“I kept waiting for him to lay bare something more than this pointed unobjectionableness, but all that rose to the surface was more surface”

Source: American Pastoral

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I kept waiting for him to lay bare something more than this pointed unobjectionableness, but all that rose to the surfa…" by Philip Roth?
Philip Roth photo
Philip Roth 95
American novelist 1933–2018

Related quotes

Djuna Barnes photo

“There is always more surface to a shattered object than a whole.”

Djuna Barnes (1892–1982) American Modernist writer, poet and artist

In a letter to Emily Coleman, as quoted in The Book of Repulsive Women and Other Poems : Selected Poems (2003), edited by Rebecca Loncraine, p. xi

Hans Reichenbach photo

“The surfaces of three-dimensional space are distinguished from each other not only by their curvature but also by certain more general properties. A spherical surface, for instance, differs from a plane not only by its roundness but also by its finiteness. Finiteness is a holistic property. The sphere as a whole has a character different from that of a plane. A spherical surface made from rubber, such as a balloon, can be twisted so that its geometry changes…. but it cannot be distorted in such a way as that it will cover a plane. All surfaces obtained by distortion of the rubber sphere possess the same holistic properties; they are closed and finite. The plane as a whole has the property of being open; its straight lines are not closed. This feature is mathematically expressed as follows. Every surface can be mapped upon another one by the coordination of each point of one surface to a point of the other surface, as illustrated by the projection of a shadow picture by light rays. For surfaces with the same holistic properties it is possible to carry through this transformation uniquely and continuously in all points. Uniquely means: one and only one point of one surface corresponds to a given point of the other surface, and vice versa. Continuously means: neighborhood relations in infinitesimal domains are preserved; no tearing of the surface or shifting of relative positions of points occur at any place. For surfaces with different holistic properties, such a transformation can be carried through locally, but there is no single transformation for the whole surface.”

Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) American philosopher

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928, tr. 1957)

Cassandra Clare photo
Albert Einstein photo

“If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live. No more bees, no more pollination … no more men!”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

A variant — "Professor Einstein, the learned scientist, once calculated that if all bees disappeared off the earth, four years later all humans would also have disappeared" — appears in The Irish Beekeeper, v.19-20, 1965-66, p74, citing Abeilles et Fleurs (Bees and Flowers, the house magazine of Union Nationale de l'Apiculture Française) for June 1965. Snopes.com mentions its use in a beekeepers' protest in 1994 in Europe http://www.snopes.com/quotes/einstein/bees.asp suggesting invention and attribution to Einstein for political reasons.
Misattributed

Jean Metzinger photo
Alicia Witt photo

“I like digging into these characters that are a lot more complex, and there's a lot that isn't apparent on the surface”

Alicia Witt (1975) American actress

As quoted in "Why Now Is a Divine Time for Alicia Witt", by Sarah Beauchamp at Huffington Post (30 May 2014) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-beauchamp/why-alicia-witt-should-be_b_5400673.html
Context: I like digging into these characters that are a lot more complex, and there's a lot that isn't apparent on the surface … In a weird way, you can access all that fear and pain. … Nothing makes me happier than when somebody figures out I was in something, and then they'd seen me in something else, and had no idea it was the same person… Then I feel like I've done my job. … I've always loved finding characters that are not always the most likable ones when you first meet them, and finding a way to make them people that viewers will identify with, even against their better judgment.

“A work can be as powerful as it can be thought to be. Actual space is intrinsically more powerful and specific than paint on a flat surface.”

Donald Judd (1928–1994) artist

Source: 1960s, "Specific Objects," 1965, p. 76; As quoted in: De gids, Vol. 131, Nr. 1-5, (1968), p. 262

Theo van Doesburg photo

“We speak of concrete and not abstract painting because nothing is more concrete, more real than a line, a colour, a surface. [quote of Van Doesburg, c. 1925]”

Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) Dutch architect, painter, draughtsman and writer

quoted in 'Abstract Art', Anna Moszynska, Thames and Hudson 1990, p. 107
Hans Arp used some years earlier already this new term: 'concrete art' as a rejection of the term 'abstract art'
1920 – 1926

Yves Klein photo
Vera Stanley Alder photo

“Can we grasp that there is more than enough land surface, capable of restoration, to support and feed in comfort a larger population than now exists on this globe?”

Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Chapter II Planning a Model World

Related topics