The heart wakens from coma and its dyspnea ends. Its strengthening pulse is to cross over into campground, to believe that the world has not been altogether lost or, if lost, then not altogether in vain.
BERNARD DEVOTONew England is a finished place. Its destiny is that of Florence or Venice, not Milan while the American empire careens onward toward its unpredicted end. . . .
More Bernard DeVoto Quotes
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This is the violet hour, the hour of hush and wonder, when the affectations glow and valor is reborn, when the shadows deepen along the edge of the forest and we believe that, if we watch carefully, at any moment we may see the unicorn.
BERNARD DEVOTO -
The only places where American medicine can fully live up to its possibilities are the teaching hospitals.
BERNARD DEVOTO -
Art is man determined to die sane.
BERNARD DEVOTO -
The rat stops gnawing in the wood, the dungeon walls withdraw, the weight is lifted your pulse steadies and the sun has found your heart, the day was not bad, the season has not been bad, there is sense and even promise in going on.
BERNARD DEVOTO -
History abhors determinism but cannot tolerate chance.
BERNARD DEVOTO -
When evening quickens in the street, comes a pause in the day’s occupation that is known as the cocktail hour. It marks the lifeward turn.
BERNARD DEVOTO -
Sure the people are stupid: the human race is stupid. Sure Congress is an inefficient instrument of government. But the people are not stupid enough to abandon representative government for any other kind, including government by the guy who knows.
BERNARD DEVOTO -
Something can be done with people who put pickled onions in: strangulation seems best.
BERNARD DEVOTO -
The water of life was given to us to make us see for a while that we are more nearly men and women, more nearly kind and gentle and generous, pleasanter and stronger than without its vision there is any evidence we are.
BERNARD DEVOTO -
The dawn of knowledge is usually the false dawn.
BERNARD DEVOTO -
The mind has its own logic but does not often let others in on it.
BERNARD DEVOTO -
The best reason for putting anything down on paper is that one may then change it.
BERNARD DEVOTO -
You can no more keep a Martini in the refrigerator than you can keep a kiss there.
BERNARD DEVOTO -
The trouble with the sacred Individual is that he has no significance, except as he can acquire it from others, from the social whole.
BERNARD DEVOTO -
The parks preserve it permanently in the inheritance of the American citizens.
BERNARD DEVOTO