If it were better, it wouldn't be as good. Brendan Gill More Quotes by Brendan Gill More Quotes From Brendan Gill Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious. Brendan Gill spiritual motivational life 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. Brendan Gill single-life faces facts The guns of the big events rumble through our pages, but the tiny firecrackers are constantly hissing and popping there as well; it appears that much of my life as a journalist has been devoted to sedulously setting off firecrackers. Brendan Gill pages events gun Obscenity is a notable enhancer of life and is suppressed at grave peril to the arts. Brendan Gill obscenity notable art Parody is homage gone sour. Brendan Gill parody sour gone Avain attempt to subdue that unsubduable country. Brendan Gill country In the later nineteenth century, the tops of skyscrapers often took the shape of domes, surmounted by jaunty gilded lanterns; later came ziggurats, mausoleums, Alexandrian lighthouses, miniature Parthenons. These charming follies contained neither royal corpses nor effigies of gods and goddesses; rather they contained large wooden tanks filled with water. Brendan Gill gods-and-goddesses shapes water 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. Brendan Gill scales intention levels Wars and elections are both too big and too small to matter in the long run. Brendan Gill inspirational-life running war The ingenuities we practice in order to appear admirable to ourselves would suffice to invent the telephone twice over on a rainy summer morning. Brendan Gill summer morning order 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. Brendan Gill butterfly eye clouds To die quickly in one's eighth decade at the very top of one's powers is an enviable end, and not an occasion for mourning. Brendan Gill mourning ends death
