“Not that there weren't real communists in the labor unions, and real spies in Washington, but these had nothing to do with the show that was being put on for us, which seemed entirely designed to Make Us Take This Thing Seriously. From abroad, where I was for much of the time, it looked as if the United States were trying to act like a superpower by holding its very own show trials.”

— Wilfrid Sheed

"Program Notes," p. xiv
Essays in Disguise (1990)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Not that there weren't real communists in the labor unions, and real spies in Washington, but these had nothing to do w…" by Wilfrid Sheed?

Wilfrid Sheed 50

English-American novelist and essayist 1930–2011

Related quotes

“I am not worried about the Communist Party taking over the Government of the United States, but I am against a person, whose loyalty is not to the Government of the United States, holding a Government job. They are entirely different things. I am not worried about this country ever going Communist. We have too much sense for that.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Responding to a question at his press conference (February 28, 1947); reported in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, 1947, p. 191

“But with photography as with drawing or painting, once it is done I want to know whether it holds together or not. That is the real critique. I couldn’t care less if the person to whom I show what I do likes it or not — it takes all sorts to make a world and all that. To criticize is to put oneself in someone else’s shoes and try to figure out what they wanted to do. Only the “why” of things is important to me.”

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) French photographer

Source: Henri Cartier-Bresson: Interviews and Conversations, 1951-1998, We Always Talk Too Much: Conversation with Pierre Assouline (1994), p. 132

“Which brings us to the arts, whose purpose, in common with astrology, is to use frauds in order to make human beings seem more wonderful than they really are. Dancers show us human beings who move much more gracefully than human beings really move. Films and books and plays show us people talking much more entertainingly than people really talk, make paltry human enterprises seem important. Singers and musicians show us human beings making sounds far more lovely than human beings really make. Architects give us temples in which something marvelous is obviously going on. Actually, practically nothing is going on inside. And on and on.”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

Bennington College address (1970)

“I never for a moment considered not doing the show. When I did the show I became very emotional. Some of the lyrics suddenly took on an entirely different meaning. Words like, 'as if we never said goodbye' became more real.”

Elaine Paige (1948) English singer and actress

Regarding Paige's battle with cancer; as quoted in "Elaine's close curtain call" by Rebecca Hardy in The Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/womenfamily.html?in_article_id=301138&in_page_id=1799 (8 May 2004)

“"Teddy, you know what I was thinking? How do you tell what are real things from what aren't real things?"
The bear shuffled its alternatives. "Real things are good."
"I wonder if time is good. I don't think Mummy likes time very much. The other day, lots of days ago, she said that time went by her. Is time real, Teddy?"”

Brian W. Aldiss book Super-Toys Last All Summer Long

Super-Toys Last All Summer Long (1969)

“Our own British Communist Party – if it is our own and British – might at any time suffer a change of heart and go back to bloody revolution. For all I know it may there already, underground. Anything is possible for a party which at one and the same time shouts for a United Front and puts up candidates against us with a view to splitting the Labour vote. All this is alien to our honest, straightforward, native, Socialist thought. … But you can't all the time say 'No, No, No' to the Communists. The real answer to the Communists is a positive answer. We have to show more vigorous fighting enthusiasm, more faith, more sense of high adventure.”

Herbert Morrison (1888–1965) British Labour politician

Peter Howard, "Men on Trial" (Blandford Press, 1945), p. 37-8
Speech in December 1944

“I find that trials help very much in detaching us from this earth. They make us look higher than this world. Here below, nothing can satisfy us. We cannot enjoy a little rest except in being ready to do God's will. [-] Truly, life isn't cheerful. It is very difficult to be attached to it. Au revoir, dear Pauline, my Confidante.”

Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897) French Discalced Carmelite nun

March 18(?), 1888
General Correspondence

“I think this [Obama] administration, if its policies were pursued for an extended period of time, would take us into decline, but there's nothing wrong with this country that a real president couldn't cure.”

John R. Bolton (1948) American lawyer and diplomat

"The Man with the Mustache"

“But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon — if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1961, Speech to Special Joint Session of Congress
Context: I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations — explorations which are particularly important for one purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon — if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.

“It was very dispiriting because a lot of things needed to be done. One of the things that happened was, if you had a good rank-and-file activist in a trade union situation, they would make them an offer to become part of the staff—at which point the person was totally lost to the campaign where they were a catalyst and became part of an apparatus that was basically going nowhere. The odd thing is, despite The Permanent Revolution being on the bookshelves, they would explain everything by going back and finding a quote from Trotsky or from Lenin in order to explain things, as opposed to explaining how things were in the real world.... They were basically just living in their own universe as opposed to making real life connections.”

Henry Spira (1927–1998) American activist

Ethics Into Action: Henry Spira and The Animal Rights Movement by Peter Singer (1998).

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Wilfrid Sheed 50

Related quotes

Related topics