Edmund White :
Being up on something is a way of dismissing it. To espouse any point of view is a danger — it might leave us stuck with last year's cause. Prized for their novelty alone, ideas, gimmicks, trends become equivalent, interchangeable.
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Ideas
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Planning
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Atheism
Gift it
![Powerpoint](http://www.iwise.com/downloadPPT.php?quote_id=115346&author=Edmund White"e=Being+up+on+something+is+a+way+of+dismissing+it.+To+espouse+any+point+of+view+is+a+danger+%E2%80%94+it+might+leave+us+stuck+with+last+year%27s+cause.+Prized+for+their+novelty+alone%2C+ideas%2C+gimmicks%2C+trends+become+equivalent%2C+interchangeable.%0A&image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.iwise.com%2FauthorIcons%2F3077%2FEdmund_White_64x64.png){kind=link}
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![Powerpoint](http://www.iwise.com/downloadPPT.php?quote_id=115366&author=Edmund White"e=It+seemed+strange+to+me+that+someone+who+painted+big%2C+scary+abstractions+should+have+been+so+commonsensical+in+her+literary+tastes%2C+though+later+I+would+discover+that+twelve-tone+composers+read+Keats+just+as+experimental+poets+listened+to+Glenn+Miller+%E2%80%94+few+people+are+avant-garde+outside+their+own+domain.%0AI+suppose+that+as+Midwesterners%2C+the+children+of+chemical+engineers+and+homemakers%2C+we+experienced+the+arts+as+so+foreign%2C+even+so+preposterously+unreasonable%2C+that+once+we%E2%80%99d+decided+to+embrace+them+we+did+so+with+lots+of+conviction+and+little+discrimination.+Surely+it+was+no+accident+that+T.S.+Eliot+and+Ezra+Pound%2C+the+two+great+poetic+synthesists+of+our+day%2C+the+very+men+who+had+ransacked+all+of+world+culture+and+could+refer+in+the+same+poem+to+the+Buddha+and+to+Sophocles+or+to+Confucius+and+to+Jefferson+%E2%80%94+it+was+no+accident+that+they+were+both+from+the+heartland.+Public-library+intellectuals%2C+magpies+of+knowledge%2C+like+most+autodidacts+we+were+incapable+of+evaluating+our+sources.+As+a+teen-ager%2C+I+tried+to+write+verse+like+Milton%E2%80%99s%3B+later%2C+I+wanted+to+write+novels+like+Nabokov%E2%80%99s.+In+a+novel+I+wrote+in+college%2C+I+imitated+Evelyn+Waugh.+If+someone+had+said+to+me%2C+%22But+do+you%2C+the+graceless+son+of+a+Cincinnati+broker+of+chemical+equipment%2C+do+you+seriously+imagine+that+you+can+just+write+a+Renaissance+Christian+epic+or+something+in+the+style+of+a+Cambridge-educated+Russian+aristocrat+or+of+the+spokesman+of+the+Bright+Young+Things+of+London+circa+1925%3F%22+%E2%80%94+if+someone+had+spoken+like+this+to+me%2C+I+wouldn%E2%80%99t+even+have+understood+his+point.%0A&image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.iwise.com%2FauthorIcons%2F3077%2FEdmund_White_64x64.png){kind=link}
![Powerpoint](http://www.iwise.com/downloadPPT.php?quote_id=7976&author=Edmund White"e=++The+AIDS+epidemic+has+rolled+back+a+big+rotting+log+and+revealed+all+the+squirming+life+underneath+it%2C+since+it+involves%2C+all+at+once%2C+the+main+themes+of+our+existence%3A+sex%2C+death%2C+power%2C+money%2C+love%2C+hate%2C+disease+and+panic.+No+American+phenomenon+has+been+so+compelling+since+the+Vietnam+War.&image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.iwise.com%2FauthorIcons%2F3077%2FEdmund_White_64x64.png){kind=link}
![Powerpoint](http://www.iwise.com/downloadPPT.php?quote_id=29232&author=Edmund White"e=++I+am%2C+I+must+confess%2C+suspicious+of+those+who+denounce+others+for+having+too+much+sex.+At+what+point+does+a+healthy+amount+become+too+much%3F+There+are%2C+of+course%2C+those+who+suffer+because+their+desire+for+sex+has+become+compulsive%3B+in+their+case+the+drive+%28loneliness%2C+guilt%29+is+at+fault%2C+not+the+activity+as+such.+When+morality+is+discussed+I+invariably+discover%2C+halfway+into+the+conversation%2C+that+what+is+meant+are+not+the+great+ethical+questions+but+the+rather+dreary+business+of+sexual+habit%2C+which+to+my+mind+is+an+aesthetic+rather+than+an+ethical+issue.&image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.iwise.com%2FauthorIcons%2F3077%2FEdmund_White_64x64.png){kind=link}
![Powerpoint](http://www.iwise.com/downloadPPT.php?quote_id=115343&author=Edmund White"e=He%27s+scattered%2C+his+sentences+trail+off%2C+he+sighs+frequently%2C+as+though+he%27s+so+intelligent+he%27s+always+frustrated+by+the+formulaic+nature+of+speech+%28each+sentence+a+ride+you+can%27t+get+off+once+the+attendant+buckles+you+into+the+car%29.%0A&image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.iwise.com%2FauthorIcons%2F3077%2FEdmund_White_64x64.png){kind=link}
![Powerpoint](http://www.iwise.com/downloadPPT.php?quote_id=115344&author=Edmund White"e=Perhaps+we%27d+understood+each+other+too+well+to+be+attracted+to+one+another.+There+were+no+occlusions+in+communication%2C+those+breaks+in+understanding+that+awaken+desire.%0A&image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.iwise.com%2FauthorIcons%2F3077%2FEdmund_White_64x64.png){kind=link}
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![Powerpoint](http://www.iwise.com/downloadPPT.php?quote_id=115348&author=Edmund White"e=Yes%2C+sex+may+be+at+least+in+part+inflected+by+politics%2C+our+fantasies+may+be+at+least+in+part+a+compendium+of+cultural+myths%2C+but+the+ways+in+which+sex+and+fantasy+ripen+within+the+individual+seem+to+me+to+vary+so+greatly+that+summaries+become+useless%2C+even+dangerous.%0ABut+if+I+were+to+venture+my+own+generalizations%2C+I+would+say+that+with+the+collapse+of+other+social+values+%28those+of+religion%2C+patriotism%2C+the+family+and+so+on%29%2C+sex+has+been+forced+to+take+up+the+slack%2C+to+become+our+sole+mode+of+transcendence+and+our+only+touchstone+of+authenticity.+The+cry+for+scorching%2C+multiple+orgasms%2C+the+drive+toward+impeccable+and+virtuoso+performance%2C+the+belief+that+only+in+complete+sexual+compatibility+lies+true+intimacy%2C+the+insistence+that+sex+is+the+only+mode+for+experiencing+thrills%2C+for+achieving+love%2C+for+assessing+and+demonstrating+personal+worth+%E2%80%94+all+these+projects+are+absurd.%0A&image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.iwise.com%2FauthorIcons%2F3077%2FEdmund_White_64x64.png){kind=link}
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