Whatever brief delights it provides, mere strangeness in poetry and prose eventually leaves us cold, especially when we suspect the writer is stretching for effect to avoid the actual life before his eyes. Roger Rosenblatt More Quotes by Roger Rosenblatt More Quotes From Roger Rosenblatt Why, for example, do the great writers use anticipation instead of surprise? Because surprise is merely an instrument of the unusual, whereas anticipation of a consequence enlarges our understanding of what is happening. Roger Rosenblatt understanding example use Children love to be alone because alone is where they know themselves, and where they dream. Roger Rosenblatt dream inspirational children The best in art and life comes from a center - something urgent and powerful, an idea or emotion that insists on its being. From that insistence, a shape emerges and creates its structure out of passion. If you begin with a structure, you have to make up the passion, and that's very hard to do. Roger Rosenblatt powerful wisdom art Only by moving in the direction you least trust can you be saved Roger Rosenblatt moving-in saved moving Anytime you make a person into something other than himself, you make a monster. Roger Rosenblatt persons self monsters The problem with death is absence Roger Rosenblatt problem absence The God worth worshipping is the one who pays us the compliment of self - regulation, and we might return it by minding our own business. Roger Rosenblatt self pay might For those at home, as well as for those in battle, war is curiously disabling. The mere realization that one's country is at war poisons the bloodstream, creates an incessant mood of worry that infiltrates even the most casual moments. Roger Rosenblatt home war country A library should be like a pair of open arms. Roger Rosenblatt library pairs reading Death is too much for men to bear, whereas women, who are practiced in bearing the deaths of men before their own and who are alsopracticed in bearing life, take death almost in stride. They go to meet death--that is, they attempt suicide--twice as often as men, though men are more "successful" because they use surer weapons, like guns. Roger Rosenblatt women suicide death The only reason I wanted 'Making Toast' as the title is that it is a simple gesture of moving on. Every morning there's the bread and you make the toast and you start the day. Roger Rosenblatt morning life moving Friends are lights in winter; the older the friend, the brighter the light. Roger Rosenblatt light winter friendship Blame is especially useful in situations in which there is no apparent villain-those moments that prove, despite our advancement of learning, how susceptible we are to high winds and wet roads. Roger Rosenblatt advancement blame wind Time can be such a menace to a man. By this age do that; by that age do better. Roger Rosenblatt age time men Uncle Scrooge preferred to let the poor die "and decrease the surplus population." Scrooge may not have had God on his side, but his arithmetic was impeccable. Roger Rosenblatt scrooge population uncles One of the very important things that have to be learned around the time dying becomes a real prospect is to recognize those occasions when we have been useful in the world. Roger Rosenblatt important real death Slum kids die slowly, their lives eroded at so languid a pace that even they would have trouble tracing the disintegration. To the children of war death explodes like a car bomb. Roger Rosenblatt war kids children The Constitution is more than literature, but as literature, it is primarily a work of the imagination. It imagined a country: fantastic. More fantastic still, it imagined a country full of people imagining themselves. Roger Rosenblatt imagination country people A five-year old is in a pretty good position to assess who is beautiful and who is not. Removed from the confusions of sexuality, he or she can judge a face as a face. Roger Rosenblatt beautiful beauty years My guess [is] . . . that the great majority of Americans are saying they favor gun control when they really mean gun banishment. . . . I think the country has long been ready to restrict the use of guns, except for hunting rifles and shotguns, and now I think we're prepared to get rid of the damned things entirely - the handguns, the semis and the automatics. Roger Rosenblatt gun mean country
