You ride astride the imaginary in order to hunt down the real.
I go to the theatre expecting to have a good time. I want each play and performance to take me somewhere. Naturally, this doesn't always happen.
I know in an existential sense that life can change on a dime. . . something has instantly and inexorably changed in American life.
A cruel critic has never made anything; his glibness is a way of inflicting his emptiness on others.
Writers don't always know what they mean - that's why they write. Their work stands in for them. On the page, the reader meets the authoritative, perfected self; in life, the writer is lumbered with the uncertain, imperfect one.
When Elvis made his mass-media debut on 'The Ed Sullivan Show' - his notorious gyrations filmed only from the waist up - I fell off the family chaise longue with delight.
In 1957, 'West Side Story' had introduced the musical to the reckless dark side of teen-age life; 'Bye Bye Birdie,' set in Sweet Apple, Ohio, where the citizens apparently dress mostly in chartreuse, mauve, orange, periwinkle, and turquoise, was a walk on the bright side.
I'm not sure that I'll be able to do everything that I did before.
Lacan is a tyrant who must be driven from our shores. Narrowly trained English professors who know nothing of art history or popular culture think they can just wade in with Lacan and trash everything in sight.
For an hour every day, I did something. I was on the elliptical or the treadmill, and if someone asked me to go to a class - whether it was spinning, boxing, yoga, you name it - I went. By the end of the month, I felt so good, I just kept going. I didn't want to lose my momentum.
Never read the Bible as if it means something. Or at any rate don't try and mean it. Nor prayers. The liturgy is best treated and read as if it's someone announcing the departure of trains.