Defining Empty Sums

Famous quotes containing the words defining, empty and/or sums:

    “The U.S. is becoming an increasingly fatherless society. A generation ago, an American child could reasonably expect to grow up with his or her father. Today an American child can reasonably expect not to. Fatherlessness is now approaching a rough parity with fatherhood as a defining feature of American childhood.”
    —David Blankenhorn (20th century)

    “Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room,
    Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable,
    Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table,
    Pounded on the table,
    Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom,
    Hard as they were able,”
    —Vachel Lindsay (1879–1931)

    “At Timon’s villalet us pass a day,
    Where all cry out,What sums are thrown away!’”
    —Alexander Pope (1688–1744)