Weekend Words: Play
A scientist at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth has strung together nearly 200 PlayStation 3 video game consoles to create a low-cost supercomputer, the perfect thing to simulate two black holes slamming into each other.
A scientist at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth has strung together nearly 200 PlayStation 3 video game consoles to create a low-cost supercomputer, the perfect thing to simulate two black holes slamming into each other.
“If A is success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.”
—Albert Einstein, quoted in Observer, 1950
“The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness and misery. Happiness is never better exhibited than by young animals, such as puppies, kittens, lambs, &c., when playing together, like our own children. Even insects play together, as has been described by that excellent observer, P. Huber, who saw ants chasing and pretending to bite each other, like so many puppies.”
—Charles Darwin, Descent of Man, Chapter III
“The Socratic manner is not a game at which two can play. Please answer my question, to the best of your ability.”
—Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson
“The trade of advertising is now so near perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement. But as every art ought to be exercised in due subordination to the public good, I cannot but propose it as a moral question to these masters of the public ear, whether they do not sometimes play too wantonly with our passions.”
—Samuel Johnson
“They said, ‘You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are.'”
The man replied, “Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar.'”
—Wallace Stevens, “The Man with the Blue Guitar”
“Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom’s. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.”
—Nelson Algren
“A play should give you something to think about. When I see a play and understand it the first time, then I know it can’t be much good.”
—T.S. Eliot, New York Post, September 22, 1963
“Let dull critics feed upon the carcasses of plays; give me the taste and the dressing.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope
“I’ve given offense by saying that I’d as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down.”
—Robert Frost, interview, 1966
“After all, most writing is done away from the typewriter, away from the desk. I’d say it occurs in the quiet, silent moments, while you’re walking or shaving or playing a game, or whatever, or even talking to someone you’re not vitally interested in.”
—Henry Miller
