#d

It's hard being a hostage in somebody else's mouth - or a character in somebody else's novel. ↗

— David Antin

#character #else #hard #hostage #mouth

My mother turned into a professional widow. She couldn't understand why I wanted to be an engineer; she thought I should be a chicken farmer. ↗

— David Antin

#engineer #farmer #i #into #mother

The ancient Greek oral poets all had this anxiety about the deficiencies of their memories and always began poems by praying to the Muse to help them remember. ↗

— David Antin

#always #ancient #anxiety #began #deficiencies

There are editing procedures for talks just as there are editing procedures in jazz improvisation. ↗

— David Antin

#improvisation #jazz #just #procedures #talks

There is probably no oral society that fails to mark the spatial distinction of left and right, peculiar as this distinction may be. ↗

— David Antin

#fails #left #mark #may #oral

When I got to the reading all the work, I was reduced to being an actor in an experimental play that I'd already written. And I didn't want to be an actor. ↗

— David Antin

#already #being #experimental #got #i

You pay your money, you take your choice. I get the audience my language attracts and I lose the ones it repels. ↗

— David Antin

#audience #choice #get #i #language

One positive command he gave us: You shall love and honor your emperor. In every congregation a prayer must be said for the czar's health, or the chief of police would close the synagogue. ↗

— Mary Antin

#close #command #congregation #czar #emperor

The apex of my civic pride and personal contentment was reached on the bright September morning when I entered the public school. ↗

— Mary Antin

#bright #civic #contentment #entered #i

The first meal was an object lesson of much variety. My father produced several kinds of food, ready to eat, without any cooking, from little tin cans that had printing all over them. ↗

— Mary Antin

#cans #cooking #eat #father #first