Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Entire generations of Americans have come of age since the ancient time when the president's power was constrained by a duty of candor to the American people.
My poor mum had a lot of problems with me around that time. I was young but I'd been working for years, so if she asked me to clean my room I'd say, 'You can't tell me what to do after I've worked a 12-hour day.' It gave me a power that no one that age should have.
We take it for granted that we can see at all times of day and night. But there was a time, not all that long ago, in the age before electricity, when night brought total darkness - and with it, a not-so-small amount of terror. We get a sense of this when we go camping or when there's a power outage, and our fear of the darkness is primal.
One of the guiding beliefs of our consuming age is that we are all free and independent individuals. That we can choose to do pretty much what we want, and if we can't, then it's bad. But at the same time, co-existing alongside this, there is a completely different, parallel universe where we all seem meekly to do what those in power tell us to do.