John Leonard - Time Quotes

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Suppose, deep down, you suspect that you are dull, and your public works are a form of vengeance. You talk a good poem, and think by numbers. Once upon a time, you were interesting; then Mother died and you had to give it up.

John Leonard

In the cellars of the night, when the mind starts moving around old trunks of bad times, the pain of this and the shame of that, the memory of a small boldness is a hand to hold.

John Leonard

The magicians of the 19th century, enthralled by the science of optics, photography and electricity, opened the door to motion pictures and thereby rendered themselves obsolete. Any amateur with a pair of scissors can cut and edit a strip of film in order to make a woman vanish, sever a head, burn a body down to the skeleton and reverse time. Talent went out of style.… People either didn't believe Houdini when he said that his tricks on film were real, or they didn't care. Illusion became big bigness, and the magicians were out of work.

John Leonard

We are getting to be of an age when it is difficult to grow new friends; we haven't the energy, the time to cultivate; each one gone is a permanent impoverishment.

John Leonard