“Claims to ordinariness and salt-of-the-earth virtue—“slumming it,” as it’s crudely called—are themselves pretentious. The assumption that dropping your aitches or asserting a… — Dan Fox Copy Share Image
“The intellectually insecure drop the word “pretentious” to shut down a conversation they don’t understand, when simply saying “I don’t know” or… — Dan Fox Copy Share Image
“The pretentious flaws of others affirm your own intellectual or aesthetic expertise. Simultaneously, their fakery highlights the contours of your down-to-earth character… — Dan Fox Copy Share Image
“Being pretentious is rarely harmful to anyone. Accusing others of it is. You can use the word “pretentious” as a weapon with… — Dan Fox Copy Share Image
There's a sense of knowing when to stop and take a break from things, to step back from the work you're making, and of… — Dan Fox Copy Share
“Try describing a few of the most wildly successful pop albums of the twentieth century without mentioning the artist and title. A concept rock… — Dan Fox Copy Share
“Why can’t a musician try to make a cinematic “state of the nation” poem told through dream imagery and pop music? They may fail… — Dan Fox Copy Share
“Claims to ordinariness and salt-of-the-earth virtue—“slumming it,” as it’s crudely called—are themselves pretentious. The assumption that dropping your aitches or asserting a love of… — Dan Fox Copy Share
“The intellectually insecure drop the word “pretentious” to shut down a conversation they don’t understand, when simply saying “I don’t know” or asking “Can… — Dan Fox Copy Share
“The accuser of pretension always presumes bad intentions. Truth is, more often than not pretension is simply someone trying to make the world more… — Dan Fox Copy Share
“Pretentiousness shares with sophistication a lingering sense of “unnaturalness”; something faked, pretending, tampered with. Litvak presses the idea that sophistication is linked to perversion… — Dan Fox Copy Share
“Pretension is a question of optics. The pessimist sees pretension as a sham. The optimist views it as innocent, tragicomic, an excess of effort.… — Dan Fox Copy Share
I think that one way of diffusing an insult is to turn it around and laugh at yourself - that's a way of coping… — Dan Fox Copy Share
The contortions and games of identity that politicians play on themselves almost everyday is kind of extraordinary. Trump, for instance, speaks like a five-year-old… — Dan Fox Copy Share
“The pretentious flaws of others affirm your own intellectual or aesthetic expertise. Simultaneously, their fakery highlights the contours of your down-to-earth character and virtuous… — Dan Fox Copy Share
“Not every artist can make a masterpiece, yet it’s the experiments that quietly stumble forward that lead to them. There’s an altogether more generous… — Dan Fox Copy Share
“The fable of the Emperor’s New Clothes is brought up time and again, a conspiracy to dupe someone, a pretense designed to make the… — Dan Fox Copy Share
In Britain, class is a neurosis. You judge people from the moment they open their mouth and start speaking: what their accent represents in… — Dan Fox Copy Share
“Comfort with an art form that uses language comes because we all own it, to one degree or another. Words come from flesh and… — Dan Fox Copy Share
