#own

Even the most piddling life is of momentous consequence to its owner. ↗

— James Wolcott

#even #life #momentous #most #owner

Historically, Hollywood comedy has arrived in skinny envelopes. From fence post Buster Keaton to herky-jerky Jerry Lewis to wiry nerve-bundle Woody Allen to hung-loose Richard Pryor to whippy contortionist Jim Carrey, its comics and clowns have tended to be sliced thin and bendable. ↗

— James Wolcott

#arrived #buster #carrey #clowns #comedy

I understand that one of the purposes of bipartisanship is to cram something difficult and necessary down the American people's gullets for which neither party has the fortitude to assume full responsibility. It's a way of turning a possible gangplank into a teeter-totter. ↗

— James Wolcott

#assume #bipartisanship #cram #difficult #down

If you were to hold me down and tickle me to pick my favorite 'plus-comic,' it would have to be Kevin James, a broad physical pratfaller capable of deadpan underplay, a technique honed from years of reaction-shot close-ups on TV, where every teeny fraction of a squint registers. ↗

— James Wolcott

#capable #down #every #favorite #fraction

The whole ecosystem of celebrity has broken down for writers. If you go back to the '50s, '60s, and '70s, writers were on TV a lot, and they were allowed to misbehave a lot. ↗

— James Wolcott

#back #broken #celebrity #down #ecosystem

People do have viewing patterns, and you disrupt those at your own peril. That's something that everybody learned after 1988. The numbers have gone down every year since that strike. Big time. ↗

— Dick Wolf

#big #big time #disrupt #down #every

I was always enamored with TV shows and movies. But you didn't grow up in my town and turn into an actor. ↗

— Scott Wolf

#always #enamored #grow #grow up #i

How can a rational being be ennobled by any thing that is not obtained by its own exertions? ↗

— Mary Wollstonecraft

#being #ennobled #exertions #how #obtained

I try to help people become the best possible editors of their own work, to help them become conscious of the things they do well, of the things they need to look at again, of the wells of material they have not even begun to dip their buckets into. ↗

— Tobias Wolff

#become #begun #best #buckets #conscious

Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to the sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority. ↗

— Mary Wollstonecraft

#degraded #fact #in fact #manly #men