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Complex in her privacy, refusing to be controlled by an audience or pinioned to a single representation, she once told Henry Ramont of the the New York Times, "I used to be invited by people who said, 'Get Djuna for dinner, she's amusing.' So I stopped it."
--
Mary Lynn Broe, in Silence and Power : A Reevaluation of Djuna Barnes, Introduction, p. 5

 

Djuna Barnes

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I performed at a show at the MoMA. There was this big dinner there, and I was seated in this hall with the mayor of New York and all these extremely wealthy art-supporting and art-buying people. There was a piece of work hanging in the hall-it was a fan. This fan was supposed to swing by the momentum of its own propeller. So, while we were having dinner, the fan was stopped, and the guy next to me, a curator at P.S.1, said, "Look, this is what art symbolizes today." Like, that piece of art is supposed to be moving, but just to have dinner we've stopped the art. That's what New York is like today. You can't have real art happen in an institution because rich people can make the world stop. The stuff on the street is a lot more interesting.

 

M.I.A.

 

Henry David Thoreau told us: "All our inventions are but improved means to an unimproved end." ...Goethe told us: "One should, each day, try to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it is possible, speak a few reasonable words." ...Socrates told us: "The unexamined life is not worth living." ...the prophet Micah told us: "What does the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God?" And I can tell you ...what Confucius, Isaiah, Jesus, Mohammed, the Buddha, Spinoza and Shakespeare told us... There is no escaping from ourselves. The human dilemma is as it has always been, and we solve nothing fundamental by cloaking ourselves in technological glory.

 

Neil Postman

 

In times when I encounter sad things
I have a habit of saying "I'm all right".
On that day, something had stopped for me
And no matter
how much I pray,
I can't find a single star.

 

Ayumi Hamasaki

 

Just this week in the UK, we've been told that a leading supermarket chain is allowing Muslim staff not to handle alcohol if they don't want to, so you can bet your life they'll be lining up around the block to not want to. We've also had a pharmacist refusing to sell birth control because of religion; we've had a muslim dentist refusing to treat a woman because she wasn't wearing a headscarf; and now we've been told that muslim doctors are refusing to treat certain types of people because of their precious faith. We in Britain have a technical term for this bahaviour, it's called "taking the piss." We don't like people taking the piss, it gets up our nose and gives us the hump - it's a cultural thing. If muslims are really as down trodden as the Saudis would have us believe, why are there currently plans for a Saudi-funded mega mosque to be built here in London, the largest mosque in Europe, no less. Eat your heart out, Denmark, we know you'd love to have it but we're getting it instead, and it's going to be built right next to the site of the 2012 Olympic Games.

 

Pat Condell

 

"He is one of the foremost orators in the country, and as an after-dinner speaker is unrivaled. He charms a cultivated audience by his subtle humor, and a general audience by his flowing wit; is, in fact, so flexible that he can readily and easily adapt himself to circumstances."

 

Chauncey Depew