#comment

The British ballads became a new kind of form in their hand. And out of them came the blues, a new kind of song of commentary and satire, a song form which, after all, has become the main musical form of the whole human species. ↗

— Alan Lomax

#ballads #became #become #blues #british

When you bring an idea that has no merit to me, and you ask me to comment on it, I'm going to tell you it has no merit. ↗

— Kevin O'Leary

#bring #comment #going #i #idea

Gail didn't want me commenting on the opinion pages. I was hired by the news department and, despite the rabid assertions of the Times' enemies and detractors, the two really have nothing to do with each other. ↗

— Daniel Okrent

#commenting #department #despite #each #hired

Because most of my career in the classroom has been at art schools (beginning at Bennington in the 1970s), I am hyper-aware of the often grotesque disconnect between commentary on the arts and the actual practice or production of the arts. ↗

— Camille Paglia

#am #art #arts #because #been

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope,it was the winter of despair. ↗

— Charles Dickens

#age

What the hell is this stuff?" he muttered, frowning at the oily spot on the linen cloth. "Pearlman slathered it on me this morning." "It's macassar oil. Gentlemen use it to keep their hair neat. Nicholas used it," she added pointedly. "Well, tomorrow he's giving it up. I smell like a rotten apple." "You do not. And I think it looks rather nice." He sent her an incredulous look. "I look like an otter. And everything I put my head against gets greasy." "That's why someone invented the antimacassar," she told him, almost smiling. "The-aha!" He laughed as he made the connection. "Of course. First they invent something stupid, then something ugly to make up for it. We live in a wondrous age, Annie. ↗

— Patricia Gaffney

#social-commentary #victorian-era #age

A dramatist is one who believes that the pure event, an action involving human beings, is more arresting than any comment that can be made upon it. ↗

— Thornton Wilder

#any #arresting #beings #believes #comment

Marianne would have thought herself very inexcusable had she been able to sleep at all the first night after parting from Willoughby. She would have been ashamed to look her family in the face the next morning, had she not risen from her bed in more need of repose than when she lay down in it. But the feelings which made such composure a disgrace, left her in no danger of incurring it. She was awake the whole night, and she wept the greatest part of it. She got up with an head-ache, was unable to talk, and unwilling to take any nourishment; giving pain every moment to her mother and sisters, and forbidding all attempt at consolation from either. Her sensibility was potent enough! ↗

— Jane Austen

#sensibility #witty-comments #family

If a man tells you that he is fond of the Imitation, view him with sudden suspicion; he is either a dabbler or a Saint. ↗

— Ronald A. Knox

#humor #inspiration #inspirational

We will not be dictated to by men with less intelligence, energy, initiative and ambition than we ourselves possess. ↗

— Elbert Hubbard

#intelligence