The days of my youth I remember as nearly always in need of explanation, and not as much fun as advertised in the promotions for board games and breakfast cereal. Lewis H. Lapham More Quotes by Lewis H. Lapham More Quotes From Lewis H. Lapham Usually when I drank too much, I could guess why I did so, the objective being to murder a state of consciousness that I didn't have the courage to sustain--a fear of heights, which sometimes during the carnival of the 1960s accompanied my attempts to transform the bourgeois journalist into an avant-garde novelist. The stepped-up ambition was a commonplace among the would-be William Faulkners of my generation; nearly always it resulted in commercial failure and literary embarrassment. Lewis H. Lapham height too-much ambition Let the rabbit of free enterprise out of its velveteen bag and too many people would have to be fired, too much idiocy exposed to the light of judgment or ridicule, too much vanity sacrificed to the fires of efficiency. Such a catastrophe obviously would threaten the American way of life, to say nothing of the belief in free markets. Lewis H. Lapham vanity light fire The national distrust of the contemplative temperament arises less from an innate Philistinism than from a suspicion of anything that cannot be counted, stuffed, framed or mounted over the fireplace in the den. Lewis H. Lapham framed contemplation fire The leading cause of death is birth. Lewis H. Lapham leading-causes birth causes I sometimes think that the American story is the one about the reading of the will. Lewis H. Lapham reading america thinking Most American cities shop to their best advantage when seen from a height or from a distance, at a point where the ugliness of the buildings dissolves into the beauty of an abstraction. Lewis H. Lapham distance cities america Seeing is believing, and if an American success is to count for anything in the world it must be clothed in the raiment of property. As often as not it isn't the money itself that means anything; it is the use of money as the currency of the soul. Lewis H. Lapham money mean believe When we talk about the foreign, the question becomes one of us versus them. But in the end, is one just the opposite side of the other? Lewis H. Lapham ends opposites sides We are a people captivated by the power and romance of metaphor, forever seeking the invisible through the image of the visible. Lewis H. Lapham romance forever people History is not what happened 200 or 2,000 years ago; it's a story about what happened 200 or 2,000 years ago. Lewis H. Lapham years-ago stories years The state of perpetual emptiness is, of course, very good for business. Lewis H. Lapham very-good emptiness states The practice of our democracy depends on a sense of, and knowledge of, history in the same way that playing in the World Series requires a bat and a ball. Lewis H. Lapham bats democracy practice The more prosperous and settled a nation, the more readily it tends to think of war as a regrettable accident; to nations less fortunate the chance of war presents itself as a possible bountiful friend. Lewis H. Lapham chance war thinking If you wear a suit, you can talk to anybody. Lewis H. Lapham suits-you suits ifs The playing field is more sacred than the stock exchange, more blessed than Capital Hill or the vaults of Fort Knox. The diamond and the gridiron -- and, to a lesser degree, the court, the rink, the track, and the ring -- embody the American dream of Eden. Lewis H. Lapham eden blessed dream Power broken into a thousand pieces can be hidden and disowned. If no individual or institution possesses the authority to act without of everybody else in the room, then nobody is at fault if anything goes wrong. Lewis H. Lapham anything-goes faults broken About the presence of death and dying I don't remember the society in the 1950s being so skittish as it has since become. People still died at home, among relatives and friends, often in the care of a family physician. Death was still to be seen sitting in the parlor, hanging in a butcher shop, sometimes lying in the street. Lewis H. Lapham home death lying Given lesser opportunities, Kissinger would have done very well as a talk show host. Fortunately for him, although not so fortunately for the United States, he found his patron in Nelson Rockefeller instead of William Paley. Lewis H. Lapham united-states done opportunity His administration apparently means to define itself as a television program instead of a government...I don't know if it can please both its sponsors and its intended audience. Lewis H. Lapham government mean television The world goes on as before, and it turns out that nobody else seems to to notice the unbearable lightness of being. Lewis H. Lapham unbearable goes-on world
