We worship education but hate learning.

Florence King

Categorized in : Worship Hate

I'm for prayer in the schools because ritual and ceremony are calming and civilizing, and the little fartlings should be tamped down whenever possible.

prayer littles school

It's the Government's job to print the money, deliver the mail and declare war. Now give me my cigarettes.

Insecurity breeds treachery: if you are kind to people who hate themselves, they will hate you as well.

insecurity hate people

Southerners have a genius for psychological alchemy...If something intolerable simply cannot be changed, driven away or shot they will not only tolerate it but take pride in it as well.

psychological genius pride

Of all the old maid's blessing, the greatest is carte blanche. Spinsterhood is powerful; once a woman is called "that crazy old maid" she can get away with anything.

single crazy powerful

Kings and queens might do wicked things, but they don't nag. One thing I like about Bloody Mary: she never said a word about lung cancer.

cancer queens kings

True nostalgia is an ephemeral composition of disjointed memories.

ephemeral literature memories

Each time a mediocre singer performs, he is saying, in effect, "This is good enough for you." The audience, thrust into that familiar American mood of knowing something is wrong but not knowing what it is, unconsciously absorbs the insult and projects it back onto the mediocre performer in the form of inattention, rudeness and noise.

mediocrity singers knowing

There's no national glue holding us together because somebody put too much pluribus in the unum.

glue too-much together

Writers who have nothing to say always strain for metaphors to say it in.

strain metaphor writing

People are so busy dreaming the American Dream, fantasizing about what they could be or have a right to be, that they're all asleep at the switch. Consequently we are living in the Age of Human Error.

dream mistake native-american

Oppressed people are treacherous for the simple reason that treachery is both a means of survival and a way to curry favor with one's oppressor.

simple mean people

The nice thing about Southerners is the way we enjoy our neuroses.

neurosis nice way

In social matters, pointless conventions are not merely the bee sting of etiquette, but the snake bite of moral order.

snakes literature order

Owning your own home is America's unique recipe for avoiding revolution and promoting pseudo-equality at the same time. To keep citizens puttering in their yards instead of sputtering on the barricades, the government has gladly deprived itself of billions in tax revenues by letting home owners deduct mortgage interest payments.

women unique home

Recently while browsing in a secondhand bookstore I bought a paperback copy of The Intellectual and the City, but I was unable to read it. When I got home I discovered that the original owner had highlighted the entire book - literally. Every line on every page had been drawn through with a bright green Magic Marker. It was a terrifying example of a mind that had lost all power of discrimination.

cities home book

Why do I hate people? Who else is there to hate?

i-hate-people hate people

There is much to be said for post-menopausal celibacy. Sex is rough on loners because you have to have somebody else around, but now I don't. No more diets to stay slim and desirable: I've had sex and I've had food, and I'd rather eat.

I have a professional acquaintance whose recent eyelid job has left her with a permanent expression of such poleaxed astonishment that she looks at all times as if she had just read one of my books.

expression jobs book

Men are not very good at loving, but they are experts at admiring and respecting; the woman who goes after their admiration and respect will often come out better than she who goes out after their love.

respect experts men