“A poet’s work is to name the unnameable, to point at faults, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.”
Salman Rushdie
He was the type of Englishman who attracts and repels equally — the square jaw, overall spareness of frame, the sad, humorous eyes, the efficiency and capability in his movements. Even on a baking show, he seemed steeped in knowledge of the world. His quick grin masked some apparently hidden insecurity. The accent was London/Oxbridge. He was built like a runner or a long distance hiker, with the requisite genteel white man’s stubble. To find him attractive makes me uneasy, he’s too easily good, too given to charity, too secure in the wedding ring. Is that ease in himself, giving himself over to his task, an effect of privilege? Yes. Do I care? Maybe. Would I jump his bones? Maybe.
“The temptation is powerful to close our eyes and wait for the worst to pass, but history tells that for freedom to survive, it must be defended, and if lies are to stop, they must be exposed.” Madeleine Albright
“The greatest gift is a passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you the knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is moral illumination.” Elizabeth Hardwick
“Welcome, Mask Teazer, Peeved Gamster, Huffer; all fools, but Politicians, we can suffer.”
John Banks (d. 1706 ), introduction to “Vertue Betray’d, or Anna Bullen, a Tragedy.”
