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It Seems To Me That The Thing That Makes The Theater Worthwhile Is The Fact That It Attracts So Many People With Ideas Who Are Constantly Trying To Share Them With The Public. Real Art Is Illumination. It Gives A Man An Idea He Never Had Before Or Lights Up Ideas That Were Formless Or Only Lurking In The Shadows Of His Mind. It Adds Stature To Life.

-Brooks Atkinson

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It Seems To Me

Brooks Atkinson

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It Seems To Me That The Thing That Makes The Theater Worthwhile Is The Fact That It Attracts So Many People With Ideas Who Are Constantly Trying To Share Them With The Public. Real Art Is Illumination. It Gives A Man An Idea He Never Had Before Or Lights Up Ideas That Were Formless Or Only Lurking In The Shadows Of His Mind. It Adds Stature To Life.

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Although Birds Coexist With Us On This Eroded Planet, They Live Independently Of Us With A Self-sufficiency That Is Almost A Rebuke. In The World Of Birds A Symposium On The Purpose Of Life Would Be Inconceivable. They Do Not Need It. We Are Not That Self-reliant. We Are The Ones Who Have Lost Our Way.

In The 1920s Dramatists Attacked Their Subjects As If The Inequities Could Be Resolved. Some Of The Traditional Optimism Of America Lurked Behind Most Of The Early Plays. But Not Now. There Is No Conviction Now That The Problem Will Be Solved.

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The Most Fatal Illusion Is The Settled Point Of View. Since Life Is Growth And Motion, A Fixed Point Of View Kills Anybody Who Has One.

The Cult Of Nature Is A Form Of Patronage By People Who Have Declared Their Materialistic Independence From Nature And Do Not Have To Struggle With Nature Every Day Of Their Lives.

People Everywhere Enjoy Believing Things That They Know Are Not True. It Spares Them The Ordeal Of Thinking For Themselves And Taking Responsibility For What They Know.

We Cheerfully Assume That In Some Mystic Way Love Conquers All, That Good Outweighs Evil In The Just Balances Of The Universe And At The 11th Hour Something Gloriously Triumphant Will Prevent The Worst Before It Happens.

New Yorkers Are Inclined To Assume It Will Never Rain, And Certainly Not On New Yorkers.

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It Seems To Me That The Thing That Makes The Theater Worthwhile Is The Fact That It Attracts So Many People With Ideas Who Are Constantly Trying To Share Them With The Public. Real Art Is Illumination. It Gives A Man An Idea He Never Had Before Or Lights Up Ideas That Were Formless Or Only Lurking In The Shadows Of His Mind. It Adds Stature To Life.

I Have No Objections To Churches So Long As They Do Not Interfere With God's Work.

It Takes Most Men Five Years To Recover From A College Education, And To Learn That Poetry Is As Vital To Thinking As Knowledge.

Bureaucracies Are Designed To Perform Public Business. But As Soon As A Bureaucracy Is Established, It Develops An Autonomous Spiritual Life And Comes To Regard The Public As Its Enemy.

Land Was Created To Provide A Place For Boats To Visit.

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It Seems Not To Have Been Written. It Is The Quintessence Of Life. It Is The Basic Truth.

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