurd, whatever that opposite may be.”

“Religion is at its best when it makes us ask hard questions of ourselves. It is at its worst when it deludes us into thinking we have all the answers for everybody else.”

“Archibald MacLeish's Grave”

“The business of the law is to make sense of the confusion of what we call human life—to reduce it to order but at the same time to give it possibility, scope, even dignity.”

Resonant Thoughts

"We disagree about who should be Americanized. The immigrant, working in some of the industries, and set apart from American life, thinks the native-born needs it most; the American, visiting the crowd…"

— Frances Kellor

Journalism1873–1952

#life

"But how can we in good conscience justify war before we’ve tested a diplomatic agreement that achieves our objectives; that has been agreed to by Iran; that is supported by the rest of the world; and …"

— Barack Obama

Politics1961

#wisdom

"... launting their erudition and relishing overt staginess, Peter Greenaway's films divide audiences. There are those who are prepared to entertain his conceits and play the game, and others for whom …"

— Peter Greenaway

Art1942

#life

"I am on the anti-imperialist left." The Stalinist left? "I wouldn't define it that way because of the pejoratives loaded around it; that would be making a rod for your own back. If you are asking did …"

— George Galloway

Politics1954

#life