Quotes from Brendan Gill

I will try to cram these paragraphs full of facts and give them a weight and shape no greater than that of a cloud of blue butterflies.

Wars and elections are both too big and too small to matter in the long run.

We must all face the fact that in a single lifetime we lead several simultaneous lives; our intention should be to make them reinforce one another instead of colliding.

Obscenity is a notable enhancer of life and is suppressed at grave peril to the arts.

If it were better, it wouldn't be as good.

Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.

Obscenity is a notable enhancer of life and is suppressed at grave peril to the arts.

We pile one skyscraper next to another, so the squirrels could leap from one top to the next, and pretty soon we're living in the bottom of a well. Psychologically you feel uneasy. Feel in shadow. Something is threatening you. You're trapped inside something that is beyond the human scale, and none of the things we need, like light and air and the sun on our skins is any longer present.

My definition of a hero is a man who tests himself by a series of ordeals, each more difficult than the last; he's not competing in the world at all, he's competing only against himself.

It is in the nature of the New Yorker to be as topical as possible, on a level that is often small in scale and playful in intention.

Parody is homage gone sour.

Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.