“Indolence, interruption, business, and pleasure; all take their turns of retardation….Perhaps no extensive and multifarious performance, said Sib, was ever effected within the term originally fixed in the undertaker’s mind. He that runs against Time, has an antagonist not subject… — Helen DeWitt Copy Share Image
“When a human being develops an argument, when a human being attempts not only to think but to speak with precision, he or she is often made to feel that this is a mark of social inadequacy and that there is something comical about it. The younger the human being, the more humorous it becomes. So that humans whose inclination… — Helen DeWitt Copy Share
There is a strange taboo in our society against ending something merely because it is not pleasant-- life, love, a conversation, you name it,… — Helen DeWitt Copy Share Image
“I wish you wouldn't say the first thing that comes into your head, Ludo. There is an obvious difference between someone who works within… — Helen DeWitt Copy Share Image
“So Lucille pressed the button, and a panel slid open in the wall, and the transporter came through, and sure enough here was the… — Helen DeWitt Copy Share Image
“In her excitement at the idea of just walking out the door she had walked out the door without stopping to practice and without… — Helen DeWitt Copy Share Image
“Sometimes I rode the Circle Line reading a book on organic chemistry and sometimes I read Leave It to Psmith for the 20th or… — Helen DeWitt Copy Share Image
The master swordsman isn't interested in killing people. He only wants to perfect his art. — Helen DeWitt Copy Share Image
“I thought suddenly Look. If Kambei had stopped recruiting when the first samurai didn’t work out a 205-minute masterpiece of modern cinema would have… — Helen DeWitt Copy Share Image
The typical review makes a Teletubby look like a sabre-toothed tiger. You can economize by reading online rather than squandering $4.95, yes, but all… — Helen DeWitt Copy Share Image
Perhaps this is the root of all evil, that gardeners are not put in charge of our schools. — Helen DeWitt Copy Share Image
“Yamamoto said he thought you had to be able to hear how something did not work as part of a bigger thing to hear how it did and it was precisely because people couldn't hear that that they were willing to let movements be taken out of pieces.” — Helen DeWitt Copy Share
“Something looked through my grandfather's eyes. It said Being an accountant, it's not the end of the world. Something looked at my Uncle Danny. Something looked at my aunts and it said A secretary, is that so terrible? Linda had seen four before her do something that was not so terrible and already there was something about them, their whole… — Helen DeWitt Copy Share
