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Our literature, despite several false starts that promised much, is chiefly remarkable, now as always, for its respectable mediocrity.
-H. L. Mencken
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Our Literature, Despite Several False Starts That

H. L. Mencken
Our literature, despite several false starts that promised much, is chiefly remarkable, now as always, for its respectable mediocrity.
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Mediocrity Literature Remarkable

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Do not several sorts of rays make vibrations of several bignesses, which according to their bigness excite sensations of several colours, much after the manner that the vibrations of the air, according to their several bignesses excite sensations of several sounds? and particularly do not the most refrangible rays excite the shortest vibrations for making a sensation of deep violet, the least refrangible the largest form making a sensation of deep red, and several intermediate sorts of rays, vibrations of several intermediate bignesses to make sensations of several intemediate colours?
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Literature cannot develop between the categories "permitted"—"not permitted"—"this you can and that you can't." literature that is not the air of its contemporary society, that dares not warn in time against threatening moral and social dangers, such literature does not deserve the name of literature; it is only a facade. such literature loses the confidence of its own people, and its published works are used as waste paper instead of being read. -letter to the fourth national congress of soviet writers
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God, but life is loneliness, despite all the opiates, despite the shrill tinsel gaiety of "parties" with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear. and when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter - they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long. yes, there is joy, fulfillment and companionship - but the loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness is horrible and overpowering.
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You must always look with both of your eyes and listen with both of your ears. he says this is a very big world and there are many many things you could miss if you are not careful. there are remarkable things all the time, right in front of us, but our eyes have like the clouds over the sun and our lives are paler and poorer if we do not see them for what they are. if nobody speaks of remarkable things, how can they be called remarkable?
Eye Clouds Missing
What is a scene? a) a scene starts and ends in one place at one time (the aristotelian unities of time and place-this stuff goes waaaayyyy back). b) a scene starts in one place emotionally and ends in another place emotionally. starts angry, ends embarrassed. starts lovestruck, ends disgusted. c) something happens in a scene, whereby the character cannot go back to the way things were before. make sure to finish a scene before you go on to the next. make something happen.
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It seems to me that literature is giving way a little bit to the immediacy of other diversions, other forms of entertainment. what will it be in fifty years? i don't know. will there be printed books? probably, but i'm not sure. there's always going to be literature, though. i believe that. i think literature has a way of getting deep into people and being essential. literature has its own powers.
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