Word: quotes
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
William Trevor is an Irish-born novelist and short-story writer highly regarded for the had understated manner in which he suggests that quot;real life" and other a illusions may be dangerous to one's health. His deadpan style disguises a compassion for the peevish, the confused and the lonely. The Old Boys (1964) and The Boarding House (1965) had funny moments; yet the novels' deeper impressions were made by sympathy for the elderly and middle-aged attempting to preserve a fleeting respectability. The Love Department (1967) rollicked along on the efforts of a lovelorn columnist...
...quot;We are really talking about peril," Kuriloff says in the living room of her Brentwood apartment. She is an intense, frail-looking, girlish woman of 39 who moves about when she speaks, dashing to the bookshelf to verify a remembered fragment of poetry, changing chairs to find one whose compass bearing on the conversation is exactly right. When she listens, she cocks her head, nods emphatically -"Yes, yes, yes!"-leans forward in sympathy, sits back in surprise and pleasure, claps her hands...
...quot;Just now she is describing a ghastly scene, the desolate interior landscape of the becalmed writer. This bedeviled soul feels stupid, worthless, paralyzed; he is in a state of panic and isolation; he feels a terrible sense of impending disaster. "And in this situation the Critic is remorseless." That is Kuriloffs central perception: most people who write anything at all must deal, sooner or later, with a hostile, censorious inner voice. It will say, for example, "You must finish, and you don't have enough time." Or "You can't do it, you're no good...
...quot;Kuriloff is a poet who has been published in the Atlantic. But it was the agony of writing scholarly essays as a Ph.D. candidate in education at the University of California at Berkeley that led her to try to help other people. In college she was an expert player of the academic game, a great winner of praise and fellowships. Such accomplishments did not prevent her from feeling, as she once wrote, that each writing assignment was "a blankness, a barrier, a kind of enemy." She bested her enemy often enough to be able to do well...
...adviser to the New York State office for motion picture and TV development. At New York University, when an Israeli professor and his ten graduate students, all Israelis, decided to conduct classes in Hebrew, a dean asked, "Is this Tel Aviv University or is it N. Y.U&#quot; When a senior Israeli politician sought a cab at Kennedy Airport recently, he encountered a score of Israeli drivers. Annoyed at seeing all those Emigres, he went down the line and found a Lebanese. Israelis have no trouble finding jobs. They usually speak at least some English and often come with money...