"Kafka could never have written as he did had he lived in a house. His writing is that of someone whose whole life was spent in apartments, with lifts, stairwells, muffled voices behind closed doors, and sounds through walls. Put him in a nice detached villa and he’d never have written a word."

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“Writer: I don’t know whether you've ever looked into a miner's eyes – for any length of time, that is. Because it is the loveliest blue you've ever seen. I think perhaps that's why I live in Ibiza, because the blue of the Mediterranean, you see, reminds me of the blue of the eyes of those Doncaster miners.”

“Headmaster: They were all socialists. Why is it always the intelligent people who are socialists?”

“Geoff: We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but people wouldn't obey the rules.”

“I lack what the English call character, by which they mean the power to refrain.”

“Headmaster: Mark my words, when a society has to resort to the lavatory for its humour, the writing is on the wall.”

“To play Trivial Pursuit with a life like mine could be said to be a form of homeopathy.”

Resonant Thoughts

"It is a fact that nine-tenths of the HUMAN RACE never have and never will think for themselves, about anything. Whether it's music or Reaganomics, say, almost everybody prefers to sit and wait till so…"

— Lester Bangs

Music1948–1982

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"Feminist author Susan Faludi argues in the New York Times that feminists never said believe all women—you only have to believe some women. It is Ms. Faludi’s contention that “unprincipled” conservativ…"

— Susan Faludi

Journalism1959

#writing

"The piano players were very important in the early days, and the great piano players were always on the East Coast; there never was anybody in the West who could play two notes. , who was mainly a wri…"

— Duke Ellington

Music1899–1974

#education