
“I have spent more than half a lifetime trying to express the tragic moment.”
The Guardian (London, 11 August 1988)
Source: Belles on Their Toes
“I have spent more than half a lifetime trying to express the tragic moment.”
The Guardian (London, 11 August 1988)
Source: The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009), p. 284.
Context: It appeared that the one area in which Sir Bob excelled was anxiety. He was marked out by his relentless ability to find fault with others’ mediocrity—suggesting that a certain kind of intelligence may at heart be nothing more or less than a superior capacity for dissatisfaction.
Crabbed Age and Youth.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)
Context: Age may have one side, but assuredly Youth has the other. There is nothing more certain than that both are right, except perhaps that both are wrong. Let them agree to differ; for who knows but what agreeing to differ may not be a form of agreement rather than a form of difference?
“Milk was the right person in the right place at the right time, and he rose to the occasion.”
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/milk-2008 of Milk (24 November 2008)
Reviews, Four star reviews
Context: Sean Penn never tries to show Harvey Milk as a hero, and never needs to. He shows him as an ordinary man, kind, funny, flawed, shrewd, idealistic, yearning for a better world. He shows what such an ordinary man can achieve. Milk was the right person in the right place at the right time, and he rose to the occasion. So was Rosa Parks. Sometimes, at a precise moment in history, all it takes is for one person to stand up. Or sit down.