Pulitzer Prize Winners

"Those older satirists—nagging souls like Pope and bold bad fellows like —were mainly concerned to annoy their victims with pin-pricks. They were too completely the gentleman to grow chummy with base fellows whom they frankly despised; and in consequence they never discovered half the possibilities of the gentle art of satire. Sinclair Lewis is wiser than they were. He has learned that before one can effectively impale one's victim, one must know his weaknesses and take him off his guard."

"Ideas are not godlings that spring perfect-winged from the head of Jove; they are not flowers that bloom in a walled garden; they are weapons hammered out on the anvil of human needs. Freedom to think is bought with a price; and to ignore the price is to lose all sense of values. To love ideas is excellent, but to understand how ideas themselves are conditioned by social forces, is better still. To desire culture, to enjoy commerce with the best that has been known and thought in the world is excellent also; but to understand the dynamics which lies back of all culture signifies more. Men who will be free, struggle to be free, fashion themselves ideas for swords to fight with. To consider the sword apart from the struggle is to turn dilettante and a frequenter of museums."

"The metaphor of the melting pot is unfortunate and misleading. A more accurate analogy would be a salad bowl, for, though the salad is an entity, the lettuce can still be distinguished from the chicory, the tomatoes from the cabbage."

"Well-behaved women seldom make history."

"So what do people see when they read that well-behaved women rarely make history? Do they imagine good-time girls in stiletto heels or do-good girls carrying clipboards and passing petitions? Do they envision an out-of-control hobbyist or a single mother taking down a drunk in a bar? I suspect that it depends on where they stand themselves."

"Some history-making is intentional; much of it is accidental. People make history when they scale a mountain, ignite a bomb, or refuse to move to the back of the bus. But they also make history by keeping diaries, writing letters, or embroidering initials on linen sheets. History is a conversation and sometimes a shouting match between present and past, though often the voices we most want to hear are barely audible. People make history by passing on gossip, saving old records, and by naming rivers, mountains, and children. Some people leave only their bones, though bones too make history when someone notices."

"An androgynous mind was not a male mind. It was a mind attuned to the full range of human experience, including the invisible lives of women."

"It might be argued that genuine spontaneity is not really possible or desirable so long as printed scores of great works exist. True. All modern musicians are, for better or worse, prisoners of Gutenberg."

"In the final stages of ennui, we may not even be disappointed to hear jarringly wrong notes or wayward interpretations at recitals, because the more disastrous the mishaps the simpler the reviewing task."

"Bartók's vision of a modern music "rejuvenated under the influence of a kind of peasant music that has remained untouched by the musical creations of the last centuries" appears now as an idea whose time came and went while the recording machines were running. ... In this country, at any rate, real folk music long ago went to Nashville to die and left no known survivors."

"The sad truth is that the human brain can soften as a result of incessant listening to music with an intent to commit prose."

"On the subject of wild mushrooms it is easy to tell who is an expert and who is not: The expert is the one who is still alive."

"We all invent ourselves as we go along, and a great man's myths about himself merely tend to stick better than most."

"Next to the writer of real estate advertisements, the autobiographer is the most suspect of prose artists."

"Christina Petrowska ... has fingers that work like chrome‐plated pistons, and her highseated position, with elbows well above the keyboard level, let her bring pulverizing power to bear."

"Books about technical subjects for nontechnicians tend to be obtuse, condescending, or both. The Tower and the Bridge is neither. It is a clear, concise introduction to a difficult subject, and it is written with respect and even passion — something one rarely finds in a book with the word engineering in its title. David P. Billington is clearly moved by great structures — he means it when he says that major works of structural engineering are like the art of poetry, while architecture is the art of prose. ... Mr. Billington creates a set of standards for judging the great structures of the 19th and 20th centuries, and he applies them fairly and consistently. He admires most those works that bring beauty out of relatively spare physical form — the , 's skyscrapers — and he has a good enough eye to distinguish between what is simple and elegant and what is simple and plain."

"There is one architectural firm in New York City that has been notably successful in obtaining commissions in the , so much so that the blocks behind and just north and south of the seem at first glance to consist entirely of structures of its design. The firm is , and unlike most of the other politically well-connected architects who operate in New York, the standard of design has been relatively decent. The firm's impact here has been enormous. Most notable is the , completed in 1973 ..."

