Real Shape Shifting

Famous quotes containing the words real, shape and/or shifting:

    It is this deep blankness is the real thing strange.
    The more things happen to you the more you can’t
    Tell or remember even what they were.
    William Empson (1906–1984)

    Is it true or false that Belfast is north of London? That the galaxy is the shape of a fried egg? That Beethoven was a drunkard? That Wellington won the battle of Waterloo? There are various degrees and dimensions of success in making statements: the statements fit the facts always more or less loosely, in different ways on different occasions for different intents and purposes.
    —J.L. (John Langshaw)

    What do we want with this vast and worthless area, of this region of savages and wild beasts, of deserts, of shifting sands and whirlwinds, of dust, of cactus and prairie dogs; to what use could we ever hope to put these great deserts, or those endless mountain ranges, impenetrable and covered to their very base with eternal snow? What can we ever hope to do with the western coast, a coast of 3,000 miles, rockbound, cheerless, uninviting and not a harbor in it?
    —For the State of Kansas, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)