#w

Death is the sanction of everything the story-teller can tell. He has borrowed his authority from death. ↗

— Walter Benjamin

#borrowed #death #everything #his #sanction

Opinions are to the vast apparatus of social existence what oil is to machines: one does not go up to a turbine and pour machine oil over it; one applies a little to hidden spindles and joints that one has to know. ↗

— Walter Benjamin

#applies #does #existence #go #hidden

Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method. Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like. ↗

— Walter Benjamin

#because #books #buy #could #dissatisfied

The art of the critic in a nutshell: to coin slogans without betraying ideas. The slogans of an inadequate criticism peddle ideas to fashion. ↗

— Walter Benjamin

#betraying #coin #critic #criticism #fashion

The true picture of the past flits by. The past can be seized only as an image which flashes up at the instant when it can be recognized and is never seen again. ↗

— Walter Benjamin

#flashes #image #instant #never #only

Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it is woven. ↗

— Walter Benjamin

#composed #good #good prose #musical #prose

Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts. ↗

— Arnold Bennett

#accompanied #always #any #better #drawbacks

We shall never have more time. We have, and always had, all the time there is. No object is served in waiting until next week or even until tomorrow. Keep going... Concentrate on something useful. ↗

— Arnold Bennett

#concentrate #even #going #had #keep

To the artist is sometimes granted a sudden, transient insight which serves in this matter for experience. A flash, and where previously the brain held a dead fact, the soul grasps a living truth! At moments we are all artists. ↗

— Arnold Bennett

#artists #brain #dead #experience #fact

If you can take my tax money and assure me that it'll go to the right purpose, that it will help the poor, then fine. But I'm not sure a lot of it does. In fact, I know a lot of it doesn't. ↗

— Bill Bennett

#does #fact #fine #go #help