A lost election can have the jolt of a drop through the gallows door, leading to a dark night of the soul in which the future presses down like a cloud that will never lift. – James Wolcott
High expectations werent nurtured in my neck of nowhere back then – children werent fawned over from an early age as gifted and groomed for a prizewinning future self-esteem was considered something you had to pick from the garden yourself. – James Wolcott
Book-jacket design may become a lost art, like album-cover design, without which late-20th-century iconography would have been pauperized. – James Wolcott
Used to be, conservatives revered the Average American, that Norman Rockwell oil painting of diner food, humble faith, honest toil, and Capraesque virtue. – James Wolcott
None of us had any idea of how successful Downton was going to be. I thought I was signing up for another period drama that had a slightly modern feel. It had a freedom about it because it was coming out of the head of Julian Fellowes. Anything could happen and generally did. – Dan Stevens