Zinging in the new year

Or, six particular clicks in the head

People who like quotations love meaningless generalizations, according to Graham Greene. But to meaninglessly generalize, aren’t we all those kind of people? 

A really good line works three ways: In its original context, as a standalone, and then in an entirely new context. Like how an apple is great on the tree, in a fruit bowl, and especially in a tarte tatin. (And also beneath a bowler hat in a Magritte painting.)

Plucking old lines out of the orchard and folding them into flaky pastry is really what quotations are for: Bringing new context to a clever observation, thus adding both meaning and specificity.

In that spirit, here are six great lines from Great Wits of previous instalments that are tanned, rested, and ready to provide guidance for the year ahead.

1. “It’s not the voting that’s democracy, it’s the counting.”
   — Tom Stoppard’s succinct guide to the U.S. election. 

2. “There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all.”
   — Rebecca West, well before social media scaled the illusion.

3. “Unseen, in the background, Fate was quietly slipping the lead into the boxing-glove.”
   — P.G. Wodehouse, modelling cheerful pessimism.

4. “And what, for instance, would have happened had Romeo and Juliet lived to middle age, their silhouettes broadened by pasta?”
   — Anita Loos on love and carbs, truly the two great topics.

5. “Instead of this absurd division into sexes they ought to class people as static and dynamic.”
   — Evelyn Waugh, improbably channeling Carol Dweck’s theory of fixed vs. growth mindsets.

6. “We are seeking a particular click in the head. We share the feeling that if we hang a picture or set a sentence down just right, we will instantly and painlessly ascend to the next level. We will be recognized, and the time we spent will be multiplied into forever and given back to us.”
   — Patricia Lockwood describes the creative process.

I was reminded of this line after reading Anthony Lane’s review of Knives Out, wherein he writes that Rian Johnson’s “plot locks into position, with a fiendish and gratifying click.” Here’s to a year of particular and gratifying clicks.