It is easier to rob by setting up a bank than by holding up a bank clerk. – Bertolt Brecht
Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of. – Bertolt Brecht
We need a type of theatre which not only releases the feelings, insights and impulses possible within the particular historical field of human relations in which the action takes place, but employs and encourages those thoughts and feelings which help transform the field itself. – Bertolt Brecht
There is too much sour grapes for my taste in the present American attitude. The time to denounce the bankers was when we were all feeding off their gold plate; not now! At present they have not only my sympathy but my preference. They are the last representatives of our native industries. – Edith Wharton
Christmas Eve came at last. The day was bright and beautiful, the ground crisp and hard, and the hoary trees shining like diamonds! What a happy day it brought to many, to most! Even in the poorest village a little green fir branch testified that it was Christmas Eve. – Amy Campbell, “Christmas Eve,” 1872