Famous quotes containing the words comic, opera and/or french:
“Of course, the comic figure in all this is the long-suffering Mr. Wilkes. Mr. Wilkeswho cant be mentally faithful to his wife and wont be unfaithful to her technically.”
—Sidney Howard (18911939)
“A pretty air in an opera is prettier there than it could be anywhere else, I suppose, just as an honest man in politics shines more than he would elsewhere.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910)
“French rhetorical models are too narrow for the English tradition. Most pernicious of French imports is the notion that there is no person behind a text. Is there anything more affected, aggressive, and relentlessly concrete than a Parisan intellectual behind his/her turgid text? The Parisian is a provincial when he pretends to speak for the universe.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)