“I will use big words from time to time, the meanings of which I may only vaguely perceive, in hopes such cupidity will send you scampering to your dictionary: I will call such behavior 'public service'.”

— Harlan Ellison

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Harlan Ellison 79

American writer 1934–2018

Sydney Carter (1915–2004) British musician and poet

Green Print for Song (1974)
Context: I see Christ as the incarnation of the piper who is calling us. He dances that shape and pattern which is at the heart of our reality. By Christ I mean not only Jesus; in other times and places, other planets, there may be other Lords of the Dance. But Jesus is the one I know of first and best. I sing of the dancing pattern in the life and words of Jesus.
Whether Jesus ever leaped in Galilee to the rhythm of a pipe or drum I do not know. We are told that David danced (and as an act of worship too), so it is not impossible. The fact that many Christians have regarded dancing as a bit ungodly (in a church, at any rate) does not mean that Jesus did. The Shakers didn't...

“I do hope you realize that every time you use disinterested to mean uninterested, an angel dies.”

Roy Blount Jr. (1941) American writer

Alphabet Juice (2008), p. 7.

“I spent a long time, my dear Suzanne, looking for your photograph - I eventually found the album in the table in the drawing room, so I can look at your comforting face from time to time. I woke up last night thinking I heard you calling me... Every day we're expecting a major offensive to break through the iron ring that surrounds us. We are counting on the provinces, because we can't just send our little [French] army of to be massacred. Those devious Prussians may well try to starve us out.”

Edouard Manet (1832–1883) French painter

Quote from Manet's letter to his wife, Suzanne Leenhof 23 Oct. 1870, a cited in The private lives of the Impressionists Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 78
the Prussian army was encircling Paris completely in Autumn, 1870; Manet was locked up, but had sent his wife Suzanne to the county before, out of dangerous Paris
1850 - 1875

“Whenever we proceed from the known into the unknown we may hope to understand, but we may have to learn at the same time a new meaning of the word "understanding."”

Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976) German theoretical physicist

Physics and Philosophy (1958)
Source: Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science
Context: Whenever we proceed from the known into the unknown we may hope to understand, but we may have to learn at the same time a new meaning of the word "understanding."

“Actually if a writer needs a dictionary he should not write. He should have read the dictionary at least three times from beginning to end and then have loaned it to someone who needs it. There are only certain words which are valid and similies (bring me my dictionary) are like defective ammunition”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

the lowest thing I can think of at this time
Letter (20 March 1953); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker