No two persons ever read the same book.
Edmund WilsonRead
I find more and more that I am a man of the 1920s. I still expect something exciting. Drinks, animated conversation, gaiety: the uninhibited exchange of ideas.
Interpretation
The quote reflects a longing for the vibrant social atmosphere and intellectual excitement of the 1920s.
In this quote, Edmund Wilson expresses nostalgia for the lively and dynamic essence of the 1920s, emphasizing the importance of engaging conversations and the free flow of ideas. This longing highlights a desire for a more vibrant, stimulating, and joyous social experience, reflecting his belief in the value of connection and creativity in human interactions.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of creativity in modern life.
It is never right to do wrong or to requite wrong with wrong, or when we suffer evil to defend ourselves by doing evil in return.
The last official act of any government is to loot the treasury.
The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil.
The central function of imaginative literature is to make you realize that other people act on moral convictions different from your own.
Commerce has set the mark of selfishness, the signet of its all-enslaving power, upon a shining ore, and called it gold: before whose image bow the vulgar great, the vainly rich, the miserable proud, the mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and kings, and with blind feelings reverence the power that grinds them to the dust of misery.
I hate American simplicity. I glory in the piling up of complications of every sort. If I could pronounce the name James in any different or more elaborate way I should be in favor of doing it.
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