Obscenity is a notable enhancer of life and is suppressed at grave peril to the arts.

- Brendan Gill

To die quickly in one's eighth decade at the very top of one's powers is an enviable end, and not an occasion for mourning.

- Brendan Gill

I will try to cram these paragraphs full of facts and give them a weight and shape no greater than that of a cloud of blue butterflies.

- Brendan Gill

We must all face the fact that in a single lifetime we lead several simultaneous lives; our intention should be to make them reinforce one another in…

- Brendan Gill

Parody is homage gone sour.

- Brendan Gill

It is in the nature of the New Yorker to be as topical as possible, on a level that is often small in scale and playful in intention.

- Brendan Gill

In the later nineteenth century, the tops of skyscrapers often took the shape of domes, surmounted by jaunty gilded lanterns; later came ziggurats, m…

- Brendan Gill

The guns of the big events rumble through our pages, but the tiny firecrackers are constantly hissing and popping there as well; it appears that much…

- Brendan Gill

Wars and elections are both too big and too small to matter in the long run.

- Brendan Gill