Quote

In other countries, congenital introverts simply remain introverts all their lives, neither advancing nor retreating, but America's commitment to extroversion as a national art form can abrade some naturally aloof personalities until they flower into deadly nightshade.

Florence King

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Florence King
Age: 80 †
Born: 1936
Born: January 5
Died: 2016
Died: January 6
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Washington
District of Columbia
Florence Virginia King
Form
Commitment
Aloof
America
National
Introvert
Country
Neither
Advancing
Flower
Personalities
Personality
Deadly
Extroversion
Simply
Naturally
Congenital
Lives
Countries
Retreating
Art
Remain
Introverts

More quotes by Florence King

Image
Randian heroes come off as metaphors for Jews because they are beset by irrational forces that try to bar them from the professions and use their virtues against them to bring about their destruction.
Florence King
Image
because the theater lost a Barrymore every time a Southerner decided not to go on the stage, just about anything that comes out of a Southern mouth is bound to be a ringing line.
Florence King
Image
Familiarity doesn't breed contempt, it is contempt.
Florence King
Image
The copyeditor I drew was a brachycephalic, web-footed cretin who should have been in an institution learning how to make brooms.
Florence King
Image
Time has lost all meaning in that nightmare alley of the Western world known as the American mind.
Florence King
Image
We worship education but hate learning. We worship success but hate the successful. We worship fame but hate the famous.
Florence King
Image
Spinsterhood is Nature's Own Feminism.
Florence King
Image
The witty woman is a tragic figure in American life. Wit destroys eroticism and eroticism destroys wit, so women must choose between taking lovers and taking no prisoners.
Florence King
Image
I have a professional acquaintance whose recent eyelid job has left her with a permanent expression of such poleaxed astonishment that she looks at all times as if she had just read one of my books.
Florence King
Image
America is the only country in the world where you can suffer culture shock without leaving home.
Florence King
Image
Insecurity breeds treachery: if you are kind to people who hate themselves, they will hate you as well.
Florence King
Image
When women talk about privacy they mean abortion rights, and the millions of words feminists have written about a room of one'sown refer to psychological space, rarely to physical solitude. For most women being alone is tantamount to being deserted.
Florence King
Image
He travels fastest who travels alone, and that goes double for she. Real feminism is spinsterhood.
Florence King
Image
Learn to spot and avoid writer groupies. The writer's self-sufficiency and our love for our work tend to attract insecure people who never can get enough love. They grow jealous of our work and come to regard it as a rival. These people can destroy you, so kick them out of your life or don't admit them in the first place.
Florence King
Image
I don't mind being regarded as perverted and unnatural, but I would die if people thought I was a Democrat.
Florence King
Image
It's the Government's job to print the money, deliver the mail and declare war. Now give me my cigarettes.
Florence King
Image
Very is the most useless word in the English language and can always come out. More than useless, it is treacherous because it invariably weakens what it is intended to strengthen. For example, would you rather hear the mincing shallowness of I love you very much or the heart-slamming intensity of I love you?
Florence King
Image
Now the only thing I miss about sex is the cigarette afterward. Next to the first one in the morning, it's the best one of all. It tasted so good that even if I had been frigid I would have pretended otherwise just to be able to smoke it.
Florence King
Image
Why do I hate people? Who else is there to hate?
Florence King
Image
Each time a mediocre singer performs, he is saying, in effect, This is good enough for you. The audience, thrust into that familiar American mood of knowing something is wrong but not knowing what it is, unconsciously absorbs the insult and projects it back onto the mediocre performer in the form of inattention, rudeness and noise.
Florence King