The West begins where the average annual rainfall drops below twenty inches. When you reach the line which marks that drop – for convenience, the one hundredth meridian – you have reached the West.
BERNARD DEVOTOThe trouble with the sacred Individual is that he has no significance, except as he can acquire it from others, from the social whole.
More Bernard DeVoto Quotes
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Between the amateur and the professional . . . there is a difference not only in degree but in kind.
BERNARD DEVOTO -
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 -
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 -
The mind has its own logic but does not often let others in on it.
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 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 -
You can no more keep a Martini in the refrigerator than you can keep a kiss there.
BERNARD DEVOTO -
The parks preserve it permanently in the inheritance of the American citizens.
BERNARD DEVOTO -
The trouble with Reason is that it becomes meaningless at the exact point where it refuses to act.
BERNARD DEVOTO -
The best reason for putting anything down on paper is that one may then change it.
BERNARD DEVOTO -
When evening quickens in the street, comes a pause in the day’s occupation that is known as the cocktail hour.
BERNARD DEVOTO -
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 DEVOTO -
You can no more keep a martini in the refrigerator than you can keep a kiss there. The proper union of gin and vermouth is a great and sudden glory; it is one of the happiest marriages on earth and one of the shortest-lived.
BERNARD DEVOTO -
History abhors determinism but cannot tolerate chance.
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