Label celebrity a consumer society's most precious consumer product, and eventually it becomes the hero with a thousand faces, the packaging of the society's art and politics, the framework of its commerce, and the stuff of its religion.
Lewis H. LaphamPeople may expect too much of journalism. Not only do they expect it to be entertaining, they expect it to be true.
Lewis H. LaphamSeeking the invisible through the imagery of the visible, the Americans never can get quite all the way to the end of the American dream.
Lewis H. LaphamIt is no accident that banks resemble temples, preferably Greek, and that the supplicants who come to perform the rites of deposit and withdrawal instinctively lower their voices into the registers of awe. Even the most junior tellers acquire within weeks of their employment the officiousness of hierophants tending an eternal flame.
Lewis H. Lapham