“We are described into corners, and then we must describe ourselves out of corners.”
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Salman Rushdie 122
British Indian novelist and essayist 1947Related quotes
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Part Five: Lightness and Weight
Context: Whenever a single political movement corners power, we find ourselves in the realm of totalitarian kitsch. When I say “totalitarian,” what I mean is that everything that infringes on kitsch must be banished for life: every display of individualism (because a deviation from the collective is a spit in the eye of the smiling brotherhood); every doubt (because anyone who starts doubting details will end by doubting life itself); all irony (because in the realm of kitsch everything must be taken quite seriously); and the mother who abandons her family or the man who prefers men to women, thereby calling into question the holy decree “Be fruitful and multiply.”
Essay, "Be an animal". p.91
Writing Down the Bones (1986)
“I thought we’d turned a corner. Maybe we did, but we hit a brick wall anyway.”
Source: Bared to You
“Men must turn square corners when they deal with the Government.”
Rock Island C.R.R. v. United States, 254 U.S. 141, 143 (22 November 1920).
1920s
Kenneth Noland, p. 12
Conversation with Karen Wilkin' (1986-1988)
“We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of our great nation.”
The quote is from Bush at War by Bob Woodward, but it was not said by Bush. Woodward attributes the quote to one among "about 25 men representing three different Special Forces units and three CIA paramilitary teams" during the dedication of a September 11th memorial in the mountains of Afghanistan on February 5, 2002.
Attributed, Misattributed