I can't call them linear narratives, and I can't call them chronological in a traditional, classical sense; I'm sure there's plenty of stuff I borrow more from William Faulkner than William Shakespeare. I just find it funny that at this point, we see a collection of highly charged, highly potent symbols as referring back to a classical aesthetic, because to me they seem deeply connected to the pedestrian actuality of real life.
Joanna Newsom
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Later evolutionary theorists of linear progress had to advance the overtly physical and historical claim that an ancestral lineage of arthropods actually turned over to become the first vertebrates (for the classical statement of the inversion theory, see William Patten, The Grand Strategy of Evolution, 1920).
Stephen Jay Gould
Classical music has struggled to keep up. Unlike any other art form, it keeps on looking backwards all the time. It used to have a real museum culture. Then it went: "Oh my God, what are we going to do? Call for Nigel Kennedy. Quick!" Classical musicians have got to change or die,' she asserts strongly, 'but they just don't know how to. Audiences for classical music have dropped. The old blue rinse audience is dying out, and young people aren't coming in.
Joanna MacGregor
William I知 sorry I let my brother hoist you up the mast in that crappy jury-rigged bosun痴 chair while everybody laughed! William I知 sorry I could build better fires than you could! I知 sorry my stack of Christmas cards was always bigger than yours! ... William I知 sorry I invented bop jogging which you couldn稚 do! I知 sorry I loved Antigua! I知 sorry my mind wandered when you talked about the army! I知 sorry I was superior in argument! I知 sorry you slit open my bicycle tires looking for incriminating letters that you didn稚 find! You値l never find them! ... William! I知 sorry I looked at Sam but he was so handsome, so handsome, who could not! I知 sorry I slept with Sam! I知 sorry about the library books! I知 sorry about Pete! I知 sorry I never played the guitar you gave me! I知 sorry I married you and I値l never so it again!
Donald Barthelme
Humanity has been passing through a gray and desolate time of confusion. My great predecessor, William Faulkner, speaking here, referred to it as a tragedy of universal fear so long sustained that there were no longer problems of the spirit, so that only the human heart in conflict with itself seemed worth writing about.
Faulkner, more than most men, was aware of human strength as well as of human weakness. He knew that the understanding and the resolution of fear are a large part of the writer's reason for being.
This is not new. The ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement.John Steinbeck
You imply our education is of no use to you in after life. But no education is. We are not an employment agency; all we can do is to give you a grounding in the art of mixing with your fellow men, to tell you what to expect from life and give you an outward manner and inward poise, an old prescription from the eighteenth century which we call a classical education, an education which confers the infrequent virtues of good sense and good taste and the benefit of dual nationality, English and Mediterranean, and which, taking into account the difficulties of modern life, we find the philosophy best able to overcome them.
Cyril Connolly
Newsom, Joanna
Newsted, Jason
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