This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
My love for the alphabet, which endures, grew out of reciting it but, before that, out of seeing the letters on the page. In my own story books, before I could read them for myself I fell in love with various winding, enchanted-looking initials drawn by Walter Crane at the head of fairy tales. In Once upon a time, an o had a rabbit running it as a treadmill, his feet upon flowers. When the day came years later for me to see the Book of Kells, all the wizardry of letter, initial, and word swept over me a thousand times, and the illumination, the gold, seemed a part of the world's beauty and holiness that had been there from the start.
Indifference | Passion |
You see, my Lord Archbishop, what is "dubious" about my theology is not that it contradicts particular doctrinal teachings, things are much worse or better: what I want, is no more and no less than a fundamental change in the whole way that theology is done today; but I want this out of faith, not out of faithlessness.
Need | Right | Struggle | Superstition | Suspicion | Talking | Theology |
Henry James said there isn't any difference between the English novel and the American novel since there are only two kinds of novels at all, the good and the bad.
Will |
Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill
A man's work is in danger of deteriorating when he thinks he has found the one best formula for doing it. If he thinks that, he is likely to feel that all he needs is merely to go on repeating himself . . . so long as a person is searching for better ways of doing his work, he is fairly safe.
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
Religions are manipulated in order to serve those who govern society and not the other way around.
Human race | Race |
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
If the people would but analyze the human equation of a prison they might better account for the crimes that are visited upon them in cities, towns, and hamlets, oft times by men who graduated with an education and equipment for just that sort of retributive service from some penal institution.
Self-interest | Slavery | Work |
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
It is not enough merely to win; others must lose.
Future | Hope | Television | Will |
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
Am I my brother's keeper? [That frequently asked question] has never been answered in a way that is satisfactory to civilized society. Yes, I am my brother's keeper. I am under a moral obligation to him that is inspired, not by maudlin sentimentality, but by the higher duty I owe myself.
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
As a rule, large capitalists are Republicans and small capitalists are Democrats, but workingmen must remember that they are all capitalists, and that the many small ones, like the fewer large ones, are all politically supporting their class interests, and this is always and everywhere the capitalist class.
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
I believe there's something very salutary in, say, beating up a gay-bashing policeman. Preferably one fights through the courts, through the laws, through education, but if at a neighborhood level violence is necessary, I'm all for violence. It's the only thing Americans understand.
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
Nothing that ever was changes. Yet nothing that is can ever be the same as what went before.
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party...and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt—until recently... and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.
People |
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
I am not a Labor Leader; I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, someone else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition; as it is now the capitalists use your heads and your hands.
Human race | Persuasion | Problems | Race | Guilty |
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
There is nothing that helps the Socialist Party so much as receiving an occasional deathblow. The oftener it is killed the more active, the more energetic, the more powerful it becomes.
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
A talent for drama is not a talent for writing, but is an ability to articulate human relationships.