"There is a fragility inherent in the symbolism of every great street in New York: stands for a theater that is perpetually in crisis, for financial empires that seem ever ready to decamp to New Jersey, and , perhaps the most celebrated of them all, for a luxury and a style that once seemed unique to New York, but now feels more and more like what can be found in every medium-sized city and shopping mall from here to ."

"... , writing in ancient Rome around 30 , set out the three elements of architecture as "commodity, firmness, and delight," and no one has done better than his tripartite definition, for it cogently sums up the architectural paradox: a building must be useful while at the same time it must be the opposite of useful, since art—delight, in Vitruvian parlance—by its very essence has no mundane function. And then, on top of all that, a building must be constructed according to the laws of engineering, which is is to say that it must be built to stand up. ... The builders of the , the s, s, and were all engineers as much as architects; to them these disciples were one. So, too, with and his , or at . In our time, the disciplines have diverged, and engineers are not architects. But every great structure of modern times, from 's to 's , is a product of engineers as much as of architects; without firmness, there will be no delight. All three elements of architecture are essential."

"I once heard a prominent museum director call the of architecture. Her fame as an architect owes much to her image as a flamboyant diva who produces striking, over-the-top buildings—a wild woman who makes wild things. Perhaps this is why, despite being the first woman to win the , she has had so little success in the United Kingdom, where her practice was founded, in 1980, and has been based ever since. When the British build modern things, they tend to like them cool and buttoned-up, and Hadid’s buildings are almost explosive in their energy. They look as if they could fly you to the moon."

"The extraordinary shape had conceived for , inspired the architect , who toured the museum a few months before its completion, to proclaim it "the greatest building of our time." It stood as evidence of Gehry's ability to envision form that had not existed before: exhilarating, robust, and baroque in its richness and complexity. The museum could not be called anything but modern, but it was not your father's modernism. Its unusual form bore no resemblance to the stark glass boxes that most people identified with modern architecture."

"Three years are gone, and the has faded from New York. Sorrow and rage have ebbed. The void of ground zero is another construction site. Its fate is now part of a story of process. In this fine book, Paul Goldberger weaves a vivid tale of that process, its hopeful visions, its small triumphs, its ultimate stalemate. His credentials are obvious: more than 30 years as architecture critic of ' and '; author of respected books on city buildings. He saw the go up; 30 years later he gazed at its rubble."

"Did he believe all that he said? The question is inapplicable to this sort of personality. Subjectively Adolf Hitler was, in my opinion, entirely sincere even in his self-contradictions. For his is a humorless mind that simply excludes the need for consistency that might distress more intellectual types. To an actor the truth is anything that lies in its effect: if it makes the right impression it is true."

"Five groups had ruled pre-war Germany: the twenty-odd sovereigns with the Kaiser at their head, the Army officers, the officials, the aristocratic land-owners and the possessors of heavy industry. Amid a people conditioned to obedience, they alone knew what they wanted and were not afraid to take it. An experimental Republic that did not break the political necks of nearly all five groups was, in time, almost bound once more to fall under their rule. Such is the law of the jungle."

"Even if the more apocalyptic Germans were right and the German disorder really constituted "a return to primordial instinct, to the mystic chaos of creation out of which the great ecstasies of revolutions and religions arise," that could not alter the fact that the prerequisite of any true creation is freedom."

"He had a gift for saying unpleasant things in the most charming manner."

"Behe has never developed his arguments for intelligent design in peer-reviewed scientific publications. Indeed, he doesn’t actually conduct research in the field and, along with other leaders of the intelligent-design movement, concedes that there is not as yet much affirmative scientific evidence supporting the concept of intelligent design."

"Creation science was nothing but religion dressed up as science, the high court decreed, and therefore was barred by the Establishment Clause from public school classrooms along with other forms of religious instruction."

"“The inexorable growth of [biology] continues to widen, not to close the tectonic gap between science and faith-based religion.”"

"By the 1960s, however, federal courts had long since stop using the Fourteenth Amendment to strike down progressive state economic regulations and instead used it to avoid repressive state social legislation."

"Ginger titled a concluding chapter, “To the Losers Belong the Spoils,” and drew the lesson from Bryan’s “fatal error of tactics: if a person holds irrational ideas and insists that others should accept them because of their authoritative source, he should never agree to be questioned about them.”"

"The state law against teaching evolution and the resulting trial of John Scopes did not settle the matter in Tennessee or anywhere else. America’s adversarial legal system tends to drive parties apart rather than reconcile them, which certainly happened in this case."

"Darrow shortly wrote to Mencken about the examination of Bryan, “I made up my mind to show the country what an ignoramus he was and I succeeded.”"

"Darrow’s opening introduced his main point. The antievolution statute was illegal because it established a particular religious viewpoint in the public schools."

"Darrow replied within the hour by tersely affirming his agnosticism on every point, concluding with his succinct answer as to the question of immortality: “I have been searching for proof of this all my life, with the same desire to find it that is incident to every living thing, and I have never found any evidence on the subject.”"

"“If the Anti-Evolutionists in Tennessee were aware of the existence of any other religions than their own, they might realize that it is the very genius of religion itself to evolve from primary forms to higher forms.”"

"“The public mind is poisoned at its source when special interests take hold of educational institutions for their own propaganda.”"

"“We have to live in the universe science gives us. A theology that is contrary to reality must be abandoned or improved.”"

"“I never yet found any conservative lawyer who, at the beginning, wanted to undertake a case which might reflect discredit on him. When it turns out differently and there seems to be some publicity or honor to be had, then offers of assistance come from all over the country.”"

"Conservative Christians drew together across denominational lines to fight for the so-called fundamentals of their traditional faith against the perceived heresy of modernism, and in so doing gave birth to the fundamentalist movement and antievolution crusade."

"Stanford university president David Starr Jordan, an eminent evolutionary biologist who later volunteered to aid in the legal defense of John Scopes, spoke for many academics when he dismissed traditional Protestant revivalism as “simply a form of drunkenness no more worthy of respect than the drunkenness that lies in the gutter!”"

"By the 1940s, a fundamentalist subculture had formed in the United States, with a creationist scientific establishment of its own."

"Already, the three main tactics for attacking the antievolution measure had emerged: the defense of individual freedom, an appeal to scientific authority, and a mocking ridicule of fundamentalists and biblical literalism; later, they became the three prongs of the Scopes defense."

"“What is the purpose of this examination?” Darrow answered honestly. “We have the purpose of preventing bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United States,” he declared, “and that is all.”"

"No one really knows how much the U.S. government can borrow before global investors get uneasy and begin to demand higher interest rates. The national debt exceeded 100 percent of GDP during World War II and then came down as the economy sprinted. But history suggests debt of that level is in the danger zone. Think Argentina, circa 2001. Think Greece, circa 2012."

"In classical tragedy, this is known as the denouement. In Washington, it could be just farce."

"In response to years of calls to control “spending” and “smaller government,” Congress and presidents have discovered something simple: giving people a tax break—a credit, a loophole, a deduction—makes them happy without increasing government “spending” and can accomplish the same objective. Practically and economically, there’s no difference between getting $1,000 in cash from the government and getting a $1,000 voucher that you can use to reduce your taxes. Either results in a federal budget deficit that’s $1,000 bigger than it would have been had a tax break not been created. But the first is called “spending” (boos, hisses) and the second is called “a tax cut” (applause, cheers). The first is formally recorded on the budget books as an outflow of money. The second doesn’t show up in the outflow and inflow accounting. It is revenue that wasn’t collected."

"Back in 1955, when the federal debt was much smaller, less than 5 percent was held by foreigners. Foreign holdings began to climb in 1970 and surged in the 2000s. Today, foreign governments and private investors hold nearly half of all the U.S. government debt outstanding."

"“Tax reform”—the always popular, always politically treacherous goal of making the tax code simpler and smarter—“is really difficult when you can’t throw money at it. Losers always squeak louder than winners cheer.”"

"Until the Civil War, the U.S. government relied almost exclusively on tariffs on imported goods, a practice that provoked conflict between Northern manufacturers who favored tariffs to keep imports out and Southern farmers who did not. An income tax was imposed during the Civil War, but proved so unpopular that it died in 1872. In its place, the government imposed taxes on alcohol and tobacco that accounted for 43 percent of all federal revenue by 1900. Repeated attempts to revive the income tax were thwarted when the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1895. But the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution changed that. Less than eight months after it was ratified in February 1913, Congress enacted an income tax."