1980s, Generation of Swine (1988)
Context: There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die. Who knows? If there is in fact, a heaven and a hell, all we know for sure is that hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix — a clean well lighted place full of sunshine and bromides and fast cars where almost everybody seems vaguely happy, except those who know in their hearts what is missing... And being driven slowly and quietly into the kind of terminal craziness that comes with finally understanding that the one thing you want is not there. Missing. Back-ordered. No tengo. Vaya con dios. Grow up! Small is better. Take what you can get...
“The audience will always feel far more generous if, as some point in the evening, a little time has been found for them to applaud themselves.”
Aphorisms in Poetry, vol. 187, n. 1, October 2005
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Don Paterson 7
Poet 1963Related quotes
Dissenting, Kingsley Books, Inc. v. Brown, 354 U.S. 436, 447 (1957)
Judicial opinions
George (1958) "Cybernetics and biology" in: M.L. Johnson Ed. New biology. Ns 26-31. p.106
"A Fanfare for Prometheus" (29 January 1955); also in The Spirit of Liberty: Papers and Addresses (1952), p. 131.
Extra-judicial writings
The Law of Mind (1892)
Sydney Morning Herald interview (2003)