Word: saying
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...classmates say they did not predict their sometimes jocular peer would one day be a Supreme Court Justice...
That distance, current and former members of the Corporation say, has not been all bad, as their outside perspective can lend a sense of objectivity in their oversight...
...dinner party last month, a biomedical engineer asked me a rude question. He was not trying to be rude. He was drunk. Informed that I am an English professor, he responded, "Why?" He explained that his mission in life is to save lives. Mine is to say clever things about dead writers. Prodded by his wife’s grimace, he backtracked a bit and reassured me that Shakespeare is "obviously important." Praising Shakespeare is how the world apologizes for its lack of interest in literature. Those of us who have devoted our lives to literature are dogged by this...
...slow motion through space? Nietzsche understood this. The quotidian life of any language ("What’s up?" "Nice weather!" "LOL") is naturally disenchanting. 99.99 percent of the words we speak show no trace of life. Clichés trickle from our zombie mouths. We speak a lot and say little. Literature re-enchants language; it fills its lungs with gasps. What are the pangs induced by good poetry but a visceral realization of having taken our friend language for granted, of having broken its heart? Literature teaches us to see the words we live with as though...
...this is an institution. I couldn’t just say, ‘Hey let’s just do XYZ play,’” Henning said. “You had to go to Chapman, apply, and present all your ideas...