(Sigh) The key problem with banality is that it prevents people from thinking. They plug in their bromides and platitudes and they sit back and think they’re clever, but really, it’s a substitute for thinking; it’s just quoting something somebody else has said, without examination. For instance, somebody said today, of Jerry Lewis, “The French […]
And now we come to that interesting life passage where you spot an interesting, well-funded theme anthology helmed by someone who was once your friend, but whom you haven’t seen for more than twenty years — and who abused your relationship so badly at the time that mutual friends reacted with open relief when you […]
From an earlier draft of the first Harry Potter novel: Harry, Ron, and Hermione are among the first-year students being shown around the grounds of Hogwart’s, seeing the various magical places, learning the various magical rules. Then they turn a corner inside the castle, and encounter a student who, engrossed in a book while reading, […]