Quote

It's the old case against symbols: if you get them, they seem obvious and artificial, and if you don't, you miss the whole point.

Wilfrid Sheed

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Wilfrid Sheed
Age: 80 †
Born: 1930
Born: December 27
Died: 2011
Died: January 19
Novelist
London
England
Wilfrid John Joseph Sheed
Whole
Miss
Obvious
Case
Missing
Seem
Cases
Point
Artificial
Seems
Symbols

More quotes by Wilfrid Sheed

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Unnecessary customs live a brutally short life in America.
Wilfrid Sheed
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Unlike most wars, which make rotten fiction in themselves - all plot and no characters, or made-up characters - Vietnam seems to be the perfect mix: the characters make the war, and the war unmakes the characters. The gods, fates, furies had a relatively small hand in it. The mess was man-made, a synthetic, by think tank out of briefing session.
Wilfrid Sheed
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Every writer is a writer of the generation before.
Wilfrid Sheed
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The worse we treat people in this country, the more delicately we talk about them.
Wilfrid Sheed
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It is possible that the malice of writers has been overrated (by myself among others). Reading their ruminations on their craft, one sees why this writer could not possibly like that one, would indeed consider him a menace. Literature is a battleground of conflicting faiths, and nobler passions than envy are involved.
Wilfrid Sheed
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The 1930s - a Golden Age for American humor, mainly because everything else was going so badly. The wisecrack was the basic American sentence because there were so many things that could not be said any other way.
Wilfrid Sheed
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Mankind has always made too much of its saints and heroes, and how the latter handle the fuss might be called their final test.
Wilfrid Sheed
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Of course, history is only a muddle of facts and a fuddle of professors, and anyone who thinks it is one clear voice saying Arise, sir Knight deserves a life sentence in Camelot.
Wilfrid Sheed
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I picked up the writing on the very day he died. It was the only consolation I could find.
Wilfrid Sheed
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You noodle around with tempo and sound until you get the perfect fit for that particular song, and then, so long as you can sustain it, God is on your side and everything comes easily and even the waiters smile.
Wilfrid Sheed
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As things now stand, the office is a slightly meaner battleground than the home. Male bosses seem to dominate their women underlings as they would never dominate their wives.
Wilfrid Sheed
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If the French were really intelligent, they'd speak English.
Wilfrid Sheed
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Mushy reviews are a breach of faith
Wilfrid Sheed
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Even the God of Calvin never judged anyone as harshly as married couples judge each other.
Wilfrid Sheed
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How does one make a movie about decadence these days? Now that we're allowed to do it, it's too late.
Wilfrid Sheed
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Books about suicide make lousy gifts.
Wilfrid Sheed
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As you approach the presidency, no one seems worthy of it, since it wasn't designed for a human in the first place.
Wilfrid Sheed
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Beware the fictionist writing his own life. Even candor becomes a strategy.
Wilfrid Sheed
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Mr Michener, as timeless as a stack of 'National Geographics,' is the ultimate Summer Writer. Just as one goes back to the cottage in Maine, so one goes back to one's Michener.
Wilfrid Sheed
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The spiritual life becomes very simple when you're sick.
Wilfrid Sheed