The Revolt of the Pendulum Quotes

“Art, by making bearable sense of the world, is out after religion's job, which is probably why no religion in its fundamentalist phase has ever liked it. Art is its own ideal state, which is probably why Plato didn't like it either.”
― Clive James, The Revolt of the Pendulum: Essays 2005-2008

“Such moments from Bayley prove that the knack for paradox should always be set to fire single shots, and never switched to automatic. His indulgence of it, mercifully infrequent, is the only way he ever reminds you of those desperate commentators, omnipresent now in our multiple media outlets, who must always advance an outlandish opinion because they don't write well enough to make a reasonable opinion interesting.”
― Clive James, The Revolt of the Pendulum: Essays 2005-2008