“A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigor of the game.”
Charles Lamb book Essays of Elia
Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Essays of Elia (1823)
“I secretly understood: the primitive appeal of the hearth. Television is — its irresistible charm — a fire.”
On a child doing homework near the family’s television set, in Roger’s Version (1986)
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John Updike240
American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, an… 1932–2009Related quotes
“Stop being so…"
"Charming? Attractive? Irresistible?
"I'm going with arrogant.”
Rachel Caine (1962) American writer
Source: Bitter Blood
“Television has changed the American child from an irresistible force into an immovable object.”
Laurence J. Peter (1919–1990) Canadian eductor
Source: Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1977), p. 324
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter
"The Lees of Happiness"
Quoted, Tales of the Jazz Age (1922)
Context: It was a marriage of love. He was sufficiently spoiled to be charming; she was ingenuous enough to be irresistible. Like two floating logs they met in a head-on rush, caught, and sped along together.
“Impulsiveness can be charming but deliberation can have an appeal, as well.”
Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride
Source: Along for the Ride
E. B. White (1899–1985) American writer
"Here Is New York," Holiday (1948); reprinted in Here is New York (1949)
Context: The subtlest change in New York is something people don't speak much about but that is in everyone's mind. The city, for the first time in its long history, is destructible. A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate the millions. The intimation of mortality is part of New York now: in the sounds of jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest edition.
All dwellers in cities must dwell with the stubborn fact of annihilation; in New York the fact is somewhat more concentrated because of the concentration of the city itself and because, of all targets, New York has a certain clear priority. In the mind of whatever perverted dreamer who might loose the lightning, New York must hold a steady, irresistible charm.
