On Polanski's The Pianist
Essays and reviews, The Meaning of Recognition (2005)
Context: Roman Polanski's new film The Pianist is a work of genius on every level, except, alas, for the press-pack promotional slogan attributed to the director himself. "The Pianist is a testimony to the power of music, the will to live, and the courage to stand against evil." If he actually said it, he flew in the face of his own masterpiece, which is a testimony to none of those things. In the Warsaw ghetto, the power of music, the will to live and the courage to stand against evil added up to very little, and The Pianist has the wherewithal to respect that sad fact and make sense of it. In the Warsaw ghetto, what counted was luck, and the luck had to be very good.
“Good music always defeats bad luck.”
"Alex Hershaft", in People Promoting and People Opposing Animal Rights: In Their Own Words, ed. John M. Kistler (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002), p. 145 https://books.google.it/books?id=kIgAi6k69IQC&pg=PA145.
L'auteur de ce Prophète a non seulement le bonheur d'avoir du talent, mais aussi le talent d'avoir du bonheur.
Les soirées de l'orchestre (1852), ch. 5 http://www.hberlioz.com/Writings/SO05.htm; Jacques Barzun (trans.) Evenings with the Orchestra (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999) p. 62.
Life in the Industry: A Musician's Diary
Source: Tactics of Mistake (1971), Chapter 24 (p. 349)
Steppin' Out interview http://jon.happyjoyfun.net/tran/1990/93_1223steppingout.html, December 23, 1993, when asked how he would describe himself.
Part 2, Chapter 6 (page 86)
Notes from Underground (1864)
Rescue (1945)
Context: Someone will read as moral
That the people of Rome or Warsaw
Haggle, laugh, make love
As they pass by martyrs' pyres.
Someone else will read
Of the passing of things human,
Of the oblivion
Born before the flames have died. But that day I thought only
Of the loneliness of the dying,
Of how, when Giordano
Climbed to his burning
There were no words
In any human tongue
To be left for mankind,
Mankind who live on.
“Luck? Good luck? GM, the last time I checked, luck is for losers.”
Extreme Championship Wrestling. September 4, 2007.
To Armando Estrada when he wished CM Punk good luck in his "Last Chance" match with John Morrison.
Extreme Championship Wrestling
