POLICE

In America, the policeman is a working-class hero. In England, the policeman is a working-class traitor. That’s why there’s such violent names for the police in criminal England —they call them not only the filth, the filth, but also the puss. They’re the lowest of the low. When policemen go to prison in England , they have as bad a time as a pedophile. The police in America are quite, to my senses, fascistic—you know, an immediate end to all humor, end of all human contact. It’s a real assertion of authority in a way that’s very rare in England . In England , police are, softly, softly, Now sir, come on sir. It’s a humoring voice, not an authoritarian one. But when a riot starts, it’s all off—the law suspended. It’s just the sort of thing that happens every now and then. Very hard to see any kind of social protest in it.

-- Martin Amis

POPE

When you have seen that flaccid old woman waving his ridiculous fingers over the prostrate multitude & have duly felt the picturesqueness of the scene -- & then turn away sickened by its absolute obscenity – you may climb the steps of the Capitol & contemplate the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius.

-- Henry James in a letter to a friend


PRAYER

The third great prayer, after Help and Thanks, is Wow!

-- Anne Lamott