Pensive Pose

Famous quotes containing the words pensive and/or pose:

    Come pensive Nun, devout and pure,
    Sober, steadfast, and demure,
    All in a robe of darkest grain,
    Flowing with majestic train,
    And sable stole of cypress lawn,
    Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
    Come, but keep thy wonted state,
    With even step and musing gait,
    And looks commercing with the skies,
    Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes;
    There held in holy passion still,
    Forget thyself to marble,
    John Milton (1608–1674)

    The last publicized center of American writing was Manhattan. Its writers became known as the New York Intellectuals. With important connections to publishing, and universities, with access to the major book reviews, they were able to pose as the vanguard of American culture when they were so obsessed with the two Joes—McCarthy and Stalin—that they were to produce only two artists, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, who left town.
    Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)