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I think it was Roger Fry who first coined what he took to be a final definition of a work of art, whether it was a painting, building, poem or Hepplewhite chair. He said that the best works of art are finished products that preserve 'a valuable state of mind'.

Alistair Cooke

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Alistair Cooke
Age: 95 †
Born: 1908
Born: November 20
Died: 2004
Died: March 30
Journalist
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Greater Manchester
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More quotes by Alistair Cooke

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But afterall it's not the winning that matters, is it? Or is it? It'sto coinawordtheamenitiesthatcount: thesmell of the dandelions, the puff of the pipe, the click of the bat, the rain on the neck, the chill down the spine, the slow, exquisite coming on of sunset and dinner and rheumatism.
Alistair Cooke
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There is even - as with no other game - a fascinating detective literature, a wry commentary on the human comedy, implicit in the book of rules.
Alistair Cooke
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When television came roaring in after the war (World War II) they did a little school survey asking children which they preferred and why - television or radio. And there was this 7-year-old boy who said he preferred radio because the pictures were better.
Alistair Cooke
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Las Vegas is Everymans cut-rate Babylon. Not far away there is, or was, a roadside lunch counter and over it a sign proclaiming in three words that a Roman emperors orgy is now a democratic institution. 'Topless Pizza Lunch'.
Alistair Cooke
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Like a christening, a wedding, a graduation ceremony, a holy war, a revolutioneven?a fireworksdisplay, agaudy promise of what life ought to be, not life itself.
Alistair Cooke
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As always, the British especially shudder at the latest American vulgarity, and then they embrace it with enthusiasm two years later
Alistair Cooke
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I talk to my typewriter and that is what I've been working on for 40 years-how to write for talking.
Alistair Cooke
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Liberty is the luxury of self-discipline, that those nations historically who have failed to discipline themselves have had discipline imposed by others.
Alistair Cooke
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The best compliment to a child or a friend is the feeling you give him that he has been set free to make his own inquiries, to come to conclusions that are right for him, whether or not they coincide with your own.
Alistair Cooke
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I have an insane desire to shave a stroke or two off my handicap.
Alistair Cooke
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It is a wonderful tribute to the game or to the dottiness of the people who play it that for some people somewhere there is no such thing as an insurmountable obstacle, an unplayable course, the wrong time of the day or year.
Alistair Cooke
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Although the Jeffersonian Law (All men are created equal) is the first article of the American faith, the facts of American life have demonstrated for some time now that it is an irksome faith to live by.
Alistair Cooke
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Cocktail music is accepted as audible wallpaper.
Alistair Cooke
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In the best of times, our days are numbered anyway. So it would be a crime against nature for any generation to take the world crisis so solemnly that it put off enjoying those things for which we were designed in the first place: the opportunity to do good work, to enjoy friends, to fall in love, to hit a ball, and to bounce a baby.
Alistair Cooke
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I prefer radio to TV because the pictures are better.
Alistair Cooke
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In golf, humiliations are the essence of the game.
Alistair Cooke
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Man has an incurable habit of not fulfilling the prophecies of his fellow men.
Alistair Cooke
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[Golfers] are a special kind of moral realist who nips the normal romantic and idealistic yearnings in the bud by proving once or twice a week that life is unconquerable but endurable.
Alistair Cooke
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It has always been cited as an irrepressible symptom of America's vitality that her people, in fair times and foul, believe in themselves and their institutions.
Alistair Cooke
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Americans are less mystical about what produced their inland or meadow courses they are the product of the bulldozerm rotary ploughs, mowers, sprinkler systems and alarmingly generous wads of folding money.
Alistair Cooke