There is a distinction to be drawn between true collectors and accumulators. Collectors are discriminating; accumulators act at random. The Collyer brothers, who died among the tons of newspapers and trash with which they filled every cubic foot of their house so that they could scarcely move, were a classic example of accumulators, but there are many of us whose houses are filled with all manner of things that we "can't bear to throw away.
Russell LynesCamouflage is a game we all like to play, but our secrets are as surely revealed by what we want to seem to be as by what we want to conceal.
Russell LynesA lady is nothing very specific. One man's lady is another man's woman; sometimes, one man's lady is another man's wife. Definitions overlap but they almost never coincide.
Russell LynesIf you can't ignore an insult, top it; if you can't top it, laugh it off; and if you can't laugh it off, it's probably deserved.
Russell LynesThe Art Snob will stand back from a picture at some distance, his head cocked slightly to one side
Russell LynesImprovisation was the blood and bone of jazz, and in the classic, New Orleans jazz it was collective improvisation in which each performer, seemingly going his own melodic way, played in harmony, dissonance, or counterpoint with the improvisations of his colleagues. Quite unlike ragtime, which was written down in many cases by its composers and could be repeated note for note (if not expression for expression) by others, jazz was a performer's not a composer's art.
Russell LynesThere are times when you just get down, you feel like nobody likes you. We're in high school forever. It's just what we do with it.
Russell LynesCynicism is the intellectual cripple's substitute for intelligence. It is the dishonest businessman's substitute for conscience. It is the communicator's substitute, whether he is advertising man or editor or writer, for self-respect.
Russell LynesIt is always well to accept your own shortcomings with candor but to regard those of your friends with polite incredulity.
Russell LynesThe bungalow had more to do with how Americans live today than any other building that has gone remotely by the name of architecture in our history.
Russell LynesThe world of the arts is by no means always comfortable, but neither is it likely ever to be boring. It is full of surprises, humor, traps for the unwary, and challenges to smugness. It is a world of moods as well as of revelation, of beliefs and fears, of unpleasant truth as well as of delicious fantasy. Perhaps it is arrogant to say that anyone who does not venture into this world is only half-interested in life. I say it, nonetheless.
Russell LynesThe shaping of taste is essentially the science of merchandising, whether of detergents or cars or books or objects of fine and decorative art.
Russell LynesIn my estimation, the only thing that is more to be guarded against than bad taste is good taste.
Russell LynesThe true snob never rests; there is always a higher goal to attain, and there are, by the same token, always more and more people to look down upon.
Russell LynesAny real New Yorker is a you-name-it-we-have-it-snob whose heart brims with sympathy for the millions of unfortunates who through misfortune, misguidedness or pure stupidity live anywhere else in the world.
Russell LynesWhat we are headed for is a sort of social structure in which the highbrows are the elite, the middlebrows are the bourgeoisie and the lowbrows are hoi polloi.
Russell LynesThe Good Quality Snob, or wearer of muted tweeds, cut almost exactly the same from year to year, often with a hat of the same material, [is] native to the Boston North Shore, the Chicago North Shore, the North Shore of Long Island, to Westchester County, the Philadelphia Main Line and the Peninsula area of San Francisco.
Russell Lynes