“I used to be fond of saying that America, which was supposed to be a land of success, was a land of failure. Most of the great men in America had a long life of early failure and a long life of later failure.”
(Gertrude Stein, Everybody’s Autobiography, p. 88)
Bonus Steinage:
(The outside of the McCormack Family Theater, site of some of the recent Brown efest, not full of any great men (or women) as far as I could tell.)
that’s a great picture.
“It is very likely that nearly every one has been very nearly certain that something that is interesting is interesting them. Can they and do they. It is very interesting that nothing inside in them, that is when you consider the very long history of how every one ever acted or has felt, it is very interesting that nothing inside in them in all of them makes it connectedly different. By this I mean this. The only thing that is different from one time to another is what is seen and what is seen depends upon how everybody is doing everything. This makes the thing we are looking at very different and this makes what those who describe it make of it, it makes a composition, it confuses, it shows, it is, it looks, it likes it as it is, and this makes what is seen as it is seen. Nothing changes from generation to generation except the thing seen and that makes a composition.”
and also:
“Continuous present is one thing and beginning again and again is another thing. These are both things. And then there is using everything.”