A Quote by David Lodge

Walt Whitman, he who laid end to end words never seen in each other's company before outside of a dictionary. — © David Lodge
Walt Whitman, he who laid end to end words never seen in each other's company before outside of a dictionary.
Shane Johnson and I coincidently went to Whitman College. This is notable because Whitman is teeny-tiny, with only 1,200 students. He graduated the spring before I started, so we didn't know each other.
The dictionary is a closed system in which someone interested in the meaning of a word can go around and around and end up exactly where he started, simply because words are defined in terms of other words, and these, in turn, are defined in terms of still other words.
If you took the entire internet and laid it end to end, it would weigh more than the other thing. It would weigh more than it would if it wasn't laid end to end. Like, if it was a ball of rolled up internet it would weigh less. I'm pretty sure. It depends on the size of the scale, I think.
Walt Whitman and Emerson are the poets who have given the world more than anyone else. Perhaps Whitman is not so widely read in England, but England never appreciates a poet until he is dead.
Actually if a writer needs a dictionary he should not write. He should have read the dictionary at least three times from beginning to end and then have loaned it to someone who needs it. There are only certain words which are valid and similes (bring me my dictionary) are like defective ammunition (the lowest thing I can think of at this time).
I meet new Walt Whitmans everyday. There are a dozen of them afloat. I don't know which Walt Whitman I am.
If all the economists were laid end to end, they'd never reach a conclusion.
I have never read a line of Walt Whitman.
One of Walt Whitman's best-known poems is this one: When I heard the learn'd astronomer,.... The trouble is, Whitman is talking through his hat, but the poor soul didn't know any better
When I was young I once found a book in a Dutch translation, 'The leaves of Grass'. It was the first time a book touched me by its feeling of freedom and open spaces, the way the poet spoke of the ocean by describing a drop of water in his hand. Walt Whitman was offering the world an open hand (now we call it democracy) and my 'Monument for Walt Whitman' became this open hand with mirrors, so you can see inside yourself.
I've been trying to fit everything in, trying to get to the end before it's too late, but I see now how badly I've deceived myself. Words do not allow such things. The closer you come to the end, the more there is to say. The end is only imaginary, a destination you invent to keep yourself going, but a point comes when you realize you will never get there. You might have to stop, but that is only because you have run out of time. You stop, but that does not mean you have come to an end.
How can two people love each other, create children together, cohabitiate, build a life together, and then end up hating each other in the end.
The whole point of a bar is, I look in your eyes, you look in my eyes, we've never met each other before, we talk, we get to know each other, have a drink together, and the great end of that story is we get married someday.
Art is a luxury. It's not necessary for you to - you can work your job and you can make some money and never know who Walt Whitman was, and never read a poem.
If you laid all our laws end to end, there would be no end.
I used my daughter's crayons for each main character. One end of the wallpaper was the beginning of the story, and the other end was the end, and then there was all that middle part, which was the middle.
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