69 Virginia Postrel Quotes for You to Enjoy

Virginia Postrel

American Writer

Born: Jan 14, 1960

Good Internet Life People World You

Related authors: Dale Carnegie Denis Waitley Dr. Seuss H. L. Mencken Napoleon Hill Ray Bradbury W. E. B. Du Bois William Arthur Ward

In post-Vietnam, post-Watergate America, skeptical voters demand full disclosure of everything from candidates' finances to their medical records, and spin-savvy accounts of backstage machinations dominate political coverage. Virginia Postrel

Political Everything Finances Backstage Records Demand Voters Disclosure Coverage Dominate Accounts America Candidates Skeptical Full Medical Medical Records

Unlike painting, sculpture, or music, typefaces must be useful to someone. Fortunately for designers, the digital age has produced new problems to solve - developing typefaces that work on mobile phones, for one - and enabled better solutions to old problems. Virginia Postrel

Work Music Age Phones Better Problems Old Digital Painting Digital Age Unlike Must Solutions Solve Someone Developing New Mobile Mobile Phones Produced Sculpture Useful Fortunately Designers

The profusion of fonts is one more product of the digital revolution. Beginning in the mid-'80s and accelerating in the 1990s, type design weathered the sort of radical, technology-driven transformation that other creative industries, including music, publishing, and movies, now face. Virginia Postrel

Though designed as a mere convenience, clothing sizes establish an unintended norm, an ideal from which deviations seem like flaws. There's nothing like a trip to the dressing room to convince a woman - fat, thin, or in between - that she's a freak. Virginia Postrel

Woman Nothing Though Freak Trip Dressing Dressing Room Seem Mere Ideal Between Like She Norm Convenience Establish Clothing Sizes In-Between Which Room Flaws Convince Unintended Thin Designed Fat

The mobile middle class gravitates to the cities where housing is affordable. Virginia Postrel

Class Cities Housing Mobile Affordable Middle Where Middle Class

Some of the higher price of L.A. real estate does reflect the intrinsic pleasure of living there, as I'm reminded every time I walk out my door into the perfect weather. Virginia Postrel

'Frankenstein' did not invent the fear of science; the novel found its audience because it dramatized anxieties that already existed. Although popular entertainment can, over the long run, shape public perceptions, it becomes popular in the first place only if it addresses preexisting hopes, fears, and fascinations. Virginia Postrel

Entertainment Science Fear Fears Long Invent First Address Frankenstein Run Hopes Perceptions Only Shape Long Run Over First Place Although Because Audience Becomes Existed Did Anxieties Place Public Preexisting Popular Novel Found

The glamour of air travel - its aspirational meaning in the public imagination - disappeared before its luxury did, dissipating as flying gradually became commonplace. Virginia Postrel

Travel Luxury Before Imagination Air Air Travel Flying Glamour Disappeared Became Did Gradually Public Commonplace Meaning

Chains do more than bargain down prices from suppliers or divide fixed costs across a lot of units. They rapidly spread economic discovery - the scarce and costly knowledge of what retail concepts and operational innovations actually work. Virginia Postrel

Work Knowledge Down Innovations Rapidly Scarce Costly More Costs Economic Divide Retail Prices Suppliers Concepts Operational Spread Discovery Lot Than Fixed Across Bargain Chains Actually Units

Cinema isn't just a good medium for translating graphic novels. It's specifically a good medium for superheroes. On a fundamental, emotional level, superheroes, whether in print or on film, serve the same function for their audience as Golden Age movie stars did for theirs: they create glamour. Virginia Postrel

Good Age Cinema Stars Medium Superheroes Emotional Emotional Level Glamour Print Audience Did Same Just Golden Golden Age Movie In Print Whether Movie Stars Translating Create Graphic Graphic Novels Function Novels Film Fundamental Serve Specifically Level

The whole point of movie glamour was - and is - escape. Virginia Postrel

Point Glamour Escape Movie Whole

Storage problems make neon signs the most ephemeral of commercial arts. Virginia Postrel

Problems Signs Most Make Commercial Arts Storage Ephemeral

By binding image and desire, glamour gives us pleasure, even as it heightens our yearning. It leads us to feel that the life we dream of exists, and to desire it even more. Virginia Postrel

Life Our Pleasure Dream More Gives Glamour Feel Leads Yearning Exists Heightens Us Even Binding Image Desire

In the fall of 1978, I left the religious, conservative, biracial, slow-paced culture of South Carolina for the secular, liberal, multi-ethnic, intense culture of Princeton University. Like most immigrants, I was looking for a better life in a place I only half understood. Virginia Postrel

Life Culture Conservative Better Secular Half Looking Princeton Fall Liberal Carolina Immigrants Religious Only Better Life Like Most Understood South Left South Carolina Intense Place University

The impulse for personal adornment is hard to stamp out. Virginia Postrel

Out Adornment Personal Impulse Stamp Hard

When 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' premiered on the WB Network in 1996, American culture was in trouble. Americans were bowling alone, pursuing individual interests to the detriment of the communal good. Business leaders were celebrating creativity and neglecting discipline. Nike's 'Just do it' ads were teaching young people to break the rules. Virginia Postrel

Alone Good Business Culture Creativity People Discipline Trouble Young Just Do It Nike Neglecting Rules Vampire Network Detriment Individual Pursuing Ads Leaders Bowling Buffy Were Celebrating American Just American Culture Break Young People Communal Interests Business Leaders Teaching Slayer

The mere existence of 'Buffy' proves the declinists wrong about one thing: Hollywood commercialism can produce great art. Complex and evolving characters. Playful language. Joy and sorrow, pathos and elation. Episodes that dare to be different - to tell stories in silence or in song. Big themes and terrible choices. Virginia Postrel

Art Great Silence Song Joy Language Big Great Art Complex Dare Tell Characters Evolving One Thing Be Different About Wrong Mere Sorrow Buffy Terrible Proves Existence Commercialism Pathos Different Stories Elation Hollywood Themes Produce Choices Episodes Thing Playful

The theater itself is a lie. Its deaths are mere special effects. Its tales never happened. Even the histories are distorted for dramatic effect. The theater is unnatural, a place of imagination. But the theater tells the audience something true: that the world requires judgments. Virginia Postrel

Lie World Imagination Dramatic Unnatural Distorted Tells Something Never Mere True Tales Judgments Audience Deaths Effect Effects Histories Itself Happened Place Theater Requires Special Special Effects Even

The Internet exposes a diversity of opinion, experience, and taste we'd been led to believe didn't exist. If you were unusual in 1950 or 1980 - and everyone is unusual in one way or another - you were an isolated anomaly. Now you're a Web ring, a Yahoo category. Virginia Postrel

You Experience Internet Diversity Believe Everyone Way Ring One-Way Web Category Anomaly Unusual Another Yahoo Opinion Isolated Were Been Exist Led Taste Now

Society needs both parents and nonparents, both the work party and the home party. While raising children is the most important work most people will do, not everyone is cut out for parenthood. And, as many a childless teacher has proved, raising kids is not the only important contribution a person can make to their future. Virginia Postrel

Work Teacher Future Home Needs People Will Parents Important Party Society Everyone Kids Out Parenthood Only Both Most Important Contribution Make Important Work Proved Person Contribution Childless The Most Important Children While Cut Many Raising Raising Children

The children who are 'our future' will inherit a world created not just by parental devotion but by the sort of zealous, focused endeavors that can preclude good parenting. Virginia Postrel

Future Good Parenting World Will Our Focused Parental Devotion Sort Endeavors Just Children Created Inherit Who Zealous

